He came across the room, moving with a gladiator ease between the packed tables. That’s when I pretended I was Marla Graim waiting at a Port Said bar to pick up a spy capsule from Sidney Harch like in the feelie I’d seen Sunday. This fellow did look a little like Harch--curly hair, dark blue eyes, face all sharp angles as if it had been chiseled by a sculptor who’d left the job uncompleted. He took the stool beside me as I’d known he would, and ordered a blue fire, easy on the sugar. Naturally, I figured this was a get-acquainted gambit and wondered what to say to him. Suddenly, it struck me as an exciting idea to just ride along with the Marla Graim plot until it came time to leave. He couldn’t do anything to stop me even if he was a ’porter. You see, I’m a pyro and that’s a good enough defense for anyone. I glanced down at my circa-twenty skirt and shifted until the slit exposed my garter the way I’d seen Marla Graim do it. This blond lad didn’t give it a tumble. He finished his drink, and ordered another. I whiffed him for one of the cokes, but he was dry. No jag. The other stuff in the room was getting through to me, though, and I was feeling dizzy. I knew I’d have to leave soon and I’d never get another chance to be a Marla Graim type; so I said, “What’s yours?” Oh, he knew I was talking to him all right, but he didn’t even look up. It made me mad. A girl has some pride and there I’d unbent enough to start the conversation! There was an ashtray piled with scraps of paper in front of him. I concentrated on it and the paper suddenly flamed. I’m a good pyro when I want to be. Some men have been kind enough to say I could start a fire without the talent. But with a prying father like mine how would I ever know? The fire got this fellow’s attention. He knew I’d started it. He just glanced at me once and turned away. “Leave me alone,” he said. “I’m a _Nothing._” * * * * * I don’t know what it was. Maybe I have a little of the tele like that doctor said once, but I knew he was telling the truth. It wasn’t one of those gags like you see in the feelies. You know--where there are two comedians and one says, “What’s yours?” And the other one answers, “Nothing.” Only all the time he’s levitating the other guy’s chair and juggling half a dozen things behind his back, no hands. You know the gag. It’s been run into the ground. Well, when he said that, it kind of set me back. I’d never seen a real-life _Nothing_ before. Oh, I knew there were some. In the government preserves and such, but I’d never been like this--right next to one. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a pyro.” He glanced at the ashes in the tray and said, “Yeah. I know.” “There’s not much work for pyros any more,” I said. “It’s the only talent I have.” I turned and looked at him. Handsome in spite of being a _Nothing_. “What did you do?” I asked. “I ran away,” he said. “I’m a fugitive from the Sonoma Preserve.”