Somehow, that thought only made Kira angrier.

“Being a hunter is not the most important job,” said Phan, “but it’s definitely one of them, because it’s one of the only ways we get protein. Protein that’s not eggs, I mean. There are deer in the Rockies, and elk and mountain goats, and this is the best place for them to find food, so we keep the gates open and tore a bunch of the fences down and welcome them in—which makes it sound easy, but sometimes they don’t come in, and sometimes we get wolves coming after the chickens or the kids or whatever, so the hunters are the ones who set traps and follow tracks and keep the food chain moving in the right direction.”

There was something incredibly cheery about the way he talked—his bragging didn’t seem arrogant or pushy, he was just proud of what he did and genuinely happy to be doing it, and his excitement over each new topic of conversation seemed infectious rather than overbearing. Kira soon gave up trying to squeeze a word into the torrent of eager babbling, and listened as Phan talked about everything from wolf pelts to wasteland survival to the finer points of converting an office building to living space. They passed several more of the big buildings, and even a fountain in a grassy courtyard, and Kira marveled at the strange mix of affluence and survivalism that permeated their society—they had running water and electricity and showers and even a grounds crew, patiently mowing the grass and trimming the bushes, but on the other hand they had none of the salvage opportunities that Kira had grown up with. All the clothing stores within easy reach had been ravaged by acid storms or incinerated in chemical fires, so the people wore a mixture of frontier homespun, animal hides, and patchwork oddities hand-stitched from old curtains and sheets. Kira realized that they would probably find her own background equally bizarre, a parade of high-fashion divas using candles and wood-burning stoves in their giant, decaying mansions. Was there anywhere on Earth where life was normal? Did “normal” even mean anything anymore?