"So what happened?"

"I got blown out of the water."

She spat. "Combine justice. Where'd you get the twotone head?"

"I figured nobody in the world would connect Cap'n Trips the federal fugitive, with his long flowing locks and his goatee, with some trashed-out punker." He stopped and looked down at her. It was a long way; at six-four, he was a good foot taller. "But you did," he said. "How'd you recognize me?"

"I-I read the papers sometimes. And you told me your name, for Christ's sake. You still have a lot to learn about security"

"Oh," he said, crestfallen. "But, I thought -I mean, you said I was among friends…"

"Yeah, which is why you were getting your skinny ass kicked 'in when I found you."

Suddenly the knife was in her hand, its sharp little point poking under his chin, tipping his head back. "There aren't any friends, any where. Capisc'?"

He nodded, gingerly. The knife hilt parted and snapped around, devouring the blade.

"Learn that and you've gone a long way toward surviving on the streets," she said, walking on. He followed a beat late, still shaken by the crazy intensity he'd seen in those silver eyes. "Tell you the truth, I didn't make the name at first. It was only when you got that about the Combine. I suddenly thought, who else but an old flower child would know about Ken Kesey? Then it clicked."

"How'd you know, then? You're no flower child. You're hardly any older than Sprout."

"She's thirteen, and I'm a lot older than that. Centuries, maybe. Don't look surprised; I've been checking you out." She laughed, a sound brittle and edgy as old copper. "Tyrone and his butthole buddies would be shitting live rats if they knew who they'd been messing with-you got some powerful references among our heavier jokers. They still remember what you did for Doughboy, like you're some kind of martyred hero or something."

He looked away, embarrassed. He'd heard a few things along those lines, never taken them too seriously. Still, there was the joker who'd warned him to blow the record store…

"On the other hand, we have a few prominent citizens right here on the Rox who might be even happier to have their hooks in you than your friendly local DEA. Might be some of them remember the Cloisters-and don't go all pale and shaky and start having a coronary on me. You've still got your secrets. I don't make a habit of running my head. As I may have told you, snitches ain't welcome on the Rox."

"Does your… friend know?"

"Hey, Blaise is my main man, honey. You're just some bum I picked up on a beach. More'n that, he's the main man for the Rox, in a way poor Bloat can never be. If I think he needs information, he's got it. Okay?"

It wasn't, but he didn't see what he could do about it. He had his head cocked, as if listening for an echo. Something she had said… Sometimes it seemed as if he were walking along a slope with depression hanging over him like snowdrift cliffs, and every once in a while it'd land on him in an avalanche, muddle his thinking more than years of constant marijuana buzz ever had.

Whatever bond there'd been between them seemed broken now. He looked at her. "What did you say your boyfriend's name was?"

"Blaise. Blaise Andrieux. He's-"

Mark's head snapped around. The red-haired boy was walking along the beach toward them, and Mark wondered why he hadn't recognized him at once.

He jumped to his feet and lurched into an ankle-deep run. "Blaise! Blaise, how are you doing, man?"

Blaise walked with tight-butted dancer's grace through the clinging reeking sand. A satisfied smile was fitted tightly to his face, even if it was taking some effort to keep from shaking his right hand in the air. He'd caught the kid with the dragon tat wrong with a backfist knuckle to the cheekbone and it stung something fierce. But he couldn't show pain. It wouldn't do to have his bannermen getting the idea he was human.

He'd bulked up amazingly in the months since he first ran away from his grandfather. His body was just a volcano of boiling growth hormones, and the hot adolescent anger that ran in his veins like live steam had kept him keen on the martial-arts exercises and weight training his grandfather had insisted he maintain. He was already larger than almost anybody of Takisian stock had ever been-anyone who grew so far beyond the classic somatotype would be destroyed as a monster-and his Takisian-derived muscles were denser and more efficient than a human's, his neurons firing and recovering quicker.

All of which was to say that while he'd grown a bit bored with the effortless control his mind power gave him, he had discovered the existential pleasures of kicking ass.

He told K.C. it was to set an example for the others, of course. To show that he wasn't just some effete egghead ace, just a wimp, like-well, like his grandfather. That was because K.C. wasn't tough, even if she was smart and, when the mood hit her, as happily savage as any of the jumpers. She liked to rationalize Blaise's violence by imagining that he was crafting a New Order of some sort out of the Rox rabble. Since she amused him, it amused him to play along.

Meanwhile, he was enjoying the animal pleasures, the morning light almost warm on his face, the breeze blowing stiff enough from seaward that he could smell the ocean over bloathlack and New Jersey, the tingling muscle memory of flesh-on-flesh impact, his bannermen murmuring respectfully behind him. "Did you see the way he straightened those fuckers out?"

He heard someone calling his name. He looked up. The sensual mood turned to dust and blew away. The hated stilt figure of Mark Meadows was running like a horrible scarecrow with an orange do, right along the beach, right at him, waving his arms and calling his name.

Blaise was stupefied. He must be some kind of monster. How can he be so bold?

"Blaise! Blaise, man." Meadows stopped a few feet away, looked him up and down. "It's good to see you. How long has it been? A year?"

"I, uh. I think so, Mark."

Merde! He makes me feel thirteen again.

"You're lookin' good, man. Growin' up and fillip' out. "

I should have fucked your daughter in the ass the way Latham fucked me. She was a beautiful little vegetable. She could have been a marvelous toy, and I could break her and throw her away if I wished…

"Thanks," he said. His lips tasted like paper.

Mark's watery gaze flicked past Blaise at the bannermen, then back to the boy. "So what, uh, what brings you to the Rox, man? Pigs come down on you too?"

"Yes. Yes, Mark, I guess they did."

Meadows nodded sagely. "Nail that stands out must be hammered down, huh? These're tough times to be different, man."

Yes, they are. And I'll show you just how tough… "So, have you seen your grandpa recently, man? I, I really need to talk to him about something."

Blaise felt himself smile. It wasn't feigned. "Real recently."

"He's doing very well. What do you need to talk to him about?"

"It's kind of personal, man. I'm sorry."

Blaise gave a petulant little flip of his shoulders.

"Hey, I'd tell you if I could, you know that. But you're young, and I just hate to involve you, y'know?" He glanced around. "Well, I guess I'll catch you around. Good seeing you again, man." Meadows turned and walked away.

Incredible, he thought at the narrow retreating back. Such arrogance. Tell me now he doesn't wish me harm, dear Governor.

But he's still safe from me. Oh yes, so very safe.

K.C. was still hunkered on the sand where he'd left her. Her arms were around her knees, and her eyes were hooded. "Tell me one thing," she said, "and tell me straight. Is that true what you said, that the reason you came to the Rox, the reason you blew off your store, your being an ace, your whole comfortable little fantasyland life, was all for this daughter of yours?"