Through the observation windows everything turned green, boom, just like that. Vibrant, pulsing. And, just as sudden, black.

Not stars, not swirling nebulae, not those crazy psychedelic effects Hollywood would have provided.

Blackness.

Was the train still riding atop the tracks? But what would be supporting them?

If not, then did that mean it was just us, inside a train, adrift in a void? Were we in motion? Or maybe we were just suspended here for two days?

But, wait. Would it seem like two days for us? Did time even work in this place? We did have gravity, which was good.

One of the producers for I’d Eat That!, wished us a goodnight as he walked past our table.

“You might want to set your alarm clock,” he warned. “They stop serving breakfast pretty early. By eight-fifteen all you’ll have is a continental buffet.”

I guess clocks were still dependable, at least aboard the train.

Saligia finished her Campari, and we headed down to our stateroom.

When we closed ourselves inside, Saligia looked around. If she had wanted privacy, she wouldn’t be finding it here.

“At least it’s more comfortable than that radioactive cell,” she muttered before turning off the light.

There remained a soft glow of a nightlight that ran along the recessed edge of the ceiling. She was looking up at it, her hands frozen on the top button of her blouse. She rolled her eyes and turned her back on me to undress.

I, too, turned around. I had begun to get out of my clothes when it occurred to me I might need to help her up onto her bunk, and it might be more in line with whatever sort of decorum she wanted to create between us if I was still dressed when I did so. How had things become so awkward?

But then I heard the creak of springs, and I knew she’d made it up on her own.

I undressed and climbed into my own bed.

I thought about asking Saligia if I should close the curtains, but that would be absurd, as there was nothing out there. No intrusive moonlight, no chance of prying eyes. Nothing. Still, I felt I should say something before falling asleep. There was a tension in the air, and maybe I could lessen it.

“I’m sorry if I seem weird,” I said. Probably I should have said distant, that was one of her favorite criticism of me when we were together. “A lot has happened to me lately. I’m just trying to process it all.” That was no lie. “I mean, like Sy. I was so relieved to find he hadn’t died. And then when you told me that he had…you know, died, well, it was a shock on top of a shock.”

She said nothing. I knew she was still awake. I decided to be optimistic and  think of her silence as acceptance of my simple statement of…certainly not an excuse, but an explanation.

“I know you’re not lying,” she suddenly said. “You don’t do that. Of course, I suspect you lie to yourself all the time. But, good lord, Morris, nobody can be that dense.”

“Excuse me?”

I tried to remember if, in better days between us, pillow talk had been this graceless.

“So,” I began, slow and cautious, “you’re saying everyone on the show—Serpientes y Escaleras—they all knew Sy died and, months later, appeared out of one of the portals?”

That didn’t sound right. I would have heard some sort of gossip if it were general knowledge.

Saligia didn’t speak for a full minute. Aha! I had her.

“No,” she eventually said with a sigh. “Why would they? His death was never reported. It was the Changes. Newspapers didn’t bother with obituaries. There was so much more going on.”

“And yet, I’m the dense one?”

“You saw the explosion, and you ran away. Later, you saw him alive on TV. And then you came to La Vida Tower, at which point you learned about the portals…that dead people come out of them.”

“Okay. I’ll give you that. I’m a bit slow, at times. I would have eventually—”

“Would you? Once you had allowed your guilt be so wonderfully and completely washed away?”

Now it was my time to be silent.

I lay there in my narrow bunk trying to think of something to say. But I couldn’t. When I heard Saligia’s even breathing, I knew she had fallen sleep, so I decided to do so as well.

###

The next two days we learned less than we had hoped.

I say we, but I guess I mean, me. Saligia was less interested in the details of where Sy went or how that portal managed to get him from the set of Serpientes y Escaleras to wherever he was now. She just wanted us to get to him and make sure he was safe.

As for getting to the bottom of what happened to San Antonio, well, I still hadn’t told her what I had seen.

Clearly, I wanted to know what had happened. I mean if an entire city had vanished from the face of the planet, were any of us safe? I for one had been extremely relieved when I learned that the Changes had ended. It was how I imagine the British felt when the Nazi’s surrendered. Finally the constant fear of chaotic bombardment was over.

But, for us, was it over? Our fear?

If the Changes were returning, we needed to prepare ourselves.

Of course, maybe it was something else. Maybe it was what Ida had said. The portals overheated, or whatever. If those damn things were so delicate and so destructive, why the hell were they being used for something as asinine as a game show?

I for one would think twice before putting a bunch of entertainment industry folks in charge of something that could take out an entire city.

So, I decided to ask around the next morning after breakfast. We had made certain to get to the dining car while they were still serving the full breakfast. The eggs Benedict put to shame any I had had before. Saligia opted for the oatmeal and a huge sweating tumbler of mimosa.

When the waiter told Saligia about the spa at the back of the train, she smiled dreamily and stood.

“Off to the spa?” asked a young woman we had met yesterday on the observation deck. She handed Saligia a magazine. “Something to read while getting that pedicure.”

“Variety!” Saligia said. “I didn’t know they still published this.”

The woman laughed. “You’re in this issue,” she said. “Page 47.”

Saligia’s eyes grew. She hurried off with the magazine clutched to her chest.

I went up to the observation deck and soon was deep in conversation with Wanda, head of personnel for I’d Eat That!

She was a huge fan of Sy, and had recognized my name from those distant days of Wonders Unfolding. I found myself answering a barrage of questions about his boyhood and daily work schedule and all that sort of nonsense. I kept trying to move the conversation back to those portals. Just how dangerous were they?

But for Wanda such matters held no interest.

“Aren’t you afraid?” I asked.

“Of what?”

“Working around those things. You have them on I’d Eat That!, right?”

“Sure, but I’m back in my office in LA most of the time. Besides, those sort of accidents don’t happen often. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “You’re telling me cities have been destroyed before?” This was madness.

She shrugged and muttered something about how it was a shame, if you thought about it. And then she asked if Sy chose his own wardrobe.

“I heard he switched to a red wig on that final episode,” she said with an enthusiastic grin. “Before leaping through Door Number One. What a stunt. Flashy! Splashy!” She smiled wistfully off into space before turning to lock eyes with mine. “And sexy!”

Well, at least Sy managed to escape before the city was destroyed. But, sexy or not, I hoped that was not the last image I would have of my old friend. With that absurd toupee on his head.

And if we found him—I mean, when—how was I going to explain that all of San Antonio was gone? He must have made some good friends while living there. And then there was Rose. She was born there. Probably had family. The thought of having to share that sort of news made me sick to my stomach.

###

For the rest of the trip, our fellow passengers did little to inform or educate me on much of anything. Mostly they were keen to share gossip, gossip about people I knew nothing about. Saligia seemed to know some of the names they dropped in their hushed and amused tones, and I noticed that she was paying close attention so as to file away any useful information. She really seemed to be warming to everyone. It didn’t hurt that they treated her with such revered respect.

“These are my people,” she had even said to me on our second night. “And I never knew I even had people. My peers! My colleagues!”

I had about reached my fill of Saligia’s droning on about how far her fame had spread, but I let her have her moment. It was better than her former tirade about “those jackasses in upper management always slapping us down, me and Sy, keeping our knees bent in supplication—they should have been bowing to us!”

So, beyond general chitchat and shoptalk (chiefly about how to get better ratings), the Network people we talked to did little to expand my sketchy knowledge of the portals—their dangers, their origins, where people who went into them went. Most responses to my question were monosyllabic. Chet, the head of marketing for Don’t Spin Wrong! (“marketing maven,” he called himself with grinning gusto), spoke in greater length, but hardly more depth.

He had joined me and Saligia for breakfast on the second day. Saligia was still engrossed in her copy of Variety that sat open beside her breakfast plate.

“Portals?” Chet said. “Not much to say about them. We have them as well for our show, of course. People come to us, resurrected. The REINCORs. Which is pretty cool if you think about it, wouldn’t you say? And we process them. Separate winners from losers. You guys do the same. But you have that great hook. Not just winners losers. But the whole moral judgement thing. Saints and sinners! And into the departure portals they all go. What happens after that, who knows? Not me! I heard somewhere that they get processed again. Seems unnecessary. All this processing. Hey, maybe they’re reincarnated. Winners get to be captains of industries. Losers, chiggers or poultry. Maybe it’s on to pure enlightenment, cosmic consciousness. Had an aunt who was into all that top chakra mumbo jumbo. You really should be talking with Ida. She’s the most upper of upper management on this train.”

Not a good idea. Ida was still giving me the cold eye.

“We’ve heard that after the contestants go through the portals, they arrive in LA,” Saligia said as matter-of-fact as though critiquing the fruit salad she was picking at. “Do you know where? Where in LA?”

“An address, perhaps,” I added.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Chet said. “Hollywood Bowl. Well, underneath the Hollywood Bowl. There’s supposed to be a whole complex. The winners and losers get sent there. All of them. Central Processing, that’s the place. I can’t imagine it’s very interesting. I mean, if it were, they’d make a TV show of it, right?”

That was our first real lead. Now we had a destination when we arrived. I was heartened to know that there was at least one landmark I would recognize. What with the Changes, anything might have happened. From Chet we learned a few more things about the post-Changes Los Angeles.

“The surrounding countryside is mostly a desolate wasteland,” he told us, waving his hand dismissively. “But, not to worry, because a circular portion of the city has been preserved. Not all of it, unfortunately. Los Angeles is now fifteen miles in diameter, from the Santa Monica pier to Griffith Park, from Mulholland Drive to Culver City. Everything safe and cozy, beneath a lovely transparent dome!”

A dome? Something like that would have been nice in San Antonio. I had noticed how on windy days the dust from the treeless barrens would come into town and settle over everything.

But, all in all, I felt a surge of optimism. We would soon arrive at a town I knew well, and it sounded as though I’d still be able to find my way around. I would track down my favorite Korean place, Madam Bong-Cha’s Dumpling Diner, in Los Feliz. I think I could handle almost anything, as long as I could hold onto one pleasant and familiar thing. If, let’s say, Los Angeles was populated with bipedal talking cats, it’d be Madam Bong-Cha’s kimchi-mandu that would keep me sane.

Once we tracked down Sy and Nora, rescued Rose, and turned August over to the authorities, I would treat us all to an extended stay at a suite at the Biltmore. I’d like to finally put some of my gold coins to good use. Then, surrounded by luxury, we could figure out what to do next.

I tapped Saligia’s shoulder. She looked up from the magazine.

“What?”

“Hollywood Bowl,” I said.

She nodded and immediately returned to the magazine.

Chet laughed.

“She’s amazed to find herself featured in Variety,” I told him.

“Do you not know?” Chet said, leaning across the table toward Saligia. “Last year you were on the cover.”

Saligia’s eyes bulged. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

“What’s going on?” I asked Chet, looking around the dining car as people were getting up and leaving.

“We’re about to transition from the void,” he said. “Come on up topside, it’s quite a sight.”

He stood and walked away.

I quickly gulped the last of my coffee and followed Chet up the stairs.

Saligia was close behind me, whispering loudly if I thought he was serious.

“You know,” she added for clarity. “About the cover of Variety?”

When we entered the observation deck, I took Saligia’s hand and we pushed our way to the front. The people crowding around the large window were happy to make room for us.

First there was just that blackness we’d been subjected to for the last two days. That infinite velvety nothingness. Then Saligia squeezed my hand and I saw it, too. A speck of green, which I first thought was a reflection in the window. As it grew in size, I had, for the first time since we’d been in this lightless limbo, a sense of motion. We weren’t floating. No. We were moving—and moving fast—towards something green. A glowing green blob. Glowing and growing, bigger and brighter. Then we were in it. All was green. And just as soon as we were in, we were out.

Our fellow passengers began clapping and cheering.

Saligia’s pressure on my hand became painful.

We had emerged onto a gray and blasted plain. The sky was black, and filled with stars. In front of us was a domed city. I suppose it must be Los Angeles. But I didn’t think we were in California. That giant red planet, which filled the sky, certainly did not belong to any landscape I knew.

“Good lord,” Saligia said, her tone low, the words formed deep in her throat. “Where are we?”

“Oh, I thought you would have known,” said Wanda. “These days, Los Angeles is on Phobos.”

“On what?” Saligia asked.

I’d be needing a double serving of Madam Bong-Cha’s dumplings.

“The larger moon of Mars,” I told her.