Anna shook her head. "No. I know it looks that way, but IO is running on momentum. Its engines are dead. It's an Alexandrian empire, established and held together by the will of a single personality. Miles Craven is gone, and things started falling apart as soon as he died. But it's big, and it has a long way to fall, and it's going to be dangerous for a long time to come. And when it does fall, it's going to shake the earth."

"The hidden technology."

Anna nodded. "IO didn't put a stop to scientific research; they just dammed the flow from discovery to widespread application. But the lake behind the dam is getting awfully big after filling for thirty years, and the dam's base is crumbling.

"IO kept its secrets well, when Craven ran things. The troopers were some of the finest men in uniform, and they were ready to lay down their lives for what Craven made them believe they were a part of. Jack still admires the man, even knowing what a megalomaniac he was.

"His researchers might miss not being able to publish, but they were convinced they were doing vital work, and it was being suppressed for good reasons. They were sure their discoveries would be publicized someday, and they'd get full credit.

"The people in Planning and Administration had a better view of the real IO, but Craven played the 'national security' card very well, and convinced some very good people to turn their eyes from some very shady dealings." The corner of Anna's mouth twitched. "And, of course, everybody was well paid."

"That's where his money comes from?"

"Yes. Even a parking attendant at IO makes triple what he could get anywhere else; he's expected to keep his mouth shut about who drives what, and when they come and go. Troopers in Operations are paid like senior officers in the U.S. armed forces, and they do things that would make worldwide headlines if they weren't so skilled at working quietly. And anybody whose job requires him to know that IO is more than an agency of the U.S. government is compensated like a CEO. As one of the top three people in the Shop, Jack was pulling a nine-figure salary."

The road began climbing, gently but steadily. Hills rose up ahead of them, visible over the trees. The powerful car took no notice, maintaining speed with an almost imperceptible amount of added pressure on the gas pedal. "I suppose… that kind of money would buy a lot of loyalty."

Anna shook her head. "Money doesn't buy loyalty. To make IO work, Craven needed the kind of people who held certain things higher than money. Money buys loyalty to money." She turned to her and laid a hand on her forearm. "You think Jack did it for the money?"

"No. Why, then?"

"Because Craven made them believe in what they were doing; the money was just a token, evidence that their work was vitally important and appreciated. Even when people like Jack had their doubts, they were held together by their faith in Craven, and his faith in his vision. Now, Jack's sources and mine tell us that the organization is rife with disaffection. Ivana doesn't have Craven's talent for handling people, so she's getting rid of anyone who's shown reluctance to go along with the program. She's replacing them with people she feels she can trust – that is, people who never dissent or question. She rules by extreme application of the carrot and stick: princely salaries and performance bonuses, and draconian penalties for incompetence or disobedience."

She looked up at the hilltops. "IO's hiring practices don't make it easy to quit. That's the cork in the teakettle. The heavy policies of the new administration are the fire underneath. IO is an organization with a lot of passive-aggressives waiting for the axe to fall, or looking for a way out. Like I said, there are a lot of people more loyal to money than to Ivana. What's in IO's vaults may be worth trillions. Sooner or later, somebody will find a way past the safeguards, and the dam will burst."

A semi loomed up ahead, slowing as it labored up the grade. Gathering her nerve, she swung out and floored the accelerator, and the vehicle roared and leaped forward like a charging lion. The truck was dwindling behind them in seconds.

"You like the car, yes?"

"Yes." She backed off the gas, and the car coasted down to legal speed, purring contentedly. "I never had a car. They always seemed like too big an investment for too little return. Kids would fixate on their cars, or on each other's. They'd spend all their time with them. They took jobs to pay for them; they'd skip school just to ride around. I thought about having one, wondered what it'd be like. But if what other girls were going through was any indication, I couldn't afford one, more ways than one." This is supposed to be his car. Right now, I'm belted snug and safe in his seat, holding his wheel in my hands, feeling the power of his engine. And, to push the analogy to its limit, his quick and enthusiastic response to my touch. She glanced at Anna. But I don't feel like I'm sharing something with him. I feel like I'm sharing something with you.

Anna said quietly, "It's not a consolation prize, darling. I just thought you'd like it."

"I do." Her hands tightened on the wheel. "When I drop you off, I may take off somewhere for a while. Out into the desert maybe, just him and me."

"Him?"

She patted the wheel. "Definitely." She looked through the windshield. "Yes. Someplace where we can open up, and I'll see if I've got the nerve to let him go as fast as he wants." She turned to the little blonde. "I don't really know how to drive, not something like this. You'll teach me?"

"Anything you want to know." They rode in silence for half a minute.

"Kay. So what happens when the dam bursts? A lot of big companies go out of business. Economic upheaval, until things readjust."

"Things aren't going to readjust easily, until the entire contents of IO's vaults are brought to light. Until then, investment in new technology will freeze solid."

"What? Wait, that doesn't make sense. Investors will stampede to put this stuff on the market."

"At first, maybe, until enough of them go broke. Take this example: looking through IO's research files, you uncover a chemical process that will allow you to make automobile tires that last a million miles. You drop half a billion dollars tooling up, thinking you're going to be the only firm manufacturing tires a year from now. About the time you start shipping tires, another firm announces a plan to retrofit existing roads and vehicles with maglev technology. What happens to the market for million-mile tires when they only touch a road maybe a hundred miles a month?"

"Ouch."

"So this new firm puts a billion into a thousand miles of interstate and a fleet of cars for a test bed, just in time for someone else to start building antigravity cars that don't need roads or wheels."

"Oh."

The little android's expression was sober. "Hon, the world has never seen the sort of political and economic upheaval that's going to result from this. No war, no depression, no plague has ever wrought the sort of changes we're in for. These last three decades would have been a time of incredible change. Dump all that revolutionary theory and applications on the world at once, and whole societies will disappear. Political lines and national boundaries may become irrelevant. We may have to devise a whole new economic theory to handle trade. And many nations' present system of laws will become impossible to enforce."

"You're talking anarchy. Hunker in the bunker."

She nodded. "I'm afraid the human race is in for a severe pruning. One can only hope it'll grow back stronger as a result."

"Anna, you've got to be exaggerating. I mean, sure, cheap power will introduce big changes. A lot of people will lose their jobs, but they'll find brand-new ones. Poor countries will be able to farm more efficiently, and maybe industrialize-"

"And mass-produce atomic weapons to settle tribal scores, or rid themselves of those bothersome ethnic groups once and for all. New technology won't change human nature; Craven was right about that. And there will be wars fought over the continued suppression of technology, or its limited release. Let's look at a very mild example. Thousands of young men and women in uniform are being killed and wounded every year. Most of those casualties are from shrapnel and small-arms fire." She pinched the skin of her forearm. "What happens when our troops get issued head-to-toe leotards that let them walk through a hail of gunfire unharmed?"

"Wonderful."

Anna nodded soberly. "Until the enemy steals enough of them, or duplicates the manufacturing process. Making the soldiers on both sides bulletproof won't end wars. It'll just make it necessary for the combatants to carry heavier arms, ordnance that will guarantee more collateral damage. Combatants will be in less danger than civilians.

"And we can't stop there. Law enforcement all over the world will demand access to this stuff. Which means criminals will acquire it too. Every cop will have to carry a weapon that will beat that kind of personal protective equipment: guns firing armor-piercing bullets with exploding heads, maybe. How will it change the justice system, when policemen have to be given automatic authorization to use deadly force on any suspect who resists or flees?" She looked through the windshield. "Revolutionary technology really is revolutionary. You can't always see where it will lead. That's why it's best to introduce it gradually."

"But that's not going to happen."

"No. IO's hidden research is going to be like Pandora's Box: you open it a crack, and everything inside flies out, to go where it will, and the world will never be the same." She smiled. "But afterwards, Pandora looked inside, and found one thing that didn't fly out past recall. Hope."

"Hope."

"Hope for a better world, for a phoenix to rise from the ashes. The discoveries that will change mankind forever… are represented on the left side of this car, not the right."

"Anna, throwing cars is a gee-whiz kind of talent, but I don't see it changing the world. We've got machines for that sort of thing. Heck, it doesn't impact my life that much."

"Aside from making you a fugitive, you mean. I agree. But the simple fact you can do it hints at a universe that can't be explained by current theory. Using you kids as assassins is not only a moral atrocity; it's a criminal waste of an earth-shaking scientific discovery. There's no telling where a rigorous study of your talents may lead. The tech on the right side of the car is a collection of brilliant inventions. What's on the left side of the car may cause every scientific theory we now use to be drastically rewritten or dumped entirely."

"That's all a bit… esoteric, Anna. I repeat: it doesn't change my life much to be Gen."

"Hon, when was the last time you had a cold?"

"Um… before I left home, to go to the Academy."

"It must be different for late bloomers, then. But you haven't come down with anything since you manifested."

"All that California sunshine. Sea air."

"In the springtime, when I ride the bus, it sounds like an emphysema ward, all coughing and sneezing and throat-clearing. But there are no cold remedies in our medicine cabinet. There hasn't been so much as a case of the sniffles in the house in two years. The other kids can't remember ever being sick."

"Gen, you think?"

Anna nodded. "Yes. And that's just the start. I don't know how long being totally immune to disease will extend the human lifespan, but… Jack doesn't get sick either, not so much as a scratchy throat in over twenty years. He got a physical a couple days ago. The doctor said he was in great shape for a man half his age. When he manifested, he was an IO trooper, in great shape… and half his present age."

"Oh, come on. Now we're immortal?"