The sun was shining on a pleasant spring day. Cars trundled by in the streets outside, gas was expensive but still available, the climate was falling apart but intact for the present, shoppers strolled on their weekend to spend fiat currency issued by still-empowered governments. It was, for all appearances, normal.

The world had ended one year, three months, and five days ago.

Chorus's phone buzzed with an incoming encrypted message. [Can you meet in the park tonight?] Chorus sent back an affirmative to their conversation partner, a pseudonymous contact. It was safer that way, even if they longed for their community of old. Once, they could trust in pharmacies like everyone else. Now, they were the supplier, and they had to stay safe or risk jeopardizing far too many people's supplies. They were undeniably miserable, but if it meant keeping people alive...

They sighed. No use thinking about it; just focus on the immediate future. They needed to mix some more vials, though thankfully a fresh shipment of dry chemicals had arrived to replenish their raw stock. Catch a bus into lab, badge in, check on mice and cells (might as well while they were there), get to their bench. Precision scale to turn one gram of estradiol valerate into ten piles of one hundred milligrams, each in individual vials. One milliliter of benzyl benzoate, one hundred microliters of benzyl alcohol, three-point-nine milliliters of castor oil into each, and mix. Rubber stopper, metal ring, clamp it shut. Note down how their mice and cells were doing in their lab notebook to create a paper trail, head back out. Thank the small gods that nobody cares what an egghead does at their egghead job, so long as it doesn't waste taxpayer money.

Night fell, and they suited up for their evening business: all black, surgical mask, phone pulled from their pocket, nothing identifying exposed. Out to the park, and it was easy enough to spot the duo idly standing under one of the few remaining trees. Both of them were also masked and wearing obscuring clothing, though one's outfit was obviously more hastily converted from normal clothes than the other – the new hatcher, then.

"Weather treating y'all nicely?" Chorus asked, casual tone hiding the import of the code phrase being said.

"Fine, though it smells of teen spirit to me." Counter-phrase confirmed from the veteran.

"Good. You're the newbie then, I assume. Chorus, they/them."

"Sacha, at least for now," came the deep-voiced answer, pride and unfamiliarity showing through in equal measure. "She/her." She was smart enough to keep her surgical mask up, at least. The cameras conspicuously placed around the park were always watching.

"And with that, my part here's done," the vet chimed in. "Best of luck Sacha."

Her frame tensed. "Oh, uh, bye..."

"Opsec," Chorus explained as they were left alone with the newly minted transfem. "They don't need to know where you're picking up your meds, so they bail out here. This way if they get picked up on conspiracy charges there's minimal risk of damaging the distribution network; can't share what you don't know, no matter how much pressure the cops apply, see?"

"Oh, that— that makes sense, I guess..."

Chorus sighed, remembering their duties. "Right, let me prime you better. Congratulations. Your world has officially ended. It may look like nothing has changed, but you're officially on the other side of a personal apocalypse. Unfortunately, instead of zombies and shit, you've got cops, bigots, and an entire government to deal with. We're living under their noses, and that means we've gotta keep things quiet and very tightly control the flow of information." They gestured at the cameras, watching as Sacha recognized their presence with new eyes. "We may not be able to escape their observation, but we can keep them from figuring out who we precisely are and what we're doing, yeah? Now, let's talk dead drops."

They walked Sacha through their intake questionnaire – finding somewhere she regularly passes by, making sure she knew how to get needles and syringes from veterinary suppliers, estimating a starting dosage, bracing her for the fickle nature of bodies. By the end of it, nothing had exchanged hands—that would be a red flag for the cameras—but she knew everything she needed to know. Within a few days she'd be building her better, illegal body.

Chorus broke the meeting off sharply once everything had been conveyed, before any real pleasantries could be exchanged. They were pleased to hear Sacha mutter, "Opsec." She was a quick learner. They took a misleading route home, past a gas station with a digital clock atop its price list. By chance, they caught the change over to a new day at midnight.

The world had ended one year, three months, and six days ago.

They were surviving.

If you're curious, this story concept—with this prompt as a framing device—was the primary reason I made @survivor-who.