T.K. gets up and walks to the window. Off in the distance he can make out the hills of Marin and, beyond that, the blue, unsullied sky.

He turns decisively to face her. “I’ll show you.”

They catch a pedicab to the commuter station. There they board a steam tram heading south. They leave San Francisco, traveling past San Alto Jose along the elevated tracks above the bay. They cut inland at South Point, switch trams at Gilroy, head through Hollister and finally get off in Los Banos. The whole trip takes just under an hour.

They rent two bicycles from the Hertz desk in the tram depot, and pedal off along Kings Road Canal almost to Dos Palos. There T.K. pulls up outside a large white house, a Victorian confection, all steeples and intricate carvings and stained-glass windows. The house is in excellent repair, obviously the end result of someone’s laborious care. The area around the house is quite different. The ground is hard packed and dry. Although the ground’s been cultivated and planted, nothing grows on it. As the wind comes up, a cloud of dust blows off the land, enveloping the bottom of the house, giving it the appearance of a sugar cake rising up out of a smoky caldron of desolation.

With Sarah standing beside him, T.K. knocks on the door. A frail, baldheaded man answers. “Can it be?” the old man cries out. “T.K. What a nice surprise. You were just here. We didn’t expect you back again for another month. Ma, come see who’s here. It’s T.K.”

A buxom, white-haired old lady rushes forth from the kitchen. She engulfs T.K. in a clasping embrace.

“Sarah,” says T.K., disentangling himself, “Meet Frieda and Tanner Shaw.”

“How do you do,” Sarah says.

“Come in, come in,” says Frieda.

“In a minute,” T.K. responds. “First, I’d like to show Sarah the shed.”

Tanner fetches a brightly polished key and gives it to T.K.

T.K. and Sarah head off toward a large metal shed out back, an incongruous entity contrasted with the picture postcard charm of the house proper.

“Who are they?” Sarah asks.

“They were my parent’s best friends. They lived on the farm next to ours.” T.K. points off into the distance. “If you squint, you can see an electrified boundary out there. Everything on the other side of that boundary belongs to the government. The Shaws’ farm is out there in the middle of it somewhere.”