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  “Just fly the hoverbike there. Send the coordinates to Steve and any others on the security team that are coming after me.” The sounds of a struggle were coming from the AV port in Lane’s hair. Ell lowered her head and asked Allan to increase the speed of the hoverbike to two hundred miles per hour. Without the Kevlar motorcycle jacket and pants, her jeans and jacket snapped and popped painfully hard in the wind stream but at that speed the seven mile trip only took a couple of minutes.

  The hoverbike slowed and Ell peered down, seeing that she was over a doublewide manufactured home with a truck, six motorcycles and Shan’s car parked in front of it. The bike was descending toward the parking area but Ell said, “Hold this altitude. Give the lift harness six inches of slack.”

  She reached under the bike and grabbed the harness. “OK, give me three feet of slack on the harness.” Once Ell had pulled the harness up to where she could get a good grip on it, she dropped over the side, forbearing to waste time putting it on. “OK let out enough to get me down to within five feet of the ground.”

  Ell found herself essentially freefalling toward the ground and with a little grin to herself over Allan’s literal translation, said “Slow it to ten miles per hour.” Her rate of fall slowed abruptly and she almost lost her grip on the harness. “Dammit,” she muttered to herself. I should have put on the harness, and I should have given Allen a speed when I started, and I should have told him to slow it gradually, and I’m gonna get myself killed without helping Lane if I don’t pull it together! The ground rose to meet her and she dropped lightly to her feet on the moonlit grass next to the truck. I’ll have to give Allan instructions for how to carry out such maneuvers in the future.

  Telling Allan to load Taser darts for her left index finger and midazolam for her right, Ell sprinted lightly to the door and tried the knob. As she had expected, it wasn’t locked. Macho guys like that wouldn’t think that their door needed to be locked when they were inside to defend their property. Ell slowly swung the door open a crack. Four cursing guys held Lane’s arms and legs spread eagled on the dirty carpet. Mike sat astride Lane’s hips as she tried violently to buck him off. He snapped open a large knife and snarled, “Hold still!”

  Suddenly, as if—in fear of the knife—she had resigned herself to her fate, Lane stopped moving, though she still trembled like a taught bowstring.

  “That’s better,” Mike rasped, lifting the front of her shirt and beginning to saw through it from the waist toward the collar.

  Ell whispered, “Midazolam, 5mg fifteen feet, shoot.” She saw the tiny flash and the squirt of liquid appeared about a foot short of the thigh of the guy sitting on Lane’s right leg. “Up distance to 16 feet, shoot.” Ell saw the guy reach down to rub his thigh. She shifted her aim from man to man, adjusting the distance slightly as the first guy had been the closest. One other shot missed, short because of the inaccuracy of the port’s distance settings and Ell had to shoot it again. Fortunately, each of the guys flinched or rubbed the site when she shot them so that she could tell when she’d hit them.

  Grinning, Mike finished sawing through Lane’s shirt and reached down to grab her bra. As he began to lift it and slid the knife under it to cut it off too, Ell decided she couldn’t wait for the midazolam to work. “Taser, ten feet, fire.”

  A tiny flash appeared ten feet from Ell and the Taser dart flew from there to bury itself in Mike’s torso. Stunned and quivering he slowly fell to the side as his friends stared at him, unsure as to what had just happened.

  Ell pulled the door open and stepped inside.

  Because Ell still had her helmet on, to the men there it at first appeared as if some other biker had just entered. The one who’d been holding Lane’s arm on the far side stood, uncertain as to whether it was a friend come to join the fun or a rival invading their territory.

  Ell barked, “Get off of her, now!”

  A girl! The bikers thought, hearing the voice and seeing her shape. The one who’d stood raised his eyebrows in amusement, “Come to join the party, girly? There’s plenty to go around.” He stepped around the group toward Ell.

  Ell shot him with a Taser dart too. The other three guys stood abruptly, letting Lane go, one of them reaching behind his back, presumably for a weapon. With a sigh, Ell shot the other three, then because Mike was moaning and rolling back to his knees preparatory to getting up, she shot him again.

  Lane pulled her ruined shirt back about her and started staggering back to her feet. “Lane!” Ell said, “This way! They’ll be back on their feet pretty quick.”

  Lane stumbled toward Ell and Ell said, “Shan’s car is just outside. Tell it to take you back to the lodge.”

  Ell looked around the room. Filthy and disordered, it contained a lot of evidence of criminal activity. Several assault weapons stood in a corner next to the door. A rubber tube, syringe and needles sitting on a box by the couch suggested that at least one of the guys shot up. Smudges of white powder were on the table.

  It looked like it would be good if the police visited them but Ell didn’t want to call them herself. Stepping to the closest of the guys, Ell pulled off his HUD and, holding it by the edges to keep from leaving a fingerprint or much DNA, spoke into its microphone using a deep voice and a strong southern accent, “Call 911. There’s been a fight here. Help!”

  Though they were all showing the effects of the tranquilizer one of the guys staggered to his feet. He stepped toward Ell but tripped over one of his buddies. Ell walked around him to a roll of paper towels standing on the floor by the couch. She stepped on the roll and ripped off a towel. She used the towel to twist open the lock on the doorknob of the back door, then opened the door and left it standing open. Walking back to the men on the floor, she plucked the Taser darts out of them or off the floor. At the front door, she used the towel to wipe any fingerprints off the knob; then left that door standing open as well.

  Walking down the steps, Ell directed Allan to flash the LEDs on the harness so she could see it, but then she heard Lane’s voice hiss at her. “Raquel! Over here!”

  Ell saw Lane standing by Shan’s car. She’d hoped that Lane would be on her way back to the lodge by now. Damn! I guess, despite the helmet and my attempt to disguise my voice, Lane still knew who I was. I hope it isn’t obvious to anyone listening to those guys’ AIs’ recordings of the events just past. Ell pulled off the helmet and trotted over to the car and she and Lane both got in. “Allan,” she said, “Have this car take us back to the lodge.”

  Ell turned to Lane who looked stricken. Clutching the front of her blouse closed with both hands, she had tears streaming down her cheeks as she said, “Thank you.”

  Ell leaned toward her and put out her arms. Lane leaned into them and Ell hugged her. Lane didn’t hug her back. Apparently not wanting to let go of her shredded blouse she simply huddled into Ell’s embrace. Ell patted her back and whispered, “It’s OK. You’re safe now. Do you want to go to the hospital?”

  Lane sniffed and shook her head sharply where it rested on Ell’s shoulder. Ell mentally shrugged but continued to hold her. In the distance she could see the flashing light of approaching police cars. She said, “Allan, have the car turn right here.”

  The car slowed to turn, but Allan said, “This road is a dead end and will not take you back to the lodge.”

  “That’s OK,” Ell whispered. “Go to the end and turn around. Have the hoverbike reel in the harness and fly back to its hiding place. Tell Steve things are in control and we’re heading back to the lodge.”

  By the time they’d turned around and come back to the main road the police cars had gone by. Ell hadn’t wanted the police to have been able to pick Shan’s license plate off their cars’ cameras. If the police got too curious about just what had happened at Mike’s place they might decide to see if any cars had been leaving the scene when they approached. Ell didn’t want them asking Shan questions.

  Ell hoped they would just arrest the bikers on the basis of the incriminating
evidence in the doublewide without asking too many questions about exactly what had gone down. If Lane felt like she wanted to press charges when she’d sobered up, Ell would be able to give her a clip of the video from Ell’s AI, showing the guys holding Lane down—after stripping any evidence of who’d recorded it off the record. If Lane would be happy just knowing Mike and his buddies went to jail for their other crimes, without her having to be involved or testify, that could be up to Lane.

  To Ell’s surprise, before they got back to the lodge, Lane seemed to relax, then fell asleep in her arms. Ell supposed it was a combination of what Lane had had to drink and the stress and exhaustion of the battle she’d had with those guys. Ell herself felt so keyed up that she couldn’t imagine falling asleep. Of course she’d already slept her usual three hours between midnight, when she and Shan went to bed, and the nearly three AM when Allan had woken her because of Lane’s distress.

  Once the car had parked itself at the lodge, Ell got out and looked in the great room to be sure no one was there to see Lane dragging in. The room was empty. As Ell walked back out to the car, she pulled off her jacket.

  Opening the car door, Ell leaned in and shook Lane gently, “Lane, Lane, come on girl. We’ve got to get you up to your room.”

  Lane got unsteadily out of the car, clutching at her torn blouse. Without the adrenalin of the fight in her it became pretty obvious that she’d had a lot to drink. Ell tugged on one of Lane’s arms and slipped it into the jacket’s sleeve. Then the other arm. As Ell zipped up the jacket, she had to pry Lane’s fingers gently off her ripped blouse to do so. Ell wondered just how much the traumatic events of the evening were going to affect the young woman.

  Ell helped Lane up the stairs and quietly opened the door to the room Lane and Morgan were sharing. She watched through the cracked door as Lane stumbled to her bed and got in, still wearing Ell’s jacket.

  In Ell’s ear she heard Steve’s voice, “Allan tells me you’re safely back at the lodge. You’re going to need to get some of those hoverbikes for your security team, We didn’t even get to that damn doublewide before you sent us the message that you were OK and had obviously left the scene of the problem.”

  Ell said, “Yeah, sorry. I’m getting the shop to make me a flyer out of a new material. If it works out, I’ll get some more hoverbikes for you guys made out of the new stuff.”

  After Steve signed off, Ell, stimulated by their little talk, reviewed the notes from Gary and Manuel about their attempts to make a hoverbike out of graphend. At present Gary couldn’t construct things de novo from graphend. What he could do was coat an existing shape with graphend. The problem was how to make the shapes to coat. The main advantage of the graphend was how thin and light it could be and still be strong enough to do a job. Unfortunately, ordinary materials, made as thin and light as the graphend could be, were too weak to hold their shape while the graphend coating was being applied. The blades for the hoverbike fans were a real problem because each one needed to be shaped exactly like the next one. They’d been casting the blades out of foamed plastic but, the thin plastic blade “cores” were so thin and flimsy that they would warp under their own weight or twist in a slight breeze. Right now each blade had to be suspended from its hub end with the rim end tensioned down, then graphend coated while gravity helped pull them out straight. There should be a better way, but Ell hadn’t figured it out as yet. She spent some time searching the net for other materials that might be used as the core for the shapes.

  The Wildberry Lodge served wonderful orange flavored French toast for breakfast, though Lane didn’t make it down. Malcolm commented on it, turning to Morgan, “What’s with Lane? Is she dead to the world up there?”

  Morgan eyed her dad, “She was up pretty late last night.”

  He frowned, “I thought you guys got back at about 10?”

  Morgan twisted her lip. “We did. Lane stayed out a little later.”

  “By herself?”

  Morgan shrugged, “She met some guys… and she didn’t want to… turn in so early.”

  Malcolm turned to Shan, “And you let her?”

  Shan shrugged, “She’s all grown up, Dad. Likes to make her own decisions… and it is a free country, you know?”

  Malcolm rolled his eyes, “Come on, you know she’s always been a little wild. What if she’d gotten in real trouble? We wouldn’t even have known.”

  “She didn’t. And she’s an adult under law, able to make her own decisions—no matter how stupid they might be.”

  After breakfast, everyone moved out onto the deck with coffee. After a moment Ell slipped back inside to “get a Coke.” The fact that the lodge’s little fridge full of sodas was upstairs gave Ell an excuse to be up near Lane’s room. She knocked gently and opened the door, stepping inside. “Lane?” she said quietly.

  Lane rolled, from facing the wall to look at Ell, “Hey.” Her eyes squinty with a hangover, she looked sheepish.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Feeling pretty stupid. Is my family waiting to jump my shit about last night?”

  “I haven’t told them. I figured that should be up to you.”

  Lane’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “I can tell them if you’d prefer it not come from you?” Ell said with concern. “Are you feeling traumatized? I don’t know much about what you must be going through, but I’ve read that PTSD can be a big problem when you’ve been attacked, even if they didn’t succeed in raping you.”

  Lane shrugged, “I guess you stopped them in time, though maybe I’ll have trouble later. Right now, I mostly feel embarrassed and hung over. I knew those guys were assholes…” she sniffed, “seems like I specialize in jerks.”

  Ell tilted her head, “Bad boys can be kind of exciting… but, I think it’s a mistake to think that they’ll fall in love and turn into good guys.”

  Lane sniffed again, “Yeah, I should have learned that lesson by now.”

  Ell said, “Well, if you don’t want your family to know what happened, I need to get back downstairs before they wonder what I’m doing. If you ever want to talk to someone about last night, someone who already knows about it, just call me.”

  That afternoon they all wandered around downtown Asheville, poking into some of the craft shops and art galleries. Ell squatted down to look at some wooden bowls that a local artisan had turned on his lathe. They were made from layers of different woods and had been finished to a glossy glow. Standing up, she leaned back and put her elbow back, bending it to rest the heel of her hand on her aching low back.

  Behind her, Fay Kinrais gasped, “You’re pregnant!”

  Ell turned to smile bemusedly, “How did you know? I feel like I hardly show.”

  “That pose, arching your back with your hand on the back of your pelvis. It’s what pregnant ladies do. How far along are you?” Fay asked excitedly.

  “Three months.”

  “When’s the baby due?”

  “Early October.”

  Fay stepped closer and threw her arms around Ell, “I’m so very happy for you! I’m gonna be a Grandma!”

  “You’re what?” Malcolm asked.

  Fay looked at Ell, “Do you want to tell him?”

  Ell shrugged and turned to Malcolm, “Hey Grampa.”

  A look of confusion crossed his face; then he stepped over to give Ell his own hug.

  That evening, out on the porch at the Lodge, Ell called her Mom.

  “Ell! Where are you?”

  “Safe. I’m thinking I shouldn’t tell you exactly where. Even though they can’t eavesdrop on the PGR connection to your HUD, it’s possible they could pick something up with directional mikes or laser pickups on the windows.”

  “OK, but I sure would like to see you sometime.”

  “Me too Gram.”

  “Gram’s not here tonight. She’s started having a weekly bridge night with some of her friends.”

  “That’s nice, but I wasn’t speaking to my grandmother.”
<
br />   “Huh?”

  “I was talking to you.”

  “Oh… Oh! Oh Ell, now I really need to see you!”

  Ell and her mother spoke for a while. It felt hard to carry on a normal conversation since they worried about someone tracking or somehow listening in on her mother to find Ell. They didn’t want to talk about plans for the future in any detail. They spoke for a few minutes about Duncan Miles, Kristen’s boyfriend. Kristen and Duncan had no plans to get married, they got along fine as they were.

  Kristen said, “You’re not going to believe who called last week.”

  “Who?”

  “Jake.”

  “Jake… Your ex-husband Jake?”

  “Yup, that’s the one.”

  “Really… what did he want?”

  Kristen snorted, “Money. I’d heard he had some financial troubles and after a lot of talk it turned out he wanted to borrow some.” She laughed, “You won’t be surprised to hear he couched it as a great deal for me. He told me in no uncertain terms that if I were to pass up investing in his new venture, I’d never forgive myself.”

  Ell barked a sharp little laugh. “What did you tell him?”

  “Believe it or not, for a little while I found myself feeling sorry for him. But then I came to my senses and told him that if he hadn’t spent all his time trying to push people around or screw them over, that he probably wouldn’t have lost those big contracts. Then I hung up without saying good bye.”

  Ell chuckled at the thought of her—always polite—mother hanging up on someone. No doubt, the very height of rudeness in Kristen’s mind.

  Chapter Two

  Mason Phillips stepped into the Oval Office. Unhappily, expecting a browbeating over the FBI’s failure to apprehend Donsaii. Stockton could be incredibly hostile, but interleaved antagonistic interactions with pleasant and friendly exchanges. In his mind, Phillips likened opening the Oval Office door to checking on Schrodinger’s cat. However, instead of wondering whether the cat would be dead or alive, you were wondering whether you would be confronted by a kitten or a slavering tiger.