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The guys in the back of the pickup, ar the shoulder of the lane The driver pulls off the pave V-shaped blade, and drives into the field, plowing a firebreak toward the sea At once theup any chunks that the plow didn’t churn loose, creating a six- or eight-foot width of bare earth
With no wind to chase the fire, it h for the truck toa twelve- or sixteen-foot barrier In this stillness, the flames will not be able to jump across a swath that wide
Farther up the lane, the tanker truck co on the back of it drops off, and tomen exit the cab The three set to work in what appears to be a ine only that the truck has a powerful pu strearassland
One of the proble—my ainst people who have a well-considered plan and are expert at executing it
I counsel ainst me, there’s always a chance they will tip once more in my favor
Then I sneeze The scent of Berht a skunk’s rass in which I lie sround-level sh to burn like the fumes of a habanero pepper in my nostrils Explosive sneezes reduce y sufferer in a TV commercial for an antihistanificant distance, but I put down the guns and bury lad that these are essentially dry sneezes
If I were Batman, my cape would already be on fire
Suddenly, a breeze The grass around me shivers and flutters toward the south and east And the breeze grows stronger They say a blaze in the wild can generate its oind, but I think that has to be a big firestorm
Surprised out offor a les through Harmony Corner from the northwest, off the sea and across the hilly rass and leap higher, and fro bark peel away and, airborne, carry the contagion of fire over the heads of those who fight it, infecting grass beyond them The new sle, and a soft tide rolls toward the tanker truck, toward the firebreak crew
I a the chaos I wanted The problem is, you can switch chaos on, but chaos itself is in control of the off switch
TWENTY
Ed, once called Aladdin, is the first artificial intelligence I’ve ever known Maybe if Harry can kill Hiskott and if then I live long enough to see the world become the total science-fiction theme park it seems to be headed toward, I’ll probably know dozens of them one day Let me tell you, if they’re all as nice as Ed has turned out to be, that’s okay with me
So after he breaks the beastly news to me—that if the FBI ever knohere Dr Hiskott went and what he’s been doing these past five years and all, they’ll quarantine my whole family forever—Ed asks me to sit at one of the workstations in the sphere-observation room As I park h I don’t touch it
Although the whole freaking government will throw my family in the slammer of all slammers, Ed says my Harry Potter, cute as he is, isn’t the only one who can help us, that there is another Well, as you can iine, I have a need to knoho that is
“First things first,” Ed says
On the computer screen appears a head shot of Harry in the yellow hallhere Orc lies mummified
“You have cameras everywhere, huh?”
“Not everywhere But wherever there is a security camera or a computer with an online link and Skype capacity, or a cell phone with a camera function, anywhere in the world, I have eyes”
“Whoa That’s a whack upside the head I guess with artificial intelligence, just like with natural intelligence, there can be a way-creepy side”
“Would you rather that I were blind, Jolie Ann Harmony?”
“Well, now I feel seriously mean No, Ed, I don’t wish you were blind I just hope you never watch ”
“Security cameras are not installed in bathrooms, and neither are computers with Skype capacity”
“Well, I guess that’s ht”
“If you take a smartphone into the bathroom, I would advise you to keep it switched off”
“For sure”
“I g
uarantee you, Jolie Ann Har hus in bathrooms”
“I didn’t really think you did, Ed I’ What I was thinking was, soht not be as respectful as you are”
“That is so to consider I cannot vouch for the stability of any future artificial intelligences”
On the computer monitor, the photo of my Harry in the yellow hallway is replaced by a different photo of hiht have been in a newspaper
Ed says, “Harry’s real name is Odd Thomas”
“Odd?”
“Apparently, the origin of the na story We have no time for it now”
“How’d you learn his name?”
“I applied facial-recognition software to all the photos in the files of the California DMV but could not find him there”
“That’s likedid that take?”
“Seven italized photo archives of the Associated Press”
The photo goes away and sohteenmall in Pico Mundo, forty-one wounded and nineteen dead A policeman says there would have beenman, who happens to be Harry I mean, Odd Thomas The policeman says hundreds would have died if Odd hadn’t taken down both gunmen and dealt with a truck full of explosives and all The reporter says Odd won’t talk to the press, he tells us that Odd says he didn’t do anything special Odd says anyone would have done what he did The reporter says Odd is as shy as he is courageous, but even though I’ht word isn’t shy