It had been a long night. Ruddy could barely keep his eyes open in spite of the loud complaints of his stomach. He’d spent the night huddled in an overgrown lot between two empty skyscrapers, watching people wander around in the streets. None of them looked like upstanding citizens. He tried to sleep, but every time he drifted off, some noise convinced him he was about to be robbed and killed.

  When the sun came up, he still didn’t have a plan. And now he needed to use the bathroom.

  What do all these people do when they have to go? he thought, as he pushed through a crowd of vagrants. Do they have to piss in public? Where do they brush their teeth?

  He stumbled onto the bus station by accident. The building was packed. Families huddled together near the walls. A blank-faced mother holding her baby stared at him as he made his way inside.

  I’ll buy a bus ticket out of here, he thought. There are places out in the country that don’t even have electricity anymore. How could they possibly know about me there?

  He’d worked all night on changing his face, but he had no way of knowing how it looked. So far, so good.

  Ruddy had no trouble pushing through the crowd. There were advantages to being so big. People always got out of his way.

  If this works, I’ll be able to sleep on the bus and come up with a plan.

  He stepped up to the ticket counter and looked at the list of destinations. "Can I get a ticket to … uh ... Phoenix?"

  The teller glared at him. "ID, please.”

  Shit. My name is probably all over the news.

  “What if I don’t have an ID?”

  "Law says you need ID to travel. Next?"

  "Wait!" Ruddy said. "I’ve got it.” He reached for his wallet. His back pocket was empty.

  “What? I …”

  “Next!” she called again.

  “Wait! Someone must have stolen my wallet. Please. You have to help me. My, uh, mom’s sick. If I don’t make it…"

  "Look mister, I don’t care if your mother is dying right now as we speak. If you got no ID, I can’t sell you a ticket. Clear out or I’ll call security. Next!"

  “I … okay.” He stepped out of line. What the fuck do I do now?

  Something hard pressed up against his ribcage. “Don’t make a scene, Mr. Unglesby. I’m with the Department of Surveillance and Supervision of Afflicted. Come with me.”

  “But … somebody stole my wallet.”

  “You won’t be needing it,” the man said. “And don’t get any ideas about running. I’ve got abilities like you, and so do my friends. You’d be dead before you took two steps or changed your form. Now let’s keep things civil, and you come along quietly.”

  Ruddy looked around. There was nothing he could do. Anyone could be an agent.

  Probably snipers on the roof too, just like in Half-Life.

  "Where are you taking me?" he asked.

  "We’ve got a car waiting outside. You and I are going to walk out there like civilized people, and then we’ll take you someplace safe, got it?"

  Ruddy nodded. His shoulders drooped and he sighed. He was caught.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said. “It was someone else. He killed Travis, not me.”

  “Not my business. I’m just here to take you in. But if you didn’t do it, they’ll know. And it doesn’t really matter anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They don’t care what you’ve done, only what you can do for them. Don’t worry. It’s not as bad you think.”

  “What’s not so bad?”

  The agent stopped and looked around. He took a radio out of his pocket. “This is unit four. He’s not here. Everyone back in position.”

  “Wait … what?” Ruddy said.

  “He can’t hear you.” A short girl with light brown eyes and black hair stood, leaning on a cane, watching him. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

  “Oh … what … hi. Who are … what’s ...?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not with them. My name is Teri. I’m afflicted like you.”

  Teri looked like she was on her last legs. Her arm was pressed against her side, and her shirt was soaked with blood. She looked like an extra in a zombie movie.

  “You’re hurt,” Ruddy said. “Is it bad?”

  “Yes,” Teri said. “I need your help. And I think you need mine.”

  I don’t even know this girl, he thought. He shook his head. Then again, it’s not like I have much choice. And she’s hurt. What am I going to do, leave a girl to bleed to death? Way to be a hero, Ruddy.

  “What do you need me to do?” he said.

  “I can get us out of here, but I can barely walk. You’re going to have to carry me.”

  “Oh. I can do that.” He reached for her, and she flinched.

  He held his hands up in the air. “Sorry! I thought you said …”

  “It’s okay.” She straightened her back. “It’s been a long week. Go ahead.”

  Ruddy picked her up and held her the same way he’d seen people carry sleeping children. She was tiny, all skin and bones, and barely five feet tall. He’d probably have had no trouble carrying her even if he wasn’t such a Neanderthal.

  She grimaced with pain as he jostled her. Her bandages emitted a foul smell.

  “We better hurry,” she said. “The longer I have to hide us, the more likely I am to make a mistake.

  “Hide us? Wow! You mean we’re invisible?”

  “Yes,” Teri said. “And you’re right, the smell is not a good sign. But we can’t do anything about it here.”

  Ruddy glanced around again. No one was looking at them.

  "Don’t worry.” Her voice was so soft Ruddy had to lean toward her. “We just have to avoid the cameras. I can’t fool cameras."

  "This is amazing. How do you do it?”

  “Like I said, I’m afflicted, like you.”

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  “I can’t do any of this!”

  “Well, not exactly like you. You’re what they call a shifter. A changeling, to be precise. I’m a mentalist.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Most people don’t,” she said. “The government doesn’t exactly advertise what we can do.”

  “So how do you know so much?” Ruddy said.

  “Because I can read minds,” she said. “That’s what a mentalist does.”

  “And how are you making us invisible?”

  “I keep people from noticing us. I’d rather avoid messing with people’s minds, but I don’t have much choice. There are nine DSSA agents here looking for you.”

  Ruddy swallowed. “We better get out of here then.”

  “I have a plan,” she said. “But I need you to help me.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Ruddy smiled. “Hey, we should team up! If we work together, they’ll never find us.”

  Teri looked around. “I agree. Normally I could hide myself indefinitely, but I’m not exactly in great shape at the moment. If you can get us to the parking lot, we can get a car. Just make sure and do as I say to avoid the cameras.”

  "How do you know where the cameras are?" Ruddy said.

  “It’s easy. I look at the ones I can see and extrapolate from that. Everything has a predictable pattern. If you can find the pattern, you can predict the outcome with surprising accuracy. When people try to be random, they just create complicated patterns. The behavior of humans is like anything else. If you watch them long enough, you always know exactly what they are going to do and how they are going to react. It’s like a physicist studying particles or an ecologist studying animals, but with more complex patterns.”

  “Oh,” Ruddy said.

  She smiled. “Plus I can read minds, remember?”

  Ruddy carried her towards the exit, zigging and zagging whenever she told him to. She not only knew where the cameras were, she timed their movements so that no one’s path intersected theirs. Once when Ruddy thought a woman was going to collide with them, she stepped aside to tie her shoe instead.

  It took them a half hour to get outside the station and over to the far parking lot. He wended his way through the rusted-out cars that filled half the lot. One of the bus terminals that had burned during the Event still had blackened deformed I-beams poking out of jagged-looking rubble. He remembered his dad going on about that, how all the debris that never got cleaned up after the Event needed to be more of a priority—something about people being less likely to piss on the seat if the bathroom was clean, or something like that.

  A car sped in, screeching as it turned a corner.

  "She’s running late," Teri said, not even glancing in the vehicle’s direction. She pointed to a parking spot. "She’s going to park there."

  The woman passed up two spaces farther away, didn’t notice a closer space, and parked where Teri said she would. Ruddy stared at her wide-eyed.

  Could be a lucky guess, Ruddy thought.

  “No luck involved,” she said.

  “Wait … woah. What am I thinking right now?”

  “Purple Godzilla.”

  “Holy shit!” Ruddy said. "There’s no way you could have guessed that.”

  Teri smiled.

  “OK,” Ruddy said. “What’s she going to do next?"

  “Drop her keys,” Teri said.

  “How could you possibly know that if she doesn’t know that?”

  “Just watch.” The woman jumped out of her car like it was made of hot potatoes, then dashed to the trunk and started yanking suitcases and bags out. As she was fumbling for the lock button on her keychain, she dropped her keys.

  “Dammit,” the woman muttered. “I don’t have time for this!” She snatched her keys up, tossed them into her purse, and hurried off.

  “You made her do that. That’s cheating!”

  "Yes, it is. Better go grab those keys before someone runs over them."

  "What?" The keys were still lying on the concrete. "I thought she picked them up.”

  “So does she,” Teri said.

  “Wow.” Ruddy grabbed them. “That was too easy. Um, I’ve never stolen a car before.”

  "Me either,” Teri said. “I don’t even know how to drive.”

  “So you can make people do or see whatever you want?”

  She sighed. “You’re wondering if I’m making you do something right now. I’m not.”

  “Oh, I know. I wasn’t wondering that.”

  “Yes, you were. I don’t blame you for being scared. It scares me, too.”

  “I’m not scared!” Ruddy said. “So, what happened to you, anyway?”

  Teri was quiet for a moment. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

  “But your shirt is bloody.”

  She sighed. “I got shot. It’s fine though, I just need...”

  "Shot? Jesus! You need a hospital."

  “Yes. I should be in a hospital, but it’s not an option with DSSA looking for me. I already had surgery but I had to run. The wound opened and it’s infected. I need antibiotics—strong ones—and rest. But I can’t pull off a hospital heist. That’s where they’ll be looking for me.”

  “But … you can make us invisible.”

  “DSSA has mentalists, too. And I’m having enough trouble staying awake.”

  Ruddy nodded. “Then I’ll do it.”

  “No, Ruddy,” Teri said. “It wouldn’t work. They’re looking for you too. If you get caught, how is that going to help me?”

  “I can change my face,” he said. “I did it at the bus station.”

  “They recognized you the minute you walked in,” she said. “You need practice before you can fool trained people, and your size doesn’t help.”

  “Yeah. I’m a freak of nature, even without the affliction. I’m surprised you aren’t afraid of me. Everyone else is.”

  “Gigantism is just a glandular disorder,” Teri said. “It doesn’t make you a freak.”

  “How did you … oh, right.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry—but you do think pretty loud. Anyway, the point is, I know you’re not a bad person because I don’t just see with my eyes.”

  “Well, in that case, you already know I’m going to find you some medicine whether you want me to or not.”

  “It’s not possible. I don’t have the strength and you wouldn’t even know what to look for.”

  “It can’t be any more impossible than getting me out of that bus station.”

  “That was different. They were looking for you, not me. They’re going to have mentalists covering the hospitals and clinics.”

  “How about a vet?" Ruddy asked.

  Teri blinked. “That’s ... a really good idea.”

  Ruddy beamed. “Remember? That’s what John Conner did in Terminator 3 when he wrecked his motorcycle and couldn’t go to the hospital because a Terminator was looking for him.”

  “Um, I didn’t see that movie,” Teri said.

  Ruddy stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t the best of the Terminator movies. I mean, the first one was better for sure. The T-800 was the coolest Terminator, for one thing, but the plot was also …”

  “Ok, I’m convinced,” Teri said. “A vet it is. Let’s get going.”

  Ruddy helped Teri into the passenger seat. The rotting smell coming from her bandages filled the car.

  The guard at the exit opened the gate without looking up from the book he was reading. Ruddy drove out.

  “So how did DSSA ever get you?” Ruddy asked.

  “It was stupid and random. I took two bullets in a domestic dispute that had nothing to do with me. Never saw it coming. Hazard of being invisible, I guess.”

  “You didn’t know they were going to shoot? I thought you read minds.”

  “I was sick. I was running a fever and there were too many people. Like I said, it was stupid and random. When I woke up at the hospital, a mentalist from DSSA was there. There’s no telling what she did to me while I was unconscious.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “It’s a long story. Let’s just say they’re looking even harder now.”

  “Where are your parents? Don’t you have any family?

  She cringed.

  “Did something happen to them?” he said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “OK. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s just ... my dad isn’t the greatest person in the world. I’d rather not think about him. Can we drop it?”

  His hands tightened on the wheel. Great. Now I’ve fucked this up, too.

  “No, you haven’t,” Teri said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s always my fault,” Ruddy said. “I always screw up.”

  “What happened to Travis wasn’t your fault, either,” she said.

  "How did you ..." He stopped. Right. Mentalist. This is going to take some getting used to.

  “It was my fault,” he said. “Everybody knows that afflicted end up going crazy.”

  “That’s not true,” Teri said. “It’s just propaganda.”

  “Either way, my friend is dead and I’ve put my whole family in danger. If I’d done the right thing and turned myself in right away, Travis would be alive right now. I don’t deserve to be free.”

  “You’re determined to look at this in the worst possible light, aren’t you?” Teri said. “It’s not your fault some maniac attacked you. You don’t even know why. It could be totally random, and he might have killed everyone if you hadn’t been there to stop him. Blaming yourself isn’t rational.”

  His face tightened. “You don’t know anything about it,” he said.

  “I know feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to bring your friend back.”

  Ruddy turned and glared at her. “You’re really something, aren’t you? Just because you can read minds you think you know everything. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I didn’t mean …”

  “And who invited you to read my thoughts?” he said, his voice getting louder. “Stay out of my head!”

  Her lip quivered and tears pooled in her eyes. “Just drop me off up here.”

  “What? I’m not going to do that.”

  “I … I’m not trying to hear what you’re thinking. I can’t help it. The more you don’t want me to know it, the louder you shout it. That’s … why I have to be alone.”

  Ruddy pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. And yeah, I’m not exactly crazy about the idea of someone being in my head. But I’m not going to leave you here. I told you I was going to help.”

  “Don’t feel obligated,” she said. “You didn’t know what you were getting into. Trust me, you’re better off without me.” She reached for the door handle.

  “Now you're the one being irrational,” Ruddy said. “You can’t even walk!” He reached for her arm. She shrank away as if he was going to hit her.

  “I’m not going to hurt you! Why would I hurt you?”

  “I know that,” she said. “You’re a good person. I appreciate everything you’ve done. You won’t remember me after I’m gone, but I should thank you just the same.”

  “What?” He blinked. “Wait. You can’t go. I don’t … I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any friends either, or anyplace to go. My dad always took care of everything. That monster tried to kill me and the cops are after me and I finally found a friend and now you’re going to leave me.”

  Teri sighed and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so emotional. I’m just tired and sick. And you’re right, it would stupid for me to leave right now. So, let’s talk about how we are going to do this.”

  “We need a vet first,” Ruddy said.

  “There’s one a few blocks away. Take the next left.”

  “You’ve got a plan, don’t you?” Ruddy said. “Like what you did at the bus station. Or in the parking lot with the keys. You’re kind of a genius.”

  Teri sighed again.

  “No, I’m serious. You’re really smart.”

  “So I’ve been told.”