“Improvement killed my child,” Gemma said in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t you think I know what I’m talking about?”
Clair’s mind flew back to the first questions she had asked the Air about Improvement, and her shock redoubled. “You wrote that! I found your message, but it had been defaced. All the details were gone—”
“Erased, just like they tried to erase what happened to him. What happened to
Gemma stood up and faced them. The tears trickled down her face into the grim lines around her mouth and dripped from her chin onto her chest.
Clair wanted to ask where she had found the files on the dead girls, but Jesse spoke before she could.
“How can dad have been a dupe? He never went through d-mat, not even once. There’s no way anyone could have changed his pattern because it never existed.”
Gemma flexed her injured shoulder, raising it like a defense against them.
“Time is up,” she said. “On your bikes, boys and girls.”
“Answer my question,” Jesse said.
“Later, I promise. It won’t help you now.”
“But I want to know.”
“I know you do. When we’re with Turner, I’ll tell you.”
He looked startled. “Turner Goldsmith? We’re meeting
“Who’s that?” Clair asked.
“Not now,” Gemma insisted. “Get to the airship and then you’ll learn everything we know.”
Jesse let himself be shooed back toward the bike, and Clair followed, wondering what she’d just missed. There was so much disturbing new information in her head, she couldn’t begin to parse it all. Jesse somehow fitted his hair into the helmet and climbed on first, steadying the frame with both legs as Clair clambered awkwardly aboard behind him. The pillion seat was broader than it looked, but it molded comfortably to her thighs. The suspension hummed and settled.
Jesse took his feet off the ground. The bike somehow balanced itself and turned at his command. Clair swayed and put her hands awkwardly on his waist, nervous of falling off the seat. She leaned backward as they juddered down a step or two to street level. The night was just as still as it had been before. The same lonely lights shone a block or two away. The same light wind blew. She felt removed from it inside the padded cocoon of the helmet.
Then, without warning, the bike surged beneath her. She flung herself forward, wrapped her arms around Jesse’s middle, and held on for dear life.
32
THE ACCELERATION WAS incredible, like being on a roller coaster but without the restraints. One hapless wobble, she feared, and they would go skidding and tumbling across the rough road surface—a road surface that was moving under her with terrifying speed. She closed her eyes as tightly as she could, feeling hollow inside, as though she had left half her critical organs behind.
“Lean into the corner, will you?” came Jesse’s voice through her helmet.
She didn’t know what that meant, so the shift in momentum caught her off-balance. She stiffened, felt the bike sway alarmingly. Somehow things steadied. They accelerated again, even harder than before. She moaned in fear, hoping that if she stayed still, Jesse would never know how afraid she was.
“Clair, you’re hurting me.”
She drew in a sobbing breath and forced herself to ease off a little. At least they were moving in a straight line now.
She jutted out her jaw. Found something hard that gave way with a click.
“Don’t you think we’re going fast enough?” she said.
“What? I haven’t even opened her up all the way.”
The bike throbbed and accelerated again until the air whipped and batted at her like a physical thing. Clair pressed herself as close to Jesse as she could. The bike moved with the irregularities of the road beneath its wheels, suspension smoothing out the worst of it. They might have been skimming over waves on Sacramento Bay, sitting at the nose of a motorboat. That was something she’d done once with some friends in high school. The memory calmed her somewhat, although she hadn’t enjoyed it very much at the time. It had taken them far too long to get anywhere, putting everyone in a bad mood.
She opened her eyes and found that they had left Escalon far behind. The bike and its two passengers were rushing past empty scrubland, low and flat, dotted with trees and bushes. A map of the area revealed that they were back on Route 120, cutting west across the county for a place named Adela, right on the edge of Oakdale. The distance to their rendezvous at the Maury Rasmussen airfield was around fifty-five miles.
Clair could have been there in an instant by d-mat, but this
“Is it safe to talk over these things?” she asked.
“Of course. The range is barely a yard or two on this channel.”
“Why are you heading for Oakdale? That’s not the most direct route.”
“Gemma said to split up, so that’s what we’re doing.”
“Which way are the others going?”
He didn’t answer. All she needed was some reassurance, but he wasn’t providing it.
“Listen,” she said, “I want you to know that I’m not happy about being here either.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better about it.”
“So what are you going to do? Ditch me here and ride off on your own?”
“I could,” he said. “It’s not too late. I could leave you
She shifted awkwardly on the pillion, deciding that it was probably better if they didn’t talk unless they had to. Her fingers were freezing in the frigid night air. He wasn’t slowing down any, and she took that as a sign she wasn’t about to be dumped. She curled her hands into fists and kept her arms tight around him. His shoulders were bony. She ached for Zep’s muscular solidity, made a deliberate effort to think of something else.
Jesse turned abruptly. Clair had been watching the map and was ready for it this time. A patch of lights was growing ahead and to their right, and over Jesse’s shoulder she could see how the road curved toward it. Adela swept by in a flash. Thirty seconds later, they were juddering over a bridge. The river was narrow and as black as oil, but Clair could smell the water and the plants that thrived on it.
The next landmark was Oakdale itself, which was bigger than Escalon but looked much the same. Jesse avoided clusters of well-lit structures near the d-mat station. They took a series of right-angle turns through the town, Clair becoming more proficient at leaning each time. They crossed a train line that still had its tracks. They passed a cemetery. Then they were heading west again along an empty road into a California Clair had never seen before. She knew the Bay reasonably well, and she had visited some of the touristy places as a kid, but the spaces between were utterly unknown to her.
A patch came through from Q, and she took it immediately.
“Clair, an odd thing just happened.”
“Odd how?’
“Dylan Linwood just arrived in the station at Oakdale.”
A chill went down Clair’s spine.
“It can’t be him. He’s really dead this time.”
“There’s no doubt at all, Clair.”
