Dark Rivers of the Heart

lot of curious people. Better out somewhere, but not so far out that we can’t find wheels nearby.”

“We won’t make it to the Grand Junction area until half an hour or so before twilight. Right now it’s only ten past two o’clock. Well, three o’clock in the Mountain Time Zone. Still plenty of time to look at a map and pick a general area to put down.”

She pointed to the canvas duffel bag on the seat in front of hers. “Listen, about your fifty thousand dollars —”

He held up one hand to silence her. “I was just startled that you found it, that’s all. You had every right and reason to search my luggage after you located me in the desert. You didn’t know why the hell I was trying to track you down. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you still weren’t entirely clear on that.”

“You always carry that kind of pocket change?”

“About a year and a half ago,” he said, “I started salting cash and gold coins in safe-deposit boxes in California, Nevada, Arizona. Also opened savings accounts in various cities, under false names and Social Security numbers. Shifted everything else out of the country.”

“Why?”

“So I could move fast.”

“You expected to be on the run like this?”

“No. I just didn’t like what I saw happening on that computer-crime task force. They taught me all about computers, including that access to information is the essence of freedom. And yet what they ultimately wanted to do was restrict that access in as many instances as possible and to the greatest extent possible.”

Playing devil’s advocate, Ellie said, “I thought the idea was just to prevent criminal hackers from using computers to steal and maybe to stop them from vandalizing data banks.”

“And I’m all for that kind of crime control. But they want to keep a thumb on everybody. Most authorities these days…they violate privacy all the time, fishing both openly and secretly in data banks. Everyone from the IRS to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Even the Bureau of Land Management, for God’s sake. They were all helping to fund this regional task force with grants, and they all gave me the creeps.”

“You see a new world coming—”

“—like a runaway freight train—”

“—and you don’t like the shape of it—”

“—don’t think I want to be a part of it.”

“Do you see yourself as a cyberpunk, an on-line outlaw?”

“No. Just a survivor.”

“Is that why you’ve been erasing yourself from public record — a little survival insurance?”

No shadow fell across him, but his features seemed to darken. He had looked haggard to begin with, which was understandable after the ordeal of the past few days. But now he was sunken-eyed, gaunt, and older than his years.

He said, “At first I was just…getting ready to go away.” He sighed and wiped a hand across his face. “This sounds strange maybe. But changing my name from Michael Ackblom to Spencer Grant wasn’t enough. Moving from Colorado, starting a new life…none of it was ever enough. I couldn’t forget who I was…whose son I was. So I decided to wipe myself out of existence, painstakingly, methodically, until there was no record in the world that I existed under any name. What I’d been learning about computers gave me that power.”

“And then? When you were erased?”

“That’s what I could never figure out. And then? What next? Wipe myself out for real? Suicide?”

“That’s not you.” She found her heart sinking at the thought.

“No, not me,” he agreed. “I never brooded about eating a shotgun barrel or anything like that. And I had an obligation to Rocky, to be here for him.”

Sprawled on the deck, the dog raised his head at the sound of his name. He swished his tail.

“Then, after a while,” he continued, “even though I didn’t know what I was going to do, I decided there was still virtue in becoming invisible. Just because, as you say, of this new world coming, this brave new high-tech world with all its blessings — and curses.”

“Why did you leave your DMV file and your military records partly intact? You could’ve wiped them out completely, long ago.”

He smiled. “Being too clever, maybe. I thought I’d just change my address on them, a few salient details, so they weren’t much use to anyone. But by leaving them in place, I could always go back to look at them and see if somebody was searching for me.”

“You booby-trapped them?”

“Sort of, yeah. I buried little programs in those computers, very deep, very subtle. Each time anyone goes into my DMV or military files without using a little code I implanted, the system adds one asterisk to the end of the last sentence in the file. The idea was that I’d check once or twice a week, and if I saw asterisks, saw that someone was investigating me…well, then maybe it would be time to walk away from the cabin in Malibu and just move on.”

“Move on where?”

“Anywhere. Just move on and keep moving.”

“Paranoid,” she said.

“Damned paranoid.”

She laughed quietly. So did he.

He said, “By the time I left that task force, I knew that the way the world’s changing, everybody’s going to have somebody looking for him sooner or later. And most people, most of the time, are going to wish they hadn’t been findable.”

Ellie checked her wristwatch. “Maybe we should take a look at that map now.”

“They have a slew of maps up front,” he said.

She watched him walk forward to the cockpit door. His shoulders were slumped. He moved with evident weariness, and he still appeared to be somewhat stiff from his days of immobility.

Suddenly Ellie was chilled by a feeling that Spencer Grant was not going to make it through this with her, that he was going to die somewhere in the night ahead. The foreboding was perhaps not strong enough to be called an explicit premonition, but it was more powerful than a mere hunch.

The possibility of losing him left her half sick with dread. She knew then that she cared for him even more than she had been able to admit.

When he returned with the map, he said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Just tired,” she lied. “And starved.”

“I can do something about the starved part.” As he sat in the seat across the aisle again, he produced four candy bars from the pockets of his fleece-lined denim jacket.

“Where’d you get these?”

“The boys up front have a snack box. They were happy to share. They’re really a couple of swell guys.”

“Especially with a gun to their heads.”

“Especially then,” he agreed.

Rocky sat up and cocked his good ear with keen interest when he smelled the candy bars.

“Ours,” Spencer said firmly. “When we’re out of the air and on the road again, we’ll stop and get some real food for you, something healthier than this.”

The dog licked his chops.

“Look, pal,” Spencer said, “I didn’t stop in the supermarket to graze on the wreckage, like you did. I need every bite of these, or I’ll collapse on my face. Now you just lie down and forget it. Okay?”

Rocky yawned, looked around with pretended disinterest, and stretched out on the deck again.

“You two have an incredible rapport,” she said.

“Yeah, we’re Siamese twins, separated at birth. You couldn’t know that, of course, because he’s had a lot of