By now both Jix and Jill had come to see that the Neons’ various activities were, like so many Afterlights, repetitive day after day until they had become like rituals. The group of kids who played poker, then fought; the girl who read the same book cover-to-cover every day, then fought; the gym-rats who bench-pressed a barbell that would be far too heavy for them to lift in the living world, then fought. Only scouts and lookouts left the cramped labyrinth to search the city for Afterlights with coins, and to protect their hideout from nonexistent attackers. The Neons lived their deaths as if they were an army under siege.

While Jill wanted nothing to do with the Neons, Jix smoothly inserted himself into their routines, just as he had done on the train, making sure that each Neon knew him, and was comfortable with him. Comfortable enough to answer innocent questions that they wouldn’t even remember he had asked.

“How long has Avalon been high priest?”

“Since Wurlitzer played ‘See You Later, Alligator’ to the last one.”

“How did Wurlitzer even get down here?”

“Probably the Crocket Street tunnel—it leads to the old Grenet house.”

“Has it ever played on its own, without someone asking a question?”

“No—why would it?”

There was one girl rumored to have been here so long, she had no memory of being anywhere else. Her name was Dionne, and she spent much of her time polishing a Bowie knife—perhaps the original one. He saved the more important questions for her.

“How many songs does Wurlitzer play?” Jix asked. “Thirty? Forty?”

Dionne shook her head. “There are more songs in there than you can imagine,” she told him. “And sometimes it’ll play songs some of us have never heard before.”

Her answer confirmed what Jix had suspected; that this machine was not a simple mechanical device. It was something much, much more. Wurlitzer held the memory of every song that anyone has ever loved.

Then he asked the big question: “Has Wurlitzer ever been wrong?”

Dionne paused her knife-polishing and took a moment before answering.