8456893456983

“I don’t remember, except he thought Barney was supposed to be his friend. Or maybe it was Barry.
Momma, can I have Hoppy?”
Her stuffed rabbit, now sitting in lop-eared exile on the highest shelf in her room. Abra hadn’t
slept with him in at least two years. Lucy got the Hopster and put him in her daughter’s arms. Abra
hugged the rabbit to her pink pajama top and was asleep almost at once. With luck, she’d be out for
another hour, maybe even two. Lucy sat beside her, looking down.
Let this stop for good in another few years, just like John said it would. Better yet, let it stop today, this very
morning. No more, please. No more hunting through the local papers to see if some little boy was killed by his
stepfather or beaten to death by bullies who were high on glue, or something. Let it end.
“God,” she said in a very low voice, “if you’re there, would you do something for me? Would you
break the radio in my little girl’s head?”
2
When the True headed west again along I-80, rolling toward the town in the Colorado high country
where they would spend the summer (always assuming the opportunity to collect some nearby big
steam did not come up), Crow Daddy was riding in the shotgun seat of Rose’s EarthCruiser. Jimmy
Numbers, the True’s whizbang accountant, was piloting Crow’s Affinity Country Coach for the time
being. Rose’s satellite radio was tuned to Outlaw Country and currently playing Hank Jr.’s “Whiskey
Bent and Hell Bound.” It was a good tune, and Crow let it run its course before pushing the OFF
button.
“You said we’d talk later. This is later. What happened back there?”
“We had a looker,” Rose said.
“Really?” Crow raised his eyebrows. He had taken as much of the Trevor kid’s steam as any of
them, but he looked no younger. He rarely did after eating. On the other hand, he rarely looked older
between meals, unless the gap was very long. Rose thought it was a good trade-off. Probably
something in his genes. Assuming they still had genes. Nut said they almost certainly did. “A
steamhead, you mean.”
She nodded. Ahead of them, I-80 unrolled under a faded blue denim sky dotted with drifting
cumulus clouds.
“Big steam?”
“Oh yeah. Huge.”
“How far away?”
“East Coast. I think.”
“You’re saying someone looked in from what, almost fifteen hundred miles away?”
“Could have been even further. Could have been way the hell and gone up in Canada.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Probably a girl, but it was only a flash. Three seconds at most. Does it matter?”
It didn’t. “How many canisters could you fill from a kid with that much steam in the boiler?”
“Hard to say. Three, at least.” This time it was Rose who was lowballing. She guessed the unknown
looker might fill ten canisters, maybe even a dozen. The presence had been brief but muscular. The
looker had seen what they were doing, and her horror (if it was a her) had been strong enough to freeze
Rose’s hands and make her feel a momentary loathing. It wasn’t her own feeling, of course—gutting a
rube was no more loathsome than gutting a deer—but a kind of psychic ricochet.
“Maybe we ought to turn around,” Crow said. “Get her while the getting’s good.”
“No. I think this one’s still getting stronger. We’ll let her ripen a bit.”