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couple days worth of clothes, toiletries, and two
small wheeled suitcases to carry everything. Jenna also bought some new sneakers,
having noted that she was finding the long drive in her sandals uncomfortable.
    He gassed up the
car again, nervously listening for ringing pay phones, then drove on. They
stopped for supper, and when they were back in the car Jenna fell asleep, Dom
insisting that he had plenty of energy and that she should bank her sleep now,
in case it was suddenly in short supply.
    After a search
showed that Jenna listened mostly to pop and hip hop with a sprinkling of house
music, he kept the Coltrane disc on, volume low and in the background, but
enjoying the numbers that wafted from the player with each note. He’d never
listened much to the jazz performer before, having focused most of his energy
on discerning the mojo that Mingus was able to give, but he was pleased to find
there was a lot of numerate subtlety here as well.
    Jazz musicians,
like baseball players, also had it. In spades. Classical composers too, and of
course musicians who played other styles, like rock and bluegrass and reggae.
But the intricacies of good jazz worked well in Dom’s world, and knowledge of
how a musician had constructed a tune, not by notes, but by numbers, was a
handy tool to have when working through that world.
    Billy was
silent, probably aware that Dom was feeling quiet himself. So he just sat back
and let himself enjoy the drive, once again able to relax, even though his ass
was being ridden by someone with numerate ability he’d never dreamed possible.
    And that was the
biggest problem he had. Dom was strong, even if he was relatively new at this.
Until this latest stretch of fear and bad luck, he had felt pretty confident
that he was the strongest numerate around, maybe not in the world, but at least
in the circles he had travelled. He had plenty of natural talent, and not only was
he a quick study, he worked hard at learning what he needed, and once the world
of numbers had changed for him, opened up beyond his confused youthful
awareness of numbers and formulae and algorithms that floated through his
everyday life, he had been able to grab hold of every treasured piece of mojo
he had sought.
    Sometimes
he was given a bit of a fight, but even so, the hardest time he’d had
retrieving an item had really been simple. He had talent, he used it well, if
selfishly, and life up until the past few days had gone fairly well, if a bit
lonely. He’d been on a smooth ride to the top, and the trip down to the desert
had been another step on the way to his ultimate target, a goal that was likely
shared by every numerate person on Earth. He knew that he would have some
trouble if someone got there first, but had frankly been unprepared for just
how much power would be involved.
    Just as obvious,
Billy and his former host had also been unprepared; while they had carried more
experience into their duel, Dom felt sure from the numbers he’d seen that he
held more innate ability. With some new mojo and perhaps a bit more research,
and with Billy along for the ride to give solid advice, he’d be able to figure
out this mystery person and get what he was after.
    The thought made
him smile.
    “What?” asked
Billy.
    “Hmmph. Just
thinking about this gal and the shadow she carries. Do you suppose she was this
strong before she got to whatever was sitting in the desert?”
    Billy shrugged;
it was funny how natural the motion now felt. “I don’t know. She would already
have had to be very good, just making out the trail like we did. But to have
that much power before she got there, and for us not to have had any idea that
he existed, it seems a bit of a reach.”
    “What if it was
the big gun itself?”
    Billy shook his
head. “If she had held that, we would not be sitting here talking to each
other.”
    Dom nodded and
chewed on his lower lip. “I guess it’s not like it would have been in the
middle of the fucking desert,