The street was empty, only the sound of the waves beyond the seawall and the faint counterpoint of music drifting down from the few still-open shops to disturb the sudden quiet. Then, in the distance, she heard a runabout’s engine, lighter-toned than the first, and coming from Seahaven proper. She cocked her head to one side, trying to judge the sound, but couldn’t be sure. She stayed where she was, lowered her head to her arms, torn between fear and the irrational conviction that, this time, it had to be Cerise, and heard the runabout pull steadily closer, heard the chunk of gears as the driver slowed still further. She braced herself for the flare of a searchlight, heard the runabout slide to a stop opposite the doorway. Trouble lifted her head warily, to see a dark-blue runabout and a single figure at the controls, a vague shape behind the thick glass. Then the driver reached forward, touched controls, and a light came on over the driver’s station, throwing a dim blue light across Cerise’s face. Trouble drew a deep sigh of relief, and scrambled to her feet, dragging the vest from behind her back. She shrugged it on as she moved out of the alcove, and Cerise leaned across the seat to unlock the passenger door. Trouble ducked into the runabout, grateful for its warmth, and pulled the door closed behind her. Cerise flicked off the overhead light, and eased the runabout back into motion, saying, “You do know how to liven up an evening.”
Chapter Ten
“I TRY,” TROUBLE ANSWERED, and let herself relax against the seat cushions. Cerise slanted a glance in her direction, her face little more than a pale blur in the dark, but Trouble could hear the amusement in her voice, translated it to one of her quirky smiles. “You succeed, believe me.”
“Thanks.” Trouble slumped further down in her seat.
Cerise glanced over her shoulder, checking for other cars, and swung south onto Ashworth Avenue. Trouble sat up again, startled, and Cerise said, “Treasury’s got a cop watching the bridge. I didn’t want to chance it. I’ve made us a deal, Trouble, but we’re going to have to stay out of the way until tomorrow morning.”
“What sort of deal?” Trouble asked. “And what makes you think Treasury won’t be watching on the way out of town?”
Cerise grinned again, the expression vivid in the flash of neon from one of the still-open bars. “They’re relying on the checkpoint a little too heavily. Their man put a note on the transponder, saying there was only one person in the car. I jimmied it, so it says two people. Since they really don’t expect you to get legitimate help —”
“Since when were you legitimate?”
“Since I quit you,” Cerise answered. “But since Treasury doesn’t expect you to get help, I doubt they’ll be checking corporate cars too closely. They should be concentrating on the Parcade and the hostels.”
“You hope,” Trouble murmured, and saw the smaller woman shrug.
“It seemed a reasonable risk.”
Trouble nodded, watching the neon circle of the Ferris wheel looming ahead. If Treasury was willing to risk trouble on the Parcade, risk the net rallying against them and behind her, then surely their security would be tighter, here at the edge of town—but Treasury had always been blind to the nuances of possibility on the nets, despite recruiting these days from among the netwalkers. And besides, she thought, with a fleeting, wry grin, there wasn’t that much reason to think that the nets would rally to her. She was still a little outre, a little outside the rules; it was even odds what would happen in the fallout from a real raid. And if Treasury played it even halfway cool, there were a lot of people who would be glad of the excuse not to act.
The runabout slowed, and Trouble held herself motionless. Ahead, an orange-and-white barrier ran halfway across the avenue, its markings ambiguous, either police or road crew. A single figure stood in the funnel of light from a street lantern, the runabout’s headlights reflecting from his orange-and-white vest, but, glancing sideways, Trouble could just see the nose of a police van waiting in the shadows of a side street.
“I see it,” Cerise said, almost cheerfully, and slowed still further. Trouble held herself motionless as light flashed briefly across her window—more than just light, she knew, probably a quick-scan as well, checking for additional bodies. The transponder beeped softly, lights flickering briefly in the heads-up display, and Cerise gave a sigh of relief. The man standing by the barrier waved them forward, and Cerise opened the throttle slowly, easing the runabout past the end of the barrier. Trouble looked back, toward the Parcade, and caught a quick glimpse of blue-suited figures moving down the center of the street, while the Parcade’s denizens scrambled to get out of the way, scurrying for cover.
Cerise swung the runabout back into its proper lane, and opened the throttle. The engine sounded briefly louder, but the baffling cut out the worst of the noise. Trouble let herself relax again, and said, “So where to?”
“Ah.” Cerise kept her eyes on the road, watching for trouble on the badly lit side streets and potholes in the roadway. The people who lived in the Sands weren’t precisely fond of the crackers and the suits who came to Seahaven, and didn’t make much distinction between them. “That’s a little bit of a problem. The deal I made, we can’t meet Mabry until tomorrow morning, and I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to show up at Eastman House before then. Or at any of the hostels. My thought was, we head out to the flyway, head north to the first truck stop, sleep over in a capsule there.”
Trouble shook her head. “There’s a new cop-shop right at the head of the access road, there at the rotary. I’d bet anything they’ll have them watching for me, too. Maybe a roadblock.”
Cerise hesitated, swerved without thinking to avoid a pothole, and reached for the miniature keypad that controlled the communications system. She tuned it to the police channels, let the voices mumble in the speaker and the code strings stream through the data display at the base of the windscreen, to the right of the main grid display. “You’re probably right—I’m seeing talk from a roadblock, anyway, and it looks to be in the right place. That doesn’t leave much of an option, though.”
“The Plantation,” Trouble agreed.
“The glass is bulletproof,” Cerise said, thoughtfully. “If any of the drug gangs are crazy enough to risk the beaches. Users are mostly jackals; if we stay alert we shouldn’t have any problems with them. And if we can follow some of the old paving, we should be all right as far as chem-sands go.”
“Great,” Trouble said. “If the has-beens don’t get us, the ecology will.”
“You got a better idea?”
Trouble shook her head. “Not offhand.”
Cerise smiled. “The Plantation is it, then.”
Trouble nodded, smiled reluctantly. It was an eerie place, dangerous, and she shivered, remembering a video she had seen. An old man had walked along a beach, suited to the waist against the reeking sands and the seaweeds that smoldered sullenly under the low sun. The beach was absolutely empty, which had not seemed strange—beaches were always empty, in her memory—until she listened to the species that the old man—he had been a marine biologist, she remembered—had remembered studying there, back before the Hundred-Year Winter. A few, he had said, a few were still around, it was still possible to find specimens, but every year, there were fewer and fewer. They were dying before his eyes, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do. Since the beaches had become increasingly poisonous, the normal tourists had—with good reason—taken their business elsewhere; that left only the drug gangs, who sometimes risked landing a smaller cargo along the chemical-laced shores, and the people who had absolutely nowhere else to go. The beaches, and the Plantation in particular, were a favorite spot for double suicide. She scowled, turned her head to watch the houses sliding past outside the runabout’s window. The streetlights gave only a thin illumination, the houses mostly dark now: it was getting late, and the people who still lived here worked long hours to try to get out. Beyond the houses, she could just see faint glow of fog over the marsh, fog lit by the phosphorescent algae that choked the channels.
“What is this deal?” she asked, and looked determinedly away from the scarred land.
“I’ll tell you when we get to the Plantation,” Cerise answered.
“That good.”
Cerise grinned. “You’ll like it. It’s certainly better than the alternative.”
“What alternative?” Trouble said, but smiled.
“Precisely.”
