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The beef in the bag was thawed, but it’d be edible for a while yet—and Bryn had to admit, she wasn’t sure that her nanites wouldn’t find rotting meat just as attractive. The thought took away her appetite for it, and she choked down two protein bars to help satisfy the nanites’ cravings. Thorpe ate in silence; he was watching them all with wary attention. He found a dog-eared paperback that Lonnie must have been reading, and contented himself with that.
As Joe and Lonnie—increasingly the best of friends—chatted away the miles, Bryn and Riley rested silently. Slept. Ate.
Thorpe kept to his corner, reading and rereading the battered novel with single-minded intensity. He clearly didn’t want to get to know any of them, and Bryn decided she was perfectly fine with that.
It was a surprisingly restorative journey. For the first time in days, Bryn felt free of the oppressive burden of being hunted, tracked, watched.
And by the time the sun had fallen below the horizon, and the road was a space-black ribbon lit by the headlights of fellow travelers, Bryn’s phone rang.
It wasn’t Pansy’s number.
Bryn felt a surge of paranoid fear that shattered the fragile bubble of well-being, and exchanged a look with Riley, then Joe, before she answered. “Hello?”
“I’ll keep it short,” said Brick, on the other end. “Hope you’re doing all right. Just wanted to report that your friend’s head wound wasn’t serious, so he checked himself out against my people’s medical advice. I guess he’s out there looking for you. ”
Patrick. Bryn felt a surge of mixed relief and guilt. She hadn’t tried to find out how he was doing, for his own protection, but she ought to have been worrying more, she realized now. “You let him leave. ”
“Hit the brakes, he didn’t exactly ask me nicely. He pulled a gun from one of my guys and told the med team he was going, and they decided they didn’t want to see how far he’d take it. They get paid to take damage from the enemies of the clients, not the clients. That’s just screwed up. ” Brick sounded calm and amused. “He’s all right, and since he stole one of our best trucks, he’s mobile and well equipped, if you know what I mean. So I’d be on the lookout. ”
“We will,” Bryn said. “Thanks. I mean it. Especially for taking care of him; I know that was above and beyond. ”
“I get the feeling you folks are going to be repeat customers,” he said. “And you know what they say—the customer’s always right. ”
“I thought you said never to call you again. ”
“Well, your friend Pansy airlifted me a pallet full of money, so I’m rethinking it. Also, took a look at your folks. They seem okay. We
’ll keep watch. Take care. ”
“You too. ” She hung up and tried to dial Patrick’s phone, but got nothing but voice mail. Her own device was dangerously low on charge, and she didn’t have anything to power it with—but Joe did, stuffed in one of his many pockets.
He also didn’t think Patrick not answering was a problem. “If he got separated from his power supply, then he’s out of juice,” Joe pointed out. “Pat’s been in lots worse situations—trust me. He’ll get us a message, and he’ll rendezvous down the road with us. Good to know his head’s in one piece, though. ”
Lonnie was, by this time, studying Bryn in the rearview mirror. “Why is hers?” he asked. “I saw how hard I hit her, man. She ought to be dead. ”
“Stuntwoman,” Joe said. “Trained professional at bouncing off of moving vehicles. ”
Lonnie considered that, and seemed to accept it—mainly, Bryn thought, because it was too weird to accept the alternative. “How does that pay, anyway? You work on movies and shit?”
“Yeah, we do,” she lied smoothly. “And yeah, it does. See, you’re doing us a huge favor. You’re helping us get to a gig—we’re working on a film with Spielberg. ”
“Really?” His eyes rounded, and his face lit up. “I love the movies, man. Hey, why didn’t you just fly?”
Joe stuck a thumb at Riley. “She’s on a no-fly list. ” She did, Bryn had to admit, look it, with her shag-cut punk-spiked hair and dog collar. Riley shot him the finger, just to sell it.
“Could have rented a car, right?”
“Yeah, if we’d had a credit card,” Joe said. He’d long ago put the gun away. “We got robbed, man. Suitcases, clothes, wallets, everything. We’ve got some cash, but that’s it. So it was stop you, or steal somebody’s car. ”
Again, Bryn thought but didn’t say.
Lonnie accepted that and went back to the shiny object. “What movie are you making?”
Bryn made up something out of whole cloth, an alien invasion of San Francisco, and Lonnie was rapt. She cast the thing with big-name stars, just for the hell of it, and promised Lonnie a photo op with Johnny Depp.
As long as it kept him driving.
Joe was—probably not surprisingly—a qualified and licensed semitruck driver, so Lonnie let him take shifts while Lonnie crashed in the bunk. Dr. Thorpe, who’d so far been dangerously quiet, took the opportunity while Lonnie snored to say, “If you let me go at the next rest stop, I promise, I won’t say a word. I’ll just disappear. ”
