The soybean farmer and I sit in his office and sip our drinks as the rain falls outside, gentle and quenching. He's drinking a Budweiser and had offered me one too, even though he knows I'm underage. I'd taken a bottle of water instead.
       Once the rain has fallen for a solid hour, gentle and quenching, the soybean farmer grunts and digs in his desk. He pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. I flip through the bills--fifty crisp hundreds, more or less.
       "You'll be on your way now, right?" he asks. "I don't need my fields goin' from parched to flooded."
       I raise my near-empty plastic bottle to him and nod before downing the last drops. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Hutchence."
       He grunts again. I take that as a sign to see myself out.
       When I step outside, it's still raining. But that's nothing new. Every time I've stepped outside the past five years, since The Event, it's been raining. I've almost forgotten what it feels like to have the sun warm my skin.
       I hop into my beat-up Prius and check my phone. No new messages, no requests for The Rainmaker to show up and do his thing. So I drive. It's been dry down in tobacco country the last few weeks; somebody ought to be wanting my services before long.
       I stop in a cheap motel outside Memphis. It's not the kind that suggests illicit transactions, more the kind of place for penny-pinching families on a vacation. Well. The rain falls on the just and the unjust in equal measure.
       I've thought about using my power for evil. Even with the limited radius of my effect, I could make things rough for a baseball team or an amusement park. I could probably even get away with it. After all, it's not like I'd have to actually blackmail anyone. Just show up. And make sure it's known where I am. "Vacationing in rainy Orlando today," I could post to my timeline. "At least the lines for the rides are short." Someone would get the hint.
       But that's not who I am. My parents, God rest their souls, raised me to believe in an honest day's work and all that. And even if the sun's been stolen from my sky, I'm going to do what I can to stay on the side of the light.
       I flip through the channels. There's a program on where three people like me, that one percent whose lives were forever changed by The Event, compete to be touched by a Nullifier. They each describe why their special trait has ruined their life. There's a man who breaks any motorized vehicle he tries to travel in who biked 120 miles to get to the filming, a woman whose touch heats things to the point they catch fire if she's not careful, and an older man who always gets in the slowest line at the store. The studio audience heckles the slowest-line guy as he talks. I suspect the show runners put him on for just this reason and feel a moment of sympathy for him. I cast a quick vote to have the vehicle-breaker eliminated. Thunder rolls lazily outside.
       I'm not surprised when they come back from commercial and report the vote was a landslide against the older man. He shakes his head and trudges offstage while the show crew bring out a Segway for the man and a book of matches and a candle to light for the woman. I flip away from the show. On another channel the Rangers and Sharks are playing in the Stanley Cup finals and I half-watch and half-think about what odds I'd have to be the one touched by the Nullifier if I was on that show, until I fall asleep.
       Shortly after four my phone rings. There's a fire chief in Montana who needs help fighting a forest fire. I grumble to myself; I could've saved gas and miles on my car if I'd stayed put in Iowa. But I tell the chief from whatever the hell small town it is that I'll be there in a couple of days.
       "Alright," she says. "But if we've got the fire under control by then, I won't be able to pay you."
       "Not even for my expenses?"
       She hems and haws for a bit and asks just how much those expenses would be. In the end, we agree to payment of five hundred dollars on arrival, whether I'm still needed or not.
       "On my way, chief," I say and end the call.
       I step out into a gloomy drizzle, grab an Egg McMuffin to eat on the road, and drive.

       The fire was a real rough one and I end up hanging out in Montana for the better part of a week, turning down a couple of other jobs while I'm there. Jobs that would've fattened my wallet a lot more than what the various local and state Montana fire agencies were giving me. But I couldn't just look those exhausted firefighters in the eye and tell them that Big Tobacco pays better so they were on their own from here on out.
       Besides, I was able to get them to let me ride along on some of the helicopters they use, and that was pretty cool, even if I did feel like puking when we made any sharp turns.
       When the fire is under control, there aren't any jobs waiting for me. I drive to Seattle--you can fill in the easy joke for yourself--and catch an early morning flight to New York City.
       I can't help but smile when the plane clears the cloud tops and I see blue skies all around. It's not as good as actually being out in the sun would be, but it's better than nothing, a little luxury I allow myself every once in a great while.
       We land and I hop on a return flight, pseudo-basking in another several hours of sunlight before landing in Seattle in time for a late dinner.
       There's another episode of the Nullifier show on and I watch part of it in an airport hotel room that night. They put the information for people who want to apply to be on the show on the screen; I consider once again what it would be like to be on that stage. I could get picked, and be out of work but able to enjoy a sunny day again. Or I could lose and know that unless I could ever save up the money to buy a Nullifier's touch that the closest I'd come to sunlight was through the narrow windows of an airplane cabin. I don't know how I'd handle that knowledge. So, like always, I don't apply to be on the show. Just knowing the possibility is out there will have to suffice.
       The three contestants introduce themselves. One of them--Marilyn from Ada, Ohio--is a middle-aged woman whose ability is like that of a Nullifier, but it only lasts as long as she's in physical contact with the other person.
       "I don't get to make money like a real Nullifier, and it's a pain having to always explain what might happen to folks if they touch me, having to keep my distance," Marilyn says.
       Like a lightning bolt, the thought strikes me that she might just be what I need. I barely pay attention to the other two contestants' stories; I just hope one of them wins.
       I cast my vote for Marilyn to be kicked off, but she's one of tonight's two finalists. When a man who manages to utter the worst possible insult specific to everyone he meets wins the Nullifier's touch I let out a whoop.
       I think about setting out for Ohio right then and there, but it's a heck of a drive and Marilyn's going to have to get home herself, so I make myself stay put in the room I've already paid for and try to sleep.
       At six in the morning, I can't wait another minute and start my cross-country drive. Three days later, I'm in rainy Ada. It's a little college town and it doesn't take me any time at all to track down Marilyn.
       I step up out of the rain onto her porch and ring her doorbell.
       She comes to the door, a sour look on her face.
       "I'm not taking any more interviews," she says through the screen door.
       "Ma'am, actually, I was hoping I could buy a bit of your time." I fish a few hundred dollar bills out of my pocket. She looks suspicious and before she can close the door, I add "It's nothing weird. I swear." I gesture toward her porch swing. "I'll sit here, and if you want to make some money for like ten minutes, come on out."
       I sit down and close my eyes, afraid I'll hear the sound of her door slamming shut. Instead, I hear the squeak of the screen door and feel the porch swing rock as she sits down next to me, close but not quite touching.
       "Alright," she says. "You got me out here. What's your pitch?"
       I hold the money out to her. She takes it, still avoiding contact, and stuffs it in her own jeans pocket. I stretch my hand out closer to her and after a long moment she reaches out to me. The rain stops instantly.
       "I've got no pitch," I tell Marilyn. "But what you can do is bring a little light into my life."
       She doesn't pull away and the clouds begin to part. We're sitting at just the right angle for the sun to shine on my face and I bask in its light and heat.
       After what must have been well more than ten minutes, I pull away from Marilyn and clouds start to gather again.
       "Thank you," I say. "I needed that more than you can imagine. Maybe I'll stop by again some day, if you'll let me."
       I stand and head for the edge of her porch.
       "Wait."
       I turn. She's got her head cocked and she's looking at me strange.
       "I really helped you, didn't I, son?"
       I nod. She smiles.
       "Well, just you know, you helped me, too. Maybe you don't have to be going on your way quite so soon?"
       I don't have anywhere I need to be. I go back to the swing, take her hand, and watch the clouds melt away.