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.The small fragment of the human population left hated me.I'd grown up a loner, only watching out for myself.Then at some point, I'd started to care.I'd started to want people.Now look at me.What a mess.I longed for the days I didn't care.And to make matters worse, I'd emptied the last contents of my flask a floor ago.It took the entire day to go through all the floors and we still missed the lion's share.Word was spreading fast and people were disappearing.I didn't know where they hid, but as word got out, less and less people were in their rooms by the end of the day.I'd still seen more than I wanted to.There was a spider woman on floor fifteen that had a cocoon built in the corner of the room.On eighteen, we had a giant.The guy used to be a professional linebacker, but now he couldn't sit in a chair without crushing it.A woman on twenty couldn't leave the shower stall for more than hour because of the water that streamed from her pores and there was a human pretzel on thirty-two.Today had been a serious revelation.When I got to the penthouse, I immediately went to the bar.I knew what had to be done next and I was going to need a little anesthetic to go through with it.I also needed something to take the edge off seeing Cormac.Burrom sat down and laid the list on the table as we waited for the rest of the crew to show.This was a "closed-door" meeting.I poured myself another finger of whiskey.Nothing good ever came of these, and this time I'd be holding a gun on the virtual firing squad.I looked down at my glass and added another finger of the amber liquid.It wouldn't make it right, but it would make it a lot easier to be wrong.Would I be able to live with myself if I went even further down this path? The thought scared me.I swallowed back the drink before I asked myself any more questions I'd prefer not to know the answer to.I was officially living through the apocalypse; this wasn't the right time for moral dilemmas or deep soul searching.Cormac and Dodd walked in next, followed by Rogo and Vitor a few minutes later, which made Sabrina's absence that more obvious.I missed having at least a little estrogen in the room besides myself.Cormac silently pointed at the list on the table.Burrom nodded and I watched as Cormac reached down and started flipping through."Everyone under eighteen is on a different sheet," I said, still feeling the burn of the liquor in my throat.That had been my personal contribution to saving the young’uns.I hoped he got the hint and would leave them alone.He nodded, not bothering to look up from the pages.Any chance of this being civil between us disappeared as quickly as my next shot."The changed are about ten percent of the human population," Burrom said."Looks closer to twelve," Cormac corrected, still looking through the list."This should be enough to do everything.""Everything" entailed a food detail, a gas detail and a Sabrina detail, all forced labor that would be immune to the rippers.How did it come to this? Do what we want or you and your families get booted out.No one had spoken the words, but we'd all known what was coming as soon as the idea of a list had been formulated.It made me wonder how close to the door I was now that Cormac wasn't interested anymore.Nah, considering the contempt he was barely hiding now, I'd already be out if that was going to happen.But the humans, that was a different story altogether.If we didn't force the changed to help, would we survive? If they wanted to stay, they should have to kick in, right? But sending someone out there when we weren't even sure of what really kept the rippers at bay? Not to mention, we didn't know what else may lie in wait, or when another freak storm would spring up.Cormac finally looked up from the papers."We've got enough here to replace the people we've lost for the food squads and fuel squads.These numbers are much better than I anticipated." He looked to me and then Burrom."And these all had magic levels high enough to probably make it through a night?"Probably? Was I the only one that found that disturbing? I looked around the room and I knew I was."Yes," Burrom said.I was feeling all warm and fuzzy from the booze and yet I still cared."Fuck it," I said and took a swig right from the bottle.Cormac turned toward me and squinted his eyes just slightly."That's not your normal brand," he said in an unflattering way."I guess these days you'll drink anything, if it comes in the form of a shot.""Trust me.You all want me drunk for this." I lifted the bottle in a silent cheers salute to him and the room.He turned back to the rest of the group.No one else looked or said a word, maybe preferring to pretend that I wasn't getting drunk in the corner by myself.Cormac took another quick glance in my direction, or more accurately, at the bottle I held.I lifted it to my lips and took a swig, egging him on.He turned away, not taking the bait [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]