Saturday March 25 2006
3 miles southwest of Ramona, California

The black Mercedes G fled down sparsely lit thoroughfares and lightless back roads, trending northward through orchards and scrubland in the small hours. Bobby, at the wheel, was the only upright occupant. The others, awake or asleep, were stretched out on the seats or floor, or curled up in the cargo compartment, out of sight.

Curled up on the back seat, Caitlin's head was only a foot from Anna's, who lay face up on the floor. Caitlin whispered, "Poor Sarah. I bet she'd rather be staked out on an anthill."

"She'll tough it out somehow, I'm sure." As the car passed under a streetlight, the floor behind the front seats was briefly illuminated; Anna looked as serene as a Buddha.

"You knew she'd be pigheaded about riding shotgun. You planned this." She grinned down at her. "Remind me never to tick you off."

Anna grinned back. "Caitlin, I don't know what you're thinking of me. I'd have been glad to explain and offer her a choice, if only she hadn't rushed off and made it so hard to save her from herself. But let's face it, I'm only human."

In the back, bundled together by bags of clothes, Eddie and Roxanne lay on their sides like nested spoons; her tiny rear was pressed firmly into his stomach, and his arms were wrapped around her. His hands began to explore. He whispered, "Do you think she planned this, too?"

She rested her hands on his. "Oh, I hope so."

"Okay, Anna," Caitlin began in a low speaking voice. "You're not a housekeeper, so what are you, really?"

"Beg pardon? You're saying I don't know how to keep house?"

"Come on. I mean you're not just a housekeeper."

"There's no just about it; it's a job worthy of anyone. Keeping house for you guys, sometimes I need a twenty-hour day."

"Anna …"

"Okay, okay. Everything I know about housekeeping I learned after Jack brought me home. "

"And they didn't build you to guard warehouses; night watchmen don't need antiaircraft guns."

"Hon, do you know what IO had in mind for you? All of you."

"Something like Nicole and her brother. Special agents, soldiers."

"You'd make lousy soldiers."

"I should hope."

"I mean it. Soldiers are tools; to use a tool effectively, you have to know what you can do with it. That's why standardization is so important to military organizations. Even in a modern army, with a lot of specialization and technical expertise, the men who make the plans have to know exactly how the gears mesh. You can't toss in a bunch of people with unheard-of abilities, no two alike, and expect them to do less harm than good."

"They'd have to put us in special teams." Bobby spoke with quiet certainty, as if the subject were one he'd given a lot of thought. "Train us to work together. Is that why we were all teamed up in groups of eight or less?"

"Yes. Gold star on your book report. What were they going to have you do?"

"Special assignments. Dirty, sneaky, underhanded stuff, obviously. Navy SEAL stuff, with a little James Bond thrown in."

"Very, very close. Think of something that even SEALs can't do, because they might be caught and identified as working for our government."

"Mission Impossible?"

"The boys in IO's Planning Directorate aren't that imaginative. For years and years, IO has been pursuing an alternative to diplomacy or military intervention that they call the 'SPT' initiative. That stands for 'Surgical Personal Targeting'."

"Assassination."

"Exactly. Go straight to the source of the trouble and eliminate it: it was Miles Craven's Holy Grail. Problem is, the sources of trouble don't want to be eliminated, and modern protective security being as good as it is, any method that's sure to work is bound to reveal the country that uses it. Laser-guided bombs don't leave much doubt who sent them."

"But if a guy's car gets hit by a plasma bolt and the gas tank explodes, they'll never figure out what happened, much less who did it. That's sick."

"Anna," Caitlin said, "this is good to know, even if it makes me queasy. But you dodged my question."

"No, I didn't. Imagine a slightly different scenario: the Supreme Leader of some country that's been yanking Uncle Sam's beard is rolling through his capital city. Typical modern motorcade with two to four decoy vehicles, along with the one the Fuehrer's in. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, all five vehicles get an antitank round that kills everybody."

Caitlin gasped. "You!"

"Or some twelve-year-old in a "WWJD" T-shirt, who becomes a fifteen-year-old girl five minutes after the Big Boom; that's why they made me so small. Parallel programs. I was never deployed, so I guess they pinned all their hopes on you. IO has research projects going on everything you can think of, and even their failures are spectacular. But they never throw anything away. That storage facility I was in was full of prototypes, working models, whatever; ideas that didn't pan out for one reason or other. They put me in there and told me to guard the place, but really, I was just one more item in dead storage; they didn't even provide me with a way to renew my power. I guess I was supposed to wander around inside until I ran down."

"Good thing Mr. Lynch came for you when he did."

"I'll say. I stayed on standby, mostly, conserving power, but six years is a long time between recharges."

"Six years?"

"Yup." Her voice became pensive. "It wasn't all that bad, compared to the year I was going through performance tests. I hated that steel box they locked me into at night. And as soon as I stepped out in the morning, there was good old Gunny Grissom, pointing some kind of EMP rifle at my face, ready to blow my brains out if I made a false move. They were pretty scared of me, I guess."

Caitlin reached for the little android, grasped her hand.

Anna smiled up at her. "Don't sweat it, hon. A lot of people have crappy childhoods. I'm making up for it now. Running for my life with you guys is bliss by comparison."

"Roxy? Is this the story she told you, back before the rest of us knew?"

"Um…I got more detail. But I still thought she was flesh-and-blood at the time. It didn't sound a whole lot different from what they did to us." Roxanne's voice was blurred, by sleep or something else that was making concentration difficult. "Don' be pissy about it, Sis."

"Sarah," Anna said, "you haven't weighed in. What do you think of my little sob story? Sarah?"

"She's sleeping," Bobby said softly. "After all that bitching, she falls asleep."

"Guess she managed to get comfortable after all. Bobby, I know you're a perfect gentleman …"

"There's two adults in the front seat, Anna. Eyes on the road, hands on the controls." Then, so softly only Anna could hear: "God, she's beautiful."

-0-

Bobby watched in the rear view as Kat and Anna swung open the rear door and looked inside; over the back seat, he could see them only from the waist up. Anna cooed, "Oooh. They're so cute like that, like puppies. I hate to wake them up."

Kat didn't look nearly so happy. "Where he's got his hand, you think that's cute?"

"I think," she said, "that his hand has been there a hundred times, probably with Roxanne guiding it into place. Caitlin Fairchild, how do you suppose your sister kept her virtue before you showed up?"

"I don't think she ever fell for a guy this hard before."

"And he doesn't deserve her, is that it?" Then: "He's not the class clown he makes himself out to be, you know. The boy's got hidden depths. And your sister's no lightweight, if you'll pardon the pun; that's just joie de vie. She's not the type to give herself away to be popular, or to keep a boy from turning to someone else. Also, shameless snoop that I am, I find no evidence that either of them is using contraception."

"That's good news?"

"Definitely. Roxanne doesn't talk about it much, but she knows she began as risky behavior between two careless people; she resents not having been conceived in love. So, while I admit I might be wrong about how far she'll go to keep Eddie's interest, I'm certain she won't risk getting pregnant."

"I just don't want her to get hurt."

"Hon, do you know anybody who ever fell in love who didn't get hurt?"

Kat turned, looking right down on her. "Yes." Then she bent down and pushed something, presumably Eddie; the car rocked forward from the force of the shove.

"Gaa!"

"Wake up, you two. It's time to change cars. Take a few bags with you."

Roxy sat up first, tucking her shirt in; she caught his eyes on her in the rear view. He winked, and she smiled at him and climbed out, pulling a sleepy Grungester out with her. The other two followed.

He looked down at Sarah, arms curled around him, head in his lap. All good things come to an end. "Sarah. Time to get up."

She stirred, but instead of rising, she curled more tightly against him. "Hmm?"

If this gets any harder, someone else is gonna have to get her out of the car, cuz I won't be able to make myself do it. "Rise and shine. Up and at em. Come on, I'm tired too." He placed his hand at the back of her head; he'd only meant to keep her from banging it on the wheel if she woke suddenly; but his fingers had a mind of their own, twining in her hair …

Her eyes snapped open, and she looked up at him. "Where are we?"

"Some dilapidated old farm. Our new car's stashed in the barn. If I take my hand away, will you smack your head on the wheel?"

"No. Thanks." She started to lever herself up, but only got as far as his sternum. "I can't-" She dropped back. "I lost the circulation. I can't use my arms."

"Oh, jeez. I can … I can maybe call for Kat …"

"No! I feel ridiculous enough already; I don't need someone to come pry us apart. Can you … do something? I just need to get my arms down for a few minutes."

"I'll see what I can do. But I don't have a lot of room to work here, so don't think I'm taking liberties, okay?" he wedged an arm underneath and lifted, which brought her head against his chest. With his other hand, he pulled her arms off his thigh and flank and put them down along her sides. His heart sped up as he cradled her in his arms, holding her maybe a little tighter than necessary. He swallowed. "Should start getting better now. Tingling yet?"

"Yes," she answered, her voice almost impossible to hear because her face was buried in his chest. "Definitely." Then, "Bobby, do you ever wish we got along better?"

He held a breath and let it out. "About half a dozen smart answers went by just then. This is one of those does-this-dress-make-me-look-fat questions, right?" He could feel his heart sinking; she was about to pick a fight. "Don't, Sarah." Don't sour it; just let me hold you a little longer, until your hands come back, and we can both get out of the car feeling good about this moment. And maybe, if we can quit tearing the foundation apart, we can build something like a relationship.

A line appeared between those sculpted eyebrows. "I just asked a question. You don't have to act like I'm about to attack you." Then she did. "Sometimes you talk as if I'm a total bitch, you know that? And lately it's getting worse. The whole team seems to be turning on me. Maybe I just need to leave."

"Or maybe you need an intervention." He knew it was crazy and useless, but his mouth just wouldn't shut. "If all the cars are headed straight at you, maybe you're the one in the wrong lane."

Her eyes flashed. "I didn't create this situation." She squirmed, got a hand between them and pushed. He opened his arms and she was gone; sitting right next to him in the seat, but she might as well have been halfway around the world. She fumbled at the door handle and disappeared into the darkness, taking his heart with her.

He laid his forehead on the wheel, trying not to think or feel. Presently, the interior lights came on as the driver's door opened, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Bobby." Caitlin's voice, gentler than Sarah's at its sweetest. "Bobby, I'll drive now. Just put this one in the barn when I pull out, okay? Then come to the car. Get in back and rest."

"Yeah. M'okay, just tired. Gimme a minute."

Her hand slid across his shoulders, holding him. Something dropped in his lap: a tissue box. She pulled one out, slid the fake glasses off his nose, and dabbed at his cheeks.

"Heh. You always carry those?"

"Sarah's sitting in the shotgun seat, not talking, breathing like she's got something stuck in her throat, just staring out the window at nothing; she bumped into the door getting in. I figured there'd be a train wreck down here. How do you guys do this to each other? Why?"

"Some malign influence from beyond the stars, I don't doubt."

"Yeah, slaves to karma, that's us." She withdrew from the car, and turned to face the barn. "If this is what love is like, I'm well out of it."

"It's not like this all the time, Kat."

"No, only for certain people."

"I didn't pick her, Kat. It just happened."

"Uh huh. Shared danger, close quarters, all of that BS. Bobby, you were smitten as soon as you met her. Everybody saw it. If you can't resist gorgeous brunettes, why didn't you ever take up with Nicole? She made her interest pretty clear."

He sat up, feeling a little better. Kat was good medicine for a case of oh-poor-me's; she was so good at shrugging off her own troubles, she made self-pity seem ridiculous. "Not my type, I guess."

"Puh-lease. She's everybody's type; every straight male's, anyway. You must have been the only guy in the complex who didn't daydream about a night with our 'guidance counselor'."

"And maybe that's the only reason she chased me. Kat, Nicole Callahan is extremely hot; she is also extremely creepy. She made me uncomfortable before our 'school for gifted kids' turned into a concentration camp. When the armed guards that came out of the woodwork looked to her for orders, I wasn't a bit surprised. Even before I knew she was one of Ivana's attack dogs, I wouldn't have dated her on a bet."

"What about Jen, or Natalie? A smile and a whisper from you, and either one of them would have been sneaking into your room after lights out."

"Not into one night stands."

"Well, what's wrong with Melanie?"

"Not a thing. I like her a lot."

"But you don't date."

"I hang out with her all the time."

"You practice at her house, with three other girls, and maybe go out for a bite after. You've done a few gigs together. You share the same table at lunch, and sometimes at the library. Have you even kissed?"

The despair returned. He said wearily, "Kat, I know it's insane. Please don't beat me up any more about it, okay?"

"Okay. Sorry." Her back was still turned to him. "Not like I've got room to talk. Come on, let's get on the road." She walked off towards the dimly lit barn.

9