"I beg your pardon?"

"It's another one of the Agency's good ideas. San Francisco could be a very good Safe City. It's surrounded on three sides by water. Unfortunately, there're a lot of ruins that have to be clearedand we've got militant preservationists second-guessing every lamppost. So, the governor locked them out. They pay me ten K a month to swear that the city's still a plague reservoir."

"Is it?"

"The truth is-yes, it is." We reached the crest of the bridge then and the city spread out before us-what was left of it. The sight was ghastly. San Francisco was a skeleton. The city had been gutted. The stump of the Transamerica Tower gaped like a broken tooth. Coit Tower still stood, but it was blackened by fire. I didn't recognize many other buildings. Where they should have been there was rubble and ruin. "Oh, my God-" I choked on the words.

"I know," she agreed.

"I've seen the pictures," I gasped. "But-I had no idea-this is horrible."

"It gets everybody that way, the first time. I still get a tight throat when I come across the bridge."

"There's... nothing left."

"Firestorm," she said. The single word explained everything. Fletcher unlocked the steering wheel and pulled it into position before her, putting the jeep back on manual control. Autopilots were fine on paved roads. They had problems with rubble. We rolled down off the bridge in an eerie silence.

"Do you remember City Hall?" she asked.

"Uh huh. There was a big plaza in front."

"It's still there," she said. "But not much of City Hall."

She steered carefully through the steel and brick canyons of lower Market Street. The fires had burned themselves out here. But even so-there were places where the buildings looked blasted, even melted from the heat. I noticed a sign that said, SAN FRANCISCO WARLOCK ADMINISTRATION-and wondered if there were any warlocks left in California at all.

We'd thought the plagues were over. We'd come down from the hills, out of our hiding places. We thought we had vaccines. The government said it was safe. We had all the best excuses to return to the cities.

But the plagues weren't over, and the vaccines only worked sometimes, and the cities still weren't safe. The plagues came back stronger than ever. There was panic. There were fires. There was a firestorm. And when it was over, San Francisco was gone. It was like driving through a graveyard.

"I thought you said the military was working over here," I said.

"Most of the work is still off the corridor," Fletcher said. "And a lot of it is being done by robots." Suddenly, she pointed. "Look, there-"

"What?" And then I saw. She was pointing at a zombie. She slowed the jeep.

He was papery and thin-naked, except for a ragged blanket he wore like a poncho. There was almost no flesh at all on his bones. He looked like he was a hundred years old; it was impossible to guess what his real age might have been-he was gray and gaunt; his white hair hung down to his shoulders in a greasy mat.

The zombie's face looked mechanically animated; the expression was curiously empty, but the features were in constant motion. The mouth worked continually. The jaw floated up and down, releasing a thin dribble of spittle. The blackened tongue stuck out absently, like a retarded child's, then pulled in again. The cheeks sucked in and puffed out. The face moved as if no one wore it any more. It looked like a fish sucking at the glass wall of the aquarium.

The zombie turned and looked at us then-and for just an instant it was as if whoever might have once lived inside that body was struggling to animate it once again. The expression became momentarily curious, the eyelids fluttered like trapped moths. And then the gaze went confused again. He seemed to be fading in and out of focus-and he had trouble balancing himself as well. He caught himself on the front of the jeep and stared through the windshield, shifting back and forth between Fletcher and myself. He blinked and blinked again as he stared at us. His face wrinkled in puzzlement.

"He looks like he's trying to recognize us," I whispered.

Fletcher nodded. "He can't. He's lost his timebinding ability."

"Huh?"

"A zombie exists only in the present. He only knows something exists if he's looking at it."

As if in confirmation, the zombie's puzzlement was turning to pain. He looked like he wanted to cry but didn't remember how.

He fluttered his fingers toward Fletcher, then toward me-then abruptly he refocused on his hand, a gray claw-like thing on the end of his arm, as if he'd never seen it before. He forgot about us, blinking in confusion. His hand dropped. He turned and moved away without purpose, a soulless thing again. He shambled off toward the west.

"Is that it?" I said. "I've seen zombies before. That's what happens to the walking wounded when they sink to that place below despair. Once they hit the zombie level, you can't bring them back."

Fletcher looked like she wanted to say something in reply to that. Instead, she eased the car forward again.

As we moved up Market Street, we began to see other shambling zombies. Most were heading westward. All of them were thin and dirty. Most wore rags, or less. Their movements were disorganized, fragmented, and surreal. They looked like they'd wandered out of Auschwitz or Belsen or Buchenwald-except for their expressions. The concentration-camp survivors had at least had life in their eyes-an awareness of the horror and hopelessness of their situation. The zombies had nothing.

The zombies were ... detached. From the world, from everything-from their own bodies. They looked curious, and their eyes moved in quick, jerky glances; but they had no focus of attention. Their faces were empty. They moved like palsy victims.

Fletcher slowed the Jeep then to steer around the rubble. Most of the zombies were ignoring us. A dirty creature-male or female, it was impossible to tell-shambled by us. It trailed one hand across the hood of the car. Its expression was ... almost happy. "That one looks stoned," I said.

"Mm hm," Fletcher nodded. She angled the Jeep between two piles of bricks and up a side street. I recognized the remains of Brooks Hall on the left. The ruined marquee said simply, SAINT FRANCIS WRITHES AGAIN. I wondered who'd put that message up.

We pulled up facing a wide dirty field. At the far end of it, what was left of City Hall loomed like a broken castle. You could still make out its broad stone steps. This had once been a great plaza; now it was a gray expanse of dust and broken concrete. Nothing grew here any more.

"Okay," I said. "Now what?"

"Now, we get out and look around."

"Huh?"

"It's safe." She patted my hand and climbed out of the Jeep. I had no choice but to follow.

There were ... people ... in the plaza. They were pinker and somewhat healthier-looking than the ones we'd passed on Market Street. Zombies? Not quite. Many of them were fairly young-in their twenties and thirties. There were some teenagers, only a few children. There were very few beyond middle age.

Most of the bodies were haphazardly dressed. Or maybe that should have been haphazardly undressed. They moved without regard for their clothing. It was as if somebody else had hung clothes on them, or they had draped themselves with whatever was handy. What clothing they did have seemed to be for warmth, not modesty.

"So?" I turned to Fletcher. "I've seen this before too. These are walking wounded."

"Are they?" she asked.

"Well, sure-" I started to say. And then stopped. I looked at her. "They're something else?"

"Go find out," she pointed. "Try talking to them." I looked at her as if she were crazy. Talk to them? "It's safe," she reassured.

I turned back and studied the milling bodies. They moved without purpose, but they didn't shamble. They just sort of... moved. I picked out a young male. Maybe he was sixteen. Maybe he was twenty-five. I couldn't tell. He had long brown hair that hung past his shoulders. He was wearing an old gray shirt, nothing else. He had large dark eyes. He'd been very attractive once.