They flew to Rolling Fuck in Jim’s heli-craft. It had been military issue originally, but the interior had been redone to Jim’s tastes. That mostly meant a lot of velour and a full wet bar. There were four beers on tap, just to the right of a double-barreled 35mm grenade launcher ­mounted beside the door. Roland drank for the duration of the ten minute flight.

“You know,” Jim said, “Topaz lives there now. Been with the city a while.”

“Topaz?” Roland asked.

Something shuddered in his gut. He felt his hippocampus flicker with the dim light of recognition. He saw that face again, the woman from so many of his dreams and a few of his shattered memories. So that was her name. It felt right, now that he knew it again.

“Do you remember her at all, Roland?” Jim asked, his voice uncharacteristically tender.

Roland nodded and swirled the beer in his hands to buy some time.

“I remember snatches of her,” he said. “I remember loving her. I remember enough that it hurts sometimes. Mostly it hurts that I don’t remember enough to be as sad as I oughta be.”

There was a spark of real sorrow in Jim’s eyes. The other man’s hand twitched in a way that made Roland think he might’ve been about to reach out to him. But Jim kept his hand to himself.

“I’m not sure how much I should say,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

There was something in Jim’s face when he said that. It resembled regret, or guilt. But it passed quickly. And nothing else was said during the flight. They landed on one of the top spires of Rolling Fuck, on a landing pad that doubled as a nude bar. He and Jim grabbed another round of drinks before they proceeded down, through the infinite party that was the City of Wheels and onto the top of the main roller. They grabbed another round of drinks there and sat at the bar table while Jim waited for the word to go down.

It was late afternoon by this point, and evening had started to close in. The normal boiling Texas heat was cut by a cool breeze. White clouds rolled in above them. Roland’s hindbrain told him there was, at best, a 12 percent chance of rain. But the clouds were still welcome. He and Jim drank in silence for a few minutes until the other man tapped his shoulder and said, “They’re ready for us.”