”“Again, why do it?”“I already told you. My—”“And what does that have to do with anything? You’re old enough now that you can set out ...n your own. You’ve found your talent with that blade. Keep being an adventurer. Do whatever you want to do.”“Isn’t my father paying you to make sure I become a noble?”“I fully expect you to become a noble, even if I have to tie the title around your wrists. I just want to make sure you have a strong reason so that you won’t choke up. So, go on, tell us the real. Or both.I sat down with the Sullivan twins. Jesse said, “Jim Harrison, structural engineer. Lockston Industries. He’d know how his house is built.”“What about the wife?”Jessie took up the narrative, “Jill. She’s a buyer at Macy’s. Oak Park Mall.”Fucking Johnson County. Fucking Kansas.So, a two-income family.“The kids? The girls?”“Jennifer is 14, typical. Whitney is 13, typical.”“No angry boyfriends?”“Nope. It has to be one of the parents.”“You’ll keep digging?”“How deep?”“Until you solve the. You can't buy it round here. You can only grow it, steal it or sell your body for it." Can't you buy anything at the villages?" wondered Tracey."Villages!" sniffed the woman. "You're only five kilometres from the front. Villages can't survive here. They get bombed to pieces. You have to live in a bunker to survive round here. There are no villages anywhere around her! The nearest you have to a village must be Tranquillity. That's a real hovel which supplies sex to the soldiers before they head. I collapsed beside her again and felt myself slide out of her with a wet "plop" sound, our breathing was fast and wildly erratic as we regained some form of sentient thought, "well" she said again with a huskey voice "that certainly was a nice way to wake up" I chuckled to myself and turned out of bed, I felt an initial dizzieness as i put pressure on my feet, but this soon passed and i stood up and went to the window to look out over the street where my neighbours and freinds were ambling.