Alice sent Deena on ahead to wait in the bushes by the entrance to the Settlement, because, as she explained, "you'll get real weary walking as slow as I have to. Besides, if you really want to see Normals get pissed off, you let them see a Freak and a Normal hanging out together. I could tell you some stories, child . . . but there I go again."

      "Won't you get in trouble for us hanging out in here, then?"

      "'We,' darling, not just 'me.' But no, we won't, not here, as long as we don't push it. The Shadyside is as close to neutral territory as you'll find in this burg. Though the cops'll be all over you in a minute even here, if they get the wrong kind of itch."

      So after awhile, and a few more stories from Alice, Deena slipped back out into what was now full night.

      Everyone in town knew where the Settlement was, about a klick further out of town than the Shadyside. It was an old military base gone back to scrub forest, still ringed by plastic panel fence with razor-sharp top edges, a big remote-controlled gate across the front entrance that Deena had never seen open. A big sign by the gate, partly obscured by graffiti, proclaimed the place to be "Official Federal Land Reserved as a Settlement for Bio-Pathology Syndrome Victims," and warned of various penalties for trespassing. But the guard house out front was boarded up; the Bio-Freaks ran the place themselves, and all the fencing and such was meant not to keep the Freaks in but the Normals out.

      Hoodies were always riding their bicycles out to the Settlement, daring each other to go all the way up to the fence, put an eye up against a chinks in the panels, and look for Freaks. That nobody had ever spotted one that way didn't discourage them in the least. More ominously, the tale went round about how a lone Freak had been killed a couple years back just outside the gate, only a few meters from safety when a gang of liquored-up locals descended. Deena thought of Alice, always out there walking all alone, and shuddered.

      She settled down behind a thicket of wild blackberries and waited. A haloed moon shone down through a scree of clouds, and a breeze rustled the leaves around and above her. She smiled to herself. She often hung out in the woods, day and night, sometimes staying gone for a couple of days running. It helped her chill out when people were getting on her nerves too much. The woods made sense to her even when none of the rest of the world did. And if some part of that world tried to follow her she always had Leila with her to protect her . . .

      For a second she almost felt the big sloppy tongue on her face, the thick coarse fur under her palms. She fought hard not to cry again, not to cave in to the fear that it was too late already, that some vicious little sadist in this town had not just kidnapped the dog but killed her, or sold her to a lab, or to a black-market butcher. Deena's jaw flared into full-fledged Angry Pain; if anyone harmed a hair of Leila's head, she would find the creep and make him wish he'd never been born--

      She gasped and jumped as the brambles before her face shook.

      Alice stood in the road in front of Deena's hiding place, poking the bushes with her cane. "Christ, girl," she said, "your brain's so noisy I could read you halfway down the road."

      Deena gave her tears a quick swipe and scrambled out to join her.

      Alice hobbled up to the gate, Deena trailing behind. Motors whirred to life as they approached, raising the gate up for them to pass under and then lowering it into place again. Deena saw no camera, no electric eye. But then, why would the Freaks need such clumsy ways of monitoring their front door?

      They followed a rutted cinder road that wound through the second-growth pine woods. A few lights twinkling through the trees soon turned into the lighted doors and windows of barracks, only a little more austere than the cottages back in town. Music floated fitfully on the night air: someone playing bottleneck slide guitar, the sweet/sour twang underlining a voice singing country blues.

      Alice led the way to a building with all its windows lit up, a sign reading "Canteen" nailed over the door. Deena could make out the words of the song now:

Change done took my body
Change done took my home
Set me on this weary road
Across the world to roam
      I'm down, but I ain't yet done
But I'm going through those Changes, Lord,
      So I best be moving on . . .

      Deena followed Alice through the door into a warm humid space reeking of coffee and cigarettes and grease. She stood there blinking in the light, trying to make sense of the strange beings gathered around the old formica table in the center of the room--

      Another fat-head, goggle-eyes green as grass, turning awkwardly in his seat to scowl up at her;

      A woman seated in a wheelchair, her heavyset body sprouting not limbs but tentacles, and many more of them than just four, all terminating in hands with a lot more fingers than five--it was she who cradled the guitar in her lap and sped two of those confusing hands over the strings;

      A creature Deena at first mistook for a gleam of light reflected off the guitar's varnished top--a never-resting flash, impossibly alive and sentient though crammed into the space of a hands' breadth, emitting a high reedy voice as rushed as its movements;

      And seated farthest from the door, a man with no face.

      Alice settled into a free chair with a sigh of relief, motioning Deena to do likewise. She sat, diffident, waiting for some permission to speak.

      The tentacle-woman finished the verse she was singing. "So who's your friend, Alice?" she asked in a guarded voice, sliding her bottleneck off her finger and setting it on the table. Deena recognized the bit of glass as the kind of vial the Factory used to package amino acid tablets.

      "Her name is Deena," said Alice, apparently choosing to ignore the tentacle-woman's tone, "and she asked me so nicely for some help that I brought her round to see what we could do for her. Deena, I want you to meet George"--the other fat-head nodded curtly; "Sally"--the tentacle-woman shrugged and waved a spare hand; "Jason--"

      "DeenaDeenaDeenaDeena!" shrilled the flash of light, flying round her head once, twice, and landing briefly on her shoulder; it felt like the brush of a fallen leaf. "Prettyname dontmindme Imjusthyper--" it piped in her ear before dashing off again. Jesus, thought Deena; well, at least one of them was disposed to be friendly.

      Sally laughed at Jason, further breaking the tension. "Christ, tell me another," she said in Jason's general direction. "Last time I let you have any coffee after eight p.m."

      The flash of light jittered in mid-air as it emitted a giggle, then swooped down on the mug next to one of Sally's tentacles, splashed coffee in a six-centimeter ring, then zipped away while Sally laughed and swore and batted at his wake.

      "And that's Winston over there," Alice continued. "He's the one who can help you find your dog."

      The faceless man inclined his head in her direction. Deena forgot herself and gaped. Cueball-naked, that head, as perfectly molded as some sort of modern sculpture, with not a single hair or pore or feature to break the porcelain-smooth skin. No ears, no eyes, no nose, no mouth--how did he breath? eat? The hairless eyebrows rose over slight indentations where eye-sockets should have been; muscles rearranged themselves between cheeks and chin; was he smiling at her? Oh god, of course he was; he had to be a reader too, if Alice was recommending him to find Leila, and now he must think her as big an ignoramus as Alice must have at first--

      I am pleased to meet you, Deena, said a quiet voice inside her head. Be reassured that I do not think your questions offensive. Nor does Alice think you an ignoramus. But she told you that already, didn't she?

      The blank face crinkled up in another almost-smile. He slipped the first two fingers of one hand into the half-full mug of coffee before him. Deena had only just registered that he had no fingernails when she realized that the level of coffee in the cup was dropping. It ran dry; Winston removed his hand.

      Will you please excuse us? said the quiet little voice, and somehow Deena knew that this time it was sounding in the minds of all present. I shall have to take Deena outside to a quiet spot in order to scan properly for her missing companion.

      He didn't move like any blind person she had ever seen; but then he didn't move like a sighted person either. He drifted along like a man in a trance, head up and arms slightly out from his sides, bare feet gliding through the tall meadow grass. It was as if he were feeling his way along with every square centimeter of his skin. She followed him, mesmerized.

      Winston's voice purred in her mind. Yes, I am blind, and for that matter deaf; my special abilities compensate for but do not take the place of those senses I have lost. I suspect the nanomachines that were allowed to run amok in my body were supposed to equip one with extra powers without taking any away; such was obviously not the way they performed.

      "Nanomachines?"

      Ah. There are many theories about this so-called bio-pathology syndrome. I happen to subscribe to a particularly radical one which maintains it is a failed experiment perpetrated by the Institute. Bored with their successes in medicine and food, some maverick group of Institute techs presumably set out on an ambitious program to create super-beings. Such work, of course, would be highly illegal; so they must have proceeded in secret, testing their bugs on unsuspecting populations, taking advantage of their sweeping access to the nation's food and drug supply.

      Then somehow the project went spectacularly wrong. Some suggest that the conspirators neglected to take into account the potential for unpredictable interactions with the huge amount of bio-pollutants already loose in the world due to their legitimate work. In any case, the Institute then took cover behind a wall of denials while the rumors began to fly--that the Syndrome was a terrorist plot, or a new plague, or even some failure of their more run-of-the-mill products. Though any rational being could see that if the syndrome were in fact any of those things, it would not produce functional beings, however freakish--just deaths. But then, rationality seems to be something of which the public has always been in short supply.

      "You're saying the Tute just up and secretly experimented on all you people? Without your knowledge?"

      Would you put such behavior past them?

      "I guess not," she said, thinking of the looming Factory. "But have any of, uh, you people, um--"

      You can call us 'Freaks,' dear--we all do.

      "Haven't any of the Freaks who can read minds been able to find out the truth?"

      No, but even the best readers among us can't read minds gone beyond the grave.

      "Oh." Her skin goose-bumped. It was one thing to deal with the everyday viciousness of her life; it was another to contemplate malice on such a global scale.

      But at least you harbor no illusions about the friendliness of the world. Naïve idealist that I once was, I would have never imagined such goings-on to be possible--that is, before the Change knocked me out of my sheltered little world. Deena "heard" a sardonic laugh. But I am now far from sheltered. Literally--with my senses as they are, staying too long within walls or amongst people makes me so claustrophobic I would scream if I could. I've wandered across this country a good three or four times, on foot and hitching rides.

      "But how did you keep from being seen?" Deena thought of video clips she'd downloaded from the networks as her parents slept: burly grinning men standing around a pickup truck, riot shotguns and cans of beer in their hands, pointing proudly at a sign painted on the truck's side reading "BPS Patrol--the Only Good Freak is a Dead Freak."

      The vigilantes? Child's play. Watch me carefully.

      Deena looked at him standing there, arms and face raised to the moon.

      Then he wasn't there.

      After she caught her breath, she said, "I can still see where your legs are pushing the grass aside."

      His laughter sounded in her head again. Well! You're much more observant than your average vigilante. But that's not saying much. How about this? The grass seemed to rearrange itself.

      "You're gone now, man," said Deena, rubbing her eyes.

      Winston reappeared. I simply alter people's perceptions to exclude me. Very effective. But now for your dear Leila. I need you to make your mind as quiet as you can manage.

      Winston sat down in the grass cross-legged and grew very still. Deena sat down likewise, a little ways away. With all her practice at shoving down her fears and frustrations, it wasn't all that hard to still her mind. What was hard was keeping it still for what soon seemed like an eternity. Dew soaked through her jeans. Her feet fell asleep. Her hands grew cold. But she kept at it, because she wanted her dog back, and because she wanted to show Winston how good she was, not like those idiots back in town who didn't appreciate his kind--oops, shush!

      The night breathed. The moon slid across the sky, in and out of the clouds. The wind rustled the trees, fanned the long grass. A train rumbled through the yards on the far side of town. Time slowed down to a trickle. On the periphery of her perception grew a shimmer of energy, felt rather than seen, fine like spiderweb or neural net, coursing in and out and throughout and about . . .

      Back on the plane of tangible reality, there came a clanking noise: the Settlement's gate opening and closing.

      Then there was a jingling, and a bark, and the thudding of padded paws. Deena leaped to her feet and turned in time to see a black-and-tan body galloping across the meadow--

      --and then the dog lunged up into her outspread arms, and they fell together rolling in the grass, Deena sobbing into Leila's fur, crooning endearments into the dog's ears, Leila whimpering and nuzzling and licking up as many of the human's tears as she could.

      Winston knelt beside them, waiting for and getting his turn to have Leila lick his face.

      "How can I ever thank you enough?" Deena said to him.

      Winston's face rearranged itself into a recognizable frown. You might not be quite so happy when I tell you where I found her, I fear.

      "What do you mean?" Deena grew uneasy.

      I take it you know a certain young man by the name of Jimmy, who fancies himself a gangster. I've made a point of staying far away whenever he comes here to deal in black-market foodstuffs; he literally makes me ill. It seems he had some squalid, poorly-conceived plan to take advantage of you; something to the effect of cornering you when you came by to free Leila from the 'secret' garage in which he'd locked her.

      "That asshole." Her jaw suddenly twinged awake.

      Exactly. I suspect he thought a reader would not be able to connect him with the garage, it being a good distance from his house. He neglected to take into account the intelligence of his captive; Leila's mind holds a devastatingly accurate image of him. But then, he's nowhere near as bright as he fancies himself to be. In any case, he hardly had her well-secured. I merely had to show her which way to push the interior control button for the door, and she grasped the concept instantly--a most intelligent being, as I said.

      "Oh you beautiful Leila you," Deena crooned to the dog, "you let yourself out of the bad boy's stupid old garage" But her jaw ached with the knowledge that she couldn't hide in Leila's fur forever.

      She turned to Winston, anger battling with hopelessness. "I have half a mind to track down that silly-ass 'secret' garage of his and burn the mother down. But that won't solve anything."

      And it will point back to you. And through you to us. For which reason, I beg you not to do such a thing, as much as he deserves it. I expect he'll be unpleasant enough to deal with once he discovers his hostage gone.

      "Don't worry. The last thing I want is to get any of you into trouble." She felt bleak suddenly, as if the chill of the dew had sunk into her heart. "I almost don't want to go back home at all anymore. I don't want to hear it when the kids start in about me hanging with Freaks--let alone what Jimmy might pull next. I--this is going to sound stupid, but I'd almost rather stay with all of you."

      Winston turned his head as if he were looking off into the night. No, not stupid, dear. But perhaps a trifle, hm, idealistic. You are starved for kindness and understanding. The sort of instant, deep understanding we readers can give is powerful, seductive. But not all Freaks are readers. And Freaks, readers or not, can be just as horrid as any Normal, let me assure you.

      Deena thought of the tension she felt earlier in the canteen. "Yeah, I suppose that's pretty naive of me. And you all have enough trouble without some wannabe underfoot." She ruffled Leila's fur, feeling even more deeply chilled. Was that Winston speaking again? No, only her own mind, echoing something he'd said: starved for kindness and understanding . . .

      Something broke in her. She started to cry, but this time she couldn't push it back down. The racking sobs shook her like somebody rattling her by the shoulders. She wished she were a little child again, back in her simpler child's world--a world before stinking factory towns full of hateful people, a world where parents acted like human beings and rocked her to sleep . . .

      Leila began to whine and lick her face again, and then, with the awkwardness of one long out of practice in the simple acts of human intimacy, Winston slipped his arms around her.

      He held her close, pillowing her head against his chest, stroking his hand over her hair, rocking her in the moonlight. Eventually she cried herself out, but they remained nestled together, Leila curled at their feet. Her ear against his chest, she could hear his heart beat--slow and ponderous compared to hers, but still recognizably a human heart.

      Actually, it's beating rather fast, for me. She felt a shiver go through him. For the sake of my own sanity, I tend to wall myself off from others. I haven't allowed myself to be this vulnerable in a long, long time.

      He clasped her to him one last time, and then gently released her and pulled himself away.

      I genuinely hate to do this, but I must send you home now. It would be too dangerous to have you found here.

      She held his hand in hers, feeling the wondrous smoothness of it. "But I can come back to visit, can't I? I--I'd die if I never saw you again."

      His face screwed up in a grimace, and for a moment she feared she'd said something wrong.

      No, dear heart, you have not displeased me--in fact, you have made me happier than I can convey. You're not the only one of us starved for a little human kindness. He raised his hand to brush her lips with his fingers. But do please go now, or I fear I will wind up keeping you on past sunrise. And that would be most unwise.

      He walked her to the gate and stood there after it closed, hand raised in farewell, or perhaps feeling her progress as she trudged further and further away. She kept looking back and seeing him there, as long as she could still make out the gate; and even after she no longer could, she imagined he was still standing there, watching, after his fashion.