“Avalon already asked that,” Jix reminded him. “It said to let us go.”

“That was then,” said the Bopper. “But things change.”

Then he pushed a button, and Wurlitzer came to life, its record bank spinning like a wheel of fortune. Everyone waited in anticipation, and Jix grinned, wondering what song it would choose.

In her book Caution: This Means You!, Mary Hightower has this to say about Objects of Power, or O.O.P.s:

“One may, on occasion, come across Objects of Power. These are, like many things in Everlost, best left alone. They usually come in the form of a machine that has crossed over—often due to sunspot activity—never because someone loves it. Nobody loves an Object of Power. Thus, love is exactly what it craves. It will, however, settle for subservience. There are those who feel that these objects are possessed by some unknowable spirit, but I say they are merely filled with some faint leftover consciousness of creation, like the irritating static spark when you grasp a door handle on an exceptionally dry day.

Foolish Afterlights will argue until the end of time whether such objects are forces of good or evil—but I know the answer. They are neither. These so-called Objects of Power serve no one but themselves. Therefore if an entity or object:

A) takes something of value from you,

B) claims to know things it can’t possibly know, and

C) draws followers like rotting meat in the living world draws flies;

then lift your slowly sinking feet out of the earth, and run as fast, and as far, as you can, for the thing in question will never do you any good.”1

CHAPTER 24
Face the Music

The smile lingered on Jix’s face, his mouth refusing to accept what his ears were telling him. When you’re alone, and life is making you lonely, You can always go . . . Downtown!

The Neons all looked to one another—this was one song it didn’t take a high priest to interpret. They all listened to a mockingly upbeat woman repeat the word “Downtown” in almost every line as she sang about the city’s energy and itsneon signs.

“It said Neons!” Someone shouted! “The song knows our name!” and they turned to Jix and Jill with sudden singular purpose, becoming a raging mob.

The friendships that Jix had formed, the way he had delicately woven himself into the Neons’ social structure—none of that mattered now . . . because Wurlitzer had spoken.

“Downtown!” shouted the Neons. “They’re going Downtown!”

And all at once Jix realized his folly. It was the coins! They should have been a tip-off. Anything truly helpful—anything truly good—would never demand an Afterlight’s coin. Such theft was reserved for monsters and dictators, and, yes even “His Excellency,” who, when it came down to it, was not excellent at all, only power hungry.