Milos introduced her to all the new skinjackers—including their star pupil, a fifteen-year-old in an ROTC uniform.

“This is Rotsie, from the Benson High fire,” Milos told her. “He is a natural at soul surfing and . . . what do you call it?”

“’Information retrieval,’” said Rotsie.

“Yes. He can go into a fleshie’s mind and instantly pull out any information he wants.”

“Pleased to officially meet you,” he said, respectfully shaking Jill’s hand. “I’m sorry about your friend—the one who drowned.”

“He didn’t drown,” Jill snapped. “He sunk. And anyway, it’s old news. What’s done is done.”

“We’ve been training for our first mission,” said one of the other skinjackers, a girl that seemed to be bleeding sparkles out of her nails and eye makeup, and who was given the uninspired nickname “Sparkle.”

“Mary had a vision,” another skinjacker said.

At the mention of Mary’s so-called vision, Moose, alone in the corner, grunted, but offered no follow-up.

“Right, Mary’s vision,” said Milos. “She has foreseen that this city’s gas main will explode, and take out several square blocks downtown.”

“Really?” said Jill.

“Yeah,” said one of the other boys. “So Mary wants to send us out before it happens, and stop it.”

Milos then gave Jill a secret wink out of view of the others. “Yes. We must ‘stop’ it.”

If Jill had blood, it would have boiled.

At dawn, on the first Monday of the new year, Mary and all her children waited in the streets of Odessa, all eyes on the natural gas plant, where the accident would occur.

“It’s a good thing we’re here,” Mary told them. “Gas explosions are terrible things. They kill thousands every year.”

“I’m glad you’re in charge again, Miss Mary,” said one of her tried and true Afterlights. “Milos actually had us make bad things happen instead of stopping them.”

“Don’t judge him too harshly,” Mary told the child. “Who could blame him for trying to save the living from their sorrow-filled world?” Then she turned to the others and spoke loudly enough for all of them to hear. “We may not succeed today in stopping the accident, for visions of the future are very hard to change. But if the cause is lost, at least we will be able to run in and save as many children as we can from the light.”

Then she sent forth Milos and the skinjackers to do everything within their power to make things “right.”