My story begins with a beggar, known as "Slick" to most, for his remarkable ability to squeeze his way through almost any situation with relative ease. He had been what he was for so long that he paid attention not to the days and months passing, but years. After so long, he had yet to fail at getting by, but this time, despite all his ingenuity and skill, he faced something he could not deal with - something he had not faced before in all the many years of his life.

As Slick woke up in the cool morning air of the otherwise abandoned New York building he managed to use as a living quarters, he wondered what the day had in store for him. He went about his usual business of getting as cleaned up as possible and heading down into the basement to get some of his stashed food. After eating, he was just about ready to go back upstairs when he heard a noise outside. Sirens. And screeching cars. Screaming - it sounded as if there was a huge riot. Thinking as much, he closed and locked the huge steel door to the basement and geared his mind for waiting it out in safety. However, as he listened to the sirens, his mind drifted back to when he was not in New York...

It was 1945, in a small camp on the coast of southern Japan. The camp consisted of stranded soldiers from a sunken ship. They had managed to reach the shore and had been hiding there for a few days. Sergeant McKay was rebuking him for something - it didn't matter what - when he heard that same siren. Just before...

His mind snapped back to the present, and he began to stuff the cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling with whatever he could find - clay, clothes, empty food sacks. Anything. Had had just about finished this when he heard a sound louder than a thousand exploding suns, and his world disappeared.

He awoke to find himself soaked in blood, having been thrown against the wall opposite where he had been. He looked around with disbelief at his surroundings and at himself, amazed that he was even alive. He realized that he would again have to face the problem of the only thing that could cause such mass panic and instant devastation - an atomic bomb. He remembered all of his fellow soldiers who had died from the bomb in Japan, becoming momentarily sentimental, when his mind again snapped back to the present. It looked like he had provisions enough to last a couple of months, as he had spent the last 15 years of his life stashing bits of unperishable food and jugs of water. He hoped it would suffice. He reverted back to looking himself over. It took a while, but he managed to bandage himself with scraps of dusty cloth. Then came the task of cleaning the place up. He hadn't managed to survive this long by being careless or sloppy. After stacking piles of food and water jugs for a while, he sat down and waited...and waited.

He waited for a month and a half, in fact, before running out of food. As for air, the basement was ventilated, and he could only speculate as to why he was not yet dead from radiation. He continued waiting for a week without food or drink, in contension with his deceased buddies in fighting death, before finally, for the first time in two months, he heard something. There was actually sound outside his basement.

The sound came in the form of a low, buzzing noise. More buzzing, and the faint sound of...voices! A rescue! It took hours for anyone to notice him, but one person came through.

A vaguely familiar voice sifted in from outside, "SLICK! YOU IN THERE?" Slick couldn't place the voice until the huge basement door came crashing down into the dust, and a person stuck his head inside. The person stared at the bemused heap of human flesh before him, smiling unbelievably as he did so. It was Sergeant McKay!

Slick hadn't the energy or strength to move, but a single tear snuck its way down the side of his face. Inside, he had just been born. To think that the Sarge was alive and knew where he lived baffled him. McKay carefully picked up his old friend, and he was loaded onto a helicopter and carried away to some hospital somewhere. It didn't matter where, so long as he could see the Sergeant. It turned out that McKay had found out about him a few years before as a "beggar who owned a building," and started the locals calling him Slick. He wondered how that name had got back to him after all those years. As McKay was part of the mammoth rescue effort for survivors hidden within the abyss that was once one of the world's biggest cities, he was very busy, but every couple of days he would come the long distance to Slick's bedside to give his tithe of comfort and companionship. After a couple of weeks of this, Slick heard that Sergeant McKay had been killed when a building failed structurally and collapsed on him. The blow of this statement his harder than the bomb, and all wish to live was lost. The only link Slick had to all he had ever known or held dear had been severed like some lifeless limb, and sent his mind and spirit into throes of death. No equity in life was to be seen by this victim of circumstance. This one thing he could not face, so he lapsed into a coma and died, quietly.

One of the most well-known and respected people in his area of the city lived a beggar's life, died a beggar's death. No shroud to cover him. No coffin to shield him. No bier to support him. Only a mass grave called New York, in which this singular man was made identical to the millions of others who died as a result of the tragedy - a tragedy made possible by the miracle of science; the same science which has saved countless millions of lives, but failed to save a two-time victim of circumstance.