“They’d kill us.” 80 pulls
the body of a young man from under the rubble. The smell coming
from his body is repugnant. His entire left arm is missing and his
face is covered with blood. Through the blood his dead, empty eyes
stare up at me. My stomach tightens and I look away.
“I’m not wearing a dead
man’s clothes.” I try hard to keep everything in my
stomach.
“Atom, it’s the only way.
Nobody outside of the compound wears what we have on,” he says.
“Just don’t look at their faces.”
I take a deep breath and
turn to see that 80 has already pulled a second body and is midway
through changing. I walk over to the first body and slowly pull off
his outer layer. “How are you able to do this?”
“I have been around death
since I was created. The integers are expendable, so they would
