Hunger

to each person. Sort of as a calling card. A sign of what was coming.
    And then, a paper currency backed up by the gold, and finally, credit.
    Despite his weariness, Albert hummed contentedly as he sat with a yellow legal pad and a pen, writing out possible names for the new currency.
    “Bullets” was obviously not the appropriate term. He wanted people thinking “money,” not “death.”
    Dollars? No. The word was familiar, but he wanted something new.
    Euros? Francs? Doubloons? Marks? Chits? Crowns?
    Alberts?
    No. Over the top.
    Units?
    It was functional. It meant what it said.
    “The problem is, whatever we call them, we don’t have enough,” Albert muttered. If there were going to be just four thousand of the new…whatevers…they’d obviously have to be worth a lot, each one. Like, to start with, ten slugs should…
    Slugs?
    They were slugs, after all.
    To start with, if a kid had the original ten slugs he was given, then each slug would have to be worth more than, say, a single one-can meal. So he needed, in addition to the slugs, smaller units. A currency that would be worth, say, one tenth of a slug.
    But any attempt to make up paper currency would just send everyone running to find a copier. He needed something that could not be duplicated.
    An idea hit him. A memory. He ran for the storeroom that had long since been cleaned out of food. There were two boxes on the wire shelves. Each was filled with McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces—tickets—from some long-forgotten promotion.
    Twelve thousand pieces per box. Hard to counterfeit.
    He would have enough to make change for four thousand slugs at a rate of six Monopoly pieces per slug.
    “A slug equals six tickets,” Albert said. “Six tickets equals a slug.”
    It was a beautiful thing, Albert thought. Tears came to his eyes. It was a truly beautiful thing. He was reinventing money.

THIRTY-TWO
    09 HOURS , 3 MINUTES
    BUG WAS LEERY now. Sam’s people knew about him. They had since the big battle of Perdido Beach. But now they had begun to take countermeasures. The sudden attack with spray paint had shaken Bug’s self-confidence.
    So when Caine drew him aside, careful not to let Drake overhear, and gave him a new assignment, Bug was dubious.
    “They’re out there waiting for anyone who comes out,” Bug argued. “Dekka’s out there for sure. Bunch of kids with guns. And probably Sam, hiding somewhere maybe.”
    “Keep your voice down,” Caine said. “Listen, Bug, you’re doing this: the easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”
    So Bug was doing it. Not liking it, but doing it.
    He began by drifting into invisibility. Even when he was visible, kids tended to overlook him. They would forget he was there. Once he’d faded, they seldom seemed to remember him.
    He stood in the corner of the control room for a while, outof sight. Making sure no one—by which he meant Drake—was going to miss him.
    Things had calmed down a little since it became clear that Sam’s people were not going to rush in, guns and laser hands blazing.
    But the room was still tense. Drake and Caine paranoid, waiting for attack from outside, or from each other. Diana sullen, sleepy. Computer Jack obviously in pain from his injuries, popping Advil like crazy, but still pecking away at the keyboard. Drake’s bully boys had found some guy’s handheld game and were taking turns playing it till the batteries failed. Then they’d go off in search of more batteries.
    No one missed Bug.
    So he slipped out of the room, inches away from Drake, fearing the sudden lash of his whip as he held his breath.
    Outside, things were better than he’d expected. Dekka was sitting in the front seat of a car, half dozing, half arguing with Taylor and Howard. Orc was at the far edge of the parking lot idly smashing car windshields with a tire iron. And two, no three, kids with guns, concealed behind cars, around corners, all waiting for trouble. All bored, too.
    And in very bad moods. Bug heard fragments of grousing as he passed.
    “…Sam just takes off and leaves us here and…”
    “…if you’re not some powerful freak, no one gives a…”
    “…I swear I am going to cut off my own leg and eat it, I’m so hungry…”
    “…rat doesn’t taste as bad as you’d think. The trouble is, finding a rat…”
    Bug slipped past them and reached the road. Easy-peasy, as they used to say back in kindergarten.
    From there it was a long, long walk. With nothing to eat.
    Bug felt like his