Erik Torreon couldn't decide what had been more difficult: surviving eight months in Rivertown or three days with Devlin. From what Erik could gather, the man taught college in the days before the old world collapsed. He had taken up residence in an old library, curating his own private collection and mapping a network of booby-trapped paths through the ruined building. He had a huge supply of food he was willing to share and scoffed when Erik commented on the size of it.

As Erik soon learned though, everything had a price in Devlin's warped philosophy. He refused to seize Erik's property because that would violate his inalienable rights as a human being. He rambled about topics that confused Erik, like how positive freedoms had utterly failed to shape successful government policy over the last two centuries, but Devlin made very clear one fact: Erik was deeply indebted to him. He would not accept jack as payment since he refused to become a drug peddler, but there was one item in Erik's possession he wanted—the reader. It was the one Erik was unwilling to trade, yet Devlin demanded satisfaction, and thus decided that together they would attend the swap.

Erik, negotiating from the wrong end of a shotgun, reluctantly agreed. As if he had another choice.

Devlin wanted to arrive at the appointed location early because many scavengers had difficulty marking time so made a temporary camp nearby. Late that afternoon they had unexpected guests, a man of Devlin's acquaintance named Otto, and his teenage companion, a thin teenage girl who called herself Jackal. She quickly cozied up to Erik, much to his embarrassment and Otto's obvious but unspoken disapproval. There was an unsettling intensity to her attention that made Erik nervous. To occupy their time he offered to read to her, which she gladly accept. Devlin grumbled about being cut from the conversation. Otto sulked.

The minutes dragged as Jackal hung on his arm asking him all manner of questions, most of which did not pertain to the passages he'd chosen, all from the most mindlessly thrilling Gamble novels. He wondered how he would survive her attentions for an entire second day, when all his negative thoughts evaporated as a new couple stumbled into their sanctuary. The elderly man politely asked if this was the swap and, if so, might they join them? The woman with him was breathtakingly beautiful.

Erik had read about love at first sight; now he knew how it felt.

The elderly man, who introduced himself only as Bob, looked tattered and defeated but the woman who called herself Delia exuded an effortless, almost regal aura. Her clothes were neat and clean, her hair was combed smooth, and her skin unblemished. She sat speechless and gazed into space, oblivious to Erik's eyes on her. She said nothing until Devlin started rambling about politics. Then her eyes flared and she spoke with so much passion and conviction that Bob patted her knee and telling her to settle down, that she was being impolite.

Erik couldn't take his eyes off her, even as Jackal badgered him with more questions to win back his attention.

"There is no such thing as an uncorrupt form of government," Devlin fumed, spittle in his beard. "An uninhibited market will provide a more stable platform for any rebuilt society. Let our only laws be those of supply and demand, not blind acceptance of some statist ideals. That path leads us back into totalitarianism, to bondage. Ask the stinking masses downriver how much they enjoy their newfound government."

"They have no say in their governance. They have no say in anything!" Delia shot back. "It's feudalism for a new century, with the lords in their manors never deigning to mix with the great unwashed masses. As their food stores run low the leadership only thinks of protecting their own welfare through force. They perpetuate violence in order to maintain control. No matter how many guns and bullets you have, Mr. Devlin, they have more. They will always have more. The market you speak of so highly feeds this cycle of distrust and extortion, where those who have the most will press their advantage over those who have the least. The street people need to see that they could be sharing instead of hoarding. They could search through ruins in teams in an organized, methodical fashion, contributing and withdrawing from a common food bank where—"

"Where the most intelligent and talented will see their hard won profits consumed by the weak, dimwitted, and lazy," Devlin interrupted.

The sniping continued long after sundown, Erik listening to them make point and counterpoint, quoted unnamed texts from memory, scoffed, snorted, and derided what the other had to say. Bob sat back, hands folded across his scrawny chest and watched with a tired, bemused expression.

Otto finally put an end to it. "Will you two kindly shut up? You can start over tomorrow if you want, but now I want to sleep."

As they made their beds and determined an order they'd sit up to watch over the encampment, Bob studied Devlin's scowling face in the fading firelight and spoke for the first time in hours. "You really don't have any idea do you?"

"And just what's that supposed to mean?" he growled, rising from his blanket.

Bob only chuckled and bedded down near Delia. It was the first sign of humor he had shown.

Jackal slept close by and fidgeted throughout the night, but that wasn't what kept Erik awake, lying on his side, looking through the sliver of window that offered a view of the radiant moon.