“It’s not like you to leave your back unguarded, Eric,” Travis said as he jammed the muzzle of the stun gun into Eric’s ribs and searched him quickly. “Where’s Nicole?”
Eric got up on all fours, then staggered to his feet, as dazed by the bitterness of defeat as by the stunning blast he had taken. Travis grabbed him by the arm and shook him savagely. “Where’s Nicole?” he shouted.
“I don’t know. She left.”
“I know that. With Clayne. Where are they? Where were they going?”
Again Eric shook his head. Travis slapped him hard across the face, the blow cracking sharply in the narrow alleyway. “Where are they?” he thundered.
Eric looked at Travis as a trickle of blood oozed from a split lip. “They took the dog for a walk.”
Travis’s eyes narrowed into slits, and he thrust his stun gun at the second man and said, “Hold this.” When he turned back, his fist was cocked, pointed at Eric’s face.
Eric tried to roll away from the blow, but it slammed him against the fence with stunning force. Travis grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up roughly, his fist raised again. “Let me ask that question one more time, Eric. Where’s Nicole?”
“I’m right here, Travis.”
Travis and the sergeant whirled as Nicole stepped into the alley behind them, a stun gun raised and pointing at them. Her first shot took the sergeant squarely in the solar plexus. His hands flew up into the air, and both stun guns went flying. Travis lunged to the left, diving for the corner of the nearest garage, but Nicole had squeezed the trigger even as he jumped. The blow caught him in midair, flinging him clear of the garage. He bounced once on the gravel, then slid to a halt on his back.
“Nicole?” Eric cried, unable to believe his eyes.
She ran past him, kicked the stun guns away, and looked quickly at the two still figures lying in the alley. Satisfied, she whirled back to Eric and put her arm around his waist. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry. There’ll be others.”
Half running, half stumbling, she got Eric through the gate and shut it behind her. He stopped, dragging her to a halt. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, still half in shock, swiping at the blood on his mouth. “You’re supposed to be with Clayne. Where is he?”
“Gone,” she said. “Now let’s go!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him forward again. “We’ve got to get across the next street before they start fanning out to cover our escape.” She dragged him along with her, past the dark shape of a house, then along a length of hedge lining a driveway out to the curb.
“Can you run?” she asked, peering up and down the empty street.
Eric’s head was clearing fast, and he nodded. “More or less. Let’s go.”
They leaped up, and Nicole supported him as he half ran, half hobbled across the street and into the deep shadows of a large willow tree. Suddenly the sweep of headlights filled the street as a Guardian squad car swung around the corner and moved toward them.
“Quick,” Eric whispered urgently, giving her a shove toward the house, “into the bushes.”
Nicole burrowed into a lilac bush while Eric made a leaping dive into a thick tangle of pfitzers, ignoring the fiery clutch of the needles. The squad car went by swiftly, its electric engine a low hum, and Eric breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered, rolling out from under his cover.
“Wait!” Nicole cried. “He’s turning around.”
At that instant the front door of the house opened almost directly over where Eric was crouching, and a dark figure stepped out. “Quickly!” a deep voice commanded. “Come inside.”
“Come on, Nicky,” Eric said, grabbing her by the hand and virtually hurtling through the open doorway, pulling her with him.
The door slammed shut, and a hand touched Eric’s shoulder. “Follow me. Hurry!”
All the lights in the house were out, and Eric held Nicole’s hand tight as they followed the man through the living room and down a hallway. Then he gave a startled grunt as the man stopped so quickly that he bumped into his back.
“Wait a moment.” A small lamp flicked on, causing Eric to blink sharply. A tall, lean man bent over a telephone, his back to them. Nicole stared at Eric for a moment, then raised the stun gun.
“Jeff, this is Don Anderson. I…yes, yes. I heard it. It’s the rebels. I have two of them in my house. I…yes, of course I mean it. I have them right here. Can you take them and send them on? There are Guardians all over the neighborhood.”
Nicole dropped the muzzle of her weapon, a great wash of relief flooding over her as she squeezed Eric’s hand.
“Good,” Anderson said quickly. “We’ll come through the garage.” He hung up the phone and turned around. “All right, let’s go.”
“Thank you for what you’re doing,” Eric said fervently.
The man waved that away and then clicked off the light. “Let’s go.”
For the next hour, that was the pattern—one neighbor passing them through his house and on to the next. Sometimes they skirted as many as three or four houses, sometimes they crossed the alleys straight across, but steadily they moved farther away from Nicole’s neighborhood. Each time there was a quick handshake, a fleeting touch on the arm, and a solemn wish for luck. If any of the people—sometimes a single man, often a couple, once an elderly widow—were thinking of the consequences of their actions, they gave no sign. They were grim-faced and talked little, sometimes moaning in pain as their fear triggered bursts from the implantations, but no one hesitated or seemed regretful.
Eric had lost count of how many homes and yards they had transversed when one of their hosts—a man in his early forties, with two wide-eyed teen-aged boys—stopped them just as they were about to leave his garage. “Wait,” he said. “I have an idea.” He spun around and went back into the house, leaving his sons posted in the alley to watch.
Eric sank down on the cement and leaned against the car parked in the garage. For a moment Nicole stared at him in the darkness; then she joined him. It was too dark to see her face, but he could hear the anxiety in her voice when she spoke.
“How’s your leg?”
“Sore,” he admitted, massaging it gently, “but at least it’s functioning. I’ll be okay. How’re you doing?”
“Marvelous, considering. I can’t believe these people.”
“Neither can I. Aren’t they something?”
“That’s not what I mean. How can they help us without triggering the implantation more violently than they do? Some seem hardly bothered by it at all. This is treason, a capital crime, and yet it seems to have no effect on them.”
Eric nodded. “That’s the one flaw in the Major’s design. Something inside a man has an inherent sense of right and wrong. It doesn’t matter what the Major says—these people know that helping us is not wrong. It’s a capital offense only by executive fiat. Therefore, they get little or no pain response. If they were doing more than that, they’d probably have more trouble, but just to help us on our way…”
For a moment they were both quiet; then Eric spoke again. “When I see Clayne, I’m going to kick him in the shins for letting you go. However, I’ll file a complaint later.”
“He didn’t let me go,” she corrected. “When he wouldn’t stop, I grabbed his stun gun and threatened to use it if he didn’t let me out. I don’t think I really scared him, but I did convince him you needed help.” She paused. “Are they going to make it?”
“I hope so. If they get to Fairfax, they’ll be fine. Clayne has the squad car, and squad cars are running everywhere right now. The way out is all set. I think they stand an excellent chance. In fact, they should be on their way out by now.”
“And what about us?”
“Actually, that’s an interesting question. I—”
The door behind them opened, and Eric stood up, pulling Nicole up too. “Hold on a minute,” the man said, pushing past them. He slowly lifted the garage door and called to his sons. “Watt Thompson should be coming up the alley. Watch for him.”
A moment later he grunted in satisfaction and stepped back inside. A short, squat man followed, no more than a darker shape in the thick blackness of the garage. The garage door slid down, and then the owner of the house opened the car door. The dome light inside was dim but provided enough light for them to see each other.
“This is Watt Thompson,” the man said, motioning.
Eric stuck out his hand. “I’m Eric Lloyd. This is Nicole Lambert.”
“Well,” Thompson said in a voice that boomed even though he was whispering, “Lloyd himself. I’m proud to meet you.”
Eric turned to the host and his two sons. “We didn’t even hear your names and here you are risking your lives for us.”
“Bill Johnston. This is Alan and this is Craig.” The two boys grinned, half embarrassed, but obviously proud and excited.
“We think we may be able to help you,” Johnston went on.
“How?”
“I’ve got a permit to leave the city,” Thompson said.
Eric’s eyes widened. “A valid one?”
“Yes. I’m the foreman on the graveyard shift at a large lumber mill south of town.”
Nicole’s heart leaped with sudden hope. “Really?”
“And,” he continued, “I happen to drive a camper. There’s some dead space under the benches on both sides of the camper, back where the wheel wells are. It’d be pretty tight for you, but I think you can squeeze in. We’d nail it shut. I don’t think they’d ever guess.”
“We’ll do it!” Eric exclaimed. Then he turned to Nicole. “That is, if you’re willing.”
She nodded quickly. “It’s no more risk than staying in town.”
“Good,” Thompson said. “I understand your camp is somewhere up toward Glacier Park. Once we clear the checkpoints, I could swing around north and drop you off wherever you say.”
“No way,” Eric said. “You just get us out of town, and we’ll do fine from there.”
“Okay,” Johnston broke in, “we’ll have to hurry. Watt has to leave by 11:30. That’s less than half an hour from now.”
“How can we ever thank you?” Nicole said, looking first at the father and then his two sons.
Bill Johnston held up his left arm so that the wrist computer gleamed in the dim light. “When it’s time, come back and get these things off. That’ll be thanks enough.”
“Within the week,” Eric said. “You have our word on it.”