Grey

He turned and darted back in.

While I waited, I told myself that this was the slubs—not a terrible area obviously, but the slubs anyway. Had Father come to look at their place? Did he have any idea who he was trying to merge with? Sure, they could have some amazing new technology behind those covered-over windows on the second story, something that might even save RiverGroup, but I doubted it.

Walter came back out, pulling on the same light-grey suit jacket as he had worn before, and I figured it was the only one he owned. Behind him was the other nanny.

“Where is the patient?” she asked, with a modicum of medical authority. I motioned to the pilot door and while she stuck her head in, Walter dug a toe into the dirt.

“You probably shouldn’t be here.”

“I know, but do you have any more of that ARU?”

“Oh,” he said, pouting, “sorry. I ate the last one.”

“Can we get more?”

“My sister has the car. She’s in Yooku getting ready for the show.” Peering up, he asked, “Aren’t you going to marry her at midnight?”

Glancing out at the dusty cornfields, I felt far away from everything. I said, “I don’t know.”

His nanny had managed to pull out the injured driver. She held him in her arms as a mother might cradle a baby.

“He’s bloody!” said Walter, stepping back.

I asked, “Will he be all right?”

She nodded once then took him back to the house.

“Do you have someone who can drive my car?”

He said he did and he directed us around the main building to a small slubber shed of a house ten feet square. As he knocked on the black door, he said, “She’s very nice.

And very helpful.”

A young girl, in loose beige pants and a long, ugly unwoven undershirt, answered the door. She didn’t look especially pleased to see Walter, and her eyes were heavy as though his knock woke her.

“We’re going to buy ARU. We need you to drive Michael Rivers’ Loop car.”

This child could drive a Loop car?

Leaning around Walter, she peered at me as if she were the one unsure. “The Michael Rivers?” she asked, as she wiped her wet nose.

“See!” he said, teasingly. “I told you I know him!”

Curling a lip, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

Once I had a better look, I decided she was probably in her twenties. “Trying,” I said, emphasizing the word because I was beginning to doubt my decision to come here, “to get ARU.”

“For you?” she wanted to know.

“A friend.”

She rolled her eyes, as if she didn’t believe. When I showed her my car, the first thing she did was walk all the way around it, dragging her finger over the surface.

“It’s nice, but we’ll probably barely get three point two.” Turning and squinting accusingly at me, she added, “Someone scraped off a bunch of the fast fibers.”

“Fine,” I said, unhappy with her manner, but at least semi-confident she could drive. I asked Walter, “Where do we get the stuff?”

“Asia-12.”

I wanted to collapse. After all I had gone through to get

here,

the place was on the other side of the globe, hours and hours away. We would never make it in time.

Wiping her nose again, the girl asked, “What about the Arctic pass?”

“What’s that?”

She turned and spoke toward the north presumably. “Supposed to be part of the new Loop, but they never finished.”

I asked, “Is it safe?”

Starting toward the pilot door, she said, “Nope,” and crawled in.

Walter grunted and stepped on a waterbug almost as big as his foot. Gritting his teeth in disgust, he said, “Come on! She’s good.”

The Artic pass turned out to be a decrepit one-lane, floating metal bridge that stretched across the North Pole. It rose one hundred feet above the blood-red water and the thousands of brown and orange junks that covered the ocean like water birds. The bridge had no walls, no guardrails, and swayed back and forth in the currents. Gripping the upholstery of my seat, as if to hang on and help steer, it was like riding a wild bull, especially since the road wasn’t surfaced, and it felt like we were thumping over railroad ties.

Walter threw up into his handkerchief half a dozen times. Several of the windows cracked, but held together. The main screen snapped and showered the floor with bits of glass and glowing goo. The overhead light blinked out and when the auxiliaries came on, two of them flicked off as well.

When we were finally off the bridge and back on real roads in Asia-12, I felt grateful, but wasn’t sure if my bones were in the same order.

Meanwhile, night had descended and everything had gone black. Outside, I saw not a single spot of light, and except for the road ahead in the beams, we could have been in outer space.

Walter stood and freshened up in the bathroom. When he sat, I could see that he was at least his normal pale.

I wasn’t attacking him, or accusing, but I just wanted to confirm what I suspected. “There is no Ribo-Kool, is there?”

Although he didn’t look up, his fingers began worrying an errant thread on his jacket. “Sorry.”

“What is there?”

“Nothing,” he said, with a sob. “Don’t turn me in, please! It wasn’t my idea! I didn’t want to change my name.”

“Your name?”

I asked surprised. “Who are you?”

“Noole.

My grandfather made bricks in that building where I live.”

Changing identity was not just illegal but impossible, especially from slubber to family member. RiverGroup, or one of the other security companies, protected all names and numbers. “How did your uncle do that?

Shaking his head, he said, “Xavid Xarry did.”

“My father’s hairdresser?”

I asked, as if he were crazy.

Walter peered at me. “He’s CFO and COO of RiverGroup.”

I had forgotten about his titles. Maybe because when Father announced it, it seemed like a joke. “How do you know Xavid?” I asked. “Or how does he know you?”

“He’s Chesterfield’s brother.” He smiled hopefully, but his grin was short lived. “Xavid is very smart?” he said, the questioning intonation returning to his speech. “I guess he just wants to become part of the families?”

I didn’t care that they were slubbers, but I knew Father had no idea. I knew he hadn’t even gone to their house to take a look. And I knew that once it was discovered, the other families would cry foul that RiverGroup was merging with the enemy. Grabbing the control, I tried to turn on the cracked screen to call Father and tell him what an idiot he was, but of course, it didn’t work. I longed to see his face turn red as he learned that yet another of his magnificent plans had died an ugly death.

“Look it!” said Walter, pointing.

Outside, lights had appeared on the horizon. I thought of the Pure H copy, Miniature city flickers, and that was exactly what it looked like—a tiny metropolis gleaming white, blue, and orange.

I asked, “That the place?”

“No. I think

it’s

Moscostan. I go there to see creepy things.” Frowning, he added, “I have bad nightmares about it sometimes.”

“Where do we get the ARU?”