He winks at me. I fight down a smile of my own. Half a dozen beads and I feel better than I have in weeks; my head’s clear, my thoughts sharp. I stride towards the main building that seems to serve as store, bar, wire office, and everything else besides.

‘Who the hell would live out here?’ The General’s face creases in disgust.

‘Someone who doesn’t have a choice,’ I reply.

As she glares at me, Silas quickens his step to open the door for us.

‘Only person here is Gilli. Used to be her husband Pike too, but he walked into the Edge one day and never came back. She’s been a bit… odd, ever since. Don’t pay too much attention.’

Of course, the place is empty, but as we enter an ancient buzzer sounds. There’s a creak from the back room, shuffling footsteps, and a woman appears. She looks ancient, desiccated as a dried lemon, and yet she can’t be more than forty. In her shoulder holster is a very old pistol.

‘Afternoon, Gilli,’ Silas says. ‘May your thoughts be clear.’

‘And yours,’ comes the suspicious reply. Her eyes land on the General and stay there for some time, before drifting back to Silas. ‘Seen you before. Not these others.’

‘That’s right. Silas Gulivinda, came through a few months back. Bought a pressure converter from you that fell apart within a week.’

The woman nods. ‘So.’

‘Alright if we refuel?’

‘Alright if you can pay.’

‘Do you have a wire booth?’ the General asks.

The woman’s eyes narrow even more, but eventually she jerks her chin. ‘In the back, next to the shit filters.’ As the General hurries away, she looks at me. ‘She uses it and you don’t pay, I get to keep her. That’s only fair.’

‘We can pay. Do you have any medicines? Breath?’

‘No breath. Medicine’s there on the shelf.’

I don’t listen to the rest of her conversation with Silas – about water rustlers and Seeker scouts – and inspect the medicines instead. I should have known what I would find. The bottles and boxes bear their original labels, but the contents have been emptied long ago, replaced by god knows what. Snake bile, fermented urine… I unscrew the lid from a sticky bottle of expectorant and smell engine-cooling fluid. I put it back in disgust.

‘These are worse than useless,’ I mutter, turning back towards Silas, ‘we might as well—’ I stop. He’s gone.

‘At the pump,’ the woman says, her dry eyes on mine. ‘Said you should have a drink on him.’

A bottle of something brown and cloudy stands on the counter before her. I can’t see the pump through the scratched windows, and the General is still occupied with the wire, clacking away at its keys.

‘What is it?’ I ask, leaning on the counter.

‘Mezcal,’ the woman says, glugging some into an ancient plastic cup.