Chapter 7
EVEN AT almost six o’clock, June sunlight still poured heat down from the spotless blue sky. The weather had been unseasonably hot, and promised a scorching August. Not that “unseasonably” meant anything, after years of fallout and then the fires of humanity’s last futile fight against Absolute. The concrete sidewalks and asphalt road radiated heat back up at us as we dashed out of Jack’s.
Reamer had pulled a massive, sparkling blue diesel pickup truck up over the curb, stopping the front wheels on the sidewalk next to Jack’s front door. The engine still ran, and the driver’s door hung open. A massive willow loomed over the far side, its leaves, boughs, and incongruous, dangling hard-rind melons crushed against the side of the cab and shading the truck bed.
I grabbed the drive
