Furious

21

With no further urging from General Trouble, they were up and moving. Penny slowed them down a bit with her cane, but a little old lady racing out of there would be a clear giveaway.

Steeling her heart, Kris let go of Jack’s hand and got busy being elsewhere. It was easier since Jack was right behind her. In a moment, they were out the back. In the distance, a siren could be heard. Maybe that was normal in this part of town, but it seemed to be getting closer. Then it went silent.

“Ungood,” Grampa Trouble said. “Colonel, did you bring a car?”

“I borrowed one from a friend. I do still have a few of them.” He pointed at a beat-up coupe parked across the street, and they headed for it, Penny in the lead. Her cane was now held more as a club, no hobbling now.

The car chirped as the doors unlocked. Kris found herself with a wonderful excuse to cuddle up to Jack. The backseat was close for three, and the car was cold.

“Does this thing have a heater?” Grampa Trouble asked from the front passenger seat.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Colonel Hancock said as he put it in gear and pulled away from the curb in one smooth motion.

And stopped at the first stop sign.

The colonel turned them onto a potholed four-lane road with a railroad track down the middle that took them away from the Smuggler’s Roost. He held his speed down to well below the limit.

“Good,” Grampa Trouble said.

“Mind filling us fugitives from the law of averages in on what’s going on?” Penny asked.

“I guess you deserve some words of warning,” Trouble said. “After Admiral Crossenshield heard about how you cracked into the Peterwald net, not once but for several planets, he kind of got obsessive about our own planetary net. Surprise of surprises, old Al Longknife was interested in it as well. Even had a security package ready to sell. It kind of makes me wonder if Al had something to do with the Peterwald problem.”

“Or knows the folks who are running the new emperor around in circles,” Penny observed before Kris could.

Then again, Kris was rather busy kissing Jack and only half paying attention to the conversation.

Which meant she was only half paying attention to Jack’s kiss.

Problem was, she strongly suspected Jack’s focus was split, too.

Drat!

“So we got an entire new security system. Every computer had to be recertified. Every one of them, even a kid’s first computer. You can imagine how that went down. Oh, and just for fun, some machines’ certifications evaporated overnight, for quite a few nights. There were threats to take the whole thing down, but things are getting better, and people are grumbling less.”

“But it screwed me out of my access,” Nelly grumbled.

“Too true, girl,” Grampa said. “Worse, they’ve got flags that go up whenever anyone tries to access the system without a certificate or starts to apply for one and drops out. Did they leave a tag with you?”

“They did not!” Nelly sniffed. “No one tags me.”

“But just the certificates that you tried would be enough to raise a red flag,” the colonel said as he turned left on a new road that kept them headed away from the Roost. “Your old certificates would tell them Kris was back in town.”

“I imagine so,” Nelly said. “I couldn’t get in even enough to erase that I’d tried to get in. It was a stone wall.”

Kris couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. She broke from her clinch with Jack, and said, “So Nelly’s effort to attach to the net alerted them we were here, and when we used an Eden gift credit chit, it was enough to get them after us?”

“That’s why I paid cash for our drinks,” Grampa Trouble said. “Your trail stops dead at the Roost.”

“Won’t the barkeep remember you?” Penny asked.

“We lucked out there. New hire. Never saw him in my life,” Trouble said. “And from the surly service we got, he definitely doesn’t know me.”

“Maybe he did recognize you and gave you the service he thought you deserved,” the colonel said as he headed up the on-ramp to a crosstown expressway.

“Can I ask where we’re headed?” Kris said.

“Yes. A rental place by a lake,” Grampa Trouble said. “I saw it advertised on the net. Used a Wardhaven gift card I bought with cash to rent it for the next couple of days. If anyone can trace us to it, they’re better bloodhounds than I’ve heard of.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at that.

A little place by a lake. Maybe even a beach.

Maybe they could have a few days to themselves. Time to talk.

Maybe.