“This is good for six hours,” the checkpoint officer said. “That’s plenty of time to find the immigration center and report in. If you’re caught driving around the Kingdom after that, it won’t end well for you.”

They drove on, but it was slow going after the checkpoint. The roads into Dallas were choked with ruined vehicles and actual traffic. It looked as if hundreds of people had taken the Heavenly Kingdom up on its amnesty offer. Roland couldn’t fault them for that. The Kingdom seemed to be winning.

As they rolled toward Plano, they were stopped regularly by patrolling Martyrs and asked to present their papers. But bit by bit, they made their way onto and through the packed and crumbling highways of old Dallas. At one point, they found themselves in stalled traffic on Highway 75, overlooking the cratered ruins of the Lakewood Blast.

He felt cold October air. He smelled barrel fires and heard the sharp crack of riflery. He saw flashes of a face—it might’ve been Jim’s—and he remembered the feel of a cold metal handle, attached to something heavy and dense. He remembered yelling too, a small, sweaty hand held tight in his own. He remembered guilt.

“What’s up?” Manny asked. He looked over at Roland and his eyes widened. “Dude, you’re shaking. Don’t tell me you’re flipping out now. We’re too deep into this thing.”

Roland shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a piece of an old memory hitting me in the face. I think I was in town when that fucker went off.

The young man’s pupils grew as big as saucers.

“Ni verga,” he spat. “You’re full of shit.”

Roland shrugged. “I dunno, maybe. It’s just a piece of a memory. I might be confusing it with something else. Sure got triggered by seeing the blast site, though.”

Manny was not satisfied by that answer. “I refuse to believe that someone could watch an atom bomb eviscerate a city and not have a clear memory of it. I had to take anti-rad pills my whole childhood because of that bomb.”

“I don’t have any clear memories, kid. None from further back than about, I guess, five or eight years ago. I don’t have a lot of clear memories since then either, but that’s from the drugs.”

“What the hell happened to you?” Manny asked. “I thought you post-humans all had hard drives running through your blood. Were you too cheap to pay for a photographic memory?”

Roland scratched his neck. He wasn’t itchy. It was a nervous gesture. He was a little fascinated at the fact that this line of questioning made him feel nervous. He really couldn’t remember the last time a conversation had made him feel that way. Weird.