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  He heard a car door open behind him, and at the same time a deep, rasping voice chipped out at him: "Casey's?"

  John didn't even have to turn around to know who it was. Gabriel Harding – or Coach Gabe as he preferred to be called - was a thick, powerful man who looked as though God had taken a sequoia, shrunk it down to the more manageable height of six and a half feet, and put two eyes on the front.

  John turned to his friend. As always, Gabe's whistle hung from his neck. The man wore it with more pride than a Congressional Medal of Honor, and when he wasn't talking, he held the silver instrument clenched between his lips. Gabe was an artist with a whistle, and there were some students on the campus who swore they had seen him use his instrument while cursing them and belittling their parentage at the same time. It was a feat a professional ventriloquist would find daunting, and not for a moment did John disbelieve the account.

  "Casey's?" John repeated to himself, still shaking off the fog of his waking vision of Annie. He looked around. A long line of cars filled the parking lot as parents came for their children.

  Annie was nowhere among them.

  "Sure, that sounds good," he said.

  "That's what I like to hear." Gabe got in his car and started the engine, backing his vehicle out behind John's car. He waited for John to pull out. He always waited, as though John were a prince and the coach his vassal, waiting deferentially a few steps behind.

  John knew why the coach – normally not the most genteel of men – would do such a thing. Both men knew why Gabe held John in such high esteem, though neither would ever speak of the reason. To have one person owe another his life was one thing. That created a deep, stable bond between them. But both men knew that to actually speak of the day that bond was created would be to erect a wall between them. So neither spoke of it, though it was constantly in their thoughts.

  For a moment, standing there in the bright sunlight, caressed ever so softly by a thin mountain breeze, John saw his friend again, as he had seen him that day: bloody and broken, a dead man who hadn’t the sense to lay down and expire. Then the vision passed, and John found himself in the parking lot again. His friend was not broken, but whole and unblemished. Still, the momentary tableau that had intruded upon John’s mind left a mark. It felt like a premonition, as though something awful was going to happen to Gabe. He shuddered, and tried to expunge that thought from his mind. For if anything happened to Gabe.... Then John would truly be alone.

  Still trying to shake off the feelings of uneasiness that had suddenly gripped him, John turned to get back in his car. As he did so, he saw Kaylie coming out of the school. Her head was bowed, her hair obscuring her features, but John recognized his new student instantly. She walked up to the curb where parents were picking up and waited as a light blue Mustang convertible pulled up. John slammed his door shut without getting in and trotted to the sports car, hoping to see her parents, maybe schedule an appointment.

  His sense of urgency from that morning returned with a vengeance, pricking at him like a spur. It was an uneasy splinter of fear that jabbed at him, urging him forward in spite of himself. The trot turned into a run as he hurried to catch his student and meet her family, which he hoped would provide a key to revealing the enigma that the young girl presented.

  He ran to the car and knocked on the glass. A man - John figured it was Kaylie's father - was sitting in the driver's seat, his face turned away from John as his daughter clambered in the car. The man did not turn, however, even as Kaylie closed the door and belted herself in.

  John tapped again on the window. The sound was sharp, almost metallic, and seemed somehow out of place on this warm day. The man remained facing away from John, and now John noticed that Kaylie was staring at him in unabashed fear, the terror that he had sensed in her this morning no longer half-hidden, but easily visible in her eyes and the way her hands gripped the folds of her clothing.

  John raised his hand a third time to tap on the glass, and a voice in his mind screamed at him, Don't do it! But his hand and arm seemed under someone else's control, and so against his will he saw his knuckle rap two short taps on the safety glass of the car door. He almost expected the glass to craze beneath his fist, to hide whatever was in the car from John's prying gaze.

  The glass did not shatter, however. Instead, the car's driver slowly turned toward him. John's mouth fell open as he came face to face with someone he'd never thought to see again.

  Skunk Man.

  It was him. The same face. Same hair. And he hadn't aged a day.

  Forget aging, thought John. You saw him die.

  On the other side of the glass, the man's eyes widened. Everything began to move slowly. John saw Kaylie pull at the man's arm. Saw the man's own hand drop to the gear selector.

  You saw him die. Blown up in a chopper in Iraq.

  Then time sped up again as the man threw his car into gear and pulled away from the sidewalk. The Mustang was an older model, from the 80's, and an automatic to boot, but it still mustered sufficient power to leap away from the curb with a squeal of rubber.

  John threw himself away from the car as it pulled away, narrowly missing being hit as the Mustang pulled out of line and began fighting its way past the one or two cars that blocked egress from the parking lot. Angry horns blared as the other parking lot occupants manifested their disapproval of the Mustang's movements, and honked still more as the car rasped against a minivan that partially blocked its exit.

  John jumped to his feet, subliminally noticing his stinging, abraded palms that had been rubbed a cherry red by their collision with the asphalt, and sprinted to his Pathfinder.

  The door opened, and he jammed the key in the ignition, hardly waiting for the engine to turn over before throwing the car into gear and backing out of his parking space. He narrowly avoided a collision with Gabe's car, which still idled behind his, as he pulled out.

  Gabe threw his car into reverse, pulling back a few crucial inches to avoid John's vehicle. John saw his friend's confused expression in the side view mirror as he popped his car into first gear and wound around a few cars. Then he was stopped by a pair of minivans several kids were jumping into. He couldn't thread his way around them, the school was on one side and a grassy hill on the other. Nor could he go between them. Even if there had been room, there were too many children milling between the two vehicles for John to pass without danger of hitting someone.

  John rolled down his window and leaned his head out to check where the Mustang was. He saw it pull past the last car, then onto the street.

  John was about to lose them.

  He thought for a second, then, ignoring his better sense, which was yelling at him not to be an idiot, he backed his SUV up a few feet. It tapped into the car behind him - Gabe's car, which added to the wide disbelief of his friend's expression - signaling the end of John's runway. It would have to do. He gunned the motor, then let out the clutch and his car surged over the curb, up the small grassy hill, and out onto the street.

  The Mustang had a large head start, but was still on the main street.

  And John was in pursuit.

  CONTROL HQ - RUSHM

  AD 3999/AE 1999

  "We have a problem."

  The words echoed in the silence of the observation pod, and then fell leadenly to the hard stone floor.

  Adam halted the image on his own Control Time, ceasing his study of the bygone era, and immediately turned to face Jason. His second in command had spoken the words from his own duty station, where he was watching one of the monitors on the wall. His voice told him it was serious, so Adam strode immediately to the younger man.

  "Enlarge it," he said.

  Jason passed his fingers through the air in front of the monitor, piercing the invisible beams that formed a grid in front of the free-pixeled plasmatic display. The monitor threw out an image of itself, which seemed to hang in the air a moment, then floated down to floor level and expanded, becoming a three dimensional holographic image.
The virtual world shown in the display swelled in size, swallowing up the front half of the observation pod. When it ceased its growth, a perfect cube six meters to a side stood solidly before them. It was a window into the world beyond, and Adam stepped into the cube, entering the scene.

  He instantly recognized the area: Loston. He was standing on the main road, dust swirling along the highway. Two vehicles barreled past him, one in hot pursuit of the other. They passed near enough for him to touch, had they been more than holos.

  "Give me a close up on the one in back. Center the holo on that SUV." he said, and though he couldn't see him, he knew Jason would be adjusting his controls to comply with Adam's command. The image moved to the car in back, an older vehicle that struggled to keep up with the more powerful sports car in the lead.

  The holo kept the trailing SUV in its center, and as a result Adam himself appeared to be floating rapidly down the main street without actually moving. Though he had done surveillance in this manner before, the effect always made him slightly queasy. He choked back his gorge, however, and walked toward the sport utility vehicle as it barreled down the road beneath them.

  He peered into the driver side, and now his nausea resurfaced, though for a different reason.

  "John," he whispered. Then, in a louder voice, "Who's in front?"

  The image moved to the lead car, a Mustang, and Jason's disembodied voice answered. "A nobody. A bit."

  Adam took note of the bit, observing the man’s tousled, gray-streaked hair and fearful countenance. Then his eyes roved to the passenger, a young girl of perhaps fourteen.

  "Who’s the passenger?" he asked.

  He could hear the sound of Jason typing hurriedly on one of the pod computers, a soft clicking that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The clicking stopped for a long moment, then resumed again.

  "That can’t be right," came Jason’s voice.

  "What?" Each of the cars swerved to avoid a large pothole in the center of the street, and the holo bounced and jittered with them. The swaying movement of the image was not helping Adam’s stomach.

  "Records indicate...it’s his daughter."

  "His daughter? Bits can't have daughters!"

  Jason's voice came back at him. "I don't know what happened, sir. The registry says it's his daughter."

  Adam watched the Mustang turn off the dirt road. "Find out who made that entry and work back."

  "The Fans?" asked Jason.

  "Could be," answered Adam. "They might know about John and Fran, and if they do –"

  "They couldn't. That would mean –"

  "Exactly. Another traitor in our midst. So find out who made that registry entry and report to me." Adam watched the man driving the Mustang. "God in Heaven," he murmured, a swiftly-uttered prayer to stave off the fear that clutched him like an icy gauntlet holding fast to his guts.

  He touched a control on his wrist, and the world around him desolidified, seeming to shatter into a trillion pixels that hung before him before slowly fading. Adam was already walking to Jason's station before the miniature starbursts had begun to dissipate.

  "We need to fix this," he said.

  "What happened to John?" asked Jason. "It's just a bit up front."

  "I would guess from his reaction that John has seen him before. So we need to get the bit out of there, now."

  Adam turned back to the monitor, image now flush against the wall, but still showing the chase.

  "This could destroy us all."

  DOM#67B

  LOSTON, COLORADO

  AD 1999

  3:40 PM FRIDAY

  John dropped his Pathfinder into second gear, simultaneously breaking slightly. The shift in momentum made the SUV surge forward, dropping the front closer to the ground and making a more efficient turn.

  John smiled grimly to himself. If the Mustang had stayed on the main strip, it would have outpaced his small car quickly, leaving him behind and helpless to pursue. But the driver of the car ahead was obviously a novice. He panicked, turning onto one of the dirt roads that led to the farms outside of town. He took the turn too fast and fishtailed, sending up a great plume of dust and losing precious seconds getting his car back onto the road.

  In that time, John closed much of the gap between them. He took the corner perfectly, old reflexes and training surging to his consciousness for the first time in ten years. He upshifted, then braked and slammed his accelerator in a close series of movements that coaxed the maximum speed out of his tired old Nissan.

  He was right on the Mustang's tail now, and damned if he was going to lose it.

  ***

  Kaylie watched the road in front of them, clutching her backpack like a spiritual ward that would keep away demons. Her father sat beside her, his face haunted and waxy.

  "What’s going on?" she asked. She wanted to know the answer to that question, wanted to know so badly that she felt she could scream if it wasn’t answered soon. Scream and never stop.

  She could go mad.

  She bit back the scream in the back of her throat, though, and looked to her father.

  "What’s going on?" she repeated.

  He didn’t answer.

  No answers for her. She did not understand what was going on, or why she had felt so much anxiety when meeting her new teacher that morning. She only knew that she must not – could not – answer his questions about her past.

  Why not? she thought for the thousandth time that day. Why couldn’t I say anything? Why not just tell him where you were from?

  And suddenly, agonizingly, Kaylie realized that she herself didn’t know the answer to that question. She strained to think, to remember where she had been before that morning, but every time she did, her mind seemed to...bounce, somehow, and she found herself remembering only what she had had for breakfast that morning. All that lay before that meal was a fog.

  She looked at her father again, and thought, Who is that? If he’s my father, why don’t I remember him?

  The man beside her cranked the wheel hard then, and the Mustang slewed to the left, losing traction in spite of the expensive racing tires that bit and tore at the road beneath them. The man looked afraid. He looked terrified, in fact, and Kaylie knew with dreadful certainty that her eyes appeared every bit as frightened as his.

  ***

  John yanked his wheel to the left, surprised at the abrupt swerve the Mustang took in front of him. It had passed several small dirt roads, and when it took this one - chosen seemingly at random - it hadn’t slowed enough to make a safe turn. If John had been watching the chase on TV, a police report or one of those tabloid "Real Police Chases, Real Police Blood" shows, he would have expected the Mustang to rise up on two wheels, doing a short moment of stunt driving before completely flipping over.

  The car ahead of him didn’t flip, though. John was fairly certain it had violated some serious laws of physics, but the muscle car kept its balance and sprinted ahead again.

  John slowed for his turn. He didn’t know what was driving him to find out what was going on, and he didn’t know what he expected to find if he did manage to catch up, but he wasn’t so obsessed that he would risk being pinned in an upside-down Pathfinder.

  The slower turn cost him time, and when he completed his change to the smaller street - a dirt road that was hardly more than a wide trail - he saw that the Mustang was hauling its way toward the mountains.

  John jammed his foot down on the accelerator, managing to catch up to the gigantic plume of dust the Mustang threw behind it. Small pebbles and twigs slapped his windshield with light snaps, as though someone with extremely hard nails was flicking his finger against the safety glass. The tapping unnerved John, and he let his speed drop a bit. He realized that pursuit at this point was beyond strange, it was foolish. Even if he could manage to keep up with the -

  (Skunk Man)

  - gray-haired man’s car, he wouldn’t be able to see through the dust cloud created by spinning wheels on a dr
y trail. John knew potholes, some small, some large enough to break an axle, could be found throughout this area. His foot eased off the accelerator a little more, and soon the car ahead of him pulled away.

  It turned again, and disappeared behind a stand of trees. John watched the other side of the small copse of foliage, waiting for the car to emerge and continue its dogged climb up the small mountainous trail.

  It did not emerge, however, and John allowed himself another smile as he realized the car must have stopped, whether because of the driver’s choice or because some accident had befallen the vehicle. He gunned his accelerator again, rapidly approaching the trees, then turning his wheel to slide sideways below a thick canopy of foliage. He jammed on the brakes without thinking, as the sight that greeted him tore the breath from his lungs in one hoarse gasp.

  The Mustang was nowhere to be seen.

  Vanished, as though it had never been.

  DOM#67B

  LOSTON, COLORADO

  AD 1999

  4:10 PM FRIDAY

  Casey’s was a place that reflected its owner: small, mostly quiet, and comfortable.

  At the age of twelve, Casey ran away from home. He had lived in New York, in an apartment with his mother and two other women. All three were hookers, a fact that no one in Loston knew about. The only things that they knew about him were the things that they had seen after his arrival in the small town at the age of eighteen.

  After seeing his mother beaten mercilessly for the third time in as many weeks, Casey had resolved to fix the situation. The assailant was Tray, his mother’s pimp, and a man who gave dirt something to feel superior to. A squat, fat man with a cartoonish overbite, Tray held sway over the three women in Casey’s apartment, and, by default, over Casey himself.

  Casey took the slaps, the taunts, the invitations to participate in "grownup games" that Tray extended on a regular basis. He took them for years, until that cold day in mid-December when Tray began beating Casey’s mother again.