conveniently invisible just long enough for them to escape into the terminal.
Suddenly transported by an impotent rage, Margolin slammed his fist on the hood of the truck. Then he swiftly tried to compose himself.
'Alert the backup team,' he said to Bartolli a moment later. 'They're going to try to get through the terminal to steal some transportation. We have to head them off. “
'This is a big airport,' Bartolli pointed out as he opened up his cell phone.
Margolin gestured angrily toward the electromagnetic detection device the female agent still held in her hand. 'The Harding girl is going to have to keep using her abilities as long as they're here. That means she's going to leave a trail. I want it followed. “
Everyone scattered to resume the chase. Margolin swore to himself that the kids wouldn't get far.
Anthony Miller was in a hurry. His flight had arrived late, and unless everything went perfectly for the next ninety minutes or so, he was going to be very late meeting with a very important, very finicky client. And he knew that expecting perfection from the baggage carousel, the car rental desk, and the 405 freeway was asking for the impossible.
But as he left the luggage area, his suit-bag slung over one shoulder, he began feeling lucky. Maybe I used up all my bad luck during the layover at O'Hare, he thought, striding urgently toward a wide-open, relatively uncrowded array of car rental desks. No lines! I can't believe it! Coming out of nowhere, someone bumped him, making his suit-bag tumble from his shoulder and to the floor. Miller was about to say something rude when he saw the frail-looking old man with whom he'd just collided.
The old man was flanked by an equally fragile old woman and a middle-aged woman who had to be their daughter. The old man looked apologetic as he stooped to help Miller recover what he had dropped.
Then the old man lost his balance, and Miller reached out to steady him.
'I'm so sorry,' said the old man.
Now feeling guilty, Miller helped the man recover his footing. Retrieving his bag, he said, 'Don't mention it. It was probably my fault, anyway. I wasn't watching where I was going. Are you all right? “
The old man smiled, his eyes twinkling as though he had a secret. 'Don't worry about me.' Then, still flanked by his wife and daughter, the old man continued on his way.
Miller didn't realize that his wallet was missing until a minute later, after he'd reached the car rental desk.
Ducking behind a pillar beside Rath and Lonnie, Ava carefully altered the mindwarp shell she had created to cover their escape from the MiBs back on the tarmac. Ava felt sweat beginning to bead across her brow.
The image of an elderly couple and their middle-aged daughter wavered and vanished as their forms… at least in the eyes of anyone who came within fifty yards of them… quickly shifted and altered, then stabilized into entirely new configurations.
A moment later, Rath looked down at his own expensively dressed body, and then studied Lonnie and Ava, both of whom had been magically transformed into men. They all appeared to be in their mid-thirties, and bore no resemblance at all to the fugitives the MiBs were chasing.
'I always wondered what we'd look like if we swapped sexes,' Rath said, grinning down at his short-skirted Ally McBeal ensemble and taking a few experimental steps in his virtual high heels. Ava was proud of the illusion. Rath looked like he'd been walking in heels all his life.
'Now we know,' Lonnie said, pausing to admire her newly masculine form, as well as the sharp-looking business suit that covered it. 'Too bad we don't have time to do more than just look. “
Ava hadn't thought of that. She blushed, but hoped her illusory black beard covered it. 'Sorry to disappoint you guys, but this is just camouflage. Less than skin deep. I picked this illusion because the Feds are looking for two girls and a guy, not the other way around. “
'Good thinking,' Rath said, meeting her gaze for a moment. Though he was still grinning, Ava thought something had subtly changed behind his eyes, turning them even flintier and more calculating than usual.
Then he looked away and the moment passed. Ava dismissed it as her imagination, or maybe even some unintended trick of the gender-bending, mindwarp-driven disguises she had created. She fell silently into step behind Rath and Lonnie as they walked back onto the main concourse, proceeded through the large glass doors, and finally came to a stop at a curbside that thronged with both human and vehicular traffic. The early autumn sun beat down on them without mercy. Ava ruefully wished the air- conditioned concourse a fond farewell.
She watched as Rath reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew the large, crumpled wad of cash he'd taken from the yuppie whose wallet he'd filched back inside the terminal, and extended a hand to flag down a cab.
We're actually doing it, Ava thought, allowing hope to return. We're going to get away.
Walking past the car rental area, Special Agent Billings glanced down at his handheld EM detector, knowing that the odds were very much against his finding the three fugitives before they made it out of the terminal. There were simply too many exits, and there just wasn't time to seal them all. Once outside, the aliens could easily get their hands on a car and make a clean getaway.
Then Billings saw the energy spike on the detector's small LED readout. He understood immediately that the Harding girl must be expending a great deal of psionic energy at the moment, no doubt using her mindwarp talent to alter the appearance of herself and her two friends.
And she's somewhere nearby, he thought, examining the readings more closely. Following the GPS coordinates as they scrolled onto his screen, he pressed a couple of buttons to display the range and distance of his prey, relative to his present position. Then he trotted quickly across the concourse and through the large glass doors that led to the curbside.
The readout on his device was going crazy. / must be right on top of them, he thought.
Straight ahead, beside the curb, a yellow taxicab waited. Two smartly dressed men and a woman approached it, their flights evidently having just landed, and started to get in.
Billings recalled what the files on the Harding girl had said about her powers. She evidently possessed at least a limited ability to reach into people's minds and manipulate what they saw. Or what they thought they saw.
Maybe she should have whipped up an illusion of some luggage, he thought. Strange that not one of them has any. He consulted the range and distance data again on his device one last time, making absolutely sure.
It's them, he thought, then sprinted toward the cab before the trio finished closing its doors. Dropping the detector, he pulled his gun, grabbed the rear passenger door, and flung it open.
'Freeze! FBI!' he shouted.
With surprising strength, the slight woman seated in the center of the backseat shoved the man at her right, throwing him straight into Billings.
The agent and the other man fell backward onto the curbside. Billings felt the wind rush out of his body. The man looked confused, but it was obvious that he intended to run. Travelers stepped around them. Someone cursed, then moved on.
Billings rolled into a crouch and brought the smaller man down with a quick rabbit punch. The man slumped toward the sidewalk, unconscious.
By the time he hit the ground, he had transformed into a slightly built teenage female with dyed-blue hair and hardcore alt-rock clothing.
Someone screamed. Billings heard an engine roar and the squeal of tires quickly
