Chapter 68: Don’t Touch Anything

The Post Office Building stood over the ruined block like something that had refused to fall over. Most of the glass was gone. Sheet metal had been bolted over the holes, edges curled, rivets already bleeding rust. The doors were a mess of welded plate and scavenged beams, built by people who had learned what the dead could do to an ordinary entrance.

By the time Ethan and Sasha reached it, the sun was down. The sky had gone the color of old iron. A line of survivors ran from the doors out into the street. Backpacks. Pipes. A woman with a kitchen knife taped to a broom handle. A boy with nothing in his hands at all, standing inside his father’s coat.

Sasha slowed. Her voice dropped.

"Stay on me. Don’t touch anything unless I say so."

Ethan glanced at her. The bat rested easy on her shoulder. The tank had dust on it from the walk, and the cold had drawn her in on herself, but the line of her still pulled the eye ~ long legs, the heavy curve of her chest under thin cotton, a body the market would price before it priced her goods.

"You’ve been here."

"I’ve heard the stories." She caught his sleeve and drew him into the line. "The people running this don’t do warnings twice."

They filed through a passage squeezed between two reinforced walls. For a few seconds there was nothing but shoulders, breath, and the scrape of boots. Then the passage opened, and Ethan stopped.

The old underground garage had been turned into a market.

Emergency lamps hung from the ceiling on uneven cords, throwing a dirty yellow over the concrete. Cables snaked underfoot. Stalls had been knocked together out of doors, shelving, and whatever boards had survived the looting. The smell arrived before the details did. Diesel. Sweat. Smoke. Food going bad in the warm dark. Under all of it, blood, faint and metallic, the kind that had dried into the floor and never quite left.

Hundreds of people moved between the rows. Two hundred, maybe three. Some traded in the open. Others stood against the pillars with weapons low, watching faces the way guards watch doors. A few Ability users cut clearer paths through the crowd. Ordinary survivors stepped aside without being told.

It was the busiest place Ethan had seen since the city center. It was also almost empty of anything worth having. Mold on the bread. Rust on the cans. A woman held out a fistful of batteries for a bag of rice and got nothing back but a shake of the head.

He walked the aisle slowly. Then a red glow stopped him.

A small stall. A cloth. A Core sitting on it like a coal that hadn’t decided to die. The man behind the table was middle-aged, eyes already moving ~ Ethan, Sasha, Ethan again.

"Looking for a Core?"

"Looking." Ethan crouched. He didn’t touch it. "What’s wrong with it?"

The man’s brows went up. "Who said anything’s wrong?"

"If it worked, you wouldn’t be selling it."

A snort. "New Ability user."

Ethan waited.

The man tapped the Core with one finger. "Most of you don’t know how these things behave. Same color, same kind of creature, your body takes ten. After that it stops paying you. You can still burn them as recovery, but it’s slow. This one came off a Mutant Chicken." He held up his hand, five fingers. "Five cans of meat."

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. Five. He had hundreds of cans of beef sitting in the Survival Space, and the man had just priced a Core like a favor.

"I’ll take it."

He reached in. Five unopened cans settled on the cloth, labels clean, seals unbroken.

The stall owner stared. He grabbed one, then another, turned them, checked the rims like he expected the trick to show. When it didn’t, he looked up with a different face.

"Deal."

He pushed the Core across. Ethan stored it. The red light vanished into his hand.

Around them, other sellers had gone quiet. Eyes on the cans. Eyes on the place the cans had come from. Hungry. Doing the math. A few stared at his empty palms a second too long. Nobody stepped in. The market had rules, and the stories said the last people who broke them were still hanging on the outer wall, turning in the wind.

Ethan let the attention sit. Sasha didn’t. Her gaze kept moving ~ crowd, exits, the hands that weren’t browsing.

They had gone maybe ten steps when a tall, thin man slid in at Ethan’s elbow. Cheeks sunk. Clothes hanging off the bones. Lips split from thirst. He held out a dusty gray Core like it might be taken from him.

"Boss." Low. Fast. "You got more cans?"

Ethan looked at the Core. "What do you want?"

"Three. I’ll trade this."

"No more cans."

The hope went out of the man’s face so fast it was almost ugly. Ethan reached again. Four bags of compressed biscuits landed in his palm, the wrappers loud in the aisle.

"These."

The man didn’t haggle. He shoved the Core into Ethan’s hand, snatched the biscuits, tore one open with his teeth, and crammed half of it into his mouth. He chewed like the food might be stolen back. Crumbs stuck to his lip. He nearly choked and didn’t slow down.

Sasha watched him. Pity moved across her face, quick, then shut itself off. She caught Ethan’s arm.

"Stop."

He looked at her. She didn’t explain. Her eyes cut toward a dark corner past the last row of lamps.

Two men in black. Not shopping. Not talking to each other. Both of them on Ethan. One lifted a walkie-talkie.

Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. "We’re being watched."

"I know."

A man in a yellow vest came out of the crowd before either of them could move. OIL RAT was stenciled across the back in block letters. He smiled like they were old friends.

"Hey. You looking for diesel?"

Ethan raised a brow. He hadn’t asked. The sellers had still found him.

"Yes."

"This way."

They traded a look. Then they followed.

He led them through the press of bodies, past stalls that smelled of smoke and old fat, until the noise thinned at the far corner. An old man with a gray goatee sat behind a wooden table. Two metal gallons stood at his boot. He looked Ethan over the way a butcher looks at weight.

"How much you need?"

"As much as you’ve got."

The smile stalled. Half a second. Then it came back wider.

"That’s a lot." He leaned into the chair. The wood complained. "Didn’t bring much tonight. Two gallons. If that won’t do, you can come back to the stronghold with me. We’ve got a tank there."

Every instinct Ethan owned went cold.

A stranger, in this city, offering a guided walk into a guarded place. That wasn’t trade. That was a door with teeth on the other side of it. He still needed the fuel. Ten hours, maybe less, and the generator under the casino died. When the lights went, the shelter went with them.

"Fine." He nodded at the gallons. "These two now. Then I go with you."

The old man’s smile settled deeper into his face. "Good."

They argued the price for a few minutes, neither of them pretending it was friendly. Four bags of rice for both gallons. The old man watched the rice come out of nowhere and vanish wasn’t an option ~ he watched it appear, clean, heavy, real. His eyes narrowed. When the gallons disappeared into Ethan’s space a moment later, greed flicked across his face and was put away just as fast.

"Let’s move." He jerked his chin at one of his men. "Uncle Ray wants us back early. Don’t keep him waiting."

Ethan didn’t blink. He kept the name.

Uncle Ray.

On the way out he looked back once.

The two men in black were still in the corner. One had the walkie-talkie against his mouth. The words barely cleared the crowd.

"...Yeah. He bought the Core."

Ethan faced forward again. His pace didn’t change.

The feeling in his gut did. Something in this place had already marked him, and he was walking out of it beside men who smiled too easily, toward a stronghold he had never seen, with Sasha’s hand still light on his sleeve and the night waiting at the top of the ramp.