But if he lost her now he might never be able to activate the nanobots.

Burnofsky played it forward in his mind. He would be met at the airport by a limo. The driver would be an AmericaStrong thug with instructions to drive him to the Crystal City Hyatt to meet Bug Man. The driver would follow Burnofsky’s orders, but would he be able to track whatever limo or cab or bus Sadie McLure took? BZRKers tended not to be fools: they would take steps to throw off any pursuit.

The jet touched down and taxied to the gate.

The passengers clicked off seat belts and stood en masse. Burnofsky stood.

There had been no time for Burnofsky even to get a drink on the short hop from New York to DC. And he badly needed a pipe. He had the address of a place in Washington …No one claimed it was as nice as the China Bone, one of the world’s great opium dens, but it was apparently the very best place to find a pipe, or indeed whatever you wanted, in Washington. The rumor was that two congressmen, the secretary of education, and the White House doctor were regulars.

The plane’s door opened. Keats hauled his bag down from the overhead locker. Plath hauled her own down as well. They did their best to act as if they didn’t know each other, Sadie and the boy, but no close observer—and Karl Burnofsky was quite a close observer— would miss the tiny clues. The way they refused to make eye contact. The way he moved reflexively to help her when her bag slipped but stopped himself. The indefinable energy field that vibrated between them.

Oh, they more than know each other, Burnofsky thought. There’s some powerful something going on there.

The plane emptied and Burnofsky followed docilely behind them. Would they have a car waiting? He didn’t see one.

Now it was either off to the cab stand or the bus or . . .

No, they were heading toward the car rentals. No way. That wasn’t going to happen, was it? They were too young to rent …Unless of course they had fake IDs.

Damn it. That would make things awkward.

A husky black man in dark livery carried a sign that read belvedere. That was Burnofsky’s fake name for this trip.

“Give me your card and wait here,” Burnofsky told the man.

Burnofsky followed Plath and Keats. Watched them stop to stare in some bewilderment at signs indicating that car rental could be reached on foot or by a shuttle. Saw them head off pulling their bags behind them to reach the place on foot, no longer even really trying not to know each other, though still not touching.

The boy reached up to rub his eyes. But it wasn’t rubbing, it was a very special touch, and Burnofsky should have seen that. He really should have seen what was coming next. But he believed he was the predator, not the prey.

Suddenly they turned.

Burnofsky was caught off guard. His eyes were not sufficiently bland, not appropriately disinterested. Gazes met. His first instinct was to bluff it out, keep walking.

“Hey, there,” Sadie McClure said to him.

“I . . .” he managed to say before the boy, the blue-eyed naif, stepped in fast, confident, and suddenly the boy’s hand was on Burnofsky’s throat, and Burnofsky was suddenly terribly aware of how old he was, how feeble, and the boy, not cold-blooded but angry, pushed his thumb right into Burnofsky’s eye.

“You know what just happened old man,” the boy hissed.

People were passing by on either side, hauling their luggage, sleepy, weary, resigned, impatient, completely uninterested. And it wasn’t like Burnofsky was being mugged. What could he do? Cry for help? To whom, the police?

The AmericaStrong driver was far behind, out of sight, probably grabbing himself a doughnut.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Burnofsky bluffed.

The girl wasn’t having it. “Yeah, and yet you’re not screaming your head off for the cops, are you?”

“Let me ask you this,” Burnofsky said, switching tactics. “How do you get your biots back?”

“By taking you with us,” the boy said, but Burnofsky could see the concern on his face. The kid was new to this war. He hadn’t thought it through. He’d just done the brave/stupid thing and not considered that his biot was now a hostage.

“Not so easy to do, is it?” Burnofsky laughed his rasping laugh. “Throw me over your shoulder here in the airport? Carry me to the rental car?”

“Or just keep you trapped long enough that I can do some interesting wiring. Or blind you,” the boy said.

It was Burnofsky’s turn to flinch. It wouldn’t be easy, even with acid and claw, to cut the optic nerve, but it wouldn’t be impossible, either. And if the boy knew some anatomy there were easier ways. An artery that could be punctured, for example.

He would have to take his chances. He would have to break and run. He was carrying his own special hydras and a portable twitcher control; he couldn’t have them pawing through his things.

One problems with that: he was old and slow.

“No!” Burnofsky cried suddenly. “I won’t let you steal my money!”

He shrugged, and winked at the boy, then he bolted for the door.

The McLure girl and her friend easily kept pace, but now that Burnofsky was yelling, people were paying attention. A middle-aged woman made a vague gesture, as if she was going to get in the middle of it, but thought better of it and instead yelled, “Someone needs to help this man!”

A businessman looked on skeptically.

Burnofsky made it out the door with the two kids right behind him. Traffic whizzed by, buses, cabs, limos, and the noise level rose, which made it harder for Burnofsky’s hoarse voice to carry. There was a police car parked a hundred yards away, looking in the wrong direction.