genomic codes on file. She just injected you with a batch of silicrobes that had a tropism for the cells of your thumb. Once they got there, they started scavagening up all your original blood cells and making replacement blood with different DNA in it. For a second or two, your thumb belonged to somebody else. Then they put everything right again and croaked. Otherwise, you woulda had one helluva immune reaction.”
Now that Bib had explained things to her, Amy could sense a faint soreness in her thumb. “Oh. So I can’t pull that trick again?”
“Nuh-huh. Not unless you’re hooked up to the
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to hope I don’t have any more run-ins with the
“Not too likely. Faithland’s perty quiet these days on the homeland security front, ever since President O’Reilly unleashed that sweet little global virus.”
Amy remembered learning about this Faithland anti-terrorist measure in school. Forgetting to employ her new accent and diction, she said, “You mean the Glowworm Patch? The one that spreads by touch and retroengineers into humans a luciferase gene that’s activated by certain high-order brain chemistry patterns?”
“That’s the one, honeychile. Mighty hard to commit terrorism when thinking about it make you glow bright blue in public.”
Amy gave vent to a huge yawn at this point.
Bib regarded Amy tenderly. He paid no attention to the road, since the
“You wouldn’t mind…?”
“No, I’ll just punch up some Government Mule in my earbuds and do my road-warrior thing.”
“’Kay. Thanks….”
Before she knew it, Amy was asleep.
When she awoke, daylight reigned outside, and they were approaching a major metropolitan area.
“Is that—?”
“Oklahoma City? Sure enough. Here’s where you and me gotta part ways, I fear. I’m gonna drop you off at the Grayhound terminal. I figger you prolly got enough cash for a ticket to Nashville. Or do you need some bits on your chop?”
“No, no, I’m all set, Bib. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. You been—you been sweeter to me than mama’s ice tea.”
“Waal, Amy, you done reminded me of my own little princess, so warn’t no way in God’s creation I could let you be disappointed. You take care now, y’hear, on the rest of your trip. Faithland’s a mighty safe place for the most part, but there’s always folks out there looking to score.”
Stripped of the truck’s passenger suit, wearing her backpack, Amy stood on the sidewalk outside the bus terminal, waving goodbye to the
So much for all the horrible things the Agnosticans liked to say about the Faithlanders. Amy felt confirmed in her decision to leave the elite enclave into which she had been born.
She looked around now at the streets of the first Faithland city she had ever visited, expecting to see immense differences from home. Truth to tell, however, many of the same franchises occupied various storefronts, although a few names were new to her. She wondered if JENNA’S PEIGNOIRS was equivalent to VICTORIA’S SECRET.
It would’ve been nice to explore a little, but Nashville beckoned.
The ticket to Nashville took almost fifty of Amy’s euros, which she exchanged for forty dollars at an ATM in the terminal. She even had a few dollars left over for breakfast at the terminal cafe.
A few hours later, Amy was on her bus, heading east. She had taken what appeared to be the seat with possibly the most congenial companion: an Asian woman not much older than Amy herself. Although conventionally pretty, the woman had chosen to downplay her looks with a lack of makeup, severe hairstyle and drab clothing.
After a dozen miles of mutual silence, the woman turned to Amy and introduced herself in a perky manner.
“Hi, there, my name’s Cindy Lou Hu.”
The woman’s English was excellent, but accented. After Amy volunteered her own name, she asked, “Are you from, like, another country?”
“Yes, of course. Shanghai, China. I’m here to visit Brother Ray’s Gospel Mission in Nashville.”
“Huh?”
Cindy Lou explained that her family had been evangelical Christians for two generations, ever since adopting the creed from American missionaries. Now she was returning to the source of her faith for instruction in spreading the gospel even further.
“Faith is one of your country’s last, best exports. No one sells religion abroad like Faithland. Brother Ray and his peers are everywhere around the world. They might assign me to Latin America or Africa or Mongolia even. It all depends. Wherever I can do the most good bringing the word of Jesus to unbelievers. Are you a believer, Amy?”
Amy began to squirm. This kind of conversation was never encountered in Agnostica. “Uh, well, I guess I’m kind of a, um, secular humanist.”
Cindy Lou’s smile did not waver, but definitely acquired a steely gleam. “Oh, you must read some of these tracts I happen to have with me. Right now. And then we’ll talk about them. We’ve got
Fifteen hours later, as the bus pulled into Nashville, Amy’s brain felt as if it had been extracted, pureed and reinserted into her skull. She was convinced that the friendly “dialogue” on Jesus and all matters Biblical that Cindy Lou had subjected her to was a form of torture banned by the Geneva Convention.
Still, Amy had not crumbled. She managed to refuse Cindy Lou’s repeated importunings to stay at Brother Ray’s mission. And engaging in a mass baptism was definitely ruled out. So as the two women parted around midnight outside the Nashville terminal, Amy was finally left extensively on her own, for the first time since she had escaped from New Austin.
The first thing she did was find cheap lodgings with her ViewMaster. In the Ikea capsule hotel on Commerce, not far from the Cumberland River, Amy gratefully rested her head on her thin pillow the size of a handkerchief—a Snooli, according to its label—knowing that she was only a short distance away from all the famous musical sites she had come so far to see.
And perhaps close in time as well to a career in music.
The next morning Amy was up early, eager to see all the attractions that Nashville had to offer. Surely by nightfall she would have connected through some magical serendipity with the forces that would transform her life and allow her musical talent to blossom.
The first place she intended to visit after breakfast was Music Row, the district where all the famous recording studios thrived. Here had so many of her favorite songs been digitized. The sidewalks practically gleamed golden with glory in Amy’s mind.
But when Amy arrived at Music Row, she quickly found the district to be a hollow recreation of what she had envisioned, a series of museums and shops without any professional musicians around at all. Only fatuous tour guides and sullen gift-shop cashiers afforded any connection to the fabulous heritage of Nashville.
A few simple inquiries soon revealed that Music Row had been obsoleted about ten years ago, by the ultimate perfection of home-recording software and the changed nature of music distribution. Music Row was now distributed unevenly across all of Faithland, in a thousand garages and bedrooms, of tract houses and mansions alike.
Saddened but still hopeful after touring the simulated remnants of the district, Amy decided to treat herself to some barbecue. She found a place called Hog Heaven on 27th Street and walked the long blocks there. But the meal disagreed with her. Tennessee barbecue, it turned out, wasn’t anything like New Austin’s. Weird sauces, weird coleslaw, weird beans, weird cornbread.
But even this disappointing repast failed to dim Amy’s excitement at the thought of what awaited her tonight. The Grand Ole Opry was performing in the historic Ryman auditorium, and she had snagged a cheap ticket with her
