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Chapters (28)
  1. Dedication
  2. Richardson, Republic of Texas, 2070.
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Chapter 10
  13. Chapter 11
  14. Chapter 12
  15. Chapter 13
  16. Chapter 14
  17. Chapter 15
  18. Chapter 16
  19. Chapter 17
  20. Chapter 18
  21. Chapter 19
  22. Chapter 20
  23. Chapter 21
  24. Chapter 22
  25. Chapter 23
  26. Epilogue
  27. Afterword
  28. Copyright

“It means I didn’t get caught.”

Helen laughed. She had a beautiful laugh. Sasha wanted to curl up and fall asleep inside it.

“No. I mean, well, yes of course,” she said. “But more than anything, it means that for all time, for ever and ever, you’re a person who made the choice to be brave. You took a leap into the dark and trusted that God’s light would rise to meet you.”

There were tears in her eyes. Genuine tears, wrapped up in genuine wrinkles and laugh lines that had never felt the touch of a surgical laser.

“That’s the most beautiful thing in the world,” Helen said. “I want you to know that.”

Sasha started to cry too. Helen embraced her, held her close, and Sasha was certain she’d never been happier.

Chapter 10

Manny.

It couldn’t have been much past ten in the morning when they arrived at the City of Wheels. Topaz and Skullfucker Mike had helped him and Reggie into an open-topped red buggy they’d apparently driven out to the ambush. The old vehicle beat the hell out of walking but it had not been built with comfort in mind. Every bump and jostle on the road sent pain shooting up from Manny’s fucked knee to what felt like a small forest of tears in his shoulder muscles. Mike, the driver, kept the vehicle at a conspicuously slow pace, but he hurt all the same. The ten minute drive was agony.

But then Rolling Fuck came into view and all thought of pain faded from Manny’s mind. The main structure of the city had once been a colossal Bagger 288 strip-mining machine. It looked like a sideways, skyscraper-sized spider made of scaffolding and cranes. At the center of the vehicle was a four-story building on a massive set of treads. Four spindly towers rose up out of that main structure in a giant half-­circle in the air around it. A gantry way the length of a football field connected the spindles to a mighty steel arm at the end of the structure. It had once housed an enormous wheel-bucket mining apparatus, but that had been replaced by a queer cube structure. It sat high in the air, and gleamed in a shade of black that made Manny’s stomach hurt.