She made him buy her a can of juice from a street vendor because the “vaccine” pill was too big to swallow unaided, and then she downed both tablets. What could she do? Maybe he was trying to poison her; maybe she would end up just as insane and hallucinatory as he was. But she felt she had no choice. She had committed herself to his fantasy. She had to exist by his rules.

“What’s your name?” she said, when she had swallowed the second one.

“Nolan.”

And she thought it sounded familiar, but she could not for the life of her decide why.

“Well, Nolan,” she said, “I’m ready when you are.”

*   *   *

They boarded the night train from the city. Twice a day, big sleek engines departed from the transit station at the southwest edge of the city, just inside the loop of the Centrifuge. Nolan paid for two round trip tickets, business class. Kit wasn’t sure how he picked the fare—if he didn’t know about the semiprivate cars or couldn’t afford the rates, and if money was a problem, why he hadn’t elected to take them tourist class. When she asked him, he said merely, “We’re on business,” which left her no more certain than before.

She had ridden this train more times than she could count, alone or with her father, so she knew all the tricks to making the journey bearable. “The back three cars are tourist-class,” she explained to Nolan as they passed through one slim lozenge-shaped car after another. Nearly every seat was filled with tired gulden women, restless children, white-haired old men who pretended to be anywhere else in the world. The noise level was remarkable, somewhat like a midsized auditorium with badly designed acoustics. “The next three cars are business class, and past them are the private cars. We want to get all the way to the sixth car.”

“Why?” he asked. He was taking quick, surreptitious glances at the passengers all around them, as if dying of curiosity but afraid to appear too rude by staring. She wondered what seemed so odd to him about these accommodations. She had traveled in the tourist coaches a good half of the time she had made this trip.

“Because most people are too lazy to walk through all the cars. They just take the first empty seats. So the cars farther up are emptier.”

He nodded absently. “Good. Why do all these people have food?”

She glanced back at him as she negotiated a narrow aisle partially blocked by a protruding foot. “Because the journey takes two days or more. As I told you.”

“But aren’t there—I mean, I didn’t bring any food.”

“There are food stalls in a car between business and private. But the food’s expensive. We’ll make a few long stops tomorrow at stations where there will be vendors. We can stock up then.”