Seven days, he thought.

Out loud, he muttered, “What the hell?”

Left. Definitely left.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and lowered his head against the hammering wind. It was cold for November in the Pacific Northwest, but he found himself relishing the chill. It was a welcome respite from the burning inside him.

The voices grew louder as the buildings got closer together. A crowd of kids in nice coats stumbled out of a bar.

“No, that one,” one of them was saying, his voice rising in exasperation. “She was looking at you, didn’t you see?”

His friend snorted. “Not a chance.”

“We could go back tomorrow,” said the first. “Ask her.”

Ash slowed to let them move past. They irritated him for reasons he couldn’t name. Maybe it was that they clearly had money, or maybe it was just that they were obnoxious but not obnoxious enough to start a fight with.

They were just . . . happy.

Ash watched them, every muscle in his body wound tight. Their voices faded as they walked down the dock and, when they were gone, he pushed through the door of the bar they’d just come out of without bothering to glance at the sign hanging over it.

It was dark inside, with black walls and stainless-steel countertops and black leather barstools. There was a television above the bar, but it wasn’t turned on.

A crowd of people milled around the cramped space, shoulder to shoulder in the dark. He thought he saw one or two look his way, but he didn’t have the energy to worry about whether they’d recognized him or if they’d been Black Cirkus sympathizers before the mega-quake.

Before the Professor had disappeared, he and his time travelers had been a bit . . . controversial.

Some thought the Professor was a genius, the future of science and technology.

Others thought he was an out-of-touch intellectual, content to let the world around him fall to ruins while he focused on his books and experiments.

Neither side was entirely wrong.

Ash wove through the small, crowded room, keeping his head ducked, and found an empty stool near the bar.

A bartender appeared before him, staring for a beat too long before asking, in a resigned voice, “What do you want?”

“Beer?” Ash said, his eyes going wide as he read the chalkboard menu behind the bartender’s head. “You guys got beer?”

Most bars in New Seattle hadn’t had real beer since before the mega-quake. At least, the bars that Ash frequented hadn’t had beer since before the mega-quake. Too expensive.

The bartender hesitated, and his eyes flicked to the crowd behind him. Ash resisted the urge to check over his shoulder, see whether anyone was staring at him, whispering. It had been a long while since he’d been inside a bar that wouldn’t serve him.

“Come on, man, one pint,” he said, digging around in his jacket. A pint of beer would cost him half the money in the envelope of cash he’d stolen back from Mac after Chandra shot him, but, just now, it seemed worth it. “I promise, I’ll be good—”