The last swap felt like it had happened years ago. Even another lifetime. But it had only been one single month. Yet everything had changed for Erik Torreon.

That night he had committed his first—and he desperately hoped his last—murder. The memory shaded his dreams, where he relived the scene every few nights. He had fled the swap with the one calling herself Delia. He brought her to an old riverside camp of his and wrapped his damaged arm, partially shredded by grenade. He had mentioned that now, having lost his jack and reader in the chaos, he might return home. That prompted the woman into a conversation about a mission to help save Rivertown's survivors from themselves. An urgent need to piss had forced Erik to excuse himself. The nightmare began with the gunshot.

Scrambling back up from the riverside, he found Delia facedown on the ground and an MPD guard holding a rifle staggering, clutching his face. Overwhelmed by rage, Erik snatched up a lead pipe and smashed the man in the head again. And a second time. Delia wasn't moving and neither was her attacker. He went to her and rolled her into his lap and, even though he felt her skull coming apart in his hands, he forced himself to look.

And he screamed. And screamed.

There was little blood, only chunks of rubbery flesh and flecks of what he presumed to be bone. Her mouth was stretched open in a frozen cry, her lips peeled back to show perfectly straight white teeth that gleamed in the moonlight. Her head from the left eye socket upward had been blown apart revealing a cavity from which, set deeply back, came a flickering, piercing green light. Her right eye rolled and looked at him, and fluttered. She wheezed, then the green light winked out of existence.

Erik ran and did not look back. He ignored the branches tearing at his face and hands and sprinted parallel to the river, falling, dashing out onto the pavement, falling again and continuing to run, breathlessly past the barely concealed campfires of other scavengers. Finally, when he had penetrated deep into the northern section of the city, he collapsed in an alley spluttering and crying and holding his head in his hands trying to blot out what he had seen.

It had taken him two days to work up the courage to return to his camp, which he found ransacked and both bodies gone, only some gelatinous mess had been burned in the firepit. He moved on.

He also revisited the slaughter site, slinking around after hours of careful watching the bullet-ridden place where the swap had been held. As he approached he stumbled over a bare heel protruding from a poorly covered grave but he kept moving. The ground was littered with shells, and inside the walls were scarred with pockmarks. He didn't find his backpack, though he did spot a half-dozen crushed phials. His big score, however, was finding his reader. It had been covered with dirt and looked like nothing more than an old metal shingle. The screen had a long diagonal crack that ran the length of the device, but it still flared to life when he flipped the on switch. He folded it to its smallest size and tucked it deep into his pocket.

That had been a month ago.

Erik thought about Delia often. Where she—or rather it—had come from, and why. He did his best to remember her words and what she had said about social contracts and the rights of citizens and sovereigns, and why it had moved him so. Was it her beauty? He thought not. When he envisioned in her now he could only see her twisted face and that guttering green light behind her eyes. That image had etched itself into his mind. So too did her words.

Her ideas gave Erik a rudder. He decided that he would no longer wandered aimlessly but began seeking out peaceful-looking scavengers. He would approach with his hands held high, stopping whenever they drew a weapon and asked what he wanted. Then he would tell them about the next swap, scheduled the first of the month in a new location. They would meet in the hospital car park near the beach. He asked them to spread the word. He gave them his thanks.

It was this way he ran into Otto, who was shepherding a newly arrived family of four around Rivertown. The man no longer kept company with Jackal after she had shunned him. He seemed pleased, though not exuberant, to see Erik alive. When the man asked about Bob and the argumentative blonde, Erik shook his head and said he didn't know. Even to Erik it sounded like a lie.

So it was to Erik's surprise that Otto and his adopted family were among those who showed up at the hospital at sundown. Fewer people showed than the previous swap, close to half the number. Not a bad thing, Erik thought. Less attention that way. When he counted twenty heads he stood atop a cinder block and shouted, "Okay everyone, listen up! Welcome to the swap meet."

The crowd eyed him suspiciously and he felt a bolt of fear shoot through him beneath the weight of all those eyes. He swallowed and continued.

"I want to start with a few suggestions. While we're here, we should put guards at both entrances to tell us if they see any danger coming. We can switch off so everyone has an equal chance to trade. I have nothing to trade tonight, so I'll volunteer for one watch. Can I get another volunteer?"

After a long, silent pause, Otto raised his hand. Erik's face broke into a nervous grin.

"Okay, good. Now before we start, I want to vote on some ground rules that we can all agree to. Voting is easy. If you like the idea, raise your hand. If you don't like it, keep your hand down. The majority of votes wins. Got it?"

A few people nodded but most stared at him intently. From the back, someone asked him who the hell he thought he was.

With another nervous smile he said, "Sorry, I should have introduced myself. Hello. My name is Erik."