Their next few shots evened the game further, but in the end, Amaal beat her by 225 points. They gathered up their tickets, and he said, “Well, you can show me how to redeem these now.”
“We don’t really need to do that,” she replied. “Like I said, it’s mostly just junk.”
“I’d still like to do it.”
She shook her head but led him over to the redemption center. The door wasn’t locked, although Deirdre was relieved to note that there weren’t any telltale piles of gray dust in here. Had Amaal quietly whisked them away when she wasn’t looking, or had the clerk who’d been working in here fled before the disease could fully take hold?
Better not to ask. She watched as Amaal waved a hand to turn on the lights overhead, illuminating shelves stocked with everything from pencil erasers to battery-
