The Road Out

05/06/97. San Francisco, eastbound.

The drive out took us past many neugraphic towers. I kept my eyes on the road.

Five of us in the Buick. Six, if you counted Rock, which I was still working out how to do. The Gent rode shotgun with a cigarette going and the kind of loose posture that takes years to practice. Dustin was in the back with that particular stillness — the kind that watches exits and says nothing. Sergei leaned forward the whole way, like the distance was something to push against rather than wait out. Rock stayed positive. I've known enough people to understand that kind of relentless optimism either holds or it breaks, and either way you learn something.

We cleared the city and the road opened up. An hour passed. Then an hour twenty-five, and a diner came up on the right — ordinary enough, until I caught the van parked at the side. Dark. Half-obscured. What I could read was: ntre.

I didn't need the rest of the letters.

I kept my voice flat when I mentioned it. No alarm, just information. Dustin got smaller in his seat. The Gent lit a fresh cigarette and arranged his face. Sergei said he was trying to avoid them, same as anyone. We drove past and nothing came of it, which is what you hope for.

Two hours out, there was a crew blocking the road.

Three of them. Orange vests, neurocasters running, none of them actually present. One standing in the middle of the lane. One lying down. No machinery, no cones, no work being done. Just three people gone somewhere else entirely while their bodies held the road.

Let's get around these vegetables, Lennie.

The Gent has a way of making the only available option sound like his personal idea. We pulled up and moved in. He took one. Rock — with a care I wouldn't have predicted — took another. I took the third.

Here's what I know about neurocasters: you don't yank. You guide. Angle matters, pace matters, and wet grass on an incline at two hours outside the city doesn't forgive a bad grip.

Mine shifted wrong. The device moved and the man went rigid and started seizing on the road. That's on me. I used his own cable — hogtied him before the situation could compound. It wasn't clean, but it was something.

Rock got his man clear. The Gent shoved his into the ditch, which landed. Then the utility worker came back up.

The afternoon was no longer in our control.