I did. On purpose. Who the hell wants to turn forty? What is it?'

'I knew if I brought it in the house before I was ready to wrap it, you'd find it…' She looked at the others, her face solemn and as dirty as a street-urchin's. 'He's a nosy old thing. So I left it in the van.'

'What did you get him, Linnie?' Jackie Wettington asked.

'I hope a present for all of us,' Linda said.

When they were ready, Barbie, Julia, and Sloppy Sam hugged and kissed everybody, even the kids. There was little hope in the faces of the nearly two dozen exiles who would remain behind. Barbie tried to tell himself it was just because they were exhausted and now chronically short of breath, but he knew better. These were goodbye kisses.

'Good luck, Colonel Barbara,' Cox said.

Barbie gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment, then turned to Rusty. Rusty who really mattered, because he was under the Dome. 'Don't give up hope, and don't let them give up hope. If this doesn't work, take care of them as long as you can and as well as you can.'

II hear you. Give it your best shot.'

Barbie tilted his head toward Julia. 'It's mostly her shot, I think. And hell, maybe we'll make it back even if it doesn't work.'

'Sure you will,' Rusty said. He sounded hearty, but what he believed was in his eyes.

Barbie slapped him on the shoulder, then joined Sam and Julia at the Dome, once more taking deep breaths of the fresh air that came trickling through. To Sam he said,'Are you sure you really want to do; this?'

'Ayuh. I got somethin to make up for.'

'What would that be, Sam?'Julia asked.

'I druther not say.' He smiled a little. 'Specially not to the town newspaper lady'

'You ready?' Barbie asked Julia.

'Yes.' She grabbed his hand, gave it one brief hard squeeze. 'As much as I can be.'

6

Rommie and Jackie Wettington stationed themselves at the rear doors of the van. When Barbie shouted 'Go' Jackie opened the doorgate and Rommie threw the two Prius tires inside. Barbie and Julia hurled themselves in directly after, and the doors were slammed behind them a split-second later. Sam Verdreaux, old and booze-raddled but still spry as a cricket, was already behind the Odyssey's wheel and revving the engine.

The air inside the van stank of what was now the outside world—an aroma that was charred wood on top and a painty, turpentine-y stench beneath—but it was still better than what they had been breathing at the Dome, even with dozens of fans blasting.

Won't be better for long, Barbie thought. Not with three of us sucking it up.

Julia grabbed the distinctive yellow-and-black Best Buy sack and turned it over. What fell out was a plastic cylinder with the words PERFECT ECHO on it. And, beneath that: 50 RECORDABLE CDS. She began to pick at the sealed cellophane overwrap with no immediate success. Barbie reached for his pocketknife, and his heart sank. The knife wasn't there. Of course not. It was now just a hunk of slag under whatever remained of the PD.

'Sam! Please tell me you have a pocketknife!'

Without a word, Sam tossed one back. 'That was my dad's. I been carryin it my whole life, and I want it back.'

The knife's sides were wood-inlay rubbed almost smooth with age, but when he opened it, the single blade was sharp. It would work on the overwrap, and it would make nice neat punctures in the tires.

'Hurry up!' Sam yelled, and revved the Odyssey's engine harder. 'We ain't goin till you tell me you got the right thing, and I doubt the engine'll run forever in this air!'

Barbie slit the overwrap. Julia stripped it away. When she rotated the plastic cylinder half a turn to the left, it came off the base. The blank CDs that had been meant for Rusty Everett's birthday sat on a black plastic spindle. She dumped the CDs on the floor of the van, then closed her fist around the spindle. Her mouth tightened with effort.

'Let me do tha—' he said, but then she snapped it off.

'Girls are strong, too. Especially when they're scared to death.' 'Is it hollow? If it isn't, we're back to square one.' She held the spindle up to her face. Barbie looked down one end ahd saw her blue eye staring back from the other. 'Go, Sam,' he said. 'We're in business.'

'You sure it'll work?' Sam shouted back, dropping the van's transmission into drive.

'You bet!' Barbie returned, because How the hell should I know would cheer nobody up. Including himself.

7

The Survivors at the Dome watched silently as the van tore down the dirt track that led back to what Norrie Calvert had taken to calling 'the flash-box.' The Odyssey dimmed into the hanging smog, became a phantom, and then disappeared.

Rusty and Linda were standing together, each carrying a child. 'What do you think, Rusty?' Linda asked.

He said, 'I think we need to hope for the best.'

'And prepare for the worst?'

'That too,' he said.

8

They were passing the farmhouse when Sam called back,'We're goin into the orchard now. You want to hold onto your jockstraps, kiddies, because I ain't stoppin this bitch even if I rip the undercarriage right out'n it.'

'Go for it,' Barbie said, and then a vicious bump tossed him in the air with his arms wrapped around one of the spare tires. Julia was clutching the other one like a shipwreck victim clutching a life ring. JA.pple trees flashed by The leaves looked dirty and dispirited. Most of the fruit had fallen to the ground, shaken free by the wind that had sucked through the orchard after the explosion.

Another tremendous bump. Barbie and Julia went up and came down together, Julia sprawling across Barbie's lap and still holding onto her tire.

'Where'd you get your license, you old fuck?' Barbie shouted. 'Sears and Roebuck?'

'Walmart!' the old man shouted back. 'Everything's cheaper at Wally World!'Then he stopped cackling.'I see it. I see the blinky-ass whoremaster. Bright purple light. Gonna pull right up beside it.You wait until I stop before you go carvin on those tires, less you want to tear em wide open.'

A moment later he stamped on the brake and brought the Odyssey to a scrunching halt that sent Barbie and Julia sliding into the back of the rear seat. Now I know what a pinball feels like, Barbie thought.

'You drive like a Boston cabbie!'Julia said indignantly.

'You just make sure you tip'—Sam was stopped by a hard fit of coughing—'twenty percent.' His voice sounded choked.

'Sam?'Julia asked.'Are you all right?'

'Maybe not,' he said matter-of-factly. 'I'm bleedin somewhere. Could be throat, but it feels deeper. B'lieve I might have ruptured a lung.' Then he was coughing again.

'What can we do?'Julia asked.

Sam got the coughing under control. 'Make em shut off their fuckin jammer so we can get out of here. I got no more smokes.'

9

'This is all me,' Julia said. 'Just so you know that.'

Barbie nodded. 'Yessum.'

'You're strictly my air-boy. If what I try doesn't work, we can change jobs.'

'It might help if I knew exactly what you had in mind.'

'There's nothing exact about it. All I have is intuition and a little hope.'

'Don't be such a pessimist.You've also got two tires, two garbage bags, and a hollow spindle.'

She smiled. It lit up her tense, dirty face. 'Duly noted.'

Sam was coughing again, doubled over the wheel. He spat something out. 'Dear God and sonny Jesus, don't that taste nasty,' he said. 'Hurry up!

Barbie punctured his tire with the knife and heard the pwoosh of air as soon as he pulled the blade free. Julia slapped the spindle into his hand as efficiently as an OR nurse. Barbie jammed it into the hole, saw the rubber grip it… and then felt a divine rush of air spurt into his sweaty face. He breathed deeply once, unable to help himself. The air was much fresher, much richer, than that pushed through the Dome by the fans. His brain seemed to wake up, and he came to an immediate decision. Instead of putting a garbage bag over their makeshift nozzle, he tore a large, ragged swatch from one of them.

'What are you doing? Julia screamed.

There was no time to tell her she wasn't the only one with intuitions.

He plugged the spindle with the plastic. 'Trust me. Just go to the box and do what you have to do.'

She gave him a final look that seemed to be all eyes, then opened the Odyssey's doorgate. She half fell to the ground, picked herself up, stumbled over a hummock, and went to her knees beside the flash-box. Barbie followed her with both tires. He had Sam's knife in his pocket. He fell on his knees and offered Julia the tire with the black spindle sticking out of it.

She yanked the plug, breathed in—her cheeks hollowing with the effort—exhaled to one side, then breathed in again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, cutting clean places there. Barbie was crying, too. It had nothing to do with emotion; it was as if they had been caught out in the worlds nastiest acid rain. This was far worse than the air at the Dome.

Julia sucked in more. 'Good,' she said, speaking on the exhale and almost whistling the word.'So good. Not fishy. Dusty.' She breathed in again, then tilted the tire toward him.

He shook his head and pushed it back, although his lungs were beginning to pound. He patted his chest, then pointed at her.

She took another deep breath, then sucked in one more. Barbie pushed down on top of the tire to help her along. Faintly, in some other world, he could hear Sam coughing and coughing and coughing.

He'll rip himself apart, Barbie thought. He felt as if he might come apart himself if he didn't breathe soon, and when Julia pushed the tife at him a second time, he bent over the makeshift straw and sucked in deeply, trying to draw the dusty, wonderful air all the way to the bottom of his lungs. There wasn't enough, it seemed there could never be enough, and there was a moment when panic

(God I'm drowning)

almost engulfed him. The urge to bolt back to the van—never mind Julia, let Julia take care of herself—was nearly too strong to resist;… but he did resist it. He closed his eyes, breathed, and tried to finid the cool, calm center that had to be there someplace.

Easy. Slow. Easy.

He dragged in a third long, steady inhale from the tire, and his pounding heart began to slow a little. He watched Julia lean forward and grip the box on either side. Nothing happened, and this didn't surprise Barbie. She had touched the box when they first came up here, and was now immune to the shock.

Then, suddenly, her back arched. She moaned. Barbie tried to offer her the spindle-straw, but she ignored it. Blood burst from her nose and began to trickle from the corner of her right eye. Red drops slid down her cheek.

'What's happenin?' Sam called. His voice was muffled, choked.