“Yeah, I have.” I thought about those times with my dad.
“Then you know. It could take all day.” He stretched out the “all” to make it sound like an eternity.
We drove on the freeways for half an hour with no sighting on the grid. Ernie saw a city sign and suggested we exit. He said this zone had a reputation for being a little wilder, and he just had a feeling about it. Not long after we got off the freeway, a blinking red dot appeared.
Ernie pointed to the grid. “Chip alert.”
Hyden zoomed in on the screen. “Okay, Metal, just stay there until we can get to you.”
“How far away are we?” I asked.
“About fifteen minutes—if that dot stays in one place.”
I kept my eye on the screen. The red dot held steady. We drove a couple of miles on city streets. A group of protesters was holding signs near a government building. There were Enders and Starters, waving signs at cars. One read Bring Back the Red Cross, referring to one of the many charities that had lost its funding in hard times. Charities that would have helped unclaimed Starters.
I agreed with them, but they didn’t know that. They just saw a big, expensive SUV, and they shouted at us as we drove past.
Hyden looked at the grid. “We’re almost there.”
He drove a few more blocks, and I watched our black dot get closer to the red dot.
“Look around, the Metal could be here,” Hyden said as he turned the corner.
The two dots overlapped. Ernie spotted her first. A Starter sitting on a bus bench. Asian, with short hair.
“That’s her,” I said. “The pretty one with black hair.”
“The perfectly pretty one with zero physical imperfections,” Hyden said.
She stood, as if tired of waiting for the bus, and started walking.
“You’re sure she’s the one?” I asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Ernie said.
Hyden pulled over to park ahead of the girl as she walked toward us.
Several blue lights flashed on the computer. It reminded me of Redmond’s monitor back at his old lab, the one that showed my chip.
“Go, Ernie,” Hyden said. “Cover her eyes!”
“Wasn’t I supposed to persuade her?” I said.
Ernie had his hand on the door. “You want to talk to her?”
“No,” Hyden said. “We don’t want to lose her.”
As the petite girl passed our car, Ernie jumped out and lunged for her. But she spotted him. Her face registered alarm but she wasn’t intimidated. She leapt straight up into the air to get away from him, then did a somersault midair and landed on a thick wall. She ran along it until she came to the end; then she leapt off and reached for a tree branch. She swung out and landed on a table at an outdoor café, sending cups flying and patrons scattering.
Ernie tried to chase her, but she was outsmarting him. He couldn’t seem to anticipate her next move. She went right, he went left.
I watched it all from the car window. “This is not how I thought it would go.”
“At least we know her body’s not being hijacked. She’s too good, too smooth,” Hyden said. “That’s all her.”
“What do you mean?”
“You saw—Reece had the jerky movements.”
“The Old Man used to be able to hijack people perfectly.”
“Under perfect circumstances. Here, he has no cooperation of the donor body. It’s not like he’s in the Prime lab, setting up both donor and renter. His first-access signal from a distance has far less control.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t positive I understood. I turned my attention back to Ernie. Finally, he anticipated the girl’s move correctly. As she leapt out, hoping to catch a store’s awning to get away, he caught her in his arms on the upswing instead.
“He’s got her,” I said.
Hyden unlocked the back panel door and raised it with a button so all Ernie had to do was throw the kicking, biting, screaming Metal in the back. He kept one hand over her eyes, then climbed in after her. She stopped screaming, but I was afraid she would tear his eyes out, because she reached for him as he slammed the back door. But in one quick move, he put his hand to her neck and she froze. Her eyes became glassy; then she slumped down as if she’d suddenly fallen asleep.
“She okay?” Hyden yelled back to Ernie.
“Out like a baby,” he said.
I saw Ernie held a tiny disc in his palm. He slipped it into a pocket as Hyden drove us away.
“Why cover her eyes?” I asked.
“In case she was being hijacked,” Hyden said. “But she wasn’t.”
“If I’d had time, I would’ve blindfolded her,” Ernie said. “But she was hopping around like a bunny rabbit with its tail on fire.”