By the light of the moon

newspaper
coverage. As soon as we find a photo, we have a name. Then we can
read about him and find out what he's been working on.'
    'Unless his research was all top secret, like the Manhattan
Project, like the formula for fudge-covered Oreos.'
    'There you go again.'
    'Even if we get the full skinny on him,' she said, 'how does
that help us?'
    'Maybe there's a way to undo what he did to us. An antidote or
something.'
    'Antidote. What – we toss frog tongues, bat wings, and
lizard eyes in a big cauldron, stew them up with some
broccoli?'
    'Here comes Negative Jackson, vortex of pessimism. The folks at
DC Comics ought to develop a new superhero around you. They go in
for brooding, depressive superheroes these days.'
    'And you're a Disney book. All sugar and talking chipmunks.'
    In a Wile E. Coyote T-shirt, hunched over his dinner plate, Shep
snickered, either because the Disney crack rang his bell or because
he found the remaining meat loaf amusing.
    Shepherd wasn't always as disconnected as he appeared to be.
    'What I'm saying,' Dylan continued, 'is that maybe his work was
controversial. And if so, then it's possible some of his colleagues
opposed his research. One of them will understand what was done to
us – and might be willing to help.'
    'Yeah,' she said, 'and if a lot of money is needed to finance
the research to find this antidote, we can always get a few billion
from your uncle Scrooge McDuck.'
    'You have a better idea?'
    She stared at him as she drank her beer. One swallow. Two.
    'I didn't think so,' he said.
    Later, when the waitress brought the check, Jilly insisted on
paying for the two beers that she'd ordered.
    From her attitude, Dylan deduced that paying her own way was an
issue of honor with her. Further, he suspected that she would no
more graciously accept a nickel for a parking meter than she would
take ten bucks for two beers and a tip.
    After putting the tenner on the table, she counted the contents
of her wallet. The calculation didn't require much time or higher
mathematics. 'I'll need to find an ATM, make a withdrawal.'
    'No can do,' he said. 'Those guys who blew up your car –
if they have any kind of law-enforcement connections, which they
probably do, then they'll be able to follow a plastic trail. And
quick.'
    'You mean I can't use credit cards, either?'
    'Not for a while, anyway.'
    'Big trouble,' she muttered, staring glumly into her wallet.
    'It's not big trouble. Not considering our other problems.'
    'Money trouble,' she said solemnly, 'is never little trouble.'
    In that one statement, Dylan could read whole chapters from the
autobiography of her childhood.
    Although he didn't know for sure that the men in pursuit of her
could have connected Jilly to him and Shep, Dylan decided not to
use any of his plastic, either. When the restaurant ran his card
through their point-of-sale verification machine, the transaction
would register in a credit-clearing center. Any legitimate
law-enforcement agency or any gifted hacker with dirty money behind
him, monitoring that center either with a court order or secretly,
might be running software that could track selected individuals
immediately upon the execution of a credit-card purchase.
    Paying with cash, Dylan was surprised to feel no charge of
uncanny energy on the currency, which had passed through
uncountable hands before coming into his possession in a bank
withdrawal a couple days ago. This suggested that unlike
fingerprints, psychic spoor faded completely away with time.
    He told the waitress to keep the change, and he took Shep to the
men's room, while Jilly visited the ladies'.
    'Pee,' Shep said as soon as they walked into the lavatory and he
knew where they were. He put his book on a shelf above the sinks.
'Pee.'
    'Pick a stall,' Dylan said. 'I think they're all unused.'
    'Pee,' Shep said, keeping his head down, peering up from under
his brow as he shuffled to the first of the four stalls. From
behind the door, as he latched it, he said, 'Pee.'
    A robust seventy-something man with a white mustache and white
muttonchops stood at one of the sinks, washing his hands. The air
smelled of orange-scented soap.
    Dylan approached a urinal. Shep couldn't produce at a urinal
because he feared being spoken to while indisposed.
    'Pee,' Shep called out from behind his stall door. 'Pee.'
    In any public restroom, Shepherd became so uncomfortable that he
needed to be in continuous voice contact with his brother, to
assure himself that he hadn't been