Linn was already there, his helmet on the deep windowsill, his notebook and pen out. I stopped at the foot of the bed and he looked at me, but I’m not sure he quite registered my presence.

“Is she awake?” Rico asked.

He nodded. “She’s not given her name. Three other children brought her in an hour ago, left her in the hall and ran away. She was taken straight into emergency, and has only been out these few minutes.”

Rico leaned over the bed rail. Her sunglasses hung by one earpiece from the neck of her tank top, and I could see her whole face fixed on the girl in the bed, on the closed sunken eyes, as if sheer concentration could accomplish whatever it was she meant to do.

“Miss, can you hear me? Miss? I’m sorry to disturb you, but I want you to talk to me. Miss?”

The eyelids shifted, fluttered, opened. I took a step back before I could stop myself. In a network of ruby-bright broken veins, the girl’s irises were the color of slightly muddied water, as if the pigment had been rinsed out of them. Her pupils were barely visible.

The girl muttered, and struggled to see Rico. Finally she said, “Oh… no, you’re… oh, you’re just… what d’you want?”

“I need you to answer some questions. Do you think you can do that?”

“A few. I’m in a hurry. I have to go soon.”

“Where?”

The girl’s face crumpled into a frown, and her eyes closed again. “Through the Wall. I’m in a hurry.”

A muscle showed suddenly under Rico’s ear, but nothing else changed. “You’ve been taking a drug lately. Sky-blue liquid. Where did you get it?”

A long, harsh inhalation from the pillow. “So I can get across.”

“Yes. Where did you get it?”

“Come… follow me over. To… follow… Charlie. His name is Charlie.”

Rico’s eyelids dropped for a moment. “Do you know anyone else who’s taking this drug? I need to find them.”

The girl smiled. Her gums were bleeding. “They’ll never let you across.”

“That’s all right. Just tell me who else is taking it.”

“We’re all—” the girl burst out, and stopped to swallow. Her voice was much weaker afterward. “Humans are over. Dinosaurs… we have to change. We have to…” Suddenly her eyes opened again, very wide. “Lady? Are you still there?” She didn’t wait for Rico’s answer. “Did I change? You can see, right? I changed, didn’t I? Please?”

It wasn’t her gums bleeding, after all. Linn jerked the cord that would call in help. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. “Yes,” Rico said. “You changed.” Rico was holding her hand, and both sets of knuckles, Rico’s tanned ones and the girl’s papery skin, were white, white.