magically appeared in the joint spending account he shared with Madeline-two million dollars. He had no doubt that it could disappear again just as easily, but he’d done the best he could for her.
Gathering his bathrobe around him as a pathetic form of armor, Ruppert hurried downstairs towards his wife’s shrieking voice. He did not own a gun, although he probably could have qualified for one, at least before his recent troubles with Terror.
He rushed down into the foyer, where Madeline hurled porcelain decorations from a side table at two unannounced guests. A broken lamp and two demolished vases lay on the floor near them.
“Out! Get out of my house, you whore!” Madeline screamed.
Ruppert recognized one of the two visitors-it was the sandy-haired Packers fan, though today he looked much more rough, with the tattered and stained shirt of a street person and a few days’ growth of beard. His Packers gear was gone. Ruppert did not recognize the young woman with him, apparently the target of Madeline’s wrath. Her skin had a dark caramel tone, which was enough to trigger anger or fear in Ruppert’s neighborhood. Suspicious blood, possibly tied to Neocommunist or Mercosur forces. She deftly blocked the flying porcelain objects with her forearm, which was fortunately clad in a leather sleeve.
“Benny,” she said, “What’s with the hostile wife?”
“I don’t know!” The Packers fan-whose name was Benny, apparently-noticed Ruppert and scowled. “You said she had church groups every Friday night.”
“She had them almost every night, but she hasn’t been going,” Ruppert said.
Madeline saw him on the stairs and her lips curled into a snarl behind the tangle of dark red hair smeared across her face. “You told her to come over, didn’t you?” Her hand scrabbled across the rosewood side table, but she was out of ammunition. She growled her frustration, then overturned the entire table.
Ruppert approached his wife. “Madeline, just calm down. I have to go somewhere with these people.”
“I know where you’re going and what you’re going to do!” Madeline struck out at him, trying to claw at his face with her fingernails. “They showed me. They had video!”
“We don’t have time for this.” The dark young woman raised what looked like a standard handheld remote control for the screen, but heavily modified, with strange buttons and loose, dangling wires along the sides. Ruppert was aware of beeping from the small screen next to his front door, but he was busy trying to fight off Madeline’s attack.
“Will you just listen, Madeline?” Ruppert said. “I have to go now. You’re going to be fine. There’s plenty of money in the bank-”
“I don’t want money,” she hissed. “I want my baby. I’m on a schedule, I’m on a schedule, and now you’re going to go spray it all over this…this Jezebel-whore!”
“Excuse me?” the woman asked. There was a rush of crackling static from the screen.
“Madeline, I don’t know her…Madeline, listen. I might not be able to come back. I want you to know I love-”
“Don’t come back!” Madeline jerked away from him, walked backwards towards the kitchen. “I don’t you want back, ever.”
“Madeline, that’s what I’m saying-”
She stomped into the kitchen, letting out another frustrated scream.
“We have to get moving,” the Packers fan said.
“I’m just trying to explain-” Ruppert noticed his screen. Numbers and symbols raced across it, too fast for his eye to read. The woman with the remote control inserted a circular plastic plug into the data jack beside the screen, the place where Ruppert would plug in his camera to upload video. A sticker showing a jaguar was plastered onto the plug. The screen began to sputter and flash, then turned black. “What the hell are you doing?”
“A carnovirus,' she said. 'It's washing your house. I don’t want any records of my face. If Terror tries to dig around, they’ll just get an ugly infection.” She removed and pocketed the carnovirus plug. 'Let’s go.”
“I just have to tell Madeline-”
“There isn’t time,” the Packers fan said. “Where’s your suitcase?”
Ruppert looked between them, then heard the crash of appliances breaking in the kitchen. “One second.”
After he returned with the case, the two ushered him out of the house.
“Drop your wallet,” the woman told him. “Leave everything here but cash.”
“Who is she?” Ruppert asked the young man.
“Lucia,” the Packers fan said. “She runs extractions. You should do what she says. They can track you through your wallet.”
Ruppert emptied out the cash compartment of his wallet, reached out to lay the wallet unit on his front steps, then hesitated. Without his wallet, he couldn’t prove his identity, couldn’t access his accounts, couldn’t reach anyone on his contact list. He would be completely at the mercy of the two strangers who were taking him from his home. Beyond that, he was supposed to use the 'weather' icon on his wallet screen to contact Terror. Leaving it meant breaking his bargain.
“Look,” the Packers fan said. “There’s no point in keeping it. It’s no use to you anymore.”
“Would you hurry him up?” Lucia snapped. “The police will already know his house has gone funky.”
“Sorry.” Ruppert held his wallet a moment longer, then tossed it up to the top step. His knees felt a little weak.
A patched, rusty station wagon idled in his front driveway. Ruppert couldn’t help wondering how much the neighborhood association would fine him for keeping a car like that in front of his house. The neighbors must have noticed by now. Likely one or another of them would call the police on suspicion.
The Packers fan opened a rear door of the station wagon and lifted out a puffy, hooded coat that reminded Ruppert of a life preserver.
“Put it on,” the Packers fan said.
“Why?”
“You might have a tracker implant, too,” Lucia said. “This blocks the signal until we can check.”
“I don’t think I have a…' Ruppert stopped and considered how much time he’d lost while captured by Terror, the blacked out time he couldn't remember. They might have done anything to him. He slid the coat over his shoulders, buckled it, drew the hood in around his face.
“Good luck,” the Packers fan said. “Thanks, Lucia.” He climbed into the driver’s seat of the old station wagon.
“We’re not going with him?” Ruppert asked.
“We take your car. It’s got hard resale value, even if we have to chop-shop it. I’m driving. Don’t argue.”
Inside the car, she drew a small toolkit from her pocket and used a small flathead screwdriver to pry open his uplink console.
“I disabled that,” he said. He felt odd-he couldn’t remember ever sitting in the passenger seat before. “I disconnected the fuse.”
“Not good enough.” Lucia dug the screwdriver in underneath a circuit panel, then cracked it loose. She lifted it free and threw it out the window onto Ruppert’s lawn. “They install backup batteries now. You have to get rid of the whole thing.”
Lucia stepped on the accelerator, and the Bluehawk launched backwards, crashing through the low cactus hedge banking his driveway. They flew out into the street, and Lucia spun the steering wheel and stomped the brake. The car screeched to a stop just before hitting his neighbor’s mailbox. The stink of roasted rubber poured in through the air conditioner vents.
“This is a nice car,” she said. 'Good pick-up.'
“Okay…where are we going?”
“The desert.”
As they hurtled towards the neighborhood exit, Ruppert looked back at his retreating house, wondering if he would see it again.
As they drove east into the Mojave desert, the layers of smog gradually peeled away overhead, and Ruppert was stunned at the sight of the great vault of the sky overhead glittering with billions of stars. He had spent so much of his life surrounded by concrete, walls, and security fences that the sky had become a meaningless detail,
