Chapter 1:

I must be out of my mind, Dex Edden thought..

The RV lurched as it bounced over another pothole in the rough desert surface, but his boss seemed oblivious of any damage he might be doing to the rented vehicle. Wade Jickling gripped the steering wheel tightly with one fist, a can of beer in the other. A huge grin stretched across his apelike face, making it only slightly less menacing than usual. "Almost there," he said gleefully. "Almost there, almost there…"

Dex sighed, and tried to concentrate on the laptop on the Winnebago's little fold-down table. It's not like I had a choice, he reminded himself. Not really. The last place in the world Dex wanted to be was in the middle of the Nevada desert at the end of August, but his employer had seen things differently—and apparently so had a few other people.

Thirty thousand of them, in fact.

Dex could understand that many people going to Nevada to gamble, or see Wayne Newton, or even attend a plumber's convention—but these people weren't going to Vegas or Reno. They were going to the Black Rock Desert, where the nearest town was a speck twelve miles away called Gerlach. Out here there was no water, no power, no stores, nothing except what you brought with you. Besides food, water, and booze, Wade had brought a huge plastic sack of fortune cookies and Dex. Dex still wasn't sure which was the more bizarre choice.

He wouldn't have gone at all if he hadn't needed the money so badly. Since the dot-com bubble had burst, things had been tough in the IT world; coders like Dex had to scramble to find even temporary contracts. Wade was one of the few who'd gotten out at the right time, selling his company while it was still worth a fortune and devoting himself to the serious pursuit of partying. He'd ridden out the crash on a wave of beer and smugness, laughing as everybody else's money swirled down the drain. Wade himself knew very little about software—he'd owned a restaurant in Seattle when one of his waiters had convinced him to bankroll a dot-com start-up he was developing.

Now Wade was planning to reenter the business world as an online restaurant-supply wholesaler, and Dex was designing his Web site. Dex didn't really like him much… but he needed this job, and saying yes seemed the safest thing to do. Wade wasn't comfortable with the concept of "no."

Dex unfolded his lanky body from behind the cramped table and stood up carefully. He stretched, feeling the muscles in his neck cramp. They'd been driving for hours since picking up the RV in Reno; the last time Dex had glanced out the window, the sun had just been setting. It was full dark now, and he couldn't see much outside other than headlights and swirling white dust.

No, wait—there was a sign up ahead. The upper half proclaimed BURNING MAN in large, neon-green and pink letters; below that, BLACK ROCK CITY was done in a red-and-yellow flame motif. There was a wide arrow pointing to the right.

"We are here," Wade exulted. "Burning Man. We're at fucking Burning Man!"

Dex started to sigh, and sneezed instead. The dust tickled his nose.

They were stopped by a balding man in a brown uniform, who stepped inside, took their tickets, and did a quick inspection of the inside of the RV, including the bathroom. "Just making sure you don't have any stowaways," he said. "Take the lane on the right, and keep it slow." He left.

Dex went back to his laptop. The RV continued to bump along. A few minutes later they stopped again; Dex assumed they were parking.

"Hey," Wade said. "Somebody wants to talk to you."

"Hmmm?" Dex got up and walked to the front. "Who?"

"Her," Wade said with a grin.

They were stopped at one of many entrances that led through a fence of bright orange industrial netting. The banner overhead proclaimed BURNING MAN 2003; beside the gate was a vaguely pyramidal ten-foot-high framework with a large brass bell suspended from the peak.

In front of that was a Catholic schoolgirl.

She was in her twenties, her hair in pink pigtails, and smiled at him in a way that would have made Britney Spears blush. When she crooked her finger, Dex swallowed and stepped outside.

He was shocked at how cold it was—the wind poked through his T-shirt with frozen fingers, needled his face with dust. He sneezed again, took a lungful of dust on the inhale and started coughing. He had to duck his head and cover his mouth and nose with both hands before he could stop.

"Sorry," he croaked, looking up. Just great, my first moment here and I look like a total spaz in front of a gorgeous—

Copyright © 2005 by Don DeBrandt