From phone to iDreamsCaster the file flowed. The fellow aimed his caster politely at Cirri, waiting one final moment for her to register some objection.

Then he zapped her.

Cirri and Boho Guy were dancing. On the Moon. Nearly weightless, they pirouetted in long graceful spirals beneath the stars, protected by a transparent gaudy pleasure dome, the only two lovers in the whole universe. She felt immeasurable happiness and contentment. The aerial waltz seemed to go on forever, ending only when they sank into a pile of colorful cushions.

The deceleration of the train pulling into the next station was hard to reconcile with the lingering imagery of the dream. Cirri was breathless.

Boho Guy was smiling hopefully, but with an undercurrent of fatalism.

Cirri took out her own iDreamsCaster, intending to respond. But she realized that none of her stored dreams could match what she had just experienced.

So instead she stood up, crossed the aisle, and took the seat beside Boho Guy.

"Hi," she said. "Do I know you?"

As a resident of Rhode Island, the smallest of all USA states, Im invariably drawn to the mythos of Texas, the largest of the contiguous states. Sociologists and politicians and musicians and pop-culture mavens speak of the "Boston-to-Austin axis," and I think that mysterious ley line has to drive through Providence as well. Ever since the days of the Lovecraft-Howard friendship at least, theres been a numinous cord between these unlikely partners.

So of course it was inevitable that I would someday set a story in Texas, and here it is. My one visit to the state capital stems from my friendship with my Texas anchor, Bruce Sterling, who invited me some years ago to participate in one of the famous Turkey City Writers Workshops. (You might notice Bruces surname anagramized into that of the protagonist.) Memories of Ron Goularts hilarious stories from the 1960s about a divided America kept cropping up as I wrote this. If only 1 could be as funny as he!

ESCAPE FROM NEW AUSTIN.

The song was a few years older than Amy Gertslin, but it still spoke to her and her plight.

"Redneck Woman," by Gretchen Wilson.

Amy sang along to the tune pumping through the wireless earbuds of her fifth-generation iPod, the model that held 50,000 songs in a unit the size of a Triscuit cracker, which Amy wore on a necklace of living synthetic seaweed.

"'Cause Im a redneck woman, and I aint no high-class broad. Im just a product of my raisin, and I say 'hey yall and yee haw!"

Amys skinny fifteen-year-old arms and legs flailed about as she emulated the playing of various air-instruments. She indulged in high kicks and thunderous stomps, weird line-dancing shuffles and slides. Plainly, she had a lot of pent-up energy to release.

The door to Amys bedroom opened just as she was bellowing out the line about knowing all the words to every Tanya Tucker song. In the doorway stood her father, Batch Gertslin.

Batch was short for Batchelder: a maternal family name used as a given name in this instance. The Gertslins descended in part from the famed Boston Batchelders, bioindustry pioneers. A branch of the family, verifying the legendary strength of the Boston-to-Austin cultural axis, had relocated to the former capital of Texas a couple of generations ago. So although Amy and the rest of her family were Texas natives, they also boasted a rich Agnostica pedigree.

Only fitting, since Austin was nowadays an integral if non-contiguous part of Agnostica, an azure island in the crimson sea of Faithland.

Batch Gertslin possessed a somewhat moony face, shadowed by a messy thatch of black hair and generally expressive of an amiable curiosity and frisky intellect. But now he was definitely irked.

"Amy! Youre bringing the ceiling in my office down!"

Batch Gertslin was a freelance ringtone, screen-wallpaper, emoticon and dingbat designer, and worked from home.

Amy pretended not to hear. "What?!"

"Turn that music off!"

Batchs face was shading into purple-a nice bi-national mix of red and blue, actually-and so Amy dropped her pretense of non-comprehension. A flick of her tongue against her Bluetooth dental implant controller deactivated the iPod. Her earbuds resumed their default task of ambient sound enhancement and noise filtering.

Batchs face regained a measure of composure and normal coloration. "Thank you. Listen, Amy. Your mother and I dont ask very much of you. Youre almost an adult, we realize, and deserving of being treated as such. For the most part. But this senseless caterwauling has got to stop. Its most annoying."

Amy felt her own face coloring now, heating up with anger. "'Senseless caterwauling! Youre talking about some of the greatest music ever made! The music I love!"

Batch advanced into the room, holding out his hands in a paternally placating gesture. "I know you dont like any of the music your mother and I enjoy, Amy. Thats only natural between generations. After all, you werent raised on classic acts such as Eminem and Linkin Park and Ol Dirty Bastard the way your mother and I were. Those old-school performers and their modern heirs are just not for you."

"Damn straight! You know I hate all that emo-crunk-harsh-metal shit! Classic country-western is my zome!"

"Fine, fine. But why do you have to favor the, ah, more downmarket acts in that genre? Couldnt you at least try some of those other artists Ive suggested. Lyle Lovett, k. d. lang, Alison Krauss-"

"Oh, Dad! Youre making my neurons go all apoptosis! Those wimps, those feebs, those posers, those zygotes! Charlie Daniels would eat them all for breakfast and still be hungry enough to swallow Shania Twain whole."

Batch assumed a dreamy look. "Shania Twain. What a hottie. Now there was a singer ...."

"Ugh! Dad, I promise not to rattle the plaster anymore. Just leave me alone now. Unless you had something else to say-"

"I do. Your mother wants you downstairs now to help with dinner."

"Why cant Hillary do it?"

"Your little brother is busy studying for his Vims Construction finals. And besides, he helped last night."

"Arrrrgh! Okay, Im coming!"

Batch left, and Amy waited the maximum amount of time before she knew she would receive a second notice to show up in the kitchen. Only then did she grudgingly tromp downstairs.

Phillipa Gertslin stood by the methane-fueled gas range, stirring a pot of free-range-turkey chili. Phillipas parents had been-still were-a famous team of young-adult writers, whose current series-involving a budding teenaged paleontologist trapped by accident of birth into an intolerant Faithland community-was a best-seller all across Agnostica. They had named their daughter in honor of Philip Pullman and his quintessential Agnostica fictions.

This evening Phillipa wore loose white cotton trousers and a plain black short-sleeved cotton top. For the nth time, Amy sized up her mothers slim figure, wondering if her mothers decidedly non-voluptuous shape was to be her lot too. Why couldnt Philippa Gertslin have had an endowment of Dolly Parton magnitude to pass on to her daughter, or at least one of Shelby Lynne proportions? Oh, well, Amy would just have to go in for an outpatient boob job when she came into her majority next year.

"Mom, you look like some kind of robot sushi chef! Dont you ever feel like glamming it up a little?"

Phillipa regarded Amys own embroidered red synthetic shirt, rhinestone-studded denim pants, and hand-stitched cowboy boots with a barely concealed distaste.

"You know I dont believe in regional fashions, dear, however ironically worn. Clothes are critical signifiers. I dont want my outfits proclaiming some false allegiance to Faithland, of all places."

Phillipa Gertslin taught popular culture at Howard Zinn University-what used to be known as UT Austin, before the Agnostica-Faithland split. Her last published book had been titled The Hermeneutics of Hypocrisy and concerned itself with the frequent preacher sex scandals that continued to plague Faithland at regular intervals without, inexplicably, managing to undermine in any way the basic beliefs of the heartland.

"Now, please," Phillipa continued, "if you could just set the table without offering any more fashion critiques ...? Ive got to nuke these duck tortillas."

Grumbling, Amy took down a stack of four clunky, hand-fired plates from the cupboard. Each plate weighed as much as brick.

"Why cant we get a set of those faunchy e-paper plates? The ones that let you eyeball content while you eat?"

"Paper? Id rather eat off the backs of exploited migrant laborers. Who knows what horrid toxins might leach out of that e-paper? Its only been around for a couple of years. I know the government says its safe, but I hope you realize just how far you can trust our elected officials-even our Agnostica politicians need to be kept on a short rein."

Amy set the weighty plates down on the table with enough force to have shattered a lesser vessel. "And thats another thing. How come you and Dad are always talking trash about our government? Whatever happened to, like, patriotism in this house? 'Agnostica Number One! My half of the USA right or wrong!"

Phillipa dumped a bag of blue-corn chips into a handwoven Guatemalan basket and carried it to the table. She looked at her daughter as if Amy had suddenly sprouted bat wings. "Now youre just being ridiculous. You know that no one in Agnostica talks or thinks that way. Its only in Faithland that youll hear people shouting those mindless chants. Our mode of government is based on rationalism and skepticism. Its only through constant questioning of the empirical that-"

Amy rattled a tray of silverware to cover the sound of her mothers voice. "La, la, la, la! Cant hear the semiotic discourse!"

Phillipa didnt pursue the argument, but just frowned and shook her head, then went back to her meal preparations.

A short time later, the Gertslin family assembled for their evening meal. From his seat across the table from Amy, her brother, Hillary, sneered and said, "Hey, shitkicker, pass the tortillas."

Hillary was a smart, wiry tweener who, unlike the others in his family, boasted a natural skin coloration the shade of a dusky plum. Hillary had been adopted by the Gertslins when he was just months old, an African child orphaned during the post-Mugabe chaos in Zimbabwe. He was as much a product of Agnostica as Batch or Phillipa, even down to his given name. Hillary had been named after the politician Hillary Clinton, who, during the year of little Hillarys birth, 2010, had been elected the first president of Agnostica.

Batch objected now to his sons language. "Hillary, I warned you about using that form of address."

"Aw, Dad, its a compliment Isnt that right, Amy? Youre proud of being a country girl, arent you? Barefoot and pregnant all the time? Double-wide trailer living? Coon-hunting? Am I right?"

Amy shoved her chair backwards and stood up, stiff as a vibrating board. "That did it! I dont have to sit here and be insulted! None of you understand me at all! This bleeding-heart family sucks! This tight-ass city sucks! This whole preachy, super-sensitive, liberal country sucks!"

Fleeing to hide her tears, Amy ran upstairs to her bedroom.

Several hours of sobbing and listening to Alan Jackson and Lee Ann Womack, a long interval during which no one came to console her, convinced Amy of one thing.

She had to run away to Faithland right now. Defect. She couldnt stand to wait a year till she was legally an adult But where would she go in that unknown land?

The answer dawned on her almost immediately.

Nashville. The home and source of the music she loved.

Gretchen Wilson was still alive, Amy knew, though the woman had retired from the music business some years ago. Maybe Amy could track her down in Nashville, become her protege ....

Amy began packing. She stuffed a few extra clothes into a backpack, along with her favorite plush toy, an alligator bearing a stitched tourist motto from the Everglades, which she had found discarded in a thrift store and named Mr. Taxes. From the closet she grabbed a black cowboy hat The hat was still crisp and unworn, since too many local people made fun of Amy when she appeared in public wearing it But where she was going, it would command respect.

While waiting until the rest of her family had gone to sleep, Amy studied road maps on her pocket ViewMaster. It looked like she could pick up Route 35 North to Oklahoma City, then catch Route 40 West and barrel straight on into Nashville.

That is, if she could get past the border.

Two AM, and everyone in the Gertslin home was asleep save Amy.

Out on the lawn, Amy looked back without regret at the only home she had ever known. Goodbye to its solar cells and rain-collecting system, its weedy lawn planted in a water-conserving mix of native plants, its faded political poster from the recent election: RE-ELECT STERLING FOR MAYOR.

Red River Street was quiet. Amy felt as if the neighborhood was already a ghostly figment of her past.

A few blocks to the west, she knew she could catch one of the hydrogen-fueled mass-transit buses heading north to the city limits, one step closer to the border; the bus-stop was adjacent to the former State House, in a safe neighborhood.

When Austin joined Agnostica in the 2010 division of the USA, renaming itself New Austin, the Texas state capitol had perforce relocated to Houston. Nowadays, the former home of the governor served as the Waldrop Museum and Cultural Center.

Amy had to wait only a few minutes at the bus shelter. It was a little scary to be out alone this late at night, but luckily no one bothered her. The most frightening person she saw was a man with patches of armadillo skin grafted onto his bare arms, and he seemed more concerned with reading a manga on his ViewMaster than in bothering a skinny teenager.

Finally onboard her bus, Amy tried to imagine how she would get past the Customs and Immigration officials at the limits of New Austin.

When the partitioning of the country was first being adjudicated, New Austin had managed to claim an irregular circle of land some sixty miles in diameter around the urban core. This allowed the city to retain many natural attractions and resources, not the least of which was The Salt Lick BBQ Restaurant in Driftwood. Texas could afford to be magnanimous: the chunk was the only tiny bite that Agnostica had managed to take out of the mammoth, imperturbable Faithland corpus of the state.

Route 35 exited New Austin territory at the small burg named Georgetown. There, Amy would have to undergo scrutiny by two sets of inspectors, those of both Agnostica and Faithland. They would ask to see her ID and inquire about her reasons for leaving one country and entering another, demanding her destination and intentions. First, shed be busted for being an unescorted minor. Even if she could get around that, she had no definite arrangements in Nashville or en route to offer as legitimate support for her trip.

Well, no point in worrying about that now. With the innate optimism of her years, convinced of the rightness of her quest, Amy assumed some option would present itself when she got to the border.

So she sat back, relaxed, and played some George Jones.

At the outskirts of New Austin proper, Amy had to change to the long-range bus for Georgetown, which she did without trouble. Luckily, she had her life savings-five hundred and ten euros-available via her personal chopcard. Amy wasnt sure what the exchange rate for Agnostica euros versus Faithland dollars was at the moment, but she hoped it was favorable.

She fell asleep for the last twenty miles of the bus ride, her head cradled on Mr. Taxes, awaking only when the driver called out via the onboard PA, "End of the line, folks."

Only half-awake, Amy stumbled out.

The Customs and Immigration plaza was a vast expanse of parking-slot-demarcated pavement hosting many restaurants, motels and dutyfree shops, as well as some official government buildings. A hundred yards from where her bus had deposited her, near an Au Bon Pain, a single lane of traffic-fairly light at this hour-crawled toward the lone inspection checkpoint that remained open.

Amy went inside the restaurant, hoping to assemble her thoughts. She ordered a pain chocolat and a cafe au lait. Sitting at a table near the door, she nursed her refreshments and tried to come up with a scheme to circumvent the inspectors.

After half an hour of pointless cogitation, nothing had revealed itself to her. So she activated her earbuds and began quietly singing along to a Loretta Lynn tune.

A shadow fell across Amys field of vision, and she looked up to see a man standing by her table.

The fellow was about six feet four, possessed of an enormous red beard matched in impressiveness only by his beer gut. He wore a one- piece outfit that looked like the inner lining of a taikonauts suit, with various hookups and jacks.

For a moment, Amy was frightened. But then she noticed that there were tears in the mans eyes.

The stranger seemed to want to address her, so Amy deactivated her iPod to allow them to talk.

"Honey," said the man, "I aint thought of that song in nigh on fifteen years, since my Mama died. She loved that song, and used to sing it pert near every day. Course, she could actually nurse a tune, not strangle it like you. Nonetheless, it done my heart good to hear you attempt it Pertickly here, midst all these Chardonnay-swillers."

Amy chose to ignore the insult to her singing abilities, as well as the blanket categorization of her fellow New Austinites as foreign-wine imbibers-especially since the latter accusation was true. The man seemed friendly enough, and might know some way of getting her across the border.

"Thanks, mister. Im purely sorry to hear you lost your mama, even iffen it were a hound dogs age ago."

Amy was surprised to find herself falling into the speech patterns and diction of the stranger, a mode of speech that resembled the vernacular of the songs she loved. She had never allowed herself to indulge in such an affectation before, for fear of ridicule by her peers. But now that she had cut loose from her old life, nothing seemed more natural than to talk this way.

"I appreciate the sentiment, little lady." The man extended his hand. "Bib Bogardus is the name, and I hail from Pine Mountain, Georgia. Whats yourn?"

"Amy Gertslin."

"Pleased to meet you, Amy." Bib lowered his bulk precariously into a seat at her table. "Now, just call me a nosy nelly if Im stepping on any toes with my curiosity, but what brings you out to this place all alone at this hour?"

Amy hesitated a minute, then decided to confide everything to this friendly ear.

Bib listened to her story attentively and without condemnation. When she had finished, he said, "Waal, I cant say Id be totally happy iffen my own daughter upped and hit the road. Shes just about your own age, you know. Name of Jerilee. But I can unnerstand how a youngun has to find her own destiny. Especially when youre trapped in such a hellhole as New Austin. Why, did you know that you cant even buy a Lone Star beer in this whole territory anymore?"

Emboldened by Bib Bogarduss sympathy, Amy leaned toward him. "Is there any way you could help me scoot past these revenooers, Bib? What do you do anyhow? How come youre here?"

"I drive a big rig, Amy. Carrying a load of tomacco from Mexico to Oklahoma City."

"Why, thats just where Im going! I figure on hitching a ride from there straight to Nashville. Im gonna try to get into the music biz."

Bib scratched his beard ruminatively. "Hmmm, best you concentrate on being a producer or songwriter, with them pipes. But hail, whom I to say what you can do, once you put your mind to it. They got plenty of tricks to sweeten up anyones voice these days. Just look at thet there little Simpson gal. If it werent for her mother, Ashlee, pushing her, shed probably be serving grits at a Waffle House. Or whatever similar place they got in Agnostica. Caviar at the French Embassy, I guess."