The town looked like somewhere my mother had described to me once, back when she still had the energy to describe things. Shops. People carrying things. A functioning street with the specific tiredness of people who had been functioning for a long time without much help.
Nobody here had an ability. You could tell by the way they moved, no shortcuts, no projections, no energy thrown casually at problems. Just hands and backs and time. Strays. Inside the walls, but not of them.
I used to think that people inside the walls were always celebrating, I thought, looking out the window as Daphne parked. While we were outside racing with the infected. Turns out celebration was also a class privilege.
"Are you hungry?" Daphne asked.
The answer was always yes. "I'm fine with anything," I said.
We got out.
"Why are they in this state?" I asked, watching a man haul something heavy across the road alone. "The walls were built for the rich and the gifted. How did Strays end up inside them?"
Daphne leaned against the car for a moment. "The walls have been standing for decades. I was born inside them. Some gifted people had children who weren't gifted. Some rich families lost everything over time. The walls didn't stay selective forever. People just ended up here."
"And burn outs? They become Strays?"
Her eyes moved to me with the specific attention of someone recalibrating how much I already knew.
"Burn outs don't become Strays," she said. "What separates them is government support. Burn outs served. They get something back, not much, but something. Strays never had anything to give, so they get nothing in return." She pushed off the car. "We need to be back at Hogsby before the supervisors. Come on."
I followed her. Burn outs knew what their ability felt like. They had the memory of it, the shape of it, the understanding of what they used to be capable of. They just couldn't manifest it anymore. Like knowing a language you could no longer speak.
Strays had never learned the language at all. Different kinds of loss. Same result.
***
The restaurant had two items on the menu. The waitress recited them without greeting us, duck soup or beans, with the efficiency of someone who had said it enough times to stop caring how it landed.
"Two duck soups," Daphne told her. "Please."
"Payment first."
Daphne produced a card. I didn't catch the writing on it but I caught the waitress's expression when she read it, the small shift from indifference to something more careful.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you were a—"
"Yes," Daphne said, cutting her off cleanly. "I served. Add a piece to each soup."
"Yes, ma'am."
The girl left. I looked at the table.
Served, I thought. That's what burn outs are. Former service. The government extracts from them until there's nothing left and then they retire here, to a town of duck soup and two options, spending whatever card they were given until it runs out.
"This is our little town," Daphne said, looking around with the specific affection of someone who hadn't chosen a place but had made something of it. "So tell me, Abram. What's life actually like outside the walls?"
"Survival mode," I said. "Every day."
"But do people enjoy themselves? Parties, gatherings, anything like that?"
"There are cities outside. Deserted ones, mostly, but people settle in them sometimes." I thought about it honestly. "Where I grew up, the enjoyment was limited. But you do get surprised." I paused. "I once saw zombies having sex."
Daphne stared at me. What the fuck!
"I'm serious," I said.
She laughed. The real kind, unguarded, the laugh of someone who hadn't expected to laugh today.
"That is the most disturbing and fascinating thing anyone has ever said to me," she said.
"I know. I was there and I still don't fully believe it."
The waitress brought the food. Rice with duck soup, a wing piece in the bowl. Daphne told her to serve me first. I started eating immediately, which I suspected said something about me that I was choosing not to examine. Daphne watched me eat with a small smile, waiting for her order.
"The night before Annabelle leveled up," she said, "I saw her entering a room at your wing."
I kept eating. Waited.
"I was in my apartment. Bored. I had binoculars." She said it without embarrassment. "I saw her go in. Then yesterday in the library I saw you two together. I put it together."
"She slept in my room," I said. "Is that illegal?"
"No."
"Then?"
"I think it's connected to her jump," Daphne said.
The waitress brought her soup. She thanked her and picked up her spoon.
"Why would you think that?" I asked, working on a duck wing that was making me work for it.
"It's a stupid theory," she said, and laughed at herself slightly. "I thought maybe you brought something from outside. A herb, a compound, something that triggered the ability increase." She shook her head. "I know how that sounds."
"Everyone keeps thinking there's something out there that helps people," I said. "There isn't. Outside is just zombies and bad decisions."
"I know." She smiled. Then her voice settled into something steadier. "I'm a burn out, Abram. It explains the fantasies." She started eating. "You look for any explanation that means it could happen for you too."
"I'm sorry," I said.
She nodded, not needing more than that. We ate in silence for a moment. The restaurant filled slightly around us. Normal town sounds. Nothing trying to kill anyone.
"I asked Sherry yesterday," Daphne said, without looking up from her bowl. "To make sure you didn't get a partner today."
I put my spoon down.
"I thought you were connected to the jump," she said. "I wanted you paired with me so I could find out. But you're a straightforward person, Abram. I can see that now."
"And you're a beautiful woman," I said, because it remained true and the moment felt like it fit.
She looked up. Something moved across her face, not dismissal this time. Something more like consideration.
"Let's finish and get back before the supervisors," she said.
I picked my spoon back up.
"One more question," I said. "The investigation. Was it for the campus? Or for yourself?"
She kept eating. Didn't answer. Which was its own kind of answer. I watched her more than I watched the street. She ate without ceremony. No performance. Just a woman having soup in a stray town.
The investigation into Annabelle had started as professional obligation. I could see it had become something else. Something personal. The specific hunger of someone who had lost something and was looking for proof that it could come back. She didn't know she was sitting across from that proof.
[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]
[Note: First intimate connection with a burn out generates two full charges per climax.]
[Keep pressing.]
I read it twice. Two full charges, I thought. Per climax. From a single burn out.
I looked at Daphne, who was finishing her soup and thinking about supervisors and campus schedules and none of the things I was currently thinking about.