Luc drove around through the empty streets, trying to find a restaurant that had closed. They were clearing out the place, but there was still a lot of trash left behind, which was where Trashformers came in, or more accurately; Luc.

  Luc changed the channel on the radio and found his favorite channel; one that recapped events from the day prior at ungodly early hours.

  “The SAU cup has reached popularity never seen before! The fan favorite, Jonelle Pashern is to be expected to win the quarterfinals, but who else?! Cast your vote on…”

  Luc changed channel and sighed. “So my sister is participating in the SAU, eh? Not very surprising as she is a magic user. We used to be so close when we were kids but now she treats me like trash….”

  Another bottle got refilled and ingested as he put up some music.

  The Special Ability Union cup or SAU cup had made a resurgence as this generation of participants seem to be quite skilled and charismatic. Lucius Pashern’s sister, Jonelle Pashern was one of the fan favorite. Not only because of her charisma, but also because she was a fire magic user.

  There was a clear distinction between an ability user and a magic user. Luc was an ability user. He could just refill. His sister could use one of the 5 elements freely. The use depended on the user's creativity and control, and thus had been categorized as magic.

  Luc’s ability was technically magic as well, but society deemed it more a special ability with various limitations and often unusable in combat. The ability users that did have combat oriented abilities often participated in the SAU cup.

  Luc was uninterested in his sister’s achievements and continued driving to his destination but got met with a closed gate as he arrived.

  “Hmm, that’s strange. They should know that we were coming.”

  Luc got out of the van and looked around.

  “There is nobody here…”

  The gate was just to keep people outside and was made out of bars so he could easily see what was behind it.

  “I suppose nobody would mind.”

  Luc returned to the van, grabbed his backpack and pulled another folded box out of it.

  “Let’s get this right this time.”

  Luc identified a good spot next to the wall and stood on the box. Refill activated, causing the box to instantly unfold and refill slowly, which still launched him over the wall.

  Luc landed and rolled to lessen the impact.

  “Ugh, I should increase the time the fridge need to refill…”

  Luc wasn’t sure why fridges had boxes, but he was glad society decided to do so, as he used those to get over tall objects. He couldn't use it too often as people would get confused when fridges in boxes start t pop up randomly.

  It wasn’t something he could move after all, so it was there to stay.

  “They can enjoy their free fridge if they notice. Now let’s see…”

  Luc walked along the inner wall and found a panel controlling the gate.

  “No code? Just a button? Works for me!”

  The gate opened slowly after Luc pressed the button and returned to the van and waited until the gate opened fully.

  He rubbed his elbow which had gotten scraped lightly at the roll after his landing.

  “It’s a good thing that I’m not completely stupid, else my very first launching test would have killed me…”

  Luc thought back to the first time he tried the launching trick. He first tested it on a microwave and had the fridge refill near instantly. The microwave got launched so far in the sky that he couldn't see it anymore, and he also didn't see it fall.

  Whether it had escaped the atmosphere or launched far away was unknown to him, but it had been clear that refilling a fridge instantly breath him could kill him.

  The time of refill kept increasing in his test as did the test objects became heavier, and that’s how he arrived at a safe launching refill of 20 seconds for a fridge. It was slow but would still push him in the air for quite the distance.

  The engine hummed as the van drove in and stopped in the parking lot close to the restaurant door.

  The fragrance of sharp spices and cooking oil assaulted his nose as he got out of the van and looked at the trash heap in front of the entrance.

  The place was messy and looked half abandoned. This wasn't the case as the place was just cleared out and stripped bare.

  “There is someone here, right? Is someone cooking, or are restaurants supposed to smell like this?”

  Luc had never visited a formal restaurant as it was supposed to be way too expensive for him. He also saw it as inefficient, as there was nothing he could bring back home to refill.

  “Hello? I’m here from Trashformers to turn your trash into…. Never mind, who believes this shit….”

  Luc started collecting the trash in front of the building as he heard objects move aside and footsteps.

  A shriveled old woman opened the door with a skillet in her hands. “Oh, how early! Come in come on in! The place is empty, but I tried to at least give you a warm meal in the cold morning!” the woman beckoned for Luc to come inside who hesitate.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to accept any gifts from clients…” He said, as he continued cleaning up trash and dropping them into light blue trash bags.

  “You’re not? How about I add eating this healthy meal to the required conditions for you to buy my trash?”

  “That’s ridiculous, but maybe having a meal isn't a terrible idea….”

  “Yes! Good! Strong young men should eat well o they have energy to go through the day1”

  Luc followed the old lady inside while continuously gathering trash. All the tables and chairs were knocked over. Some were even damaged to the point they could categorize as trash, but there was just 1 table and 1 chair standing.

  The table was what he expected from a restaurant and had cutlery and napkins ready to be used.

  “Sit down, I’m almost done!”

  The old lady went through the door and got met with some fragrant smoke. A strange language escaped from the lady as she rushed inside and closed the door.

  “It looks as if a fight had broken out here…”

  The floor was filled with table cloths made out of paper, napkins, plastic cups, shattered plate shards, wood chips, but also a lot of sludge that had been food at some point in time.

  “Yuck…”

  Luc replaced his gloves and stared collecting the trash.. One bag for plastic, another for paper, one for wood and the rest was what he presumed to be organic waste.

  He went back and forth, loading the trash bags in the van, neatly ordering the trash bags according to what type of trash it held.

  It was a lot of work, but he knew he would have to sort the trash when he returned to Trashformers and working with the sorting machine was something he absolutely hated. He would rather sort them beforehand.

  “No useful boxes or wrappings… what a bummer.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Luc had been collecting trash for a good 40 minutes when the door to the kitchen opened and the old lady came in with a cart with 3 plates on them and loaded them on to the table.

  “It took longer than I expected but dig in.” The woman said with a warm smile before looking around. “Oh, you didn’t sit still.”

  “Thanks.” Luc wiped his forehead, got rid of his gloves and sat down.

  He was unsure what he was looking at, but food was food, it couldn't possibly be worse than his junk food diet, right?

  The aroma coming from the food was similar to what he smelled when he arrived. His mouth got filled with a complicated explosion of flavors he had never tasted before.

  His hands sped up and eating turned into ‘shoveling food into his face’.

  “It seems that you like it. That was the specialty of our restaurant but… my husband had a gambling problem and lost all the money we made, and some troublesome debt collectors ruined this place so we had to close…”

  Luc didn’t say anything. He just ate and listened.

  The scenario sounded like that of a movie, but many ability users acted as if they got a free pass to do whatever they wanted, so it wasn't surprising.

  He had jobs where he had to collect trash at places where gang wars had completely destroyed buildings or an aftermath of an unofficial race.

  Society couldn't manage the portion of the population that could use abilities that well, but it was still functioning, which was good enough for Luc.

  “Thank you for the meal and I’m sorry for what happened, but I have a job to do. Can I treat these napkins as trash as well?”

  The old lady nodded and collected the empty plates. “You can take the paper tablecloth as well. Thank you for listening to an old woman’s story.”

  “Don’t worry about it, everyone has their problems. I assume the kitchen has trash as well?”

  The old lady led Luc to the kitchen which was filled with the scent of aromatic spices and got pointed to every trashcan and anything else he could take with him.

  Luc closed the back of the van, walked to the front and sat behind the wheel, exhausted.

  It was already noon. This had taken way longer than he had expected. Unfortunately for him, his job wasn’t done yet.

  “I hate the sorting process…” Luc complained as he grabbed his empty bottle and refilled it. “Let’s see, I sneakily used my ability to refill that lady’s favorite sauce and on some bottles she thought were empty. That puts me on 14 out of the 32 uses for today…”

  Luc exhaled and did some calculations in his head. Would he be able to reach the end of the day before hitting his limit of refills? Was what he was trying to find out.

  There was no difference between refilling a small bottle or a box that once held a fridge, each refill consumed 1 use. Most of Luc’s daily refills got used on refilling his bottle of sports drink or energy drink, depending on his mood.

  “It should be fine. I just have to be more careful and drink water or tea when I return.”

  Luc checked his backpack and counted the folded boxes within.

  “I need to find some more later. Let’s hope I can find them at Trashformers.”

  The van started, and he drove off, back to Trashformers.

  The streets were now busy, and the relatively short drive turned frustratingly long as Luc had to deal with terrible drivers, slow drivers, poorly thought out intersections which caused minor traffic jams and some ability users that used their speed to get around and used the road.

  These ability users were the most dangerous elements on the roads, as they weaved between the cars and easily caused accidents when they got careless or cocky. They were still categorized as pedestrians, so the messed up system would always have the driver be at blame when something happened.

  “The early hours are a blessing and a curse…”

  Luc tapped impatiently on his wheel as the traffic light in front of him had turned green but the car in front of him wasn't moving.

  Other cars made noise with their horns, so Luc found i unnecessary to use his.

  The car finally moved, but the traffic lights turned red when he came close to crossing the intersection.

  “This is so frustrating… this is how normal people turn into villains…”

  His chance came when the light turned green, and he escaped the poor drivers as he turned into a near empty road; the road leading up to Trashformers.

  There were no residents or important buildings on this road, which made it so empty. It also bordered the woods which was the subject of many bad rumors as it was unusually dark, even during daytime.

  The large logo of a trashcan turned into a mecha robot came in sight, indicating that he had reached his destination.

  The van parked near the large outdoor sorting machine, and Luc sighed and reached for his empty bottle. He hesitated, but still refilled it.

  He looked at the seat besides him, which had a small trash bag filled with glass bottles he had collected from the restaurant. Some were from alcoholic beverages, but others were from some unknown drink. It looked interesting and exotic, so he would try them at home some day.

  “Come on, Luc, you can do it, just 2 more hours.”He said to motivate himself.

  Luc greeted his coworker Josh and started emptying some bags in the sorter. These were what he called the ‘uncertain’ bags, as trash of unknown composition went into these. Also trash that contained both plastic and paper or any combination of types that normally get put apart.

  “Hard at work I see, you look exhausted!” Josh said.

  Luc nodded and went to work,

  The assorted hummed, sputtered and stopped working.

  “Ah right, Jack said that it’s out of mana and asked if you could power it up like you always do!”

  One of he reasons he hated sorting presented itself. This machine had been made by the Lambert organization. An organization that had ability users create products with special properties. They made almost anything.

  This sorter was one of them, as it would ‘magically’ split composite trash and highlight what it needed to be sorted into. It was the worker s job to actually place these highlighted items in the correct bin, however.

  It also needed mana so an ability user or magic user needed to kickstart it which would cause Luc’s refill uses to decrease.

  Neither Josh nor his boss Jack were ability users, so only Luc could wake this machine he hated so much.

  The beast got fed and started to split and highlight the out coming trash for Luc to sort.

  He had been left with only 8 uses of the day, and now regretted refilling bottles and canisters for the old lady. His dinner would be tight.

  The mind-numbing sorting and moving pallets of sorted and shredded junk continued for 2 hours, which ended his shift.

  He didn't say anything, he got on his bicycle and left.

  It was just a normal day, a day like any other and an unfulfilling one.

  He drove into the woods to avoid traffic. The 10-minute shortcut in the morning was now a 30-minute shortcut, as traffic was quite bad at this time of the day. Despite it being daytime, the visibility was poor, but Luc kept riding as he knew this shortcut by heart.

  He stopped however as, yet again, he saw a man with red glowing horns in the corner of his eyes.

  “Is someone here?” he said as he looked around to find nothing. What had appeared to be a normal day appeared to be slightly off.

  What he saw on his way to work could have been his imagination, but he had seen it again this time.

  “Maybe… I should go home and avoid trouble…”

  Luc turned toward his bicycle to get the scare of his life as the man he thought had been an imagination was walking toward him.

  There was still some distance so Luc got on his bicycle, turned around and raced off.

  His heart raced as he kept going and going. He returned to the street near Trashformers and took the route through the city.

  He looked around in paranoia despite being in traffic, checking for the man with red glowing horns.

  Luc collapsed on his couch, completely exhausted. He had locked the door and windows as that horned man had completely terrified him.

  “What was that… that wasn't a human, was it?”

  It was possible for ability users to look a bit different due to their ability, but those cases were rare and often minor. Most magic and ability users were and looked human. What Luc saw could be argued to be something else.

  Luc picked up his phone but put it down after thinking about it. “Nobody would believe me… they would rather ask me what I was doing in the woods…Not because I live at the edge of the city and it's between my house and my job means that I HAVE to go through it…”

  He sighed and looked for the bag of bottles he had put aide to take home from work, and realized that he had left it at Trashformers.

  “Fuck! Josh would probably throw those bottles with the glass as it looks like junk… What a garbage day…”

  The TV went on, and he watched a SAU fight absentmindedly while going through plastic wrappers and small boxes, trying to decide what junk food to eat.

  “Let's go for pizza.”

  2 frozen pizza boxes got refilled and placed in the oven. He then refilled a 2 liter soda bottle so he had something to drink.

  “Just 5 uses left. Let's hope I won't get hungry again.”

  Luc waited for his pizzas to be done while watching a fight between a fire magic user and an ability user that could switch places with his target.

  The ability user swapped places right before the fire would hit him, putting the fire user in a bind.

  “How will that ability user deal with physical attackers, though….”

  The fight slowed down as the fire user became cautious and the ability user had lost his way of dealing damage.

  “I wonder if I… never mind, that will just draw attention…”

  Luc clenched his fist as he emptied his cup and grabbed the soda bottle to find out he had already emptied the soda bottle.

  “Water or more soda…. Do I have tea? But tea with pizza….”

  The soda bottle got refilled, and he held off his soda until the pizzas had heated up enough for consumption.

  He looked through the window as the sky was darkening.

  He didn't feel as if he had done a lot, and the sun was already setting. He would normally be able to enjoy some day time, but his trip home had taken way longer than normal.

  “Ah right, tomorrow morning is when trash gets collected from that rich area. They won’t need their empty boxes anyway!”

  Luc finished his dinner, emptied his backpack and got ready for his biweekly outing, which involved collecting empty boxes from the rich area.

  It always got him something nice as his TV had been part of his loot in the past. Some rich person had bought the newest TV and put the box of the TV to be picked up by the garbage trucks.