“Well, Mr. Arlen, that was just marvelous—” Mahvelous.

“You didn’t watch it.”

She wasn’t listening. She stared at the activity in the King-Dome. “What’s all this now?”

I said, “They’re getting ready to help the survivors of the gravrail crash.”

“Them? Help how?”

I didn’t answer. All of a sudden I was very tired. I’d had only a few hours’ sleep, and I’d spent the previous night viewing man-made horrors.

Like this woman.

“Well, they can all just stop this nonsense right now!” Raht now.

She bustled away. I watched a little longer, then went to find my driver — who had, of course, vowed to never drive an aircar again. But that was before the gravrail crash showed that nothing else was any better. Still, I’d find some way back to Seattle. And to the airport. And to Huevos Verdes. And from there to East Oleanta. There were things I had to ask Miranda, critical things, things I should have asked a long time ago. And I was going to say them. I, Drew Arlen. Who had been the Lucid Dreamer long before I met Miranda Sharifi.

The floor of the State Representative Anita Clara Taguchi Hotel was covered in leaves. It was late August — no leaves falling yet, them. That meant these leaves were left over from last year, blowing into the hotel last October and November and lying around ever since, without no ’bot to clean them out. I hadn’t been nowhere near the hotel, me, all those months. But I was now.

The funny thing was that for a few days I didn’t even notice the leaves, me. I didn’t notice nothing. My head was a fog, it, and I stumbled toward the hotel HT on its red counter and didn’t see nothing else. Lizzie was too sick.

The HT turned on when I come near, like it’d been doing for the past four days. “May I help you?”

I put both hands, me, on the counter. Like that would help. “I need the medunit, me. An emergency.”

“I’m sorry, sir, the County Legislator Thomas Scott Drinkwater Medical Unit is temporarily out of service. Albany has been notified, and a technician will shortly—”

“I don’t want Albany, me! I want a medunit! My little girl’s sick bad!”

“I’m sorry, sir, the County Legislator Thomas Scott Drinkwater Medical Unit is temporarily out of service. Albany has been—”

“Then get me another medunit, you! It’s an emergency! Lizzie’s coughing her guts up, her!”

“I’m sorry, sir, there’s no medunit immediately available, due to the temporary inoperability of the Senator Walker Vance Morehouse Magnetic Railway. As soon as the railway is repaired, another medical unit can be rushed in from—”

“The gravrail ain’t inaccessible, it’s busted!” I screamed at the HT. I would of busted it with my bare hands if it’d helped. “Let me talk to a human being!”

“I’m sorry, your elected officials are temporarily unavailable. If you wish to leave a message, please specify whether it’s intended for United States Senator Mard Todd Ingalls, United States Senator Walker Vance—”

“Off! Turn the hell off!”

Lizzie’d been sick, her, for three days. The gravrail had been down for five. The medunit had been out for who knows how long — nobody’d got sick, them, since Doug Kane’s heart attack. The politicians had been assholes as long as anybody could remember.

Lizzie was sick bad. Oh sweet Jesus Lizzie was sick bad.

I squeezed my eyes shut, me, and my head swung down, and when I opened my eyes what did I see? Leaves, that no cleaning ’bot had swept out in nearly a year, and that nobody else didn’t bother with neither. Dead leaves, brittle as my old bones.

“There’s a HT with override at the cafe,” a voice said. “The mayor can contact your county legislator directly.”

“You think, you, I ain’t tried that? Do I look that stupid?” I was relieved, me, to yell at somebody, I didn’t care who. Then I saw it was the donkey girl dressed like a Liver, the one who got off the train a week ago. She was the only person, her, staying in the State Representative Anita Clara Taguchi Hotel. Since the gravrail breakdowns got worse, there ain’t much traveling. Nobody knew why this donkey was in East Oleanta, and nobody knew why she dressed like a Liver. Some people didn’t like it, them.

I didn’t have no time to talk to a crazy donkey. Lizzie was sick bad. I shuffled back through the leaves to the door, only where was I supposed to go, me? Without no medunit. . .

“Wait,” the donkey said. “I heard you, me. You said—”

“Don’t try to talk like no Liver when you ain’t one! You hear me, you!” I don’t know where I got the anger to yell at her like that. Yes, I do. Lizzie was sick bad, and the donkey was just there, her.

“You’re quite right. No point in unnecessary subterfuge, is there? My name is Victoria Turner.”

I didn’t care, me, what her name was, although I remembered her telling somebody else it was Dark Jones. I’d left Lizzie gasping and clawing for breath, her little face hot as a bonfire. I broke into a run, me. The leaves under my boots whispered like ghosts.

“Maybe I can help,” the donkey said.

“Go to hell!” I said, but then I stopped, me, and looked at her. She was a donkey, after all. She must be here, her, for something, just like that other girl in the woods last summer, the one that saved Doug Kane’s life, must of been there for something. I couldn’t guess for what, but I wasn’t no donkey. Still, sometimes donkeys could do things, them, that you didn’t expect.

The girl stood. Her yellow jacks had a tear in them, like everybody’s since the warehouse just stopped opening up for distrib, but they was clean. Jacks don’t get dirty or creased — dirt don’t stick to them somehow, or it washes off easy. But the girl wasn’t really no girl, her. When I looked closer I saw she was a woman, maybe as old as Annie. It was the genemod violet eyes and that body that made me think, me, that she was a girl.

I said, “How can you help?”

“I won’t know till I see the patient, will I?” she said, crisp and no nonsense. That made sense, at least. I led her, me, to Annie’s apartment on Jay Street.

Annie opened the door. I could hear Lizzie coughing, her, a sound that pretty near tore my own guts out. Annie pushed her big body out into the hall and pulled the door closed behind her.

“Who’s this? What are you bringing her here for, Billy Washington? You, get lost! We already seen, us, how much help you donkeys are when everything’s going wrong!”

I never saw Annie so mad. Her lips pressed together like they’d been mortared, and her ringers curled into claws like she was going to rake this Victoria Turner across her genemod donkey face. Victoria Turner looked at Annie coolly, her, and didn’t step back an inch.

“He brought me because I may be able to help the sick child. Are you her mother? Please step back so I can try.”

I stepped back, but then forward again because it hurt me, Annie’s face. It was furious and scared and exhausted. Annie hadn’t left Lizzie, her, to sleep or wash, not in two days. But Annie was used to letting donkeys solve her problems, and that was on her face. too. Along with iust the start of hone. Annie wanted something to hit and something to trust, her, and I thought I was both of those things, but here was this Victoria Turner and she was better, her, for both.

Annie reached behind herself and opened the door. Lizzie lay on the couch where I usually sleep. She was burning up, her, but Annie tried to keep a blanket on her. Lizzie kept kicking it off. There was water and food from the cafe, but Lizzie hadn’t taken any, her. She tossed and cried out, and sometimes her cries didn’t make no sense. She threw up just once, but she coughed all the time, great racking coughs that tore my heart.