The next morning, Elias drove his rusting sedan to the industrial park. The air smelled of salt and stale cardboard. He found the blue door. It looked like it hadn't been opened since the Cold War. He knocked, and a heavy sliding latch groaned.

"I'm looking for the cheapest calories you've got," Elias said, his voice echoing.

Inside, the warehouse was a cathedral of silver. No flashy graphics. No pictures of happy hikers. Just thousands of #10 cans stacked twenty feet high, labeled in plain, black stencil: PEAS. EGGS. CHICKEN. 25 YEAR SHELF LIFE.

Elias was a man of modest means and high anxieties. He didn't want a yacht or a sports car; he wanted a basement filled with enough calories to survive a decade of silence. But survival, he’d quickly learned, was expensive. A single pouch of beef stroganoff at the local outdoor supply store cost as much as a fancy steak dinner at a restaurant he could never afford. "Looking for the long-haul stuff?"

Bernie chuckled. "It’s overstock, son. Test batches. Mislabeled cans. The food is fine; the marketing just failed."

A woman with a clipboard emerged from the shadows of the aisles. "You Bernie’s guy?"