"What does that mean?"
"You're the weirdest person I've ever met, Alvin. I mean, sorry, no
offense, but why the hell would I knock on your door?"
She stood and turned on her barefoot heel and took herself away, walking
at a brisk and gingerly pace.
Barry moseyed over and sat in her seat. "She'll be okay," he said. He
picked up her spoon and began to finish her breakfast. "You know, I
can't watch the way I could yesterday, not anymore. Too visible. What do
I do now?"
Aaron shrugged. "Find a job. Be visible. Get a place to live. We can
have each other over for dinner."
Brett said, "Maybe I could get a job where I got to watch. Security
guard."
August nodded. He closed his eyes.
"She's very pretty," Barry said. "Prettier than Mimi."
"If you say so."
"Kurt's awake."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You could introduce me to him."
I did it for your own good, you know. She couldn't bring herself
to say the words, for the enormity of what she'd done was
overwhelming her. She'd found three of his friends and treated
each of them to an evening of terror and hurt, and none of them
would tell her where her brother was, none of them knew. Maybe
they'd been innocent all along.
"Where are you?"
"Far from you," he said. In the background, she heard a girl
crying.
#
"It's going to happen, we're going to cover the whole Market," Kurt
said. He had the latest coverage map out and it looked like he was
right. "Look at this." The overlapping rings of WiFi false-colored over
the map were nearly total.
"Are those our own nodes, or just friendlies?" Alan asked, all his
confusion and worry forgotten at the sight of the map.
"Those are our own," Kurt said. "Not so many friendlies." He tapped a
key and showed a map of the city with a pitiful sprinkling of fellow
travelers who'd opened up their networks and renamed them "ParasiteNet."
"You'll have more," Buddy said. Kurt looked a question at Alan.
"My brother Brent," he said. "Meet Kurt."
They shook.
"Your brother?"
Adam nodded.
"Not one of the missing ones?"