20)

Agent James Bennett, donned in street clothes but surreptitiously carrying his sidearm underneath a leather jacket, lingered in the doorway of the dimly lit Ground Wire in the south side of Spring City. He hated Ground Wires. They were too corporate and nearly everywhere; a person couldn't get away from them, like advertising and taxes. Still, they were as open, welcoming and downright innocent as the world could get as far as international franchises went. No one suspected any peculiar meeting to happen in a Ground Wire. He scanned his eyes over the scattering of yuppie urban patrons as he tromped through slowly to an empty stool in the middle of the café's bar. The robot waiter took his order for a French roast espresso then promptly disappeared. Bennett was left alone to his thoughts. There weren't many.
He wanted the synthoid.
He wanted the girl.
He wanted to get home.
The cafe wasn't a recluse for him during any trip he made to Maryland, which was, luckily, only a few times a year. The cafe served another purpose. A Spring City NSA floater was to meet him there to pass along some needed info. The same information, he hoped, that was from the anonymous source that had brought him to Spring City in the first place. If it hadn't been for the tip that the girl, Rosalie Rowen, and the synthoid were seen in town, he never would've gone back there. Like Agent West, Bennett shared a discreet disgust for the town. Hillsburg he hated even more, for all its perfection; it was a town that was sticky like honey. He'd done the wise thing by sending his field agents to search Hillsburg while he stuck around Spring City. He enjoyed riling up Orrin West by making the wayward kid do things he didn't want to do, and what he didn't want to do was go to Hillsburg. There was no point in being boss if you could not occasionally patronize agents who were infinite steps lower on the NSA food chain. And West was low, getting lower, as far as Bennett was concerned. At least Karen Rush, West's partner, seemed to have good sense. She was a real agent. The woman had intellect, guts, a heart of steel and a deadly aim. Previous NSA agent Marcia Lee also possessed a marksman's keen eye. Bennett recalled it with regret. Agent Lee had been one of the best he'd known until she grew soft. He had no patience for people who grew soft. Toughness was one of the things that made a mediocre person a really great agent in his book. Occasionally he lost patience with Rush, despite his respect for her, but his patience was short with everyone. Bennett didn't know if West would ever be an outstanding agent, and he doubted West had his soul lodged firmly in everything the NSA could do to a man.
Bennett sipped the tart espresso, then felt the corner of his lip lift in a snide, arrogant smile. He did love to torture that kid. Right now, West was probably looking for Tiffany Morgan, who'd been spotted on her way to downtown Hillsburg. Agent Bennett would be surprised if West was capable of finding the elusive red-head. He'd sent Rush along to Hillsburg with West, giving strict orders that she was to go straight to the Morgan's, and told West he'd have to hunt for the Morgan girl downtown on his own. To Bennett's surprise, West accepted the orders using none of his usual expletive grumbles. Perhaps there was hope that West would turn out to be a good agent, after all. But Bennett wouldn't count on it.
Partially through the drink, Bennett looked over when a man sat beside him. It was his contact. They gave away nothing that declared they new each other. They had a code, like all coverts do.
James sipped his coffee again, and set it roughly on the accompanying ceramic plate. "Spring City is nice this time of year."
"Yes, and it's too bad that in a week I'm westbound," the nameless floater replied.
It was the right statement. In a stealthy movement, pretending he was reaching across Bennett for a couple of napkins, the covert dropped a small and rolled-up piece of paper in front of James. Having already paid the small tab in an automatic credcard machine, Bennett palmed the nearly invisible wad of paper and left. He thought of how nice it was to be out of the classy joint, where the air inside was so rich with materialism and caffeine that it stung his eyes and torched his skin like acid. The air of Spring City wasn't much cleaner. Better than it used to be, but not great.
He went around the block to his government vehicle, a black non-descript car with a fake license and more hidden weaponry than a fighter jet. Well, practically. Once inside, he sat behind the wheel and examined the piece of paper. It took him at least a minute to unroll the thing. Another ten seconds to turn on the overhead light so he could read what was written in pale graphite.
Bennett gave a pleased smile.
It was the information he'd been waiting for.

Meanwhile, Orrin West was sitting tensely in the comfortable suburban home of the Morgans. Agent Rush was with him, and she was placed coolly and unemotionally in the chair beside his. While the Sheriff was ranting on about the sour political state of Hillsburg, and how he ought to run for mayor, West was frowning visibly. How had the managed to stay so long in one place? Where was the overdue call from Bennett with some new lead on Ro Rowen and Zeta? Or, at the very least, Bennett could tell them the operation was nixed entirely, and would grudgingly send his agents home. West lounged back in the chair. He wanted to go home, back to West Country. Maryland was not his favorite place to be.
Tiff tried her best to dissuade her father's meaningless topic of conversation. She could tell the agents were weary and ready to be on their way. And she was ready to let them go. The only reason she'd kept them there was to hope that Ro would get a head start out of town. Ro and Zeta obviously hadn't been spotted, or the agents would've left in a kafuffle. For the first thirty minutes of their visit, Tiff had kept them moderately occupied by answering their questions, the same old dreary questions. Her father had joined them in the formal living room only ten minutes before, yet in those ten minutes he'd managed to talk up a storm.
"Dad," Tiff said while he paused for a breath, "I think it's time that our company left, don't you?"
"Oh," the sheriff murmured, as though waking from a distant dream, "sure, sure. Of course. You must be tired and have things to do. Let's not keep you any longer." The sheriff might have gotten rid of them sooner, if he'd remembered they were even there. In the throes of his random political rhetoric, the company of two NSA agents had been forgotten.
Rush and West were shown to the door by Tiff, while her father, after a brief and informal farewell, returned to his office in the back of the house. He spent a good deal of time there, working on projects, reading, and writing the occasional essay during the times he tried to be scholarly. His seclusion allowed Tiff virtual free-reign of the house.
Karen Rush shook Miss Morgan's hand in courtesy, and it was even courtesy that she felt. "Thanks for the visit. I'm sorry if we spoiled your evening plans."
"You didn't. I had no plans. Every three months or so I expect some NSA someone or another to stop by. You never disappoint. You're always on time. I suppose you'll be tracking my next moves, won't you?"
Rush didn't know what to say, but West did.
"Are you going somewhere, Miss Morgan?"
Tiff lifted her chin in a moment of arrogance and pride. "College."
"Where?" he inquired further. And he was ready to laugh aloud if she said she was staying in Maryland. He'd be surprised if Tiffany Morgan dared to wander beyond the state's small borders.
"Bayville, New York. I won a scholarship."
West was mildly stunned. He opened his mouth for a smart retort, but when he found he had no words, he locked his jaw closed. Rush tapped him on he arm, saying it was time that they left.
"I need a minute, Rush," West said. "You can head back. I'll be right behind you."
Rush winced at him to speculate why he was being dismissive. She shrugged. Let him dig his own grave, she thought. Bennett would have his hide, and it wouldn't be the first time. West was running out of skin to donate. They had brought two cars, and she would take hers back to Spring City. West would drive back alone. He was prepared for that.
Tiff watched Agent Rush leave in a quiver of disorientation and fear. Her first encounter with West hadn't been emotionally pleasant, and she didn't want them to spend time alone again. Tiff leaned heavily into the door's wide frame, her back rigid, her face fierce and her arms severely crossed. She was letting her annoyance show, and it was caught by West's vigilance.
"It'll only take a minute," he said to her. "I want to ask you something."
Tiff reached for the ajar front door behind her. She pulled it shut and stood on the front porch, under the high lamp that shined above, into the dusk and deepening shadow of the house's north side. She looked over West, and he seemed calmer, less obtrusive. He was almost tolerable. "Ask."
"What was Ro like when she was younger? I mean, when you first knew her."
The thoughts of a young Ro only brought sorrow to Tiffany. Her shoulders slackened and her mouth was drawn. "I don't like to think about those things," she said. Feeling suddenly lethargic, tired and old, Tiffany sat down on a wicker rocker, thinking about young Ro only by West's instigation. "It's hard. Really hard. You wouldn't understand."
West leaned into the railing of the porch, three feet high, so he practically sat upon it. He'd asked because he wanted to know. Of course, he'd done research into Ro Rowen's history, and it was not a pretty one. But the files lacked a perspective on Ro's personality. There was a scientific and boring psychological profile of the girl, but based on whose knowledge? While he had a moment to spare, he wanted to ask about the illusive fugitive from someone who had actually known Ro Rowen. "I think I get what you mean," he said tellingly.
Tiffany gave a sudden, gentle chuckle. She could remember young Ro, all right, and that remembrance was bittersweet. "She was so wild. You know? Always getting into everything without even thinking there could be dear consequences. She was brash, but always managed to get herself out of trouble if she got in it, and that wasn't often. She spied and snooped. She'd be gone for hours. Sun up to sun down. We'd have no idea where she was. Of course, they didn't really care."
"Who didn't care?"
"My parents. It's no secret they liked me far better than they liked her."
Not a secret, especially not to West. Tiffany Morgan was a daddy's girl. Ro Rowen belonged to no one. "How did you feel about her?"
"At times I hated her. At times she hated me. And most of the time we hated each other." Tiff sighed and observed the quiet September night growing in upon the yard; the sky darkened and the houses on her street were lit in the windows. Life was calm but somehow lonely. Poor Ro, she thought. Poor Ro who'd come all the way to Hillsburg just to see her foster sister. Tiff's heart ached in her chest. "But, in the end, there is no one else in the world I would rather have as my sister." The statement's power ignited a rueful smile, and she let West see it, along with the tears cresting her eyes. "We weren't a lot alike."
"I can imagine," West said, giving her a brief grin that was, in his own way, a touch full of pity.
Tiffany sniffled and smeared the tears dry from her face. "Why did you want to know?"
West stared off into the painted wooden planks of the porch for a long minute, his fingers tapping his chin while he contemplated an answer. "I suppose that it's a good thing for any agent to know who they're after. Get inside of their mind. Think how they think. It makes the chase easier if you can predict what they're going to do. The only way you can do that is if you know the mannerisms of who you're after." West shrugged one shoulder, snickering at his terrible NSA qualities. He was good at the mentality; he had a soldier's brain and an honor to his country's security. But he lacked a quality that was nameless to him; he didn't know what it was he didn't have but other agents did. Perhaps fortitude. "And for two years this girl has managed to elude us. Oh, sure, we catch her often, see her sometimes, yet she always gets away. I thought it was time that I stopped relying so much on technology and started getting old school. What did really good agents do back in the day? They did research. They found out who their criminals were. They got to know them like a good friend. Maybe that's what needs to be done.
"I'm not a very good agent," he said while staring directly at Tiff, and he thought he detected a hint of surprise. "I'm not even a good agent when I follow all the rules strictly and adhere to every command my boss throws at me. But maybe it's time for the rules to be widened a little bit, harmlessly. For two years I've been tracking your sister. I don't want it to take another two years to catch her."
Tiff lowered her gaze and said nothing. During parts of his speech, she'd momentarily forgotten who he was and what he represented; she forgot they were on opposite quests. He wanted to hunt Ro down like some crazed psychopathic animal that was a threat to the universe. Tiff wanted to incubate Ro forever, and spin for her a safety cocoon, somewhere the NSA would not find her. "West," she started, then stopped.
"What?"
"I knew Ro for years, and you must believe me when I tell you that she's no criminal. She's not a---"
"A terrorist?"
Tiffany nodded emphatically. "She was just . . . so wild! Vulgar, clever, witty, resourceful. Independent as hell. She took care of herself, probably because no one else would. That's how she got so wild. And it's different kind of wild than what you might think. Not a criminal wild. She wasn't ever hostile. Her wildness was more like that of an untamed horse, something brutal and beautiful at the same time."
"I hear what you're saying, Tiffany, and I know you are entitled to believe what you want to believe. Unfortunately, it doesn't do the NSA any good. She has attached herself to a dangerous synthoid. She is his accomplice."
"He's no more a danger to you than I am!" Tiff retaliated.
Orrin West couldn't help but let out a question. It was both playful and serious, if the two could be mixed. "How do I know that you're not dangerous to me?"
"Because, I---" Tiff's excuse faltered and broke away.
West waited smugly for an answer, any answer. He waited a solid thirty seconds for her to come up with a reason, yet she never did. "I think I've proved my point, even on a much larger scale than I intended."
"Someday, Orrin," she said to him, her eyes heavily on his, in a way that made his blood run cold, "you're going to find out that everything you're doing is wrong, when you find out how innocent she is. And then you'll be sorry you've wasted so many years of your life."
Before he could answer, West's communications unit began to ring from the satchel on his belt. As he lifted it from its spot, he answered Tiff in a serious tone that reflected her mood. "I hope you're right, Tiff. I always like to find out that someone is innocent. Excuse me." West stepped away, off the porch and out of the yellow light into the pale darkness of the newborn eve. It was Karen Rush.
"Haven't you left yet?"
"No, we're playing poker and I've got a winning hand." He wondered if Karen would know he was kidding. Her sense of humor often clashed with his, whenever either of them would show they had one.
"You'd better get moving, West. Bennett just got in touch with me. He knows where they are. A Greek restaurant in north Spring City, on Hyde Street, the seven-hundred block. I'm telling you that so you can get there in a hurry. Bennett's on his way there now to confront them."
"Alone?" West inquired.
"Apparently. Are you coming, or do I have to drive back there and pry you away from Tiff Morgan?"
West accepted the tactless scorn, as he thought he deserved it. "I'm on my way." He hung up and replaced the phone and retraced his steps to the porch. He set a rounded shoulder into the column by the stairs. Regarding saddened Tiff again, West gave a light sigh. "Miss Morgan, I've got to go."
"Fine, Mr. NSA Agent," she delivered in cruelness. Tiff read his harsh, aloof manner, and knew what had been the topic of his call. "You're going after her, aren't you? You know where she is."
"I am going after her, yes. That's my job."
Tiff remained tensely seated, though West had begun to step from the house, into the dark sidewalk that led to his vehicle. "Hey, if you see her," she waited for him to leer her again, "will you tell her something for me?"
Already knowing he was in over his head, West found no harm in taking the message. "What's that?"
"Tell her I love her, and that I'll never stop believing in her." Tiffany twiddled her fingers as a farewell and headed into the house. She slammed shut the door and bolted the lock loudly. In a rare moment of demonstrative agitation, Tiff kicked the door with the side of her foot.
West turned his back to the Morgan house as the front light was switched off by a disgruntled and hurt Tiffany. He regrouped himself, though it was not easy to shake off his ill feeling.
He sat in his car for a minute, in the dark, the card key in the ignition slot, but without the engine yet running. With his hands fixed on the wheel, his knuckles starch white in the shadowy light, West thought through what he'd learned about Ro from one of the people who knew her best: her sister. The grip on the wheel tightened the more he wondered if Tiff Morgan was right. West tilted his head into his chest, his eyes moving rapidly through the dark, and he suddenly swore aloud.
"This is America, after all," he told the air. He sighed and pressed the ignition button; the car purred to life. "People are innocent until proven guilty."
But it left West in an interesting mental state. If that was true, and every philosophy told him it was, it meant Ro Rowen was innocent. West grunted in dismay and shoved his foot over the accelerator; the car roved on ahead down the straight residential street.
"Innocent my eye," West muttered. He needed to let Tiffany Morgan have far less influence over his thoughts. He needed to do his job. He had two renegades to catch. Unfortunately, he left Hillsburg forty minutes too late.

Agent Bennett examined the lighted windows of the restaurant through binoculars. He stood a half-block away, cater-corner to the place of Greek cuisine, and he was able to see the synthoid and the girl in an askew perspective. He set the binoculars down and sneered. If he had to go in there and get them alone, he would. It was unlikely they would show resistance in a public place. Too many witnesses. Too many people to kill in order to get away. It'd be too messy, even for a destructively programmed synthoid like Zeta. The idea of capturing the outlaw infiltration unit single-handedly rather excited Bennett.
"Maybe without West around," Bennett said quietly to himself and the empty street corner, "I can actually get my hands on the betraying ton of metal."
He lifted the binoculars again and saw that the synthoid and Ro Rowen were about to exit the restaurant. James hurried across the street and ducked behind the corner, so he could view their presence closely.
Ro wandered out of the restaurant first, as Zeta held the door open for her as he did occasionally, when he remembered to play the role of gentleman. Ro waited for him to be at her side before they continued down the dark street, now lit by halogen bulbs in the tall solar-powered city lamps against the steady growth of a long September sunset.
"Where to now, tin man?" she asked. Now that she was full, her stomach happily satiated, she wondered if he had any other plans besides finding somewhere to rest for the night.
"We'll leave that up to fate," was Zeta's reply.
"You're really getting into all this fate stuff, aren't you?"
"I find it interesting." Zee took her hand in his, comforted slightly that fate, or whatever it had been, had allowed he and Ro to meet.
"I don't like it. Any of it." Even if Ro couldn't appreciate the idea of fate, she was pleased that Zeta would not give up his interest in human life, and he was even pushing against immobile boundaries to grasp the knowledge, so far as to contemplate something that still beguiled humans: the subject of fate. He still studied, examined, found something new to know. It must've been nice, she thought, to know nothing about the world and start from scratch, but it must also be one of the most frustrating situations, particularly when thrown without explanation into the responsibility of keeping yourself alive.
Zee wasn't surprised by Ro's cruel words. "I know you don't like it." He lowered his shoulder and bumped it playfully into hers. It brought a grin to her lips briefly, before the common frown appeared again. "Your dislike of it is part of the reason I like it."
"You should really stop trying to find your sense of humor from me," Ro told him, merely as a light suggestion.
Zeta had stopped listening, then he stopped walking. Ro took a step ahead. Her hand still in his was drawn taut and she flung back, suddenly noticing how frozen the synthoid stood. "I hear something," Zee said. He looked down at Ro only to abruptly look up again. His attention had been caught.
Ro felt someone creep up behind her, and before she could turn around or run, she was snagged around the throat by a large brawny arm. Something was pointed into her side. A blade? She didn't know, and didn't want to take the time to glance down and have a look. Whatever it was and whoever was holding it was very prepared to slaughter her if the need arose. The thought kept her from struggling, otherwise she would've thrashed about madly.
Zeta took a step backward, just a half-step, more out of surprise than out of fright. He glanced between Ro's exasperated eyes full of fear and the cool and rather trenchant expression of James Bennett.
Bennett tightened his grip around Ro's shoulders, squeezing her windpipe in the crook of his elbow and decreasing the flow of blood to her brain. He twisted the tip of the knife into the girl's side. She felt the blade's touch and whimpered.
"Something happened at Nosis, Zeta, to make me want to get tougher on you. I'm not above ending the world or killing someone in order to reach you. Turn yourself in, Zeta, and I'll let her go." Bennett thought a smart robot like Zeta would listen to a bargain.
Zeta calculated his options. There weren't many, and few of them were good.
"Zee!" Ro shrieked, her voice strained from the crushing of her trachea.
Zeta sincerely doubted Bennett would kill Ro, no matter what he claimed. The agent wanted both of the fugitives alive. It'd be worth far more to the government if Ro and Zeta were captured together, brought into NSA custody together, questioned together. Zeta imagined how it would be if it ever happened, all the synchronicity. "You won't kill her."
Bennett was angered by Zeta's lack of emotion. Then he remembered he was talking to a robot who felt nothing. The hologram was so convincing that even Bennett could forget. He wrenched the knife dangerously close to Ro's ribs. She tried to lean in the opposite direction, further from the blade, but Bennett's weapon followed. "Won't I? Are you willing to bet her life that I'm merely bluffing?"
Zeta was suddenly not sure. A dark fluid oozed from Ro's side, slowly, in a millimeter width. The appearance of the blood aroused no anger in Zeta. He knew nothing of resentment. What he was familiar with was hurt, emotional hurt. Ro was in danger.
Ro felt very little pain, just a slight sting at first, then it turned into what she thought was a burn, like she'd left her side too near a flame. Bennett's knife. She grasped Bennett's forearm, still tightly over her throat, and tried to wrench free from his hold. The struggle granted no benefit, and she grew weary from trying and vertiginous from lack of oxygen. She forced her eyes to stay open, to allow herself consciousness if nothing else. She was not meant to die there, not like that, and she refused to believe reality. She called out to Zeta one final time. "Zee!"
Zeta remained in a reflective, scanning mode. The attempts to formulate a plan were failing him. He went through strategies and possibilities. The easiest would be to attack Bennett, since Zeta knew the advantage of a quick retaliatory reflex lay in his favor. Bennett was a good agent, quiet and meticulous, but he was still human, faulty and slow. But attacking was out of the question. It would only prove to Bennett what Zeta had been trying for years to disprove: he had a moral conscience. In fact, Zeta saw the irony of the situation clearly, and wondered if Bennett noticed. Bennett had ruthlessly injured Ro Rowen while Zeta stood by and watched, causing no harm.
"I don't care if you do have a conscience! You could be a saint and I'd still find a way to prove your guilt, Zeta!" Bennett yelled. "Turn yourself in. It's the best offer I can give you."
As Bennett again tightened his hold against a paling Ro, a whistle wafted through the air, almost like a firecracker. The synthoid was the only one whose perception was keen enough to notice it. To human ears it was a few decibels over the hearing range. Zeta noted that Bennett had slumped, then he fell heavily, and Ro was suddenly free from his hold. Ro clutched at her throat with two hands, swallowing, gulping in air. She drooped over at the waist, pressured the spots of dark blood, and tried to get her senses in order. Zeta surveyed the area around them while he gently touched Ro on the back to let her know she was all right. He found nothing that was unusual, and broadened his search in a thermal scan to search the dark windows of the office buildings and apartments stories over the street. When he found nothing, he switched back to normal sight. He proceeded to examine Bennett. There was a tiny tranquilizer needle sticking out of his neck. A perfect shot from someone who was not a murderer, but someone who clearly wanted Bennett to leave Zeta and Ro alone. The tranquilizer had done the job. They were free and Bennett was sleeping, floating through pleasant dreams that, when he woke up, he would wish were real.
Zeta lifted his head when he heard a shuffling of feet close by. Standing in the shadow of a broken window of a rundown building on the opposite side of the street, he saw a figure. A small figure, rather like a child, as it appeared from behind the brick casement and into view, but not enough in the light that Zeta could determine features. He saw a shoulder, thin and square, and maybe the outline of a pinna, but he wasn't sure. The figure moved from view before he conduct another type of search.
"Don't just stand there, Zeta, take the girl and run." The voice was in a normal whisper, not shouted over the distance of the wide street. Whoever was there knew that Zeta's aural sense was acute and he was sure to hear even the most hushed of tones. It was also an androgynous voice, neither female nor male. Zeta didn't have time to investigate further. He took the voiced advice.
"Ro, it's all right," Zeta spoke. He held her at the shoulders, suggesting both urgency and concern. "Are you able to walk?"
Ro's vertigo was wearing off, and she finally felt like her senses were normal again, though it would take some time for the pounding of her heart to return to any semblance of normalcy. She touched her chest and she heaved a dry cough again. "I'm fine," she managed to say. Out of her eye she saw Agent Bennett sprawled over the sidewalk, a deep shadow over his face and green glasses. His back and the top of his hair, his neck and the needle were highlighted by the lamps. He looked dead and at rest, far away from holding any ability to harm her. The standard-issue NSA knife was a half-foot from his hand. Ro kicked it away, and it landed somewhere in a distant gutter, clacking and clanging as it went. Maybe when he woke, she thought, he'd spend some time looking for it. It'd serve him right if he thought he was a little crazy. Ro turned from him angrily, full of spite for the NSA. But she found a moment to be grateful he'd been the only agent around.
They weren't far from the parking garage where they'd left Tiff's car. Ro was able to build her walk to a slight jog by the time they were at the garage. The pain in her side caused her to tumble into the vehicle, exhausted, injured, and cranky. She rummaged through the glove compartment to find some tissues to cover her scratch. The pliable paper absorbed the trickles of blood, what hadn't yet scabbed, and she applied gentle pressure to stop the bleeding. The pain would have to stop on its own.
"What happened?" she asked quietly as Zeta drove out of the parking garage. "How'd we get away?" Ro titled her head back into the seat while waiting for an answer.
"It was our unknown savior. He--she--it--had followed us to Spring City. I saw--it--across the street in the abandoned building, but only when it wanted me to know it was there. It was the one who shot the immobilizer at Bennett that granted us escape."
Ro swerved her head to look at Zee. She managed a rough, shaky smile. The life and humor was back in her eyes. "It, huh?"
"I don't know what it was. I'm sorry, but I didn't get a very good look. If I'd been quick enough to scan thermally just as it appeared . . . But it was out of my sight by then. I was only able to gather immediate information. The height of a child. The voice of a neither girl nor boy. Prepubescent, perhaps."
"Our savior is sexless and a child? That's a little odd."
"Not just a little odd," Zeta differentiated, "very odd."
Zeta examined Ro thoroughly once they were far beyond the limits of Spring City and into northern Virginia. Spring City was far, far behind them, and Washington was a speckling glint at the distant horizon, and ahead of them were the beginning hills of the Appalachians. They were standing along the side of the road, a secondary road just off the main freeway and a little beyond the overpass. A stop Zeta had made a few minutes earlier procured for Ro a few medical necessities. Zeta knelt in front of her, Ro leaning against the hood of the car, while he pasted a bandage on her ribs. A little antiseptic was all she needed. It was only a superficial wound, nothing dangerous. Still, Zeta and Ro felt that it should not have happened at all. Zeta tugged the hem of Ro's shirt down to her waist, covering his speedily accomplished work. He stood and gathered the supplies he used off the car's hood.
"You'll be fine. It'll be sore for a while."
"I'll live."
"You've had worse."
"I was just going to say that," she said, a touch playful, but she became pensive again. "Hey, Zee?"
"What?" he said, about to return to the shelter of the car, and he thought Ro ought to do the same.
"What would you have done tonight, with Bennett, if---"
"I would've found a way, somehow. But I knew he was bluffing. He wasn't going to hurt you. It's not really you---"
"Liar," Ro interrupted callously. "You know they want me as much as they want you." She waited, expecting Zeta to say something inspired, but he said nothing. "But they won't take us without a fight. And we really have given them one, haven't we?"
Zeta nodded. At least with that he agreed. They had escaped the tyranny of the NSA for two years. The long chase had forced the NSA agents to rearrange their former precepts, but to no avail.
Ro looked away, into the dark, unlit country road. Only the lights of the freeway caused the distant shadows, like black fading into black and tree trunks and foliage crossed each other diagonally and vertically. The fresh night air was saturated with the odors of September rain as it began to trickle intermittently from the sky. Ro was relieved when she'd seen the Welcome to Virginia sign, once they crossed the river. And happier still that Spring City loomed fifty miles back, where it could be a problem to its five-million citizens and not to Ro Rowen. Not anymore. Yet, there was something that had happened she was trying to recall. Something before Agent Bennett had attacked her. Something she'd seen that hadn't anything to do with Agent Bennett, but with someone else. Ro just couldn't remember.
They stopped at a Ground Wire in suburban Richmond. One of the few Ground Wires that was open past ten at night. People in Richmond dearly loved their caffeine, and no matter what hour they craved it, they wanted it when they needed it. They came in with shaking hands and their eyes dilated, mouths dry and hearts at a steady pace they weren't used to. A few of them were there when Ro and Zeta had entered, but, like usual, no one gave the young woman and her guardian much regard.
Ro sat at one of the computers, in a high-legged wooden chair that fit with the Ground Wire's different country décor. Zeta was sitting at a small round table by the window, flipping through entries of a compact electronic atlas. She didn't know what he was doing, except for the logical explanation he was trying to find somewhere else for them to be. Ro looked back at the blue and white hue of the screen, her eyes transfixed on the text she read there. She was searching through the ads, to make sure nothing from her brother was lurking. But when she saw nothing written in their code, she moved on to other websites. She searched Ground Wire's news archive and found something of great interest.
"Hey, Zee!" Ro called. "Look at this."
Zeta leaned over Ro's shoulder to quickly read what was displayed on the screen. A news article about Gwennie Rowen's sudden death. It was only briefly written, stating nothing new. She'd died of a stroke in her home located in the historic district of Glenview, Oregon. She'd been an upstanding citizen, volunteer and historic renovation activist, political activist for the freedom of Northern Ireland, and had even once run for mayor.
"Read that last part," Ro said with interest.
Zeta nodded as soon when he'd gone through the last lines. "Her son has died, but her daughter is still alive. I told you that she had secrets."
"She must've had a really different take on life with all that she saw." Ro sighed and swiveled her chair then took a sip of her cappuccino. It'd grown cold over the minutes she'd ignored it in favor of roaming through the information highway. A tap at the screen closed the window that had displayed the article. While she typed in the memorized address to the newspaper her brother was a journalist for, Ro looked hastily at Zeta who was lingering beside her with a purpose. "What is it?"
"I've found a place for you to rest."
Ro turned her chair around to him, using her foot on the rung supporting the computer's table. "I always thought we'd go back to California. I like California. Full of strange people, but I suppose that's why I like it."
"It's too far. I wouldn't run the risk of you traveling across the country again. You need rest. Now."
Ro began to open her mouth to protest, a little temper firing inside. It was that part of her that disliked authority. The independence in her squashed such attempts, even those infrequent attempts from Zee.
"Don't argue with me," Zeta declared. He blinked and was transformed once again into the innocent human hologram. "Please?"
She'd never heard him talk like that before, not to her or to anyone. Ro was stunned so badly that to say anything would've required more thinking than what she was capable.
"Ro," Zeta started, reaching over to shut off the computer, and he looked at her again, surprised he still had her attention. "You're not well. Admit it. A rest would be a good thing for you. It'd be the only thing you need. A week, maybe two."
Ro slid off the chair and landed on the floor with a cushioned thud. She brushed her way past Zeta, her pride a little injured. It always prickled her pride when he knew her so well. "A week, maybe two," he'd said. She knew she was sick. She was exhausted. Seven to fourteen days of harmless solitude would be good for anyone who was as worn out as she was, physically and mentally.
Still, she didn't like the idea. It was that inkling inside of her, an intuition that told her she knew what would happen if she consented to rest.
By the time she was out in the parking lot and waiting at the door of the locked vehicle, Ro was willing to let Zeta have his way. Let her rest. It didn't have to be forever. The rain had grown to a steady, cool pulse, and Ro absentmindedly traced patterns in the roof of the vehicle, pooling the droplets. She tried not to think of how terribly boring resting would be.
Zeta promptly arrived, carrying in one hand the map and Ro's cappuccino in the other. He handed both articles to her once they were inside. When he was about to start the power, Ro's voice halted his movement.
"Fine," she said as a reluctant sigh, "I'll go. Take me to this place that you have in mind. Just--don't expect me to like it. Sitting still for a week or so isn't exactly what I'm used to."
He smiled at her. "You'll get used to it."
She couldn't smile back. It wasn't in her. "We'll see."
Zeta looked through the windshield to concern himself with the dark road, yet he kept the secret partial grin on his face for another moment.
"Hey," Ro said, "headlights would be good here."
Zeta quickly flipped on the lights, and the beams shot forward to illuminate the semicircle in front of the vehicle. He forgot about the amenity sometimes, too used to seeing well at night. "I'm sorry."
Ro sipped her cappuccino, the very last of it, just to keep from breaking out in dispassionate laughter. She was more elated by the idea of a real rest than she let on. Even though she knew what was coming. The inevitable.
She'd survive. She always did.