couple of friends. Dogs’ll watch the house.” He scratched the animal behind its plastic hood. “Right, boy?” The dog whined and twitched. “I had to train `em off coon hunting when I put their infrareds in,” he said. “There wouldn’t’ve been any coons left in the county . Sally and the girl came down the porch steps, Sally carry- ing a broken-down canvas carryall she’d filled with sand- wiches and a thermos of coffee. Turner remembered her in the bed upstairs and smiled. She smiled back. She looked older today, tired. Angie had discarded the bloodstained MAAS- NEOTEK T-shirt in favor of a shapeless black sweatshirt Sally had found for her. It made her look even younger than she was. Sally had also managed to incorporate the remaining bruises into a baroque job of eye makeup that clashed weirdly with her kid’s face and baggy shirt. Rudy handed Turner the key to the hovercraft. “I had my old Cray cook me a pr~cis of recent corporate news this morning One thing you should probably know is that Maas Biolabs has announced the accidental death of Dr. Christo- pher Mitchell.” “Impressive, how vague those people can be.” “And you Just keep the harness on real tight,” Sally was saying, or your ass’ll be black and blue before you hit that Statesboro bypass.” Rudy glanced at the girl, then back at Turner. Turner could see the broken veins at the base of his brother’s nose. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a pronounced tic in his left eyelid. “Well, I guess that’s it. Funny, but I’d come to figure I wouldn’t see you again. Kind of funny to see you back here “Well,” Turner said, “you’ve both done more than I’d any right to expect Sally glanced away. “So thanks. I guess we better go” He climbed up into the cab of the hover, wanting to be gone Sally squeezed the girl’s wrist, gave her the carryall, and stood beside her while she climbed up the two hinged footrests. Turner settled into the driver’s seat. “She kept asking for you,” Rudy said. “After a while it got so bad, the endorphin analogs couldn’t really cut the pain, and every two hours or so, she’d ask where you were, when you were coming “I sent you money,” Turner said “Enough to take her to Chiba. The clinics there could have tried something new.” Rudy snorted. “Chiba? Jesus. She was an old woman. What the hell good would it have done, keeping her alive in Chiba for a few more months? What she mainly wanted was to see you.” “Didn’t work out that way.” Turner said as the girl got into the seat beside his and placed the bag on the floor, between her feet. “Be seeing you, Rudy.” He nodded. “Sally “So long,” Sally said, her arm around Rudy. “Who were you talking about?” Angie asked, as the hatch came down. Turner put the key in the ignition and fired up the turbine, simultaneously inflating the apron bag. Through the narrow window at his side, he saw Rudy and Sally back quickly away from the hover, the hound cowering and snap- ping at the noise of the turbine. The pedals and hand controls were oversized, designed to permit ease of operation for a driver wearing a radiation suit. Turner eased them out through the gates and swung around on a wide patch of gravel drive Angie was buckling her harness “My mother,” he said. He revved the turbine and they jolted forward “I never knew my mother,” she said, and Turner remem- bered that her father was dead, and that she didn’t know it yet. He hit the throttle and they shot off down the gravel drive, barely missing one of Rudy’s hounds.
Sally had been right about the thing’s ride~ there was constant vibration from the turbine. At ninety kilometers per hour, on the skewed asphalt of the old state highway, it shook their teeth. The armored apron bag rode the broken surfaces heavily; the skim effect of a civilian sport model would only be possible on a perfectly smooth, flat surface. Turner found himself liking it, though You pointed, eased back the throttle, and you went. Someone had hung a pair of pink sun-faded foam dice above the forward vision-slit, and the whine of the turbine was a solid thing behind him. The girl seemed to relax, taking in the roadside scenery with an absent, almost contented expression, and Turner was grateful that he wasn’t required to make conversation. You’re hot, he thought, glancing sidelong at her, you’re probably the single most hotly pursued little item on the face of the planet today, and here I am hauling you off to the Sprawl in Rudy’s kidstuff war wagon, no fucking idea what I’m going to do with you now . Or who it was zapped the mall Run it through, he told himself, as they swung down into the valley, run it through again, eventually something’ll click. Mitchell had contacted Hosaka, said he was coming over Hosaka hired Conroy and assembled a medical crew to check Mitchell for kinks. Conroy had put the teams together, work- ing with Turner’s agent. Turner’s agent was a voice in Ge- neva. a telephone number. Hosaka had sent Allison in to vet him in Mexico, then Conroy had pulled him out Webber, just before the shit hit the fan, had said that she was Conroy’s plant at the site. . . . Someone had jumped them, as the girl was coming in, flares and automatic weapons. That felt like Maas, to him, it was the sort of move he’d expect, the sort of thing his hired muscle was there to deal with Then the white sky. . . . He thought about what Rudy had said about a railgun. . . Who? And the mess in the girl’s head, the things Rudy had turned up on his tomograph and his NMR imager. She said her father had never planned on coming out himself “No company,” she said, to the window. “How’s that?” “You don’t have a company, do you? I mean, you work for whoever hires you.” “That’s right.” “Don’t you get scared?” “Sure, but not because of that . “We’ve always had the company. My father said I’d be all right. that I was just going to another company “You’ll be fine. He was right. I just have to find out what’s going on. Then I’ll get you where you need to go “To Japan?” “Wherever.” “Have you been there?” “Sure.” “Would I like it?” “Why not?” Then she lapsed into silence again, and Turner concen- trated on the road.