To the Vanishing Point

4

According to the map, Baker was less than ten miles ahead. They drove the ten miles, then fifteen, without sighting the little desert town. Frank hadn’t paid much attention to the odometer since they’d left Los Angeles, but he watched the slowly revolving numbers intently now.

Admittedly Baker wasn’t much. A couple of hundred inhabitants, a few gas stations, a convenience store or two. But it was definitely too big to overlook. He drove another ten miles, searching the salt plain north of the highway. They had yet to see so much as a sign.

At least the sky had brightened. The unnatural darkness had vanished. The absence of their intended destination, however, mitigated the relief he felt at the return of the sky to normalcy. He checked the map. Baker should be twenty miles behind them by now.

"Sweetheart?" Alicia shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Shouldn’t we be there by now?"

"According to the map." He nodded at the dash.

"Could we have gone past it somehow?"

"You can’t go past a whole town out here," he shot back irritably. "Maybe it ain’t Manhattan, but there’s at least one off ramp. I don’t see how we could have missed it. We’ve both been watching and there are no wrong turns out here. I don’t under — "

She interrupted excitedly. "Oh, there’s a sign!"

Sure enough, they were coming up fast on one of the familiar big green highway signs that were posted on the shoulder. He could read it easily.

LAS VEGAS — 152 Miles

HADES JUNCTION — 6 Miles

The sign came and went at fifty-five miles per, leaving him little time to ponder the implications. Hades Junction but no Baker. He squinted at the map. There was no town by that name anywhere along I-40.

"They don’t always show the real small towns, Frank," Alicia said, replying to his concerns. She leaned close to the dash, looked satisfied when she sat back in the chair. "This map’s a couple of years old. They’re always putting in new stops."

Not in the Mojave, he told himself, but how could he be sure? Since when had he become a specialist in desert real estate? Anyone who wanted to build a new station, maybe a motel, could lobby for state recognition as a town. If you paid for your own off ramp, the state would probably grant you any kind of designation you wanted. He stared at the map.

He could have purchased a more detailed one, but what for? Why worry about the location of details you had no intention of visiting? None of which explained how they’d managed to drive right past Baker without seeing it. Baker had been here for a long time. Could it have been renamed Hades Junction since the map had been printed? He almost smiled. Certainly it would be a more descriptive moniker for a community located in the middle of the desert. If he’d been on the local Chamber of Commerce he would’ve voted for such a change. Hades Junction might attract a few more tourists than the bland Baker. Maybe that was it.

As for it lying twenty-six miles farther east than it should have, that could be his mistake. Or the odometer might be defective.

"Maybe you’re right," he said at last. She had to be right. There was no other explanation. "Either we missed Baker or they’ve gone and renamed the place."

"I don’t know." Alicia was brooding now. "I don’t like the idea of letting anybody off in a place with a name like that."

He couldn’t keep himself from laughing. "With a name like what? Half the places in the Southwest have names like that. Bad Water or Devil’s Hole or Perdition. We just passed the turnoff to Bagdad yesterday. Bet Hades Junction is a paradise compared to that."

"You’re probably right. As long as it’s a place where she can find another ride."

"Pretty lady like her," he murmured, "shouldn’t have trouble getting a ride anywhere." But hadn’t she insisted she’d been waiting a long time until they’d paused to pick her up? Or had that just been a line? Here he was worrying about a total stranger again.

As they cruised eastward he kept an eye on the odometer. It looked to be functioning properly. When they’d gone six miles from the sign they’d just passed, he was, by God, going to stop and find himself a town, or a gas station, or something. Otherwise he’d have a few choice words for the highway department and the manufacturers of their so far inadequate road map.

The sky was darkening again, but this time with obvious reason. Clouds were gathering overhead. Peculiar clouds, though. Rain clouds. What was unusual was that they took the form of long, thin tendrils instead of thick, puffy masses. Streamers of storm.

So now you’re a meteorologist, he chided himself. First you decide the plants have gone crazy, now it’s the clouds. He glanced speculatively to his left, out the window. Sword-leafed yuccas pressed close to the barbed-wire fence that bordered the highway limit. Ocotillos waved their tentacle-like arms in the absence of wind. Feeling unexpectedly queasy at the sight, he turned away.

Since the three big trucks and the sports car, not a single vehicle had passed them. Unusual, since he was doing fifty-five and out here it was normal for most drivers to ignore the speed limit. You’d expect to see trucks, if not a lot of cars. As a lifelong Angelino, he felt uneasy at the absence of traffic.

Alicia was leaning forward. "Oh, look, Frank! There are animals on the overpass!"

No off ramp here. Just an elevated crossing for an unknown country road. He tried to identify the shapes as they bore down on the overpass. "Not deer," he declared with certainty. Then they were passing beneath and the single brief glimpse was lost.

What sounded like a deluge of empty beer cans danced on the motor home’s roof.

"Hey!" Steven put his comic aside to look ceilingward.

"Must’ve been kids," Frank decided. "They must’ve thrown something down on us."

Except that couldn’t be the cause because the noise continued. It didn’t sound like beer cans or garbage rattling around the luggage rack. It sounded a lot like feet. Small feet.

"Some idiots jumped onto us." His knuckles whitened where he gripped the wheel. He knew what he ought to do was pull over and step outside for a look. Something in his gut insisted that that wouldn’t be a good idea.

Whatever was up there, scuttling around among their rented patio chairs and spare tires, there was more than one of them. The cold feeling he’d felt when he’d seen that black tuft at the rear of the gas station attendant’s coveralls now returned. He thumbed a switch. The luxurious, brand-new motor home came equipped with power everything. It took only the quick gesture to lock all the windows and doors.

Almost immediately the main door began to rattle.

"Dad?" Steven’s voice had gone hollow. "Hey, Dad, there’s something trying to get in."

Frank said nothing, trying not to let his imagination get in the way of deciding what to do next. He should have brought the gun. But Alicia hated guns. Besides, of what use was a pistol on the busy interstate between Los Angeles and Vegas?

That’s when Alicia screamed. Frank let out an oath and fought the wheel, fighting his own panic simultaneously as something came crawling down the windshield. It descended from the roof by clinging to the metal shaft that divided the windshield in two.

It looked like a big rat, complete with reddish-brown fur and naked tail. A rat with a feral intelligence gleaming in its oversized eyes. Halfway to the hood it paused to stare in at them, grinning to display razor teeth. In its right paw it held a crude blade about two inches long.

As Frank tried to keep the motor home from crashing, the verminous passenger crawled the rest of the way down the windshield support. Safely on the hood, it squatted on its hind legs and turned to regard the motor home’s inhabitants with a murderous gaze. It was soon joined by a companion. Instead of a miniature knife, the newcomer carried a tiny pickax.

Alicia had stopped screaming to hold her breath. The rat-things were chittering animatedly to each other. When they finished, they began using their sharp utensils to dig at the insulation that ran around the windshield’s perimeter. Meanwhile the rattling at the door had not ceased. Scraping sounds began above Frank’s head. They were coming from the rim of the skylight a foot behind his seat.

"My God, Frank — what is it? What are they?"

"I don’t know, Alicia. I don’t know!" He could hear Steven whining anxiously somewhere behind him.

"Mom, Dad?" Wendy was whispering. "What’s going on?" All of a sudden she sounded neither cocky nor composed.

Frank swallowed, found his voice. "Alicia, you and Wendy get the big kitchen knives out of the drawers. Look around under the stove. Maybe there’s a firewood ax, too. Anything that can be used as a weapon. Understand?" There were half a dozen of the rat-things on the hood now, cutting and chopping around the windows and vent flaps, hunting for a way in.

"Okay. Okay." Alicia started to rise, then yelled and pointed.

The vent door that was built into the metal next to the accelerator was opening.

With a curse Frank jammed his left foot down hard, slamming the six-inch-high louver shut. There was a tiny, inhuman screech and the pop of small bones crunching.

"Hold the wheel!"

"Frank?"

"The wheel, hold the damn wheel!"

Alicia grabbed at it, kept the motor home more or less steady as Frank bent over to throw the manual latch on the vent cover. Then he straightened and instructed Alicia to do the same to the vent on her side. She managed, though her hands were shaking badly.

It sounded now like a small army was scurrying all over the roof and sides of the motor home. Wendy sat huddled in a corner next to the bathroom while her little brother’s eyes flicked nervously from one window to the next.

It took Alicia a few minutes to find all the knives. There was no firewood ax. "The toolbox!" Frank glanced into the overhead rearview mirror. "It’s under the fridge. Take out the hammer and the screwdrivers!"

The rat-things weren’t big, but there were dozens of them and they were fast. If they found a way inside he’d have to pull over to fight them, and if they stopped here who knew what other nightmares might be lying by the side of the road, crouching behind the mutated prickly pears and boulders, just waiting for the opportunity to get their hands on the motor home’s defenseless inhabitants?

A sharp cracking sound filled his ears. Wendy shrieked, as the small window opposite her was partly shattered. There was a fixed screen inside the window. It blocked the entry of a furious, frustrated rat-thing long enough for Alicia to smash the baseball-sized skull with the toolbox hammer. Wendy screamed again as blood and brains went flying. The little monstrosity fell away and another took its place. Alicia battered at clutching hands until tiny, clawed fingers had been beaten to pulp.

"Get out!" she screamed as she flailed with the hammer. "Out, out, out!"

One on one, Alicia had the advantage of size and determination. No longer was she defending the integrity of the motor home. She was protecting her children now, protecting them from the unadulterated, unmitigated evil that wanted to hurt them. Though they kept trying, none of the rat-creatures managed to slip through the screen or past her bloody hammer.

"Everybody hang tight!" Frank yelled. "I’m gonna hit the brakes hard! Maybe we can throw some of them off!"

Risky to slow to a stop, he knew, however briefly. Surely in that one abrupt, unexpected moment they wouldn’t be able to disable the vehicle. It was the only thing he could think of.

My God, he thought suddenly. What if they’re under the hood? He could envision them swarming over the engine, slicing away with their little knives, chewing with their sharp teeth. If they cut through the alternator or fan belt the motor home would die from lack of power, or overheat. If that happened, he knew they couldn’t hold back the furry tide for long. But he couldn’t stop to check under the hood.

Hit the brakes. That was their only chance. Maybe he could throw half of them off, or even more. They wouldn’t be expecting the maneuver and…

A new sound filled the motor home’s interior. It rose cleanly over the bloodthirsty chittering outside and the panicky screams and cries of the imperiled family within. It soared above the still-smooth hum of the engine.

Mouse stood by the door to the rear bedroom. She had her head back and mouth open, and she was singing a song unlike anything Frank had ever heard. It contained echoes of the song she’d sung for them earlier, echoes only. Compared to the edgy, vaulting lyrics, his daughter’s heavy metal sounded positively pastoral, and Mouse achieved the effect without any instrumental backup.

At times the sound disappeared, but you could tell by watching the singer that she was singing as powerfully as ever. You couldn’t hear with your ears, but you could feel it in your bones, a high-frequency vibration that set your teeth on edge. It was all overpowering and wonderful and frightening. Words in a language Frank didn’t recognize were interspersed with stretches of pure music. He discovered he was shivering even though it was warm inside the motor home and the air-conditioning thrummed dutifully in the background.

It did more than make the rat-things shiver. Dropping their weapons they pressed paws to their ears, squealing in agony. Then they broke and ran, forgetting about the soft, warm, meaty things locked in the steel box on wheels. Mouse continued her apparently effortless song, her lithe body arrow-straight, the music pouring out of her as if from the depths of a high-powered speaker. Claws skittered across metal as the attackers fled, leaping from the roof and hood, some landing safely, others breaking and splattering on the unyielding pavement. Something in Mouse’s song drove them insane. Dozens crunched beneath the big steel-belted radials. Their bodies were small enough so that the impact didn’t interfere with the motor home’s progress.

The scratching and skittering faded while the song remained strong and pure, until the last little carnivore with its glaring red eyes and piranha-like teeth had vanished.

Frank studied the view presented by the rear-facing side mirrors. He saw nothing and did not expect to. At the speed they were traveling they would already have left the tiny army far behind. Meanwhile Mouse concluded her saving song with an impossible triple trill that sounded more like the product of a synthesizer than a human throat. When it died away it was once more peaceful and calm inside the motor home.

Alicia held both arms across her chest as she stared silently forward. Wendy was still sobbing fitfully in back but was beginning to regain some self-control. Her little brother just crouched motionless against the couch, watching their guest.

"What the hell were those?" Frank drove mechanically, afraid to slow down, unwilling to release his convulsive grip on the wheel. "What the hell is going on?"

"This isn’t happening." Alicia’s voice was very small. She was shaking her head slowly from side to side. "It isn’t happening. It’s all a dream."

"Not a dream." Mouse came toward them. "I’m sorry. For your sakes, I wish it was."

Frank noticed that she kept her balance no matter how severely the motor home leaned or swayed. She kept her balance, and he’d kept control. He sat a little straighter. Plenty of guys would’ve panicked back there, would’ve let go of the wheel or pulled over and run screaming into the desert. He’d held together better than a lot of would-be heroes in the face of unexpected, unimaginable horror. Alicia’d always told him he responded well in a crisis, like that time her mother had been visiting and had suffered the bad heart attack. Five minutes from now he might go completely to pieces, but for the moment he was fine.

Better try to find out what was happening now, then.

"Who are you? Nothing’s been right ever since we picked you up. Has the world gone nuts, or have we?"

She sighed. "I am very much afraid you are all still sane. Madness would make it easier for you to cope. As we strive constantly to hold back the madness, we are concurrently forbidden the luxury of descending into insanity." Vast lavender orbs gazed directly into his eyes. They held nothing back, and concealed everything.

The last vestiges of hysteria had faded from his voice. "While you were sleeping in the back we stopped for some gas. The guy at the station was, well, weird would be an understatement. He did a lot of sniffing around the motor home. I mean really sniffing, like a bloodhound or something. As we were getting ready to leave he asked me if we’d seen or picked up any hitchhikers. I thought that was a real peculiar thing to ask, just out of the blue like that."

"And you didn’t tell him."

"No. Now I’m not so sure I should’ve lied. What have we gotten ourselves into by giving you a lift, Mouse? Or Moscohotcha, or whatever your name is? Who are you, and what’s going on, and why do I have this funny feeling this Vanishing Point of yours isn’t a nightclub? Dammit, you owe us some straight answers!"

"Nightclub?" She looked puzzled. "I never said anything about a nightclub."

"You haven’t said anything about anything. Business partner of mine once said that in the absence of information it was natural for people to speculate. So we’ve been doing a lot of speculating. Me, I’m fresh out of speculations. I don’t understand those rat-things that attacked us and I don’t understand that attendant and I especially don’t understand you."

"I am…" she began, then stopped and started again. "It has to do with Chaos."

Frank turned back to stare at the unwinding ribbon of highway, growled, "Oh, well, that explains everything."

"Try to understand what I am going to say to you," she continued anxiously. "There is a problem with the Spinner. The One Who Spins. Who Modulates."

"Spins what?" Wendy had come forward to listen. She was frightened and exhilarated and scared and exultant all at once. Mouse turned to smile at her. Though the difference in their ages did not appear great, Wendy was conscious of an immense gap between them. For some reason it didn’t intimidate her.

"The fabric of existence." Mouse plucked at her rainbow sari dress. "This stuff, only new. This is fashioned of old existence; forgotten memories and lost history. Places that were but are no longer. Thoughts no longer vital. I wear the echoes of what was once. The Spinner weaves the threads of what is and will be.

"Therein lies the trouble. Almost always the Spinner spins smoothly and without interruption. Only very, very rarely does it suffer distress. When that happens, the fabric of existence becomes tangled, begins to unravel in places. Instead of unwinding in intricate patterns of logic, lines of existence twist and tangle. It is a matter of stress."

"How do you fix something like that?" Wendy asked the question without being sure what she was asking about.

"By relaxing the Spinner. By soothing it. By helping it resume its former natural rhythm. You cure such problems among yourselves, infinitesimally minor, with medicines. There is not enough medicine in the universe to adjust the Spinner’s rhythm. It requires something much more powerful and elusive." The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "It requires music.

"On the line of existence where I come from, music is our art and our science rolled into one. We are the consummate musicians of our age. And since music is very much a universal constant, something your people are only just coming to discover, we can survive the crossing from one line of existence to another. Among those of us who are considered gifted, I was the one chosen to try to reach the Spinner to soothe it. To regulate it with song. I was told it would be difficult and dangerous. In this I have thus far not been disappointed.

"I am not alone. Others will strive to reach the Spinner by other lines. But I was given the best chance. I cannot fail. I cannot assume that if I do so, another will be successful. And time is growing short."

"And this Spinner whatsis, it lives at this Vanishing Point place?" Frank asked dubiously.

"Where else would the Spinner exist?"

"Beats the hell out of me," he muttered sarcastically.

"What happens if you don’t get to this Vanishing Point in time?" Wendy wondered.

"Then," Mouse declared solemnly, "the fabric of existence will continue to tangle and unravel. Some lines will abruptly cease to exist, while many will cross and intertwine, to the destruction and detriment of all." She moved forward until she was standing close to the back of Alicia’s chair. "That’s why the countryside here has appeared different to you."

"What about those — creatures," Alicia asked. "Why did they attack us?"

"Because my journey is opposed. I was told it might be."

"So those things were after you, not us," Frank said. "Same with that station attendant." She nodded.

"But if what you’re trying to do is for the good of everyone, why would anyone want to stop you?" Wendy wondered.

"Not for the good of everything." Mouse turned her gaze to the road ahead. "There is Chaos. To it the tangling and unraveling of the lines of existence would be a final fulfillment. Once, eons ago, it almost achieved this, but the Spinner was modulated and the fabric of existence saved. Periodically, small lines of existence do break or knot. Your own line has several knots in it. Once, when plant life appeared. Again, when the creatures you call dinosaurs became extinct. But these were only knots, not breaks. Small interruptions to an otherwise intact and undamaged line."

"Small," Frank mumbled.

"Each time a line knots, or breaks, or tangles, the Cosmos moves a little nearer utter Chaos. When the lines are straight and smooth, when logic and reason rule the Spinner’s actions, civilization advances everywhere. Chaos is pushed back, its dominion reduced. One day in the unbelievably far future it may be eliminated altogether. Then peace and understanding may pass between the lines, and all organized intelligence everywhere may come to know one another.

"Chaos is a poor pursuer. Relentless, but by its very nature disorganized. That is its weakness and our strength. Unfortunately, it has an ally. What you would call Evil. In all its forms it serves as an ally and friend to Chaos, for where Chaos reigns, Evil prospers. So Chaos seeks, by means we are not certain of, to enlist Evil in all its forms to aid it. That is one reason why singers such as myself do not travel in groups where we would be conspicuous. Individuals can slip and slide and hide themselves among various lines of existence, escaping the notice of Evil."

"That attendant!" Wendy said with a start.

Mouse nodded. "He was certainly searching for me, but my smell was submerged among your own." She looked down at Frank. "Even so he would have found me out if not for your quick thinking."

"How come I don’t feel better?"

Mouse put a fine hand on his shoulder and then he did feel better. Warm and admired. He thought about shrugging it away but did not. "It is a great thing you are doing, Frank Sonderberg. Greater than you know."

"Don’t get melodramatic. I’m just trying to get my family and myself to Las Vegas. For a vacation." He snorted in frustration. "At the rate we’re going we’re gonna need a vacation from the vacation. Lines of existence. Spinners. Chaos and Evil versus reason and civilization. Gimme a break. I’m just a successful businessman. My idea of a major crusade is buying season tickets to the Dodgers."

"I am sorry, Frank. You have committed yourself."

"To getting to Vegas," he muttered.

Wendy rose, tugging at the waistband of her jeans. "What would’ve happened if that old man at the station had figured out you were in here with us?"

"He would have raised a great alarm. Others would have responded. Minions of Evil, far more dangerous than he, infinitely more vicious than the rat-things that assailed us. I think they attacked because they saw in you easy prey, not because of me. At least, I am hoping that is why they attacked.

"As to my fate if I had been discovered, I have no doubt I would have been slain on the spot. Then Chaos would have rejoiced. The Cosmos would have grown a little darker, the stars a touch more ominous at night."

"What about us?" Alicia swallowed hard. "What would have happened to us?"

"I can imagine for you. Are you sure you want me to?"

Alicia turned away from those bottomless orbs. "No, never mind. I guess that’s not necessary."

"I know what is necessary." Frank was grim. "Next stop, whether it’s Baker or Needles or wherever, you’re getting out. I’m sorry if you’ve got a problem, but it’s none of our business."

"Of course it is your business. Your line of existence is as much in danger as my own or anyone else’s. As I said, you are already committed."

He frowned uneasily. "I heard what you said. What’s that mean, we’re already committed?"

"By helping me you have entwined yourselves with my line. We are bound together now, by circumstance if not choice. If I were to leave you now, the servants of Evil would still seek you out. You are involved, Frank. You are all involved. I did not plan it this way. Remember, it was you who stopped to assist me."

"Just to give you a ride, fer chrissake."

She nodded. "Without me to guide and protect you I fear you will never reach your destination. Any destination."

"Does it have a name?" Steven asked.

Mouse turned in surprise. "You’re a precocious little fellow, aren’t you? I suspected as much. Does what have a name?"

"This Chaos thing that’s after us." To Steven it was all a game, albeit a serious one.

"We call the antisoul the Anarchis. Think of it that way if it pleases you." She turned back to Steven’s parents. "The great danger is that it realizes it need only prevent me from reaching the Spinner. If it can do that by placing obstacles in our path, then the fabric of existence will continue to unravel by itself. It need but rest and wait as the Cosmos comes apart around it."

"Like melting Jell-O," said Wendy thoughtfully.

"And you’re the number-one Anarchis-fighter, huh?" Frank no longer made any attempt to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Not Anarchis-fighter. Through thought every sentient being does battle with it every moment. It is not a question of defeating the Anarchis but of soothing, of modulating, of reregulating the Spinner."

"You can sing. I’ll grant you that. Otherwise you don’t look so hot to me."

"Not all is exactly as it appears to be, Frank Sonderberg. You too are more than you think you are."

"Never mind what I am," he said, embarrassed. "What matters is that, according to you, even if we drop you off somewhere we’re still stuck with fighting this whatever-it-is because we’re somehow sensitized to this battle from picking you up."

Mouse was genuinely contrite. "I am sorry for that, but if you had not helped me, the fabric of existence would continue its unraveling. I promise that would soon affect you and your entire world. But help me you have. Now I am on my way again to the Vanishing Point. Hope is born anew. All we must do is get there."

Frank was shaking his head. "You’re real big on this we business, aren’t you?"

"Drive me to the Vanishing Point and I will take care of everything. Once there, you need no longer be involved, nor will you be an object of interest to the forces of Evil any longer."

"That’s all we’ve got to do, huh? Where is this Vanishing Point, anyway? I take it, somewhere close to Vegas?"

"It moves around. At the moment, it is indeed in the vicinity of the place you call Las Vegas. Its motions are complex and difficult to predict."

"I’ll bet. And this Spinner, it’s at this Vanishing Point?"

"Yes." Mouse looked relieved. "Now you understand!"

"No, I do not understand. I don’t understand a damn thing. But I didn’t understand those rat-creatures that tried to get at us, either, and they were real enough." He glanced back. "You’re real enough. So even though I don’t understand, I guess at least part of what you’re talking about must be real, too.

"How do I know we can trust you? How do we know you’re not lying about all of this? It’d be easy just to kick you out, right here, and forget about you."

"Easy enough, until your whole world accelerated its descent into madness and destruction."

"Look, why should I have to take that kind of responsibility? I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want it!"

"Frank," said Alicia calmingly, "we’re going to Las Vegas anyway. Aren’t we?"

He slumped in the padded seat. "I used to think so."

It was still unnaturally dark outside. Nothing else materialized to assault the motor home. After a while the peculiar thin storm clouds began to break up and fade away.

"What happened to Baker?" he asked.

Mouse blinked. "What?"

"Baker," he repeated patiently. "We were supposed to have passed a little town called Baker."

"Then we probably did, only we are no longer on its line of existence. Your reality has already begun to fray."

He shook his head dubiously. "I can’t get used to this idea of reality coming to pieces like an old suit. What about Las Vegas? Are you saying it doesn’t exist for us any longer, either?"

"Oh, Frank." Alicia started to chide him. "Of course Las Vegas still exists!" Her expression dropped and she turned uncertainly to Mouse. "Doesn’t it?"

"I would think so. It is the small things that change first. They are more brittle. Small things. A few plants, an animal or two, the color of the sky, a small town sooner than a large one. Your road has not yet changed, has it?"

Frank had to admit that I-40 looked as monotonous as ever. The smooth concrete stretched out unbroken before them. The barbed-wire fence lining the limits of the state’s right-of-way held back the desert. The culverts they occasionally passed over were still fashioned of corrugated steel — though after detecting motion in one of them he found he no longer glanced in their direction.

"All right. We’ll take you in to Vegas, but no farther. No matter what’s happening to the fabric of existence. Got it?"

"I am grateful for your aid. Though you know it not, you are helping yourselves as you help me."

"Yeah, sure." Frank didn’t hide his displeasure as he hunched over the wheel.