The house looked almost abandoned, with a lawn gone wild, the way Rovers liked to keep it, and all the windows blocked with heavy curtains, which was also how they liked to keep it. But the mastodon was there stenciled on the doorjamb. And when you walked up onto the porch, you could see signs that people had been hanging out recently—a saggy old couch, an old crate turned into a stool, empty beer cans, two burned-down candles, a book that had been set down open to save the page. Donny looked and saw it was a copy of Brigada’s prison notebooks, another sure sign of a Rover.

The door opened before Donny even knocked.

“Can I help you?” The woman standing there was young and black, probably mid-twenties, big braids pulled back in a bright-red band, wearing a plain black T-shirt, blue jeans, and boots. The jeans were held up with a thick black belt, and tucked into them was a handgun she made no effort to hide. Among the liberties the change in government had secured was to make Texas an open-carry state again, now that the federal firearms controls that restricted ownership to licensed militias, deputized posses, and registered hunters had been suspended. The international peacekeepers had tried to impose their own ban, but it didn’t stick in Texas.

“I’m looking for Slider,” said Donny. “Name’s Donny Kimoe.”

“Yeah, I recognize you,” said the woman. “You’re the lawyer who switched sides. And I can see now you look the part.”

“We all have a job to do,” said Donny. “And I never switched sides.”

“Whatever,” she said. “He said to let you in, and you wouldn’t stay long.” She ushered Donny through. “Hey, Slider!” she yelled back into the house as she triple-bolted the door behind them.

The living room was simple and bare, like a furnished apartment. Nothing on the walls but a beat-up old poster of Maxine Price screaming to a crowd, and ancient wallpaper fading from green to brown.

Slider stepped out of the shadow of the hallway. He moved like an athlete, or an actor, or both, with a healthy dose of moody teen. And he looked like a rock star. Lithe but strong, wearing his revolutionary couture—tight jeans, some crazy patterned vintage dress shirt, a leather necklace strung with shiny little totems of his war and roams, and lace-up leather boots that looked like something a British officer would have worn in a colonial war in some other timeline. And those green eyes on brown skin working its way to black, with inky hair just long enough that it always looked like he just got out of bed, or was ready to take you there.