“Join the club,” Raiff told him.
They’d swung onto the Pacific Coast Highway, heading north, just as Alex began telling his tale to Raiff. The sharp, maddening curves of the PCH were treacherous enough without having to negotiate them in a garbage truck. But Raiff nonetheless gave the truck more gas and its poorly weighted frame instantly began whipsawing from one curve into another. Undeterred, Raiff held his speed steady, settling into the drive despite the truck seeming to protest the effort by bouncing and shaking. Every twist of the wheel became an adventure, the truck seemingly ready to shimmy itself off its frame. The road widened and then straightened appreciably as they wound into the Santa Cruz Mountains, all of them able to breathe easier without the air clogging in their chests.
For Alex, it felt like a roller coaster finally docking at the end of the ride. “I leave you enough to fill in?”
“Plenty,” Raiff said, checking the side-view mirror again.
“So start.”
“Sorry. Can’t right now.”
“Why?”
And that’s when Alex glimpsed headlights brightening in the side-view mirror.
“Because we have company,” Raiff told him.
65
CHASE
“TWO VEHICLES,” RAIFF CONTINUED. “SUVS, or vans, maybe.”
Sam instinctively turned to look behind her, forgetting the enclosed cab of the garbage truck had no rear window. “How could they find us so fast?”
“Because they were close all along. Backup for the androids we destroyed. Or the cleanup crew, like the one that erased all trace of what was left of them at your house, just in case.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Well, ‘just in case’ happened again.”
“You need to get out of the truck,” Raiff said to both of them.
“We’re not finished talking yet,” Alex said stubbornly.
“We are for now.”
“How are we supposed to get out, exactly?” Raiff heard the girl named Sam ask him.
“I slow down as much as I can around the next bend, and you jump, Tutor,” he said, coining a name for her.
“Don’t call me that. It sounds—Wait, did you say jump?”
“Like in the movies,” Alex told her, readying his hand on the door latch.
Sam gazed out the window toward the dark swatch of the coast redwoods forest, over which the mountains towered like giant sentinels.
“People in the movies don’t understand the physics involved,” she noted. “If they did…”
Alex watched the shoulder flashing by through the passenger-side window. “Well, I don’t, either, and please don’t tell me.”
Raiff scanned the road ahead, then looked back at the side-view mirror to gauge how fast the pursuing vehicles were gaining on them.
“Count to ten,” he told Dancer and the girl. “Jump out at one.” Raiff met Dancer’s eyes. “Open the door.”
“Not until you tell me what I’ve got that the ash man wants.”
“I told you we haven’t got the time,” Raiff said, reaching across the seat to thrust open the door himself. “And if you don’t get out now we might never have the time.”
Alex didn’t bother to protest further, just started counting, mouthing the numbers. He eased the door further open, and a cool rush of air flooded the truck’s cab.
In the side-view mirror, the dark vehicles were drawing nearer; Raiff realized it was going to be close.
“How do we find you?” Dancer asked, hand moving to the girl’s shoulder to ready her.
“Don’t worry about that. Just stay out of sight. Don’t use any cell phones or computers, nothing that can be traced digitally back to you.”
The truck eased into the curve, Raiff slowing its speed as much as he dared.
“Now!”
Dancer had already grabbed hold of the girl, easing her up even with him. Pushing the door all the way open as he tugged hard and drew her out into the night.
Raiff watched them separate in the air and hit the soft shoulder together: Dancer with grace and his tutor with a thump and a thud. It made him wince as he leaned over and got the door closed, just as bright headlights flashed anew in the side-view mirror. He gave the truck more gas, needing to widen the distance between them but not too much.
Just enough.
Thoughts flooded through his mind in that moment, most notably the fact that all this wasn’t just about Dancer’s identity being compromised. Something else was happening: what he knew was coming now and had sacrificed everything to prevent.
So this world could survive. So its people would not know the pain and hardship his did.
Raiff checked the gap between his truck and the pursuing vehicles. Not wide enough for comfort but as good as he could manage.
He took a deep breath and changed his hand position on the steering wheel.
*
Alex watched the two big black SUVs speed past without noticing him, already moving to Sam, who lay dazed and bent on the downward slope of the shoulder.
“Sam, Sam! Look at me, can you hear me?”
She looked at him. “Ouch.”
“Can you move?”