Ron began to notice the clothes that the boys were modeling. Wild. Leather, and macho-looking real metal zippers. Snug-fitting. Boots. Stripes. Glancing down at his own loose, pale green zipsuit, Ron started to feel like a real country dork. A plastic imitation. He nodded once to himself and then pushed his way through the crowd to the store’s entrance.

Inside it was much quieter. And cool. The air felt pleasant and clean. It even smelled good.

And there were human people in there to wait on you! Not the automatic machines like they had in the stores back home. Instead of talking to a dumb computer, there were people here to listen to you and make suggestions.

They were men, mostly. Some of them were young, in their twenties. But most of them were older. Gray hair, getting heavy, but smiling and ready to help a dumb kid from the Tracts.

They measured Ron: arms, legs, chest, waist, neck. They fussed all around him and brought out some of the models from the window to show him different kinds of outfits. A few of the girls from the window hung around, too, watching and smiling.

When Ron strutted out of the store, he was dressed in a black polyester suit with silver emblems on the shoulders. His boots were real synthetic leather. He felt about eighteen feet tall.

He was also three hundred dollars lighter. Under his arm he clutched a plastic box that contained another entire outfit, plus his old green zipsuit, wrinkled and tossed in only for the trip back home.

Now I look like a real New Yorker, he told himself as he strode down the street. Everyone else was dressed in very ordinary clothes. Tourists. Vistors. Ron noticed how they all stared at his outfit. He grinned. He pictured himself as an Executive, one of the men who used to live high up in a skyscraper before the City was closed and evacuated. His grin widened.

Further down the street was a movie theater. It was showing old-time films. The big signs flashing above the entrance said: MURDER! FIGHTS! WAR! SEX! There were no theaters at home. TV was everything, and kids weren’t allowed to watch anything more exciting than the six o’clock news.

It cost another twenty dollars, but Ron didn’t care. He sailed right into the theater. It was completely dark inside, and he bumped into several chairs and people before he could find an empty seat for himself.

For four hours he watched exactly what the signs outside had promised. Blood and fighting. Beautiful girls and handsome men. War and all sorts of thrilling adventures. One of the films starred two guys named Redman and Newford, or something like that. They were terrific.

People got up and left and other people came in. Ron ignored them, his eyes locked on the screen. He watched people shoot each other, make love, fight wars that were much more exciting and fun than the warfare in South America. He saw doctors, policemen, killers, and each girl was better-looking than the last one.

Somebody stepped on his foot.

“Oh! Sorry.”

Ron looked up at the person who had done it. She came into the aisle and sat in the seat next to his. In the changing, colored light from the movie screen, Ron could see that she was about his own age. And kind of pretty.

“I’m awful sorry. Hope I didn’t hurt your foot.”

“No, it’s all right.”

She didn’t say anything else, and Ron went back to watching the screen. But he kept glancing at her. She was very pretty. And dressed sharp, too. He wanted to talk to her, to say something, anything, just to start a conversation. But his tongue was frozen. He didn’t know where to begin.

He was watching her now, not the movie. She was looking straight ahead, at the screen, and smiling slightly.

She doesn’t even know I’m sitting next to her. Ron felt miserable.

Then all of a sudden she turned to him. “Live’n th’ City?”

Ron’s throat was so dry it took him three tries to say, “Uh . . . no. I’m from Vermont.”

“Oh. From yer clothes, I thoughtcha lived here.” She spoke fast, blurring her words together. Ron had to listen hard to understand her, especially with the movie’s sound track blaring at them quadraphonically.

“No . . . no . . . I’m just here . . . for a few days.”

She nodded and smiled at him.

“Um . . . where are you from?”

“Noo Yawk.”

“I mean, after vacation time. Where do you live then?”

She said, “Right here. I live’n th’ City alla time.”

“But you can’t!” Ron said. “The City’s closed down after this weekend. Nobody lives here after Labor Day.”

“Don’t let ’em kid ya,” she answered.

By the time the movie was over, Ron learned that the girl’s name was Sylvia Meyer. She kept insisting that she lived in New York City—in Manhattan—all the time.

“I never been Outside,” Sylvia told him as they walked slowly out of the movie theater. “I was born here.”

The blinking, bleary-eyed people pushing out of the theater merged into the faster-moving noisy crowd on the street. It was still bright and muggy outside, even though the Dome blocked off any direct sunshine. Cars growled and honked in the streets. People hurried along, their faces grim.

“You alone?” Sylvia asked.

Ron nodded. Out here in the better light, he could get a good look at her. She was beautiful! Long dark hair falling over her shoulders, gray eyes with a bit of an oriental look to them, and a figure that made his pulse start throbbing. She was wearing a microskirt and white boots and a kind of loose-fitting short-sleeved blouse that didn’t hide anything.

“Nice rest’rant a few blocks down th’ avenya,” she said.

“Thanks—I was thinking I’d eat at one of the hotels. I’ve still got to find myself a room for the weekend.”

“Cripes, you ain’t got a room yet?” Sylvia shouted over the noise of the crowd. “Ya’ll never get one in th’ regular hotels. City’s jammed.”

Ron felt like an idiot. “Oh . . . then, what—”

She grinned at him. “Don’t worry. I know a place where you can get a room. An’ it’ll be a lot cheaper’n dese big hotels they stick visitors in. Right? An’ there’s a good rest’rant on th’ way. Right?”

Grinning back at her, Ron said, “Right. Let’s go.”

They fought across the stream of people walking down the street, went around a corner, and started down a cross-street. The crowd here was a little thinner, and it was easier to walk.

“Lousy tourists,” Sylvia muttered. “Think they own the City.”

The restaurant she led Ron to was quiet and dimly lit. It was nearly full, but it wasn’t noisy and nervy like the restaurants Ron’s father had gone to. Like most places in New York City, the restaurant had real live waiters. No automatic selector dials with their rows of buttons. No robot carts rolling your food tray up to your table on silent rubber wheels. Real waiters, in funny suits. Men who spoke with far-away accents and bowed and stood waiting for you to make up your mind.

Ron let Sylvia order dinner, since she knew the place. When the waiter left, she smiled at Ron and asked, “Where ya from? I don’t know nothin’ aboutcha.”

So while they ate, Ron talked. Sylvia listened and hardly said a word. Ron jabbed on and on. It was the first time anyone had asked him to tell much about himself, and he found that he enjoyed telling the story of his life. Especially to such a fantastic-looking girl.

By the time they left the restaurant, Ron felt warm and full and happy. And also sleepy. It was dark outside now, the street lamps were on. Not all of them, Ron saw. Many of them were broken, the bulbs shattered and sharp edges of glass hanging uselessly from their sockets. There were only a few people walking on the street now, and they all seemed to be hurrying as if they were afraid that something was following them. Something terrible.

Ron shifted his package of clothes from one arm to the other. “I still don’t understand how you can live here all year long when—”

Sylvia laughed. “Forget it. Don’t worry about it. Hey, c’mon . . . we gotta getcha a room. Right?”