A few minutes later, as he drove across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, over the waters of the Potomac, he saw another mother ship hovering like a gigantic, sublimely beautiful yet ominous sentinel above the White House area. Reminded yet again that he was back in dangerous territory — more so, for him, because he had escaped from the cyborgs and would now be a wanted man — he drove with extreme care, always prepared to turn away and cut loose if he saw a cyborg patrol. In the event, nothing happened and he made it back to Georgetown where he parked his car near the Towpath, well away from the house in M Street.

  Knowing that the cyborgs often placed the homes of abduc-tees under surveillance, hoping to catch their relatives, he

  approached his old home carefully, scanning the street for men in black or for those who might look normal but could, in fact, be the walking dead, sent to loiter outside the building and keep an eye on it.

  Seeing nothing unusual, only routine, self-absorbed passers-by, he approached the front door and then realized that he didn't have any of his own possessions — only those of the unfortunate Danny Greenfeld — which meant that he didn't have his key. Cursing under his breath, he had to wait for an hour until one of the other tenants turned up: a bespectacled computer nerd, Frank Marshall, who had, in the past, often come down from his own apartment, located directly above Gumshoe's, for a drink and a talk about events on the Internet. Arriving home and finding Gumshoe on the doorstep, he opened the door for both of them.

  'Got mugged,' Gumshoe lied, by way of explaining his lack of a key, 'by a gang of shitholes over from Anacostia.'

  'Yeah,' Frank said, nodding sympathetically. 'A bad bunch over there. I've been down, by the way, a couple of times,' he added as they walked up the first flight of stairs side by side, 'but couldn't catch you in. Been out a lot recently?'

  'Yeah,' Gumshoe said.

  'Not like you to go out much,' Frank reminded him. 'Got a woman out there?'

  'That's it,' Gumshoe said, relieved to be given a good excuse. 'Been seeing her practically every night.'

  I don't like real-time interaction,' Frank said. 'It just doesn't seem natural. I mean, I can never think of

  anything to say. Besides, the few times I've done it, it wasn't nearly as good as cybersex. I like controlled situations.'

  That could be wise,' Gumshoe said, stopping in front of the door of his apartment on the first landing.

  'Well, I'll see you around.'

  How are you going to get in without a key?' Frank asked.

  I keep an emergency key right here,' Gumshoe said, reaching

  up to the top of the doorframe where he had, indeed, taped a

  spare key for just such an emergency. He pulled the key down and slipped it into the lock.

  'Now I know where it is,' Frank said, grinning. Then he waved and sauntered on up the stairs to his own apartment.

  Gumshoe turned the key in the lock and let himself in, disappointed to see that the lights were out, which meant that Bonnie wasn't in there. He closed the door behind him and then switched on the lights and looked about him in rising incredulity.

  'What the fuck . . . ?' he exclaimed automatically.

  The apartment had been looted and everything of value was gone, including his six PowerMac 9500s with their eight-gigabyte hard drives, his PowerPC microprocessors, his colour monitors, scanners and printers, the old TV set and even his cracked cups and saucers. The furniture was still there, the lousy sofa and chairs, the moth-eaten carpets, but the thief had taken the bedclothes, leaving only the mattress.

  Gumshoe had been pretty well cleaned out.

  Shocked, he sank into one of the chairs and stared at the empty space where his beloved Tower of Babble had been, trying to accept his grievous loss. Eventually, he glanced at the sofa upon which Bonnie Packard had so often stretched out, watching the TV while exposing her long legs just to torment him.

  Instantly, when he thought of Bonnie, he realized that his room had not been broken into — that he'd had to use a key to get in. With a sinking heart and even greater disappointment, he realized that Bonnie had been living here with him up until he had been abducted and was the only other person with a key. So Bonnie, who had clearly departed, had also been the one to clean him out.

  He couldn't fucking believe it.

  But he had to believe it, because there was nothing else to believe. Bonnie Packard, the girl he had thought that he might be falling in love with, had fled the apartment and stolen all his gear shortly after knowing that he had been abducted by the cyborgs.

  Thanks a million, Bonnie. Nice to know you're so loyal.

  He sat on for another ten minutes, staring at the empty spaces, the blank walls, accepting that he could no longer stay on here anyway (since the cyborgs, stung by his escape from them, would surely make this their first port of call) and sardonically telling himself that Bonnie had at least solved one problem: he had practically nothing to move out when he moved out — and he would certainly have to move out immediately.

  Having escaped from the cyborgs, he would have to go underground and for that he would need false identification papers and credit cards that could be used against legitimate accounts that were in someone else's name. In short, he needed the services of Ben Wilkerson, an old friend who ostensibly

  ran a rooming house in Chinatown while covertly running an organization devoted to the overthrow of the cyborgs. Ben's illegal organization often had to send its own members underground; it therefore had all the facilities that Gumshoe now needed to survive his new future as a fugitive. He would go and see Ben immediately.

  After stuffing into a shoulder bag what pitifully few possessions Bonnie had left him, he left the apartment and descended the stairs to fetch his beloved silver-tanked Yamaha 400 motorcycle out of its protective cage in the basement.

  The cage was open and the motorcycle was gone.

  The key to the cage had been on the key ring that he had given to Bonnie.

  'Shit!' Gumshoe exclaimed.

  Hating Bonnie more with every passing second, he turned away in disgust and went out into the busy, neon-lit M Street, which remained the hub of this lively area where people, mostly the young, tended to congregate and live it up before the midnight curfew imposed by the cyborgs. Crossing Wisconsin Avenue, he continued past the garish electronic games parlours, dance clubs and porno fun palaces that lined both sides of the road, crossed Rock Creek, then made his way along Pennsylvania Avenue which was, compared to Georgetown, relatively empty, being filled with the houses of the wealthy, too fearful to leave their homes at night, and imposing government buildings where lights were still burning here and there, indicating that the dedicated or the brain-dead were still hard at work.

  He skirted around the White House area, avoiding the SARGEs and Prowlers, though he could not escape the sight of the great mother ship hovering over what had once been the home of the nation's Chief Executive and was now the hub of all cyborg activity in the United States. Shivering involuntarily, reminded for the second time of what he had witnessed in the basement of the Pentagon which was, he knew, linked to the basement of the White House, he went along I Street to Mount Vernon Square, then turned right down 7th, which brought him straight to Ben Wilkerson's rooming house, almost directly facing the old MCI Arena in Chinatown.

  This being early evening, the formally disused sports stadium was filling up with Speed Freaks with their hot rods and motorcycles. Though Gumshoe couldn't see them from where he was, he could tell that they were there from the bedlam — revving engines, breaking beer bottles, pounding rock music, shouts and screams — and from the flashing of headlights into the night sky. He ignored those inviting sounds, however, and instead resolutely entered the rooming house where Ben Wilkerson worked. He found his friend drinking a bottle of beer behind the reception desk. Ben looked surprised when Gumshoe walked in.

  'What the hell's the matter?' Gumshoe said. 'You look like you've just seen a ghost.'

  'I think I am seeing a ghost,' Ben replied. 'According to Bonnie Packard, you were picked up by the cyborgs.'

  'According to Bonnie Packard, yeah? So where did you see Bonnie Packard?'

  'What do you mean, where did I see her? I see her all the time. I mean, she's here, there and everywhere, man. Bonnie gets around, right?'

  'Right. Any idea where she's living right now?'

  'Yep. In some dive off 7th Street. I don't have the exact address. She got it from one of Snake Eyes's buddies because, as I'm sure you know, she was kinda intimate with Snake Eyes before he disappeared.'

  'She never fucked him,' Gumshoe said, too quickly.

  'So she says,' Ben responded. 'Just good buddies and all that crap. Anyway, what's it to you? Were you fucking her?'

  'No,' Gumshoe said just as quickly.

  'Just good buddies, like her and Snake Eyes, right?'

  'That's right,' Gumshoe said.

  Ben sighed. 'I wish I had your luck. I've always wanted to screw her — real-time, not cybersex — but she doesn't even give me a sideways glance. Then guys like you and Snake Eyes — and now this new one — guys who don't even know what a real woman feels like — that Bonnie, she falls for them. I think I'll have to go on-line.'

  Gumshoe couldn't believe how bad he was feeling, but he worked hard to hide it. 'What new one?' he asked.

  'New kid in town,' Ben replied. 'A good kid. I can vouch for him.'

  'Oh, yeah?'

  Yeah.'

  'So what's his name?'

  'He says it's Mike Johnson, but I doubt it. I only know — and I m pretty sure of it — that this one's on our side.'

  He's having real-time sex with Bonnie — or on-line?'

  'I haven't a clue. But right now I still think I'm looking at a ghost. Was Bonnie having me on?'

  No, I really was picked up by the cyborgs.'

  'And you got out?'

  'Yeah, I got out. With the help of Snake Eyes.'

  Jesus,' Ben said, looking serious now. 'Tell me.'

  Gumshoe told him the whole story. When he'd finished, Ben stared at him with something like awe.

  Then he gave a low

  whistle of admiration. 'Jesus, man,' he said, 'that must be something of a first — to be picked up by, and then escape from, the cyborgs. Did Snake Eyes make it back, too?'

  'I don't know,' Gumshoe said. 'I just got back myself, so I haven't had time to look around.'

  'If he's back, he'll be in that sports stadium. That's for damned sure.'

  'I'll check it out/ Gumshoe said.

  'The cyborgs won't want someone with your knowledge running loose,' Ben said, 'so they'll be trying to run you down. Avoid your apartment like the plague and don't use any of your plastic cards, 'cause they can trace you through those. Did you use your cards on the journey back from New Mexico?'

  'No. I didn't have my own stuff on me. I used the card of that other guy to buy me a month. I used it in Clovis, Texas, and I haven't used it since, so they won't be able to track my movements that way.'

  'Good man. Their car?'

  'Didn't use that, either. Dumped it in Roswell, New Mexico, then stole another and used that instead.

  Just an old farmer's heap of the kind that gets stolen all the time. They won't connect it with me.'

  'Very clever,' Ben said. 'So now you need new identification and legitimate plastic.'

  'I sure do,' Gumshoe said. 'Can you fix it?'

  'Sure can. Plastic of all kinds, backed up by legitimate accounts, but with false names and widely scattered addresses that are actually those of some of our supporters. Ditto identification papers. Of course, we'll need a small photo and that can be a problem since, as you know, the cyborgs took away all those old passport-photo booths to try and stop forgeries, ha, ha. So have you got an old photo?'

  'I could have made one up with my Tower of Babble, but my fucking room's been cleared out.'

  'Shit! Cyborg break-in?'

  'It wasn't a break-in. It had to have been done by someone with a key.'

  'So who had a key?'

  'Never mind,' Gumshoe said, thinking bitterly of Bonnie Packard and loathing her even more because now she had the new kid in town. True love runs fucking deep, right?

  'We can make up a photo with our computer,' Ben said, 'so come to my place tonight and we'll take a photo and scan it and stick it into new identification papers. Ditto the plastic cards. What about a new pad?'

  'Don't know.'

  'If you don't find something by tonight, when you drop in, I'll see what I can do.'

  'You're a real fucking ace.'

  'I like to think so. One more thing, though. If Snake Eyes made it back and you see him, tell him what I've just told you: that he has to stay away from his old pad and get himself some new identification. He should also stay away from his Speed Freak buddies, but I don't think he will.'

  'Neither do I,' Gumshoe said. 'But I'll tell him the rest. See you tonight. Au revoir.'

  'Ciao? Ben quipped, trading Italian for French.

  Gumshoe left the rooming house and crossed the busy road to the old sports stadium. Inside the arena the darkness was illuminated by the criss-crossing headlights of hot rods and motorcycles. The Speed Freaks had gathered together in great numbers and were covering the whole field, straddling their motorcycles, leaning against their cars while shooting up speed, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and fondling their bizarrely dressed, weirdly painted Long Hairs. Clearly, they had come in such great numbers to celebrate the return of Snake Eyes who was to be seen near the middle of the field, leaning against his sedan, taking greedy swigs of beer and fondling the ass of the short-haired Long Hair who was wearing a black-leather bra, skintight black-leather miniskirt, sheer black stockings and black-leather high-heeled boots. She was covered in badges and chains and her bare skin showed everywhere. Snake Eyes was triumphant.

  Recognized by the Speed Freaks, Gumshoe managed to make it all the way to Snake Eyes without getting stomped. Indeed, his reception was quite the opposite as, upon seeing him, the massed Speed Freaks burst into cheers and threw a variety of items into the air, including beer bottles that smashed noisily to the ground as a sign of respect. Realizing that Snake Eyes had already told the gathered Speed Freaks about his participation in the escape from the cyborgs, Gumshoe could only grin when he approached his old friend. ,

  'So,' he said, 'you made it.'

  Holding his beer bottle in one hand and removing the other from the taut arse of the Long Hair, Snake Eyes grinned and spread his hands out in the air.

  'And you, too, old buddy. Come here. Let me hug you.'

  When Gumshoe and Snake Eyes embraced, the Speed Freaks cheered again, some of them even becoming so emotional as to rush up to slap Gumshoe on the back or affectionately, respectfully, squeeze his shoulder.

  'Fuckin' heroic, man!'

  'Fan-fucking-tastic.''

  'Any time you need help, man, I'm your man.'

  'Have a beer on me, pal.'

  'So where did they dump you?' Gumshoe asked of Snake Eyes.

  'Near Patrick Air Force Base,' Snake Eyes said. 'Which the orgs now control. About two miles from Cape Canaveral on the east coast of Florida. With instructions to drive to an address in Greater Cocoa Beach. An area packed with about ten thousand former NASA and USAF workers, including astronauts, aircraft pilots, radar operatives, scientists, rocket engineers, ballistics experts, computer specialists, astronomers, and a local community that took shape during the Old Age space race and has since

  been taken over by the cyborgs. I can only assume that I — by which I mean the guy whose identity I stole — was going to be put to work in that community, probably to spy on it and then report back to the Pentagon . . . Yeah, right, man, the Pentagon. Now we know where it's at/

  Gumshoe shivered at simply being reminded of the Pentagon and the nightmare world contained in its huge basement. 'So how did you get back?'

  Snake Eyes grinned and stuck his thumb up in the air.

  'Hitch-hiking?' Gumshoe asked. 'You're kidding me!'

  Snake Eyes's grinned broadened, revealing his brand new teeth. 'No, I'm not, man. This new cyborg haircut . . .' he reached up to pat the short hair on his head '. . . worked a treat and I got rides dead easy.

  First a waitress on her way to work in Cocoa Beach, then a radar operative on vacation, going home to Wilmington, South Carolina, then a truck driver going all the way to Norfolk, Virginia, and, finally, public transport, with money I begged, borrowed and stole, from Norfolk into Washington DC. Piece of cake, really. Coastal roads most of the way, like a regular scenic trip. 'Course, some of those who picked me up were the walking dead, but with my short hair and good teeth and intimate knowledge of how they behave, I was able to convince 'em all that I was one of them. So . . . here I am!'

  'Congratulations.'

  'You, too, pal.'

  Their slapping palms were greeted with another round of Speed Freak cheering. Then Gumshoe said,

  'We've got to talk.'

  'Talk away.

  Not here. Somewhere soundproof.'

  'Such as?'

  Let's just mosey across to the Be~Bop-a-Lula club and have a drink and a quick conversation.'

  Yeah, let's celebrate,' Snake Eyes said, grinning, obviously high on his achievement and thrilled to be the centre of

  attention. 'Be back in half an hour,' he said to the Long Hair beside him and to those bunched around him. 'Keep your motors running while I'm away.'

  'Right on,' the Long Hair said as the Speed Freaks around her raised their thumbs in approval, pumped the air with clasped hands or shouted ribald remarks.

  Acknowledging them with a nod, Snake Eyes fell in beside Gumshoe as they made their way back through the light-streaked darkness of the arena, overlooked by its 20,000 empty seats, and then crossed the street to walk the few blocks to the Be~Bop-a-Lula club. Once inside the clamorous den, they headed straight for the bar, ordered two Buds, and made general conversation while the drinks came. Snake Eyes did most of the talking, going on mostly about what a great stunt they'd both pulled off in being abducted and then making their escape. Gumshoe wasn't so thrilled.