Javna went over to the glass, picked it up, sniffed it. No lizardy smell. He slugged it back and as he did so felt like the house butler sneaking booze from his master's liquor cabinet. He set the glass down with prejudice.

This whole thing stinks, he thought. Javna knew he was being jerked around. He just didn't know by who and for what reasons. The only power he had—the only power it seemed like the entire government had—was a negative power The power to hide the object of desire. The power to hide Robin Baker.

"They're off the train!" Archie yelled back to Acuna, who was on the communicator with Jean Schroeder.

"Where?" Acuna yelled back.

"Benning Road," Archie said. "Dogstown. Do you have any idea why they'd go there?"

Acuna didn't. Jean Schroeder did.

Fixer was in the back of the shop doing inventory when he heard Chuckie bark. He glanced up at his clock; just past closing time. He knew he should have locked the door before he came back. No help for it now. He set down his tablet and came out onto the shop floor to see Harry Creek and some lady standing there. Both of them looked like total hell.

"Hello, Fixer," Creek said. "I have need of your services."

Fixer grinned in spite of himself. "Of course you do," he said, and laughed. "Well, well," he said. "I was wondering what this would be like. Now I know."

"Now you know what?" Creek asked.

"What it's like when the other shoe drops, Mr. Creek," Fixer said. "Because if I'm not mistaken, it's just come down with a big goddamn thunk."

"Tell me what you need," Fixer said.

"We need new identities," Creek said. "We need off the planet. We need it fast."

"How fast?" Fixer asked.

"The next couple of hours would be nice," Creek said.

"Oh, okay," Fixer said. "Because for a minute there I thought you might want something impossible."

"I know it's a lot to ask," Creek said.

"Any extenuating circumstances I should know about that might make this even more difficult?" Fixer said.

"People just tried to kill us. And there's an APB out for our arrest," Creek said.

Fixer arched his eyebrow at Creek. "This wouldn't have anything to do with what just went on at the Arlington Mall, would it?"

"It might," Creek admitted.

"Well, aren't you just a bundle of fun," Fixer said.

"Can you help us?" Creek said.

"For what you're asking, I don't think you can afford me," Fixer said.

Creek reached into his wallet and pulled out the anonymous credit card Javna had given him.

"Try me," Creek said.

Archie stood in front of the vending machine, steeling himself.

"Just do it," Archie said to himself. He'd already fed the credit card into the machine; all he had to do was press the B4 button and have done with it.

He was having a hard time doing it. After three previous sessions with the vending machine ripping the information out of his head like a jaguar raking his optic nerves with its claws, he was not exactly brimming with enthusiasm for session number four.

Not only that, but the B4 slot of the vending machine was now empty—he was now spending money to get a migraine and getting nothing for it.

Actually, though, Archie was okay with that. The pain induced with each packet of white chocolate M&Ms was great enough to make Archie physically ill at the thought of ingesting another single piece of candy. This state of affairs no doubt would have pleased Ivan Pavlov immensely.

"Just do it," he said again, and leaned his head on the Plexiglass, and attempted to will himself to press the button. Acuna had divulged the likely whereabouts of Creek and Baker and was busily medicating himself enough to be able to head out and get them; it was information Archie was certain Sam and the others would want to know. And yet there he was, busily not pressing the button. What he was doing, forehead pressed against the Plexiglas, finger hovering over the B4 button, was thinking of new and innovative ways to strangle Sam for doing this to him.

One should expect one's partner in all things domestic and carnal to have just a lime bit more sympathy.

"Hey, geek!"

Archie jerked his head up with a start and moved his body fractionally, enough that the finger hovering over the B4 button jammed into it. Archie gasped as the blinding pain ripped through his head for the fourth time that day and struggled mightily to remain standing. Archie became aware he was suddenly drooling; he desperately tried to suck it back into his mouth and to keep from vomiting all over the front of the vending machine. He closed his eyes and waited for the nausea to pass. When he opened them, Acuna was standing next him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Acuna asked.

"Headache," Archie said, wetly. "I get them pretty bad. It's an allergy thing."

Acuna looked Archie up and down for a moment, sizing him up. "Yeah, well, look. You're coming with us. Schroeder says that guy Creek and the girl are going to visit has a lot of computer and technical shit at his place. If Creek and the girl aren't there, and the guy isn't useful, we might be able to get something out of his computers."

Archie nodded, eyes still closed. "Okay," he said. "I'm going to need a couple of minutes, though. I need to do a couple of things before we go. I need to set some drillers to get into Creek's computer system."

"You're still not in that yet?" Acuna asked.

Archie shook his head—slowly. "The got some unbelievable defensive software on his system. It's military grade at least."

"Fine," Acuna said. "I have to numb myself a little more anyway. But make it fast." Acuna looked over to the vending machine and frowned. "What did you get?"

"What?" Archie asked.

"You pressed a button but I don't see anything at the bottom."

"I accidentally pressed B4," Archie said. "It's empty. I meant to press B5, but you startled me."

Acuna snorted. "Try G2," he said. "It's got aspirin in it." He walked off. Archie stood there for a few more seconds, then dully pulled out his credit card, slipped it into the vending machine, pressed "G2", and retrieved his packet of pain reliever.

Back at his computer, Archie considered the problem of Creek's computer system, which was, he had to admit, just a fucking masterpiece of defensive security. Archie had been flinging driller after driller at the thing, each of the autonomous programs designed to hunt out specific areas of weakness in the system's security, drill into them, and then hold the door open for other programs to extract data.

Your average home system would fall in about 15 seconds with a minimally complex driller that was essentially a password generator, with a spoofer to fool the system into thinking each password entered was the first attempt. Small business systems and home systems of people who worked in the computer industry or who were simply paranoid about their home systems required a more specialized driller, with more subtle ways of getting in.

On this medium level of complexity, Archie liked a driller that mimicked the information retrieval protocol used across the network—the driller would fool the system into thinking it had requested information and stream a self-extracting program into the system, which would root around and send data back out, piggybacking on the system's legitimate outward bound traffic.

Now, larger business and government systems, heavily protected as they were, required awesomely designed drillers capable of multidimensional, simultaneous system attacks. Corporate-grade drillers were the state of the art; the hack who coded one that laid into a well-defended system would be king among the hack geeks for at least six hours, which was typically the amount of time it took IT to dislodge the driller and backhoe the hole in the system's security.