I startle and try to cover my lapse with a quick response. "No, I didn't like him. I didn't want anything to do with him. He was a lowlife." Her face is dark, disturbed. How long had I been staring into the past? When I lose track of time, I don't know if it's seconds, minutes, or even longer. I am just gone. Kara warned me not to wander off into la-la land, but for the first time, I'm wondering if it is more than that. Maybe my BioPerfect isn't so perfect after all. What if some memories that were scraped, pulled, and wrung from my brain, then stuffed back into froggy blue gel, don't know they're obsolete. Maybe--

"Locke."

I focus again. "I'm sorry."

"You've been doing so well, but you have to try harder. You have to watch your lapses. In just a few seconds of checking out, something serious could happen."

I nod. She doesn't have to elaborate on what the something might be. We both know that this world is not like Gatsbro's secluded estate, where I was a baby in a well-padded pram. Out here I'm an underage illegal creation, running with a fake ID, with a desperate and angry scientist after me.

"I'll be careful, Miesha. As careful as I can. I don't know why--"

"Refreshments?"

Miesha and I are both surprised by the hanging Bot that has come up behind us. She swivels to face us. As with Dot, the Council on National Aesthetics has decided she has no need for legs, or maybe legs would just get in the way of her servicing the human population. I try not to stare, not knowing if it is even impolite to stare at a Bot, but her face is so human that I still avert my eyes from the thick bar protruding from the top of her head and attached to an overhead rail. A passenger coming down the aisle grumbles at her, and she folds her body up flat against the ceiling until he passes.

"We should get something," Miesha says to me. "It's going to be a long night, and who knows when we'll get another chance." She looks up at the Bot. "Two energy waters and two protein cakes." The drinks and cakes are dispensed from the bottom of her torso stump. I can't help but wonder how that design made it past the aesthetics council.

"Two hundred duros, please."

Miesha pulls her money card from her pocket and waves it over the Bot's extended palm. A bar of lights blinks across the stump of the Bot's torso as the money is accepted and approved. "Thank you," she says, and she hands us our order and moves on to the next car.

Miesha begins to slip her card back into her pocket, then stops. She looks at it like she has never seen her own card before, turning it over to examine both sides.

"What's wrong?"

"My card."

I watch her eyes dart back and forth like she's retracing some sort of sequence, and with each darting pass, her face grows darker.

"Miesha, what is it? Tell me!"

Her jaw drops. "It's my card. That's how he knew. I gave it to Dot to use for our food when we were back at the warehouse outside of Boston. I used it again when we refueled before the transgrid, and then again at the diner. And just now. He's accessed my account and is tracking our purchases. He'll know we're on this train, and we're creating a straight line pointing to San Diego."

"Are you sure? How could he access your account?"

"He directly deposits my wages into my repository account. I never gave him my passcode, but I've used the estate network to access my account. It probably wasn't secure. I should have known."

I sit back in my seat, running my hands through my hair. Think, Locke. Think. What should we do? "He's going to be right behind us on the next train. It won't take much for him to connect the dots. He'll know just where we're going once we reach San Diego and--"

"Unless we don't go. There's a stop in Albuquerque."

I shake my head, annoyed that Miesha keeps returning to the same solution. "We already talked about this. I'm going. I can't--"

"I'm not talking about you." Miesha glances at Dot, who is still mesmerized by the world passing by, and then leans closer to me. "Shut up and listen. We don't have a lot of time. And then we'll tell Dot. She isn't going to like this."

Chapter 37

I take off my shirt and look in the mirror, fingering the bandage that still wraps around my middle. The white gauze reveals a small oozing spot of blue. Dot's doctor may have stopped the bleeding, but it looks like I could have used a stitch or two. How much blue gel can I afford to lose? I pull the new shirt that Miesha bought me over my head and comb my hair with my fingers. I'm alone now.

Miesha said going to a foreign country would appear logical to Gatsbro, so she and Dot are on a train to the Republic of Texas now. Before she left, she bought me a pack and a few supplies at the Albuquerque station to hold me over, since I won't have any money of my own. The purchases will also begin a new trail for Gatsbro to follow. From here she and Dot will go on a fast-moving spending spree, leaving a trail all the way to Mexico. She'll try to exchange her money card for a new nontraceable foreign currency card when she gets there. "Then we'll double back and find you in San Diego."

"We'll try," Dot added, seeming to understand all that could go wrong. She took the news better than Miesha expected, saying that helping an Escapee sometimes means parting ways. It was all for the cause. I didn't really understand what she meant, and there wasn't time for her to explain, but she does tell me that the Network that helped us in Boston is in San Diego too. She doesn't know the contacts there, but she said to fish outside the station among the CabBots and ask if they know a Mr. F. If I found the right one, they would help me--for a favor. I would be worried about how many favors I may end up owing if I didn't already have bigger problems.