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"Joanne"

"How long have you been on the road?"

"Isn&039;t that my line?" I asked him "I think it&039;s been about thirty-six hours, but I&039;m really not too sure anyuess you know it&039;s not safe to drive like that"

"Safer than stopping," I said, and then wondered why I had; I don&039;t confide, especially not in normal, mundane people David nodded and looked out the"So how long have you been on the road?"

"A while now I like it It&039;s beautiful out there" He nodded toward the other side of the glass, where things hipping by at Mustang speed "Everybody should get out in the world for a while, just so they knoho they are, and why"

It sounded philosophical and New Agey to me, but hey, I freely ad, cooked food, and reliable heating any tireat I just don&039;t think she likes us very much"

"She likes us fine," David replied "But she doesn&039;t stack the deck for one side or the other, and we seeet the same shots as humans, in her view And I think that&039;s fair"

"I&039;"

"Nobody wins," he said "Or don&039;t you watch the Discovery Channel?"

"More of a Comedy Central fan, ot a cabin with cable stashed in your backpack"

He out and out grinned this time "No, but sometimes I take a room at a e You got soainst the Discovery Channel?"

"Adult pay-per-view," I advised hiely, I felt less sleepy and less fogged over eariness since he&039;d gotten in the car Maybe there really was so coet

He looked over atcynical by his gentle eyes

"Real life," he said, "is alwaysYou just never knoill happen"

What happened was that we drove for another thirty minutes, and the skies were clear and menace free, and I finally was able to pull in for a pit stop at a place called Krazy Ed&039;s Gas &039;n Food Krazy Ed hiister I don&039;t know if he was Krazy, but he wasto bet that he&039;d killed a feould-be burglars in his tiot out as quickly as possible with his haul of cheese doodles and Twinkies and diet soda Evidently his oneness with Mother Nature did not extend to eating organic-or even partially organic- food

Delilah drank her fill at the puh heels and asked Krazy Ed if there was anyplace in town he could reco store Apparently there was It was a little place called the mall

"Mall," I echoed after David and I were back in the car, safely out of Krazy Ed&039;s reach "How big a mall can there be in a town this size? A Wal-Mart I could understand, wherever two or three of us are gathered together, but"

David didn&039;t say anything He just pointed to the road sign directly in front of us It read, green hills outlet h, byout of Pennsylvania altogether

"Oh," I said "Pretty big, I guess"

So we followed the signs

Big wasn&039;t the word; the place was frigging enormous I&039;d seen major airports that covered less land -city car dealerships and stuck theuous lot, and you&039;d still have fewer vehicles than were choked into narros around the Green Hills Outlet Mall I offered David the chance to get a ride with some of the thousands of other mall shoppers, but he politely declined and walked into the place with me, hands in his overcoat pockets and eyes full of sly ay field trip I wondered howweren&039;t really hand-me-downs after all-blue checkered flannel shirt, blue jeans, lived-in hiking boots, that vintage overcoat It all looked good quality, with no ground-in dirt-in fact, recently washed Like David hi stinkier If he&039;d been living rough, it certainly hadn&039;t been any rougher than uys on the road for a couple of years tended to wear e free

Still I checked Oversight He was placidly un-s," I told hio to the food court if you want to and eat soe My treat"

We were, in fact, looking at the food court, which was larger and noisier than Barnu top Even the pickiest taste could find soers to Szechuan, curry to pork pies David looked mildly impressed I handed him a twenty-dollar bill "Knock yourself out See you back here in an hour If I don&039;t see you, I&039;ll assuht another ride, okay?"

He pocketed the twenty without protest and nodded without looking et ot to the escalator and saas standing there, watching ht neon fire as he turned his head, and he walked off into the croith his overcoat swinging gracefully around hi I wasn&039;t quite sure what Why the hell had I picked hiirl could have the occasional weakness for a cute, er The question hy the hell was I still with him?

I made the decision that when I was done here, I&039;d slip out the side exit and leave hiiven him a ride, contributed a twenty to the cause-I&039;d done ht? And there ell, me to consider I had my own problems, dammit

Yes Definitely That&039;s what I would do

The escalator delivered me to a whole different level of color, this one full of clothes Trashy clothes, flashy clothes, trendy clothes, clothes even randmother would have found too dowdy to wear I picked a place called Violent Velvet and decided that it deserved a once-over for the name alone

The color of the season, I discovered, was purple- well, last season, because it was an outletstock that hadn&039;t sold, but that didn&039;t matter I liked purple I liked purple velvet even better, and since the spring wasn&039;t so ware

Half an hour later I eer pants, a stretch lace white shirt, and a flared purple jacket that harked back to Edwardian styles Everything I earing, froood, it was aled two more outfits and a pair of purple satin pajamas, and reveled in the feel of flat-heeled, fashionably clunky shoes My feet were shell-shocked but grateful A quick fifteen-minute stop at the nearby convenience store netted me tampons, toothpaste, toothbrush, travel-size ood Girl Scout is always prepared-a discreet travel-size package of condo David So the condo

Anyway, it had nothing to do with hiht have a date before I even irl pohen suddenly the hair alongWeather? No, that was okay, a quick survey of Oversight toldelse I couldn&039;t pin it down, but the feeling persisted So here, in theht But not weather-

I realized I was feeling faint, and I didn&039;t understand why I&039;d been feeling great just a few seconds ago, loving my violent velvet, ready to take on the world Now I needed to sit down

I found an unoccupied Victorian-style wrought-iron bench and sat down next to soht above, but a finch had somehow found its way in and was perched on one of the branches, watching me with beady finch-eyes It made a sharp sound that sounded dull and s it underwater, and it snapped its wings and fleay

Fainter Sounds fading I couldn&039;t understand as happening I was breathing faster, but the part ofthat soure it out when I slid sideways and fell over on the bench Cool white-painted iron against athered Lipsfast, and because ernail beds were turning a pure, delicate blue

So about-about-experiment at school-

Oh, God, I couldn&039;t breathe No, that&039;s not right, I was breathing, but there just wasn&039;t anything there to breathe Nothing but my own carbon dioxide

I re in front of me, that I&039;d done this before Not as the subject As the experimenter

I&039;d done this to a lab rat Re him and made it a clear poisonous shell around hiet away-