I leaned back in the dirt and stared across to the city in the distance. It was a warm night, no wind blowing and the air about as clear as it ever would get.

I peered up at the stars, thinking about Pop. I felt the piece of bark between my fingers, knotted and rough and smooth. And I figured if that chunk of wood was as close as I was going to get to a real tree, then I was about as sorry a son of a bitch as you could find. I had clues up the ass. Knew I did. Just had to find some way to piece them all together. And by the time the fire died, I knew I had to head west.

West was where my father had been stolen away from me. Out past the cornfields, near Vega — the city juiced off the corn GenTech keeps hoarded. And the Electric City was where it sounded like Frost and Crow were now headed. There’s one in Vega, Crow had told Frost. But one what? What could help them find the trees they wanted so bad to sell?

Zee was right. Folk would pay a fortune for a forest. The last trees left growing. Food and fuel and who knew what other riches? It was either a place without locusts or the trees there could somehow withstand them. And either way, everyone would want in.

Thing is, no one could pay like GenTech. Not even close. Not even Crow’s old tribe in Niagara, though they make good off the water they sell. Sure, some say the Salvage Guild’s still got a load of old world prizes, but I doubt it’s as much as the stories make out. GenTech, though, they could make a man rich if he had the right information.

Or they could get the information they wanted and then cut that man’s throat.

The last job we worked together, before Pop took us out west, we’d watched a client get dragged from her own home, and this agent with a giant scar said the woman was scum, said she’d been bootlegging corn all throughout the southeast. He took his spiky club to her till her screams turned to silence, and when it was over, Pop made me finish the woman’s plastic pine and we buried her beneath it. When I asked him what bootlegging was, Pop said it was just another word for getting yourself killed.

But I found out about bootleggers. They’re good people. Brave. The rare kind of rich folk that try and help others. They give corn away or sell it off at a discount, and GenTech doesn’t like that at all.

As I sat there thinking, I started to figure those trees mightn’t be for sharing, anyway. Maybe they were just somewhere to run and stay hidden, not to be stamped with some logo. Just a place to forget all you’d left behind.

Hell, maybe the trees were Zion. The Promised Land that everyone spoke of and no one could find. Grass and animals and clean water and air just right for breathing. Just like in the stories. But I told myself none of that could matter. Not yet. Because no future would matter unless I could save my old man.

Everyone’s got to have something to believe in, that’s what Pop always told me. He’d spent his whole life trying to make the world worth living in. And I was damned if I was going to let him die someplace alone.

My guts were all set to take off, drive west, but I needed supplies if I was heading onto the plains. I needed corn and juice and I had not a single cent to pay with.

And that’s why I figured I should make one more visit to the Frost residence.

I loaded up the nail gun till the thing was fit to burst. Brightest, shiniest nails I had. Three-inch spikes. I buried the piece of bark in my pocket so it was close to me. And then I drove back to Frost’s place. Before sunup.

I checked the house from a distance with the telescope I’d gotten for showing off canopies. Then I strode up to the storage shed on the side of the house and I shot the lock through with the nail gun. Inside, the bio kit where Crow brewed their juice was missing, and that meant they’d gone west already. Just as I’d thought.

I found a bucket of fuel and five more like it. Then I ran to the back of the house and thumped at the door, hanging at the side of it with my gun ready — just in case I was wrong, just in case Crow or Frost came rushing outside.

But the night stayed silent. I knocked again, beating the steel door like a drum, hitting it so hard I thought my fist might break.

Still nothing. No one.

I pulled the wagon around and took the blowtorch and carved a hole big enough to just slice the locks right off the back door. Then I kicked in what metal was left and pulled my goggles up and I ran through every room in the house with my nail gun ready.

Empty. Each damn room. Frost’s study had been completely ripped clean.

I filled my arms with bags of popcorn and threw them in the back of the wagon with the buckets of juice. I buried my book and the piece of bark in a box of nails, and when I had everything packed, I pulled the wagon into the lot and tucked it out of sight amid the stacks of scrap metal.

The sun was almost up and I’d not slept for two days and as many nights, and I took the nail gun and a hot bag of corn and wound my way up to the bedroom where I’d found Zee. I stretched out on the bed, a real bed, and I ate the corn before sleeping a little.

But when I opened my eyes, Sal was sat on the bed beside me. And my nail gun was clamped tight in his sweaty hands.

The sun had already cooked the house rotten and I was sticky on the sheets. I stared up at Sal and gazed at the nail gun, and you can bet that I didn’t even blink.

“What the hell you doing here?” I said, eyeing his chubby finger on the trigger of the gun.

“This is my house, tree boy. The question’s what are you doing here?”

I grinned at him, tried to give him the sense we were friends, like maybe he was crazy for forgetting how much he liked me. But Sal didn’t smile back. He just squirmed around on the blankets and fidgeted with the nail gun.

“You know, Sal,” I said. “I guess I just needed a good night’s sleep before I set to finishing that forest of yours.”

“Sleep, huh? You needed some juice, too?”

“Was running a little low.”

“And some corn?”

“Right.”

“Just a filthy big thief, aren’t you?”

I started to say something but Sal jumped off the bed and pointed the nail gun between my eyes.

“Easy,” I whispered, freaking out about now. “Easy.”

“My dad hired you to build some trees, that’s all. Not run off and steal our supplies.” The kid pointed the gun up and let one loose, clanging a nail against the metal ceiling. That got him laughing, and he fired off another shot as he yelled, “You know what the red spot’s for? The big cross in your forest?”

I shook my head.

“My daddy’s going to be planting a real tree right there in the middle of your copies.”

“Is that so?”

“You bet it’s so. And we’re going to be more rich than you could even imagine.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can imagine a fair bit.”

“Then try imagining how much GenTech’s going to pay when my dad has real trees for selling. Real trees. Not like your stupid statues.”

“That where he is now? Hunting you up some trees?”

The kid made a slobbery grin and pointed the nail gun back at me. I put my hands behind my head and tried to look relaxed about things, trying to get the kid to lower his guard.

“Your dad must love you a whole heck of a lot,” I said. “Man could get himself killed looking for something that everyone wants and nobody has.”

“No,” Sal said quietly, then he threw the nail gun on the floor with a horrible clunk. “He always said he’d take me with him. But they’re gone. All of them. Everyone except me.”

“Maybe they wanted you to keep an eye on the place. Keep things safe.”