"You're that Josh guy I ate at the movies a while back," said Katie, spinning me around to face her. "How are you still, um, around?"
"I don't know," I said, with a sigh. "After our encounter, I found myself in bed. Then, I got hit by a truck, only to end up in bed again. There's a lot more, but after each instance of death, I end up in bed. Annoyingly, time passes, sometimes a day, sometimes longer. Also, folks don't remember me being gone."
"Interesting," said Katie. "That ability would be useful, and not just for humans."
"Why do you say that?" I asked.
"Um, let's walk, okay?" Katie asked.
"Might as well," I said. "I got nothing better planned."
"By the way, about the thing at the theater, I'm sorry," said Katie. "It was Big Meal Day, and, well, you didn't exactly have much to live for, so I thought that eating you would be a mercy kill."
"It sucked, that much I'll tell you," I said. "I mean, I was expecting to have a nice night with you, maybe get lucky, not get eaten."
"Well, if it makes you feel better, the movie sucked afterwards," said Katie.
"So, why is this respawn thing good?" I asked.
"Predator-Prey ratio," said Katie. "A Predator can only eat so many humans a year, or else the number of humans dwindles to unsustainable levels. After all, it takes humans two decades to mature and reproduce. I mean, even with uterine replicators and using stored sperm and eggs to create more humans, in the event that wild ones run out, time is the thing they'd need to mature, and start the next generation. Granted, they could set up succession crops, but still, I think that humans in general might like the idea of treating death as an annoyance, like taxes, instead of the end of living."
"You might have a few points," I said.
"Listen, for what it's worth, I'd like to make things up to you," said Katie.
"What do you have in mind?" I asked.
Katie grinned and said......
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