"Is the failsafe the same for everyone?" she asked. "Every model, everywhere?"
"What, doesn't it feel that way for you?" Javier asked. "I can't help it. I love humans. They're adorable. Like those little dogs with the wrinkly faces." He grinned, then tilted his head a little when she didn't smile back. "Anyway. Every time we iterate, we copy the failsafe. That's why we get to roam free."
Not any more, though. Things are different, now.
Amy blinked hard. She looked down at Javier. "You sound like you give that speech a lot."
"Yeah, well, my kids had better know the score." Javier paused, licked his thumb, and wiped something away from his son's face. "Isn't that right, Junior?"
Amy smiled. "Are you really going to call him that?"
"All my boys are named Junior."
"Just Junior? No other name?"
Javier slowly extricated his finger from his son's fist. "I'm never with them long enough," he said. "They should choose their own–"
A giant arc light swung over them. Amy froze. Below her, Javier started scrambling. "Move!"
She moved. She didn't even bother thinking about the placement of boughs or branches. She hugged the trunk and slipped downward, ripping her pants in the process. Javier already stood at the bottom, clinging with one hand to the wet, crumbling earth of the overhang and his child with the other. Together they half walked, half slid down the overhang, wincing at tumbling rocks and hurrying into the cover of spiky trees. They ducked under hair-snagging branches and waded through carpets of spiny wood ferns. Thunder rolled in the distance.
"Just what we need," Javier muttered.
Behind them, a gun cocked.
"Turn around."
They turned, hands rising automatically. The woman wore forest ranger clothes and carried a flashlight that turned the rain to a shower of white sparks. Amy instantly envied her quilted coat and wide-brimmed hat; they looked like they would keep out the rain. Her own hair was stringy with it, now, her shirt uncomfortably wet and sticky.
As though reading her mind, the ranger chuckled to herself. She lowered her gun and her light. Now Amy could see her face better. She was a popular Asian-style model, with a broad face and full, pretty lips and high cheekbones that pulled her gentle eyes tight. Even under her bulky ranger clothes, a perfect hourglass figure was discernible. She spoke in a gentle, almost modest voice. "It's all right. You can put your hands down."
"Huh?"
"I'm a friend, I promise." She holstered her gun and reached inside her pockets. She tossed foil-wrapped packets of vN food at their feet. Amy recognized the cheery logos immediately; she bent down and grabbed as many as her hands could carry before making a pouch of her wet shirt and stuffing them there, kangaroo-style.
"What's going on?" Javier asked. "Why are you helping us?"
"Rory sent me," she said.
Amy blinked. "Rory? The one who writes my diet plan?"
The ranger nodded. She smiled. "I'm an ex-dieter, too. I know how the hunger feels. What happened wasn't your fault, Amy."
Something about hearing someone else say those words made Amy's tears well up. "Thank you."
"Rory feels terrible about this, Amy. She knows you were on her diet, and understands the role it played in what happened. She knows a place where you can get help. It's in Seattle, near the quake museum. It's not far." The ranger reached for an inner pocket and retrieved a ring of keys. "There's a car waiting for you about a hundred yards north of here. I left the details and some supplies there. There isn't much, I'm afraid, just what I could scratch together… Oh, and this!" She dug in her back pocket. Amy and Javier glanced at each other. What more could the ranger possibly give them?
"Cash," the ranger said, holding out two sets of bills held together with paperclips. Amy took hers and stuffed it down a back pocket.
If her arms weren't already so full, Amy would have hugged the ranger. "Thank you. Thank you so much…"
"I only wish there were more I could do," the ranger said.
There was, Amy realized. "Where are my parents?"
The ranger blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"My parents," Amy said. "I have to get back to them–"
A light swooped overhead. "You have to get to safety, first," the ranger whispered. "Get going."
? ? ? ?
In the car – an old family-style number with the name of the battery on the side in big curvy letters, like it was somehow special – they found blankets and maps. They were in the Olympic National Forest, in Washington. "Wow," Amy said. "I really am a long way from home."
Javier turned to her. He looked at the map, at her toes curled over the edge of the seat. He sucked his teeth for a moment. "Look, you can take this or leave it, but I think that ranger was right. It's a bad idea for you to try going home right now." He grimaced at the road. "You never return to the scene of the crime, right?"