On Wednesday night, Alex Walker sat at his desk with the lamp off and looked up what was happening to him.
He searched the body stuff first.
Eyesight suddenly better adult. Canine teeth longer. Smell blood stronger.
He got three kinds of vitamins and a tumor. Every search, about four results down, had the same page from the Medical Service.
--Medical Service--
SUDDEN LINEAGE PRESENTATION: WHAT TO DO
Everybody in Qasra knew what lineage meant: monster blood somewhere back in your family.
The page had a photo of a nurse who looked very pleased to see you. A small number of people carry lineage traits without knowing it, it said. These traits can show up in adulthood, often suddenly, and this is nobody's fault.
--Medical Service--
You must report to your district clinic within 72 hours.
You will be asked to spend 30 days under observation at the East Wall Annex, for your own safety and the safety of your household.
At the end of this time, most people go home with a registration card and a care plan.
'Most people. Most! What happens to the rest?'
He knew two things about the Annex.
One. It was the long gray building you could see from the tram, where the line bent along the wall.
Two. There'd been a boy in the year above him at the Residence who went there at sixteen. He came back only to pack.
Alex counted the hours since he woke up in his chair.
Forty-two.
That left thirty. Thirty hours to walk into a clinic, open his mouth and show a nurse his teeth.
After that he typed the other thing.
I.Zombie Level One hunger.
The wiki came up first, the page everyone sent to new players whose hunger bar wouldn't fill.
--I.Zombie Wiki--
Level One bodies reject low-value nutrition. Ordinary food will satisfy appetite but not need. Early feeding on monster tissue accelerates adaptation and unlocks first lineage traits.
'Ordinary food fills me up and does nothing... that's me. That's me!'
At the bottom of the page was a line in small gray letters that nobody ever read.
--I.Zombie Wiki--
Last substantive edit: deadweight, 2 years ago.
deadweight was Alex's old username.
He'd written that edit at eighteen, during a forum argument about why starting characters stayed hungry. He'd made it up because it sounded right. Nobody had changed a word since.
He clicked through to the culvert hound page. Same name at the bottom. He'd written half of that one too.
'So how does my body know a sentence I made up at three in the morning? Whatever's in me, it's following the rules I wrote.'
He opened the game.
He went to the new character screen, and the Level One model came up on its turning stand.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
He'd built that face the night he bought the game. He gave it his own nose, because he couldn't be bothered to find the slider, and his chin scar, because he thought it was funny.
The character turned on his stand. He was paler than Alex, with the same jaw and the same eyes. Every few seconds the idle animation played, and the corner of his mouth lifted. It was a thin little smile, like he'd been waiting for Alex to notice.
Alex closed it.
The green came back while he sat there, three small lines in the corner of his sight.
PRIMARY NEED IDENTIFIED.
QUALIFYING BIOMASS REQUIRED.
LOCAL SOURCES: INSUFFICIENT.
'Local sources... so nothing in my kitchen is good enough.'
Outside the window, the wall lights were on, red in their cages. The city had built that wall after the Breach, years before Alex was born, when the Wilds came over the land outside and swallowed every town that didn't have one.
Hunters walked the top of it every night, paid to kill whatever came over that wasn't human. Anything with teeth like his.
The clock on his monitor said 2:04.
Thirty hours left, and he hadn't moved.
***
He didn't sleep. At six on Thursday morning, he stood at the tram loop with his glasses in his pocket.
Far up the road, the first tram of the day was coming down the line, a good kilometer off. He could read the number on its front, a white 3. He could count the people inside. Three. One was a woman asleep against the window.
Last week, even with his glasses on, he couldn't read a tram number until it stopped in front of him.
He waited for it, to check. Route 3. Three people. The woman was still asleep.
'A kilometer? I read that from a kilometer away!'
He put the glasses back on, so nobody would ask, and walked to the shop to wait on the step for Sam.
***
Sam went to the bank every Thursday at ten and was always gone forty minutes, because he liked the teller.
Twenty-two hours left. Alex was in the back room looking for solder.
A second later he was on his knees in front of the blue cooler under the workbench. He hadn't decided to kneel.
He could smell the meat through the lid. He lifted it.
Inside, in slushy ice, lay a dozen flat packets in butcher's plastic, each with a strip of tape in Sam's handwriting.
MARROW HARE. GRADE D. NOT FOR EATING.
Alex knew where these went. Meat from outside the wall wasn't legal to sell as food, so the tape was there for the inspectors. A grill place by the south gate served it anyway, to people who thought it was good for the blood.
'Don't. It's Sam's. Put the lid back. Put. The lid. Back.'
He held the lid open.
'Sam gave you a job off a bad letter. You don't steal from Sam.'
'One packet. He'll think the man shorted him.'
But if he didn't eat, he'd be out front all day, standing next to Sam's bandaged thumb. Next to Sam's neck.
He took one packet out and shut the lid.
The meat was dark red, like liver, with pale threads running through it. Alex shut the shop door and put it on the little hot plate Sam cooked his eggs on.
The smell filled the back room. He couldn't think about anything else.
He didn't wait for it to cook through.
On the first mouthful, the edge of his sight went green.
ADAPTATION MATERIAL ACCEPTED.
1.7%
A bar sat beside the number, thin as a hair, barely started.
He ate the rest standing up.
4.1%
6.8%
When the packet was empty, the number stopped climbing.
9.4%
Alex was gripping the edge of the workbench with both hands, and the hunger had stopped.
He hadn't known how loud it was. For two days it had run nonstop, like a motor left on in the next room, and he'd stopped hearing it. Now it had cut out, and the quiet made his knees go loose.
He washed the hot plate, opened the back window, and pushed the ice around the eleven packets left in the cooler to hide the gap.
He went out to his bench and fixed a screen. The quiet lasted about fifteen minutes.
The hunger came back after that, stronger than before.
By the afternoon, Alex could smell the bandage on Sam's thumb from across the shop. He could smell what was under the bandage.
By six his hands were shaking, and by his count he had fourteen hours left to walk into a clinic.
***
At closing, Sam was putting his coat on with his keys in his teeth, patting his pockets.
"I can't do the hatch tonight," he said around the keys.
"What hatch?"
"Thursday. The cooler." He took the keys out of his mouth. "My mother's dialysis ran over. I have to go and get her from Northgate Hospital. And the man leaves the cooler at ten. If it sits till morning, it's no good to anyone, and I'll hear about it."
"I'll go."
Sam stopped with one arm in his coat.
"You hate the tunnels! I asked you once to go down for a package, and you looked at me like I'd asked for a kidney."
"I'll go. You've got your mother."
Sam stopped patting his pockets and studied him.
He went into the back and came out with a key on a loop of cord, and an envelope.
"Hatch 9. Behind the pump house on Wall Road. The green door. It's a water department door. Down the ladder. Forty meters along, there's a ledge on the left, by the second light. The cooler will be on it. Take the cooler, leave the envelope. Back up the ladder. Lock the door."
"Okay."
"You don't go past the second light," Sam said. "Past the second light belongs to the wall. You understand me? There's nothing down there you want."
Alex knew what he meant. Past the second light, the tunnel ran under the wall, and that was Hunter work. Nobody else went down there.
"Okay."
"Say it."
"I don't go past the second light."
Sam hung the cord around Alex's neck himself, like a medal. He patted Alex's chest twice and went to get his mother.
Alex stood in the shop with the key against his shirt.
Thirteen hours left.
He told himself he'd walk into a clinic first thing in the morning. He told himself he was helping Sam.
But there was a whole cooler of it down there... and he'd worked that out before he even opened his mouth.