No chance I’d get to Rousseau now, not with this mob. Fine by me. Eager as I was to unload the sparkly thing, I didn’t mind avoiding his scrutiny a while longer. I went back to the media loft for a weather check. A crowd was gathered around the old CB sets used for short-range contact, probably leaking word of the attack to other dens despite Rousseau’s cautions. Some of the older denfolk played long-distance signal-bouncing games when the weather was right, scrounging up news of the rest of the world, stuff you didn’t get from local sources. Another gang filled the long table of tablets hooked to our rooftop weather station or fiddled with the emergency-band weather radios. We had AM, too, but if you moved off the official frequencies, there was less and less to be found within range.

Amazingly, my favorite machine was free. On my way there, I met one of the Wiz kids I knew slightly, a gangly brown-skinned girl with big teeth and a problem keeping still.

“See Jenn around? I hear she’s joining you up here.”

“Betcha! Yeah, she come up. Run ’round a bit. Next I look, she’s gone.”

“Ah. To her bunk, most likely.” When Jenn’s mania cooled, she crashed hard. “Be good for her, being up here.”

The girl’s nod was extra-floppy, like I might need convincing. “She best with the crankies. Got ’em in her mind.”

The ‘crankies’ were older machines with outdated software that Jenn recalled how to work with.

I put out a hand to keep her from dancing away. “Maybe you all could help her find her family in Minnesota? You must be doing that sort of thing a lot up here.”

The girl pursed her lips. “Not so much.”

“No? Isn’t everyone wanting to get in touch with friends or relatives on the Mainland?”

“Olders, most.”

Jenn was only twenty-seven. This girl was eleven, twelve at most. Me, right in between, though who knew for sure, but suddenly feeling like an ancient grown-up.

“So, you’re not looking?”

She shrugged cheerfully. “No reason.”

“No reason to look?” Meaning, she had no relatives to search for?

“No reason to leave.”

My brow creased automatically. “You mean, you like it here?”

Another shrug, like, what’s not to like, or, it is what it is.

“Do the other Wizzers feel that way?” This was new info. Far as I knew, only a few eccentrics like Rubio and Jake were happy to stay on in Manhattan. The rest would hightail it as soon as a chance came up. But den life was all this child had ever known.

“I guess.” She looked worried I was probing for disloyal thoughts.

“Okay.” I smoothed my frown. “Well, you all take good care of Jenn.”

“Will do!” Relieved, she flickered off toward a clutch of her age-mates, grouped around a table heaped with bits of hardware and wiring.