Zette's Storybook

One


"Hey lady! Lady! What are you doing up there?"

Baby Sangre hung upside down with her knees anchored around two spikes driven into the telephone pole. Apache clung to the pole just below her, handing up the equipment.

"Lady, I asked what you are doing up there!"

Baby twisted so she could see past her sister. Below them stood a boy muffled in a jacket, mittens and cap. He held his hands on his hips and he looked plainly annoyed at being ignored. She wondered how the hell he had gotten so close without them noticing. She'd thought the area was deserted.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"Apache, hand me up the equipment and then go kill that kid."

Apache Sangre offered a weary smile and handed the bag up to her sister. Baby swung herself upward again, her head just below the wires, and began sorting through the bag's contents.

"Look, if you don't answer me --"

"Where the hell did you come from, kid?" Apache finally demanded.

"I walked up from the house." Baby looked down to see him pointing toward the south where she could now see the curl of chimney smoke through a tall stand of pines on the other side of a wide ditch. In fact, from up here she could even see the gravel path the kid must have taken and the narrow footbridge across the ditch. Great.

"Why are you out here?" Apache asked.

"To wait for the school bus."

Morning Glory "Baby" Sangre froze in the process of cutting the telephone line and looked up and down the long dirt road. "School bus?" she asked.

"I think you better hurry," Apache suggested.

Baby nodded and quickly went back to work, cutting and splicing wires into the portable phone. She almost reconsidered trying to use a cell phone again, even though the last two had exploded before they could finish checking in.

"I don't think you ought to be up there," the kid said. His voice got louder and more strident as only an annoyed pre-teen's voice could. "You better come down before the bus gets here. My bus driver is Deputy Hardy, and he carries a gun --"

"Apache, gag that kid!"

" -- and he always says what's wrong with this country is that we're soft on criminals --"

"I've got the line open," Baby announced while the kid caught his breath, obviously preparing for another onslaught of mid-American values and what they do to criminals around here. She began to tap in the phone number.

"Quickly, Baby," Apache said.

She could hear the sound of a distant engine.

The phone began to ring. Baby swung back so that she hung upside down, allowing Apache to hear the conversation along with her.

Two rings before someone on the other end picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Alan. How are things going on your end?"

"Ha! Ha! I should have taken bets!"

"Alan?" Baby said. Luckily she was used to strange reactions.

"You missed your wake last week. Amazing the people who came by to pay their last respects. You had better call Mathews. And someone in your family."

"Oh hell," Apache said, leaning closer to the phone. "People thought we were dead?"

"Some of them did. I didn't. That would have been too easy. You still have the computer disks?"

"Certainly," Baby said.

"And the metal?"

"All in a safe place."

"Yes, I thought so." He stopped as the kid below Baby and Apache began to shout again about guns and criminals and school buses. "What's that?"

"A sub-human rugrat," Baby said.

"Pardon?"

"A kid trying to tell us that his bus driver is going to shoot us on sight. We best be quick. Any better luck with finding the traitor?"

"Some. I have narrowed it down to ten people. I asked that they all be removed from...transferred to another location. That's the best I can do."

Baby's head started to pound. She wasn't sure if it was from being upside down, or the kid yelling, or the fact that Alan was, in essence, admitting defeat.

"Are you two coming back in from the cold, as they say?" Alan asked.

"Maybe," Apache answered. "You let people know we're alive and then we'll see what shakes out."

"Yes, that might prove interesting."

"Got to run," Baby said. She waved toward the road and the cloud of dust that could only be the school bus. "Really, got to run. We'll be in contact."

"I never doubted it."

Baby grinned as she swung her self back up and disconnected the line. She considered leaving the phone line cut, but that would just be petty. Besides, Apache had to get out of the way before she could climb down. So she handed Apache most of the equipment, made quick repair work on the line, and slid down after her sister.

The kid still stood there, red-faced and beady-eyed beneath the layers of protective clothing. It was not that cold here, at least to Baby and Apache who had grown up in the mountains.

Apache caught hold of her sister as she came down from the pole, helping her balance for the half dozen steps back to the bushes where they'd left the rest of their equipment and Baby's leg brace.

The kid started to say something, but Apache's stare quieted him now that they were on the same ground. He even backed away several steps, muttering unpleasant things and looking at them with such anger and hatred you would have thought that they'd run over his pet dog.

And the sound of that school bus kept getting closer.

"Nice quiet back road, you said," Apache reminded her. Baby sat down and began to quickly pull on the brace. She wouldn't get very far without it. "Tap into the phone line where no one will see us, you said --"

"Give me a break," Baby said as she tightened the last strap and stood. The bus came around the curve of the road and braked to pick up the kid. "What do we do now?"

The bus stopped. The kid marched up to it. They could see the driver peering out at them through the dust-covered windshield.

"The better part of valor -- the better part of valor." Apache frowned and looked from the bus to Baby. "How does that one go?"

The driver stood, pulling something from his waist as he came out of the bus, shoving the kid aside.

"Discretion is the better part of valor," Baby supplied.

"Yes, that's it. Jump!"

Apache made an abrupt leap to the left into the ditch. Baby, seeing the bus driver did actually have a gun, decided that looked like a good idea. She jumped in after her sister.

The ditch had steep, weed-covered sides and she descended it at a good clip. Apache, already at the bottom, snagged her arm as she came near. Excited voices filled the air above them. Baby could imagine the deputy and a dozen kidlets fanning out to find them.

Apache headed for the underside of the footbridge and the little cover from debris brought by some past rush of water though here. Baby suspected that the ditch must have been dry since last spring. Someone should really clear this stuff out, she thought. Build up like this was an invitation to flooding in the next big rainstorm.

Apache burrowed into the broken mass of weeds and limbs, pulling her sister in with her despite Baby's protest. She didn't argue too much, though, since she couldn't see any other cover and the others had reached the edge of the ditch.

"Where'd they go, Deputy Hardy?"

"Gone to ground," the man drawled. Even in the dense thicket of debris Baby could still see the flash of metal that had to be sunlight on a gun. A person in her business got to where they could tell that sort of thing. "Come on Albert. I've got to get you kids to school and you can give me a description on the way. I'll come back and find the varmints."

Footsteps and shadows receded from the edge of the ditch but neither of them moved until the bus had pulled out. At last Baby pulled herself out from under a particularly nasty bush and glared up at the ridge.

"You know, we've been called some pretty horrible things in our time," Apache said with a sigh. "But that's the first time I've been called a varmint."

"Come on," Baby urged. "I don't want to be here when good ol' Deputy Hardy works up his courage, or a lynch mob, and comes back for us."

"He did seem a might leery of coming in after us all on his lonesome," Apache agreed. She started up the ditch and reached back to haul Baby up with her. They had a steep and unpleasantly dirty climb. By the time they reached the top, Baby had dirt down in her shoes and through the leg brace, making it even more uncomfortable than usual. She didn't curse. There was just no point in it any more.

"So, now they know we're alive," Apache said. As they started down the dirt road in the same direction the bus had gone. "I wonder who will come after us."

Baby pretended not to notice that her sister looked up at the sky after she spoke.

"It shouldn't take them too long," Baby said. She refused to look up. "I suspect they at least had enough of a fix to know we're in Kansas. I'm just glad the telephone pole didn't start humming and catch fire. Deputy Hardy just wouldn't have understood."

Apache agreed and took the next several steps in silence with her head shaking back and forth.

"Apache?" Baby finally asked.

"I'm getting tired of playing renegade, Baby," she said.

"Who's playing?"

"Well, there is that little aspect of our lives, isn't there? What do we do now?"

Baby took two limping steps before she dared her answer. "We head north."

"North? It's February. There's a hell of a lot of snow up north."

"North."

"Why?"

"Because if we go back south we wear T-shirts and blue jeans and everyone sees us. If we go north we wear heavy coats, hats, scarves and gloves. Not only can people not tell us from the natives, but we don't even leave finger prints around."

Apache stopped and fixed her sister with a stony stare. "I don't like snow."

"I don't like dead."

Apache shook her head and started walking again, Baby hurrying to try and keep up. In another hundred yards they crossed another bridge into the yard of a deserted farm. Baby silently helped her sister pull off the tarp and brush that they'd used to cover the bright red Fiat.

She said nothing as she slipped in to the passenger's seat, grateful to be off her feet and really not caring much where they went just now, so long as she didn't have to walk there. Apache slid in and started the car, carefully driving across the little bridge and onto the dirt road.

"All right. North," Apache finally said in a tone that made it sound as though Baby had been arguing with her every step of the way. "Fine. We'll go see the snow. What do you think we should do there?"

"Study the disks a little more," Baby said, tapping the pocket where she kept them. "Relax. And wait. When we call the next time, I think we better be prepared to face the consequences."

"So you think that the traitor will come for us then?" Apache asked.

"Yeah. And I think FUTURE will send someone else as well. We do still have the disks and they really do want them back."

"So if there are two people, how will we tell them apart?"

"That's easy. The person Alan sends for the disks will try to get them. The other person will just try to kill us, again."

"You are such a comfort," Apache said.

The Fiat began to pick up speed, topping the small hills and dipping back down into the shadows with increasing acceleration. The dead stubble of wheat fields flew past on both sides, along with an occasional farmhouse, though a few of them looked deserted. The road was often rutted and a few of the holes that Apache couldn't quite avoid were pretty rough.

"We've been on the run since last December," Apache suddenly said. "It's the first week of February. Don't you think this has gone far enough?"

"Your problem is that you think heading to the snow is going too far."

Apache made a small growling noise and pressed down on the gas again, despite the fact they were loosing traction on the damp gravel. Baby leaned back and looked out the window, noting the odd two-story building coming up on the right, just on the outskirts of yet another small Kansas town. Which one was this? Hick's Wallow? Dirt Cheap? One Horse and No Buggy?

Strange building, and with that flagpole --

"Ah, Apache? Isn't that a school?"

Apache glanced to the left just as they topped the next hill and came into full view of the school, the kids, the school bus...the deputy drawing his gun --

Baby waved -- a brief moment of glory, all those startled faces looking at them before the Fiat sped from one end of town to the other at more speed than they'd likely seen in this century.

Apache took them through a tight curve and down another of the damn hills. Baby was going to get seasick. "Is he following us?" she asked.

"In what? The school bus?"

"Don't be funny."

"You've never given me that much credit."

"Morning Glory Sangre --"

Baby twisted round to look back the way they'd come just as they topped the next rise. "Looks clear. I doubt he's even got the bus started yet."

"Good." Apache dared a glance in the mirror just to be sure. "Do you think it's going to get any better up north?"

"Were you looking for better?" Baby asked. "I thought you were just looking for safe. Better slow down. Those are sheep in the road."

Apache had already started to ease up on the gas. The car came to a stop barely an arm's length from a dozen sheep. The creatures meander back and forth in front of them, oblivious to the mechanized vehicle and the fact that spies were trying to make a daring getaway.

"That school bus might catch us after all," Baby said.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," Apache announced with a wave of her hand toward the windshield. "Spies, counter-spies, sleepers and traitors don't bother me. A herd of sheep is asking for too much."

Baby took pity on her sister and got out to shoo the animals away. They obliged without complaint once a human showed them what to do. Back on the Reservation she'd spent some time in the hills with the sheep. It hadn't been all that bad. People didn't try to kill you for sheep.

The car crept through the animals and once on the other side Baby slipped back in and grinned at her sister again.

"You like this kind of work?" Apache asked. "I'll buy you a few sheep and set you up on the Reservation. Sure would save me a lot of trouble in the future. Or in FUTURE."

"Nah, not my kind of work. Actually I was just hoping that if we ever do get back on with FUTURE that they don't ask for a detailed report on this part of the trip."

"Why not?"

"And how did you two escape from the deputy in Kansas? Well, you see we didn't think there would be any trouble since we had a Fiat and he had a school bus, but then there were these sheep --"

"Never mind. I don't want to think about it."

"Just don't think it would look good on our records, you know."

"You're being optimistic. I don't think we're ever going to get a chance to file another report."

Baby grinned again. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes, relaxing for the first time since they stopped to make that little call. "Let me know when we reach the snow," she said.

"You can bet on it."

Apache's tone meant trouble. Yes, she had better rest while she could.




Two



Apache pulled the car to a stop at the top of the off ramp and leapt out before her sister was fully awake. By the time she got around to the other side of the Fiat, Baby had started to sit up and stretch.

Apache pulled the door open and yanked her sister out.

Into the snow.

"You wanted snow? Well here it is, hermana mia!"

Apache leapt aside, watching with amusement as her younger sister -- now fully awake -- rolled once through the icy ground cover and came to her feet in as fine an acrobatic move as Baby was ever likely to make.

Baby blinked several times before she finally seemed to realize it was actually snowing out -- tiny white flakes that swirled and spun on the breeze. She held out her hand and caught a few, smiling brightly. Didn't surprise Apache. She knew her sister was crazy.

"We're not in Kansas any more, huh?" Baby asked.

"We're right where you wanted to be," Apache answered, inching her way back to the car. She noted that several other motorists had watched, amused by their antics. Ah, good. Always nice that they could entertain someone.

"Not exactly where I thought we would be," Baby answered. She swept a quick look around the road and back to the Fiat. "I had hoped for a little better, and dryer, accommodations."

"You just may have to make do, Morning Glory Sangre."

Apache could see that Baby finally realized she was in real trouble. Apache had eased her way back to the car and dashed around to the driver's side, and threw herself in, her hands moving automatically across the various controls as she got the car in gear, hit the gas --

The passenger side door still stood open. She didn't want to make this too hard. Baby made a running leap, caught the door and pulled herself in just as the Fiat began to gain ground on the slippery pavement. Her sister still barely got the door closed as the made the on ramp and gained speed.

Apache laughed as Baby began brushing snow from her t-shirt.

"Very funny," Baby mumbled, working now at her shoes. She opened the car window and poured snow out onto the road.

"Nothing wrong with your reflexes," Apache offered. "I don't know why FUTURE worries so much about you when you're out on field work."

"I was under the impression they only worry about me when I'm with you," she replied. "Something about sibling rivalry and your homicidal tendencies. Where the hell are we?"

"About thirty miles south of Omaha."

"Excellent." She rolled the window up again. "I think that's where we ought to hold up for a few days. We can outfit ourselves for the cold and take a hotel room."

"Omaha? Why?"

"It's the only city of any size between here and Minneapolis -- and that sounds too far north and cold even for me. We need somewhere that strangers are not going to draw attention."

"Good points. That way we can choose the time when we let our friends find us."

"What if they don't?"

Apache laughed and then nodded agreement. She did have a point. "We have led them on quite a chase so far. And we are FUTURE's best agents. I suppose eventually we might have to give them a few clues."

"I'm tired of running," Baby confessed. "I'd like to have this settled by spring. There's a good-sized mall in the northwest of the city where we can equip ourselves to look like locals, or at least normal tourists. Then we'll swing back around and stay at the Pleasant Place Inn on 84th Street."

Apache glanced at her sister feeling a little whisper of distrust again. "You seem to know this Omaha pretty well. Why?"

"Gee, I thought that telepathic link of yours told you everything I do."

At times like this Apache remembered why she moved apart from her younger sister. Baby had a very bad habit of never really answering questions. Maybe that made her a good spy. No enemy agent would ever get a straight answer out of her. Enemy agents, hell -- she had seen FUTURE agents near to tears after a half-hour debriefing with her sister.

"I can't keep up on everything you do. I have to sleep sometimes," she countered.

"You must have hibernated through this one. I was in Omaha two years ago January on a field assignment. The weather turned bad and I was snowed in here for a week."

"Ack. Early January?"

"Late January into early February, actually," Baby said. She looked out at the clouds and the snow that was falling a little harder now. "Have you checked the weather reports?"

"I don't want to know," Apache replied. "We're pretty much committed now anyway."

"Oh no. We only get committed if someone actually catches us." Baby sat back and relaxed again. "It'll be nice to have a few days rest. Room service, indoor pool. We won't even have to worry about the weather."

"Doesn't sound too bad," Apache finally conceded.

"That's the spirit!"

"Speaking of spirits, I think there's one matter we need to get straight right now. If, by some chance, I should get taken out in Omaha, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life."

"Which -- if you've already fallen -- shouldn't be much more than a minute or so longer. Give me a break, Morning Star."

"Just giving you fair warning." She maneuvered the little car around a much too large semi, softly cursing the slick road. "This is not my idea of a good time."

"It'll all be over soon."

"You want to rephrase that one?" Apache asked as the car slid slightly to the right.

"Would you prefer: 'We'll be to Omaha about the time the worst of the storm hits?' or 'We've had a glorious career, what's it matter what the future brings?"

"Never mind. I'll stick with the first one." She glanced at her sister and smiled. "I can handle this. Why don't you go back to sleep, Baby?"

That had just the effect she wanted, of course. Baby wasn't likely to sleep for days now. It was only fair, having dragged her up here into this snow..

However, as it turned out she didn't mind Omaha so much. The snowplows were already out, and many of the people actually seemed used to the weather and handled the snow and ice well. There were a few that caused her heart to skip a couple beats, of course, but then that happened everywhere and in all weather.

They wandered the large mall, shopping for clothes, books and other forms of entertainment. Baby stocked up on several computer items, including a number of small PCMIA cards for her recently acquired portable computer. Purchasing the computer had seemed a wiser choice than stopping by every computer they passed so her sister could do a little more work with the damned disks. Computer owners often complained. The new storage cards were, Baby said, less noticeable than the disks since the cards were only about three inches long and a couple inches wide. She wanted something they could hide, if need be.

After about an hour and a half in the mall they came out to a dark, snowy night with a brisk wind and enough of a dip in the temperatures that even Baby cursed the weather. The Fiat didn't handle true snowy travel well, and Apache was glad they didn't have very far too go. The hotel stood only a couple blocks from the freeway exit and the plows had even cleared this road.

There were a lot of cars at the hotel -- not unexpected given the weather. People carried boxes inside, taped together suitcases, and other odd things. Apache wondered if they'd wandered into a shelter from disaster -- or if the storm was going to be even worse than she expected.

The young woman behind the registration counter looked up and nodded.

"Do you have your pre-registration code?" she asked.

"Code?" Baby echoed.

"You did book a room early, didn't you?" the woman said, looking for one to the other.

"Ah, no. Didn't know we would need to," Apache answered.

"Well, I'm not sure we can give you the convention rate, then. All our rooms were booked, but with the weather turning bad I suspect some of them will be canceled."

Baby just nodded and Apache pretended she understood.

The woman stopped and frowned this time. "I assume you are here for the convention."

"Yes, of course," Apache said, ever quick to grab at any opportunity to look like one of the crowd. "But we weren't certain we would make it. If the convention rate is not applicable we'll take a room at a higher rate."

"We need either cash advance or a credit card --"

Baby handed over one of her cards. Apache wasn't even certain which one it was, but the woman took it with a nod as though it finally made the two of them legitimate customers.

"And you'll be staying the entire weekend?"

"We'll be here until Monday night," Baby answered. "And I would appreciate a room with a view of the parking lot so we can keep an eye on the Fiat."

"Oh yes. Certainly. One moment please."

The woman scurried away. Apache took a step closer to her sister and whispered, "Convention?"

Baby shrugged.

Others had gathered. She couldn't continue the conversation. Besides, the clerk came scurrying back with a brighter smile and handed back Baby's credit card along with two key-cards.

"I hope you enjoy your stay," the woman said mechanically and looked at the next group of people in line.

Baby and Apache picked up their suitcases and started across the lobby. Someone walked by carrying a full-sized harp. The next two people had a life-sized stuffed gorilla.

"Ah," Apache said. She really couldn't think of anything else to say. And when the harp and gorilla squeezed into the elevator even Baby looked happy to take the stairs instead.

Four teens in somber blacks descended the steps with their arms held up to their chests and their wrists crossed. They looked oblivious to anything going on around them.

"Excuse me," Apache said, trying to go past.

"Damned mortal," one hissed. "We're in invisible mode!"

The group went past, going down the stairs in slow procession. Baby and Apache watched until they disappeared, and found themselves, for a brief moment, the only people on the stairwell.

"I don't know what's going on, but you know, I'm beginning to see why the clerk just assumed we'd fit in," Baby said.

"It is kind of frightening, isn't it?" Apache agreed. She started up the steps once more, moving slowly -- though not so Baby could keep up. She could hear noises on the next floor, the sound of very many people laughing. Apache reached the landing first and found herself face-to-face with a large man in a surcoat and ringmail. He gave them a courteous bow and stepped aside.

"Welcome, fair ladies? Are you fen?"

"I'm Apache."

He laughed with delight as though she had given a perfect answer. Apache hurried past and Baby stayed silent by her side. Many people filled the hall, most of them complaining about the weather. Apache found their room near the far end, quickly unlocked the door, and got them inside.

"It's frightening," Baby said with a shake of her head. "I've never been anywhere that I thought the other people were odder than we are."

Apache only nodded, double-checking the locks, before she slid across the room and peered out the window.

"Good. There's a parking spot just about straight below us. I'm going to get the Fiat."

"Think you can handle it on your own?" Baby asked, slipping into a chair by the window. She rubbed at her knee and Apache thought it might look a little swollen. Maybe she shouldn't have made Baby run for the car after all.

"I think I can handle this. You hold the room." Apache went to the door and stopped looking back at her sister with a shake of her head. "I thought we were going to get some rest here."

"So did I," Baby replied and sounded just weary enough that Apache decided not to badger her about it.

"Don't bother with the extra locks. I want to get in fast when I come back," Apache said.

She went to the door and listened, pausing at the sound of loud voices and very odd music. Gradually it became a little quieter though the hall never became completely emptied. She eased the door open and looked out to see people heading into a room at the other end of the hall. Lots of people. She didn't want to know what they were doing in there.

"Good luck," Baby said.

Apache wished she didn't feel like she needed it.




Three



Baby waited until she'd judged the amount of time it would take Apache to reach the ground level. She heard no shouts or the sound of bombs exploding within the building, so she inched the chair closer to the window and pulled back a corner of the curtain, watching the lot below them.

The Kids in Black turned up first, walking with their hands still folded across their chests as they headed across the snowy lot. Baby watched in fascination while a larger group of people crossed paths with them and swept around the black-clad group as though they were -- well, invisible.

Baby wanted to pound her head against the wall but she was afraid it wouldn't help.

The snow fell heavily now. It didn't hide the odd things that went on in the parking lot. An aging station wagon, apparently held together with wire and the good wishes of its owner, slid to a stop in a spot across from where Apache would park. A woman with long dark hair leapt from the car, pulled off her parka and shoved it back inside. Then she adjusted her chainmail vest, pulled a sword from the front seat, and jogged toward the building.

Baby hit her head on the window a couple times. She was right -- It didn't help.

A man in a long cape came back with the Kids in Black. They all had McDonald's bags.

Luckily, Apache arrived a moment later, pulling into a spot in view of the window. She looked up and waved before heading for the doorway where the others had gone.

Baby judged the time again, allowing Apache an extra minute or two to get back up to the room. After all there might be something else in the elevator this time and the Gods alone knew what might have invaded the stairway.

But Apache did arrive in good time, and carrying a stack of papers. Baby glanced back out the window to see a van bearing the logo of a local TV station drive past.

"TV crew," Baby said with a shake of her head.

"Think they've come to tape our capture?" Apache asked, laughing.

Baby looked back at her sister wondering if she was a pod person after all. "Stranger things have happened on this case," she reminded Apache.

"Well that's true," Apache admitted. She tossed a sheet of paper into her sister's lap. "But this will explain everything."

Baby glanced down at the blue paper and found a drawing of a scantily clad woman holding a giant heart valentine and standing beside a snowman. The wording read "Welcome to the Valentine's Day Love (The Cold) Con, Winter Gathering of the Last Barbarian Horde."

That wasn't exactly as helpful as she had expected. She looked back at her sister hoping for some little hint.

"A week long Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention, and gathering of the faithful," Apache supplied and handed her a convention badge and schedule. "I bought us both memberships."

"Oh." She looked back at the paper before the full import of the announcement really reached her. "Oh! Well, that explains the harp and the gorilla. What about the kids on the stairs?"

"Vampire wannabes."

"Ah. Invisible. Of course."

"Yeah, we couldn't get much luckier than this. No wonder the clerk thought we were one of them. We are one of them. We should be able to hide out here for a few days without anyone even looking twice. The con starts today and runs through Sunday. My question is if we want to take advantage of it."

"Like how?"

"Good place for a meeting with people we don't want to meet alone," Apache suggested. "I thought we'd ask Alan to send someone so we can talk in person."

"Are you crazy?"

"I'm tired. It's time we find out if Alan really has disposed of the traitor. I'm willing to bet that if we say we're coming back in with those damned files, someone is going to try and stop us first. If not, it's safe and we can go back to normal -- well, to what passes for normal in our lives, anyway."

Baby started to speak and stopped again. They'd been on this case for nearly two months already. She couldn't imagine drawing it out even another month would help at all.

"When do you want to meet with them?" Baby asked, feeling both relieved to see and end in sight -- and worried about seeing an end in sight.

"Tomorrow -- St. Valentine's Day. Sounds like an auspicious day for a meeting. With all that love in the air, what could go wrong?"

"Apache, maybe you better sit down while I tell you a pleasant little story about Chicago, gangsters, and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

"Already heard it," Apache said with a grin.

"And you don't think that little incident is a bad sign?"

"Depends on which side of the massacre you were on, doesn't it?"

Baby grinned and bowed to her sister's far superior logic. "Make the call. I'm going to start transferring data from the disks to the data chits. They'll be easier to hide. I am not giving up on this."

"When and where do we meet with them?"

"The lobby, high noon. And tell them if they try anything before that they'll still be looking for our return in the next millennium."

Apache nodded and started to reach for the phone.

"Not from here. We might want to use that phone to call room service later, and it's hard to do after they've melted."

"True. I'll go out and brave the barbarian hordes again," Apache said. She even brought Baby's portable computer over to the desk for her. Then she stopped and looked at Baby for a long, silent moment.

"Hey, if you're waiting for me to talk you out of this, it won't work," Morning Glory Sangre finally said. She popped the computer open and keyed it on. "I want this finished, Apache. I want to know what exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. I want to know about disappearing islands and strange creatures that know our names. And you can tell Alan not to send anyone who can't answer those questions."

"Yeah, that just about covers it all, doesn't it? Except for what is on those disks," Apache said, nodding to the computer files Baby was uploading. She never left them on the portable's hard drive since the portable could more easily be grabbed.

"I'll find out what's on these files myself," she answered. "I wouldn't trust them to tell me the truth, anyway."

"True. I'll go make the call and then wander around for a while. I'd like to check the con out -- and the hotel in case we need other exits before this is done."

Baby nodded and waved her sister away, already turning her attention back to the files. Numbers -- codes, she knew now -- ran up the screen in a stair-step succession. The few attached words were not, she knew for certain now, in any known language.

Well, none known in her world, anyway.

Apache left to make the call and for a moment Baby wondered they were making a mistake. It was dangerous --

Everything was dangerous these days. Making a call on a phone was dangerous.

Something in the file caught her attention. She didn't think much about Apache or the meeting after that.





Four



Morning Star Sangre stood by the hotel's bank of pay phones and fished out her phone card, the one with her very own name and everything. Time to put an end to this endless running --

Time to put an end to the dozens of nameless hotels, the fast food -- and best of all, time to put an end to long nights watching her crazed sister mumbling over the computer screen like a witch reciting incantations. By now Apache really didn't care what was on those files.

She had already dialed the number to Alan's line and only noticed when she heard the phone on the other end picked up.

"Hello?"

"I assume I don't have to give you this address, Alan. I want someone here tomorrow, noon. I want someone who can answer all our questions -- and you know what kind of questions those will be. We'll meet them in the lobby at noon and, hopefully, settle this matter. I'm not promising we'll come back in. That all depends on the answers we get -- and what happens before and after the meeting. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely." Alan sounded assured this time. They were all long past panicking. "What about the files?"

"They stay with us until we know we're safe. Besides, Baby's still intrigued."

He made a little sound of worry but he said nothing about it. "You do know what you're doing, calling like this?"

"Oh yes. It is a test."

"Good. I would hate to think that you're losing your touch. You're calling from the Pleasant Place Inn in Omaha. Tomorrow noon in the lobby?"

"That's right."

The phone began to hum.

"Someone will be there."

"Thank you."

She hung up. It was done. Unless she grabbed Baby and ran right now --

When she walked to the lobby she could see that it was snowing even worse now. She and her sister could probably get lost out in that storm but it hardly looked worth the effort.

The phone exploded, causing some minor consternation, but nothing much more came of it. This was, after all, a science fiction convention. Odd things happened.

She wandered back through the hotel, spending time at a couple room parties among amiable people. Even the convention's security guards, large men with wild hair, scraggly beards and wearing fake fur mantle over tee shirts and blue jeans, were friendly as long as people didn't make trouble. Apache felt welcomed in with a sense of camaraderie that she found a pleasant change from the real world.

Where aliens were trying to kill her.

Apache allowed herself to really think those thoughts for the first time. Here, in a hotel where Centauri and Klingons sat at the bar together, it wasn't such a far-fetched thought. She had lived with the reality long enough that it didn't even make her heart flutter much at all. She could accept the existence of aliens. She could even accept the thought that they hunted her and her sister. Why not? It wasn't as though she and Baby made friends of everyone. It didn't even bother her that there were aliens on Earth. Hell, she'd be relieved to learn that some of the people she knew had a reason for being so strange.

She sat back in the hospitality suite, sipping a beer and enjoying the odd world for what it was -- right until her sister arrived.

Baby didn't frequent large gatherings of people, at least not by choice. Apache started to stand wondering where the enemy was and why she'd thought they would be safe. Baby spotted her and came straight across the room. She had the computer in hand.

"Sit down," Baby ordered. "I've got something to show you."

Odd behavior, even from her sister. Apache started to sit back in the chair then waved her sister to take it while she knelt on the floor beside her. Baby settled in the chair and flipped open the computer, keying it on. Then she grinned.

"You broke the code," Apache finally guessed.

"Sure did. The file is in a language called Veldic -- I never would have figured it out if we hadn't picked up a translation program from the computer on that non-existent island. It was made to help the... the people there translate Earth languages into something they could understand. Once I knew what I was looking at -- well, the rest went pretty fast. I didn't even have to learn another language to figure out what's on those files."

Words started appearing on the screen. Apache couldn't see them clearly and just waited for her sister to explain. Morning Glory had worked damned hard for this moment.

"The first quarter of the files is a series of notes, mostly detailing materials for construction, dimensions, special considerations when building on Earth --"

Apache glanced around the room but no one paid them much attention. Baby wasn't the only person with a laptop computer, and it couldn't have sounded any stranger than the conversation she'd heard earlier about Inter-species breeding and the improvement of the race through cloning. Or the other questioning whether a werewolf could also be a vampire and what special problems one would face.

"There were problems with the components since everything has to be built here --"

"Why? What has to be built here?"

Baby looked away from the screen to face her sister for the first time. Apache suddenly suspected she was going to regret having asked that last question.

"There were questions about Earth's past," she said. "We're very much like the people of some of the other worlds, but there's no record of this being a colony. The Council wanted the answer. It was untidy to have us out here, unaccounted for."

"Yes?"

"The only way the machine will work is to build it entirely of native material. The atoms must have a solid lock on their location."

"Baby --"

"They're building a time machine."

"No more Science Fiction conventions for you."

"Hey, it was the convention that finally gave me the key." Baby passed her the computer but Apache didn't look at it. "This is what I've pieced together. The Council, for which our Alan apparently works, wanted answers. So they built a station out in the Gobi Desert, as far from any kind of attention as they could manage. They set up filters to keep satellites from looking at them. Everything went pretty well until an archaeology group showed up and started excavating about five miles away. They had to dismantle and get out fast. They didn't want to lose all the research they'd done, so they packed it off in files and sent them by courier to Alan. And that's where we came in."

"Why our computers? They must have better --"

"They're limited in what they're allowed to bring in, so they have to adapt to local equipment. It turns out our computers aren't half bad, anyway," Baby said.

"Why deliver the information by hand?"

"They didn't dare try any over the air frequencies for a couple reasons. First, there was a chance that the archaeologists would pick something up since they do have sophisticated equipment of their own. And there's the problem of the Vananadanians. The Van have been trying to get hold of the plans to the time machine for a long time. Apparently they think they should be in charge and that can be corrected by a couple little changes in their own past history."

It started to make a strange sort of sense. Apache scrolled through some of the files putting Baby's words to things she saw. Time machines. Why not? If she admitted that there were aliens called Vananadanians out there, that people were traveling in space ships, turned islands on and off -- why not a time machine?

"It's too dangerous to let the Van have this," Baby suddenly said. "I'm clearing the files, destroying the original disks -- and we'll try to get the copy I made to Alan."

"Why not destroy it all?" Apache asked.

"I want to know what they learn about our past." Baby stopped and grinned. "The truth is that they'd just start the work over again anyway. This way maybe we can keep an eye on what's going on. It's our past -- and our future -- that we're dealing with here."

Apache nodded agreement.

"I'll take care of it, then," Baby said. She took back the computer and stood. "This puts some of our problems in a new perspective. I really do think we can trust Alan -- as long as he's willing to trust us as well. We'll see how the meeting goes tomorrow."

And with that her sister walked back out of the room, leaving Apache behind.

Maybe they had something a bit stronger than beer.




Five



Apache showed back up at the room at three in the morning, and she didn't look very happy to find her sister still working at the computer.

"I want some sleep," she said. "Either shut that thing down or take it somewhere else."

Baby looked at the screen full of graphs on comparative anatomy -- still trying to guess if Earthlings were closer to Van or to Veldic -- and decided maybe it was time to call it a night. They did, after all, have a kind of important meeting tomorrow.

"I've cleared everything from the hard drive," she said, pulling the PCMIA chit out of the slot and holding it up. "This is the entire set of files, both the original stuff and the later translation material we picked up. I've only made the one copy. I thought about keeping one for ourselves, but I'd just as soon not spend the rest of my life trying to figure out alien physics or running from the Van."

"Probably wise," Apache said. She took the chit in her hand, turning it over several times before she sat it down on the table by Baby's computer. "It only took one?"

"Zip filed most of the stuff." Baby stood and winced as she put weight on her leg. She'd pulled the brace off a couple hours earlier and kept hoping the swelling would go down. "I'm going to take a bath and relax for awhile. Can you call down to the lobby and have them put in a wake-up call for 8:30?"

"8:30 in the morning? You are going to get up in the morning?"

Baby picked up a sheet of paper and tossed it to her sister. "Convention schedule. There's a panel on the pitfalls of writing time travel stories. I thought I'd get some pointers."

Apache mumbled something as Baby went past, keeping her balance with a hand to the wall. It had been a damn long day in what had already been too long of a year. It couldn't only be February. Time seemed to be out of whack --

No, Baby didn't want to think stuff like that, not after what she'd learned tonight. So she went off to the bathtub and thought about aliens instead. Right. That was far better to consider.

She didn't spend much time in the tub after all but even so when she came back out Apache had straightened up the room before curling up in her own bed. It was a sign of her sister's agitation that she felt compelled to clean things. Even Baby's brace sat carefully by the bed and the computer closed up and put back in its black bag. Baby was still half tempted to go back to work on it, and took a step that way --

"You go near that computer and I'll break all your fingers."

Maybe rest was a better idea. Baby turned back to the bed and slid in, surprisingly sleepy. The sound of harsh laughter down the hall seemed reassuring. Good, human sounds...



When the phone rang she made several suggestions of what to do with it, not the least being a real threat to call someone who would make it blow up.

"It was your idea," Apache quite needlessly reminded her.

She continued to grumble and growl while Apache answered the phone. She grabbed the brace and some clothes and headed for the bathroom hoping a quick shower would help. By the time she'd gotten dressed Apache had already gone out and scavenged some rolls and orange juice from somewhere. The curtains were open to show still more falling snow. It looked too damn cold with all that white piled up on the windowsill.

"I want to stay clear of the room," Apache said before Baby could even ask what she intended to do. "I'll go wander around, keep my eyes open in case someone shows up that I might recognize."

"I don't think Alan would risk annoying us," Baby said.

"Exactly. So if I do recognize someone, it'll be a bad sign and very likely one of the people who have been trying to kill us. You up to spending the rest of the morning out of here? How's your leg?"

"No problem," she said, adjusting the buckle again and pulling the pant leg down. "Besides, I'm going to sit through the panels. Meet you at noon, if there's no problem. I'll check the art show between each panel, and if something turns up, you can meet me there. That sound good?"

"Wonderful," Apache said.

"You don't have to sound so eager to get rid of me, you know," Baby answered. "Good plan would have been sufficient."

"We've been together far too long for me to pretend, Baby." Apache looked around. "I'm going to store the computer with hotel security for now. That way we don't have to carry it around or leave it here for someone to pick up if they come looking for the file."

"And the chit?"

"I'll keep it safe," Apache said.

Baby nodded as she grabbed a cinnamon roll and a carton of orange juice before heading for the door. When she looked back, Apache still sat at the table, looking out at the snow with only a little frown.

"See you at High Noon," Baby said.

Apache looked back at her and grinned brightly. Baby wondered what her sister planned for the little confrontation, but she didn't ask. Sometimes surprises were fun.




Six



At 11:52 Apache wandered down to the lobby and looked around. People lined up at the entrance to the dining area, an array of aliens and barbarians -- laser pistols and swords, metallic suits and chainmail -- mingling indiscriminately in a vision of past and future that was bound to unsettle anyone with thoughts of time travel.

Good.

A woman in a gorgeous velvet and lace dress sat on a footstool and played a large harp. The music sounded lovely and had even quieted the louder of the con-goers. The crowd proved to be just what Apache wanted, though she couldn't guess if anything -- anyone looked out of place. The convention had drawn a surprisingly large gathering considering the weather and the middle of the week dates. She'd always thought her sister unusual in her love for the snow. Now it looked as though the world was full of these fools.

The lobby doors came open, letting in a gust of wind and a swirl of snow along with two figures. Everyone glanced that way. Mickey stepped forward first. That was, in deed, someone she would trust but she wondered how much their fellow agent actually knew. What kind of deal could they make with him? How much could they tell him?

Alan turned out to be the second person to enter the lobby. That really did take her so much by surprise that Apache stepped back into a darker corner to watch for a moment. She was rewarded with a look of total dismay and shock when Alan looked around the room. He mumbled something to Mickey who shrugged and said something in return. She wished she could hear that conversation.

Five minutes until noon. Baby would show at any moment. Apache, still playing bodyguard on this damned long assignment, decided to keep back until her sister appeared. She still had the feeling of something out of place. Part of it came from knowing people had been hunting for them and those disks too long to have given up now. There had been no trouble since the call, and Apache suspected that was only because the others -- the Vananadanians? -- knew it would be easier to move in at a time and place the Sangres had already set. She wanted this over with and wasn't stupid enough to think it would be easy.

Alan and Mickey kept looking around and hadn't quite spotted her. Apache saw her sister first, standing back at the corner of the first hall looking at her. Apache nodded.

Baby trusted her too much, she thought. Her sister stepped right out into the open and walked toward Mickey and Alan as though there couldn't possibly be anything wrong. Apache watched her rather than Mickey and Alan. Baby did, in fact, trust both of those men and she made it all the way to their contacts without incident.

And they stood there, waiting for the last of the group to show. Apache had the real feeling nothing would happen until she came out in the open as well.

So she stepped forward, drawing Alan's startled look though Mickey only nodded. Field agent. Alan spent far too much time in The Office.

The woman with the harp had finished one set and started another round of music that seemed a bit livelier. People in the food line clapped and apparently recognized the tune. Even the bellhop stopped and grinned, stepping closer --

Closer to Baby.

Put a hand on her shoulder just as Alan made a grab for the man, betraying what Apache had suspected. She saw the man's face for the first time as he pulled Baby back a step, and out of reach of both Alan and Mickey. Bart Spanner. He had been a field agent about the time Baby and Apache joined, but retired to The Office shortly afterwards. Apache suspected she would have recognized an active field agent much faster.

Baby didn't put up a fight.

Apache looked at her sister and felt an odd little thump of fear at the blankness she saw in Morning Glory's face. It frightened her enough that she kept heading for Baby until Alan and Mickey both held her back.

"No," Alan whispered at her ear. "Calm. Don't make this worse, and don't draw attention."

The two laws of spying. She almost snapped at him and started to slap his hand away, but training and better judgment held her in place while Bart wisely didn't try to pull Baby back any further. They were still less than a yard apart, looking normal enough, she suspected. No one paid them any attention.

"Very sensible," Bart said. "I've counted on the fact that neither of the Sangres would do anything... unwise. I'm surprised to see you here, Alan."

Alan said something in a language that Apache wished she understood. She saw Bart's eyes flicker, but he only shrugged. She did note how Mickey looked a little too uneasy. He didn't know what was going on.

"Shall we deal now?" Alan asked.

"Not with you here," Bart replied. "I want the plans. I know better than to think I'll get hold of them if you are within range. And the Van have promised me such a nice reward. Unless, of course, Morning Glory has the files on her. Do you have them?"

"No."

The answer came quickly, l and without a doubt the truth.

"I didn't think I would get that lucky." Bart pulled Baby back another step. "She will come with me as insurance, you understand. I wouldn't trust Alan to care about her survival, but you Morning Star -- you I expect to behave in every way. If you come near us, I'll know and I'll kill her. She's under my control now. I could tell her to step in front of a car or leap from a balcony and she would. Wouldn't she, Alan?"

"Yes," Alan said. His tone convinced Apache that not only would Baby do so, but Bart would easily order it. It held her back.

"I'll call your room in an hour, Morning Star. I expect you to be there and be ready to do as I order. And I expect Alan not to be a factor in our deal."

He put his arm around Baby's waist. They looked like friends, walking out of the lobby and into the wind and snow. Baby wasn't even wearing a jacket.

Gone.

"Damn!" She spun on her two companions and they both stepped back. "What the hell did he do to her?"

Alan signaled them away from the others. Fine. Apache didn't want to deal with more people just now. They stepped back to the corner by the wall. No one had paid them much attention. The woman finished her music and pushed the harp away while a dozen people clapped.

"Alan?" Apache asked.

"He used a drug that's not common around here," Alan said. He didn't look straight at her. "I think it shouldn't produce any lasting effects though I don't think it's been used on human gophers before."

That one took her a moment. "Human guinea pigs?" she suggested.

"Yeah, that's the one. I didn't know any one on Earth had a supply. It's not even common... elsewhere."

Mickey looked like he really didn't want to be here at all.

"The drug has keyed her to obey him. Her mind will be bereft of any self-motivation. If he orders, she obeys. He's set himself as the controlling force in her life. She has no choice."

"What do we do now?" Apache asked.

"You do whatever you have to. I'm leaving." Alan met her startled look. "I do trust you, Morning Star Sangre. I trust your judgment. Bart won't believe anything if I'm still around, so I'm heading back to The Office. There is an antidote for the drug he gave your sister. I'll have some shipped in immediately."

"I'm going to want answers. I'm going to want a hell of a lot of answers when this is done."

"If any of us survive, I'll give them to you." He glanced at Mickey and back at her. "You should have some back up."

She wanted to argue but didn't. Alan nodded and headed back to the door, leaving Apache alone with a rather pale, and all too quiet, Mickey. Baby had worked with him and said he was a good agent. She'd have to trust her sister's judgment right now.

"Let's go back to the room and wait," Apache said.

Mickey nodded and walked beside her back to the elevator, but there was a crowd of people waiting and Apache was not in the mood for their jovial chummy-ness. She headed for the stairs and Mickey followed. She wasn't used to going up them so fast since Baby --

"Damn!"

"I'm sorry, Morning Star," Mickey said.

"Not your fault," she mumbled, wishing that she could actually blame him. It would have helped with the surge of frustration that bubbled inside her. "If anything, I'm the one who really screwed this up. I've been playing games through this whole case. It didn't occur to me that it could get this serious. I couldn't really make myself believe --"

She stopped and shook her head again.

"You know, I've kind'a got a few questions of my own," Mickey ventured as they reached the next floor. "Like, for instance, how long you've known about these people?"

"Since about the time everyone thought we were dead," Apache said. She headed down the hall. The party was still going on in that other room. "We'd started to get hints of it in December, but it was the island that really tipped us off."

"Island?"

"The one that didn't exist."

"Oh." He didn't ask. Maybe he'd gotten used to that kind of answer when he worked with her sister. "Who are they?"

"Other than aliens? I don't have any idea." She shoved the key card into the lock and pushed the door open. The room had been cleaned, the beds made, Baby's presence erased from sight. "I do know there's more than one group, that the Vananadanians appear to be a problem, and that the Quilis don't look very human at all. Sit down. We've a long wait."

Mickey settled on Baby's bed, looking ready to bolt at the first sign of Apache losing control. Apache settled in the chair by the window, watching as the snow fell again. She wasn't really surprised by a sudden flash of lighting and a bit of thunder. Mickey jumped but kept quiet.

She hoped it meant Alan was on his way, and not that Bart had taken Baby -- somewhere else.

She turned back to Mickey and shook her head. "I can't give him the disk for Baby."

"Nothing can be that important," he said. "Not even for FUTURE."

"It is -- but that's not what I mean. I can't give him the disk. I don't have it."

"Where -- " He stopped and shook his head. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"Wise. Very wise." She stopped and thought about her decision again. "I decided to hide the disk this morning before there was any trouble. Baby doesn't even know where it is. I could tell Bart where it is, of course, but I'm going to try something else first. It's a chance. I really don't want the plans falling into the hands of the Van. I don't like what I've seen of them so far. They are the ones who killed the other FUTURE agents, Mickey. We can't trust them."

"It's in your hands," Mickey said. He sat back against the pillows though he didn't look relaxed. "I'm just here if you need me."

In her hands. Hell. Not only her sister's life, but history itself? Alien empires about to rise and fall on what she said during this conversation?

It was a damned long hour.

When the phone rang, Apache glanced at her watch. 12:59 exactly. Bart appeared to be meticulous about the hour time limit. That told her something about the man. Or maybe anyone involved in this case became obsessed about time.

She picked up the phone on the third ring, hoping it unsettled him a little.

"Hello?"

"Good afternoon, Morning Star. Now that Alan is gone, I trust that we can deal with one another?"

"Maybe," she said. Her voice stayed remarkably calm. "It all depends on whether or not you can put Morning Glory on the phone. I want to know she's still safe."

"How plebian. You've been watching too much television."

"Bull shit. You killed three agents before the files even made it to LA, and you've tried to kill us more than once. Either you put my sister on the phone or I'm going to assume she's already dead -- and you really don't want me to think that, do you?"

"Fine, fine. We'll play your little game." Apache could hear a little hint of worry in his voice. Damn good thing she and Baby had such a persuasive reputation. She listened while he called Morning Glory over and handed her the phone.

Perfect.

"Say hello to your sister," he said, a distant voice.

"Hello."

"Baby listen to me," she said quickly. "I'm the only person you ever trusted. He calls you Morning Glory -- he doesn't know who you really are. You have to listen to me. I want you to escape as soon as it's safe for you to. Do you understand? Take the first opportunity you can to get away from him. Get somewhere safe. Will you obey me?"

"Yes."

"Give me the phone Morning Glory. Thank you. Now, are you content that your sister is still a trade-able commodity, Ms Sangre?"

"When and where?"

"Two hours from now, Gate 22 at Eppley Airfield. Don't be late."

He hung up the phone. Apache did the same and found herself looking across at Mickey.

"Do you think that'll work?" he asked.

"I don't know. We better plan on making that meeting. Help me pack up. Do you have a car? The Fiat is not going to handle this snow."

"I'll arrange for something more appropriate," he said and reached for the phone. Then he pulled back and shook his head. "She might call. Do you have a cell phone? I didn't get a chance to pack any of my supplies when Alan picked me up this morning."

"How did you get here?"

"One of FUTURE's private jets. Eppley didn't want to let us land in the storm. Alan wouldn't take no for an answer. I think they were discussing fines close to a quarter million by the time we set down."

That almost unsettled her, to think all of this had been so important that he risked those kind of fines. And then he left again, so that he didn't endanger Baby by being here. As if she and Baby were even more important.

"So the plane is still there," Apache said, reaching into her case and pulling out her last cellular phone. She might be able to use the plane, if things went one way instead of another.

"Unless Alan took it when he left."

"No, I get the feeling he took different transport." She handed the phone to Mickey and sat back down on the bed. "Let's hope this works. Let's hope Baby has at least enough control left to know I'm the only person in the world she really trusts."

Mickey made phone calls. Apache waited.





Seven



Bart Spanner told her to sit by the hotel room door and wait. She obeyed, watching as the man made other calls, listening to a hint of worry, some growing agitation on his part. The wind blew through a crack in the doorway, a hint of cold and snow she couldn't see with the drapes pulled tightly closed.

Watching and waiting for her chance. Apache told her to escape. Escape as soon as it was safe. She held to her sister's words and waited.

Safe proved to be the hard part. But she finally saw her opportunity when Bart started yelling at someone on the phone. She didn't know what language they spoke and didn't really care. He turned away from her, his voice getting louder. She grabbed the lamp from the table, stood, and took two steps toward him. He heard that and spun round --

She smashed the nice metal lamp across the side of his head and he fell, face down on the carpet, the phone still in hand.

Much safer now.

Escape.

The hotel room door opened to a walkway covered in snow. That didn't look very safe at all, not dressed as she was. So she went back in, took Bart's heavy coat from the closet, then stopped and took his wallet and car keys too.

She went back out into the snowy day and down the steps to the car. There she felt a momentary quandary while she tried to sort through which might be safest, walking away in this storm or taking the car. She didn't like to drive. She didn't have a license. But if she left the car for Bart, surely that wouldn't be safe.

Escape.

She climbed into the van, glad to see it was four-wheel drive, and started the engine. Baby pulled the car out of the parking lot and onto the snow packed streets.

Escape.

A shame Apache hadn't told her what to do afterwards.





Eight



They only had half an hour to make it to Eppley Airfield. Apache picked up the single suitcase and Mickey followed her out of the room without any comment.

She paused at the hotel's front desk and said she had an emergency and that if her sister called to please give her the cellular phone number she left with them.

But Baby knew the number. She should have called by now.

Bart would be either heading for the airport or would already be there. Apache thought she might still have a chance to pull this off if she could figure out how much backup he'd brought with him, and if she could get Baby to cooperate at all.

Thunder shook the building. The clerk shook her head and mumbled about weird weather, even for them. Apache had started for the door when an oriental man with long flowing hair and a dark coat came in. He saw the two and started toward them. Apache reached for her knife when he held up his hands in a gesture of peace.

"Alan send me," he said. "Bring antidote, yes?"

The accent was not right. Apache tried to ignore that as the man came closer, pulling a small, palm-sized box from his pocket and holding it out. She wasn't sure she wanted to take it in her hands but if it helped Baby -- well, hell, she'd messed up enough already on that account. She took the gift with a nod of thanks.

"Do injection careful. Small amount first, back of neck. Careful. It not tried on, on --"

"Human gophers," Apache supplied.

"Yes, on human gophers yet. Would not give now, but emergency, stop Van. Yes?" He looked nervously around the room, probably noting the various aliens for the first time. When he looked back at Apache and Mickey he seemed far more worried. "Alan say to tell you, let Bart go if only way to get Morning Glory back. Still a chance to stop him before files go... elsewhere."

That was a generous gesture on Alan's part, and one she wouldn’t forget. Apache hoped it didn't go that far, and she could recover Baby and redeem her career before anything left Omaha.

The nameless courier bowed and went back through the door, heading out into the snow and wind as though he didn't feel it at all. Apache stopped by the door and watched for a moment, even after he'd disappeared. She and Mickey didn't go out until after the lightning and thunder.

Mickey had managed to get another car delivered -- a Land Rover with enough pull to get them through the snow. She had expected the airport to be closed, but the snow had lessened, and when Mickey called on the cell phone the woman gave a cautious report about many delayed flights and ice-covered runways. Apache thanked him absently and stared at the road again. She didn't care if another flight ever took off.

Apache stripped off her four knives and left them under the seat when they arrived, though she did take the suitcase with her. It gave her something to hold on to so her hands were busy. And it made them look less out of place in the airport. There were a few stranded travelers, many looking hopefully out at the runways while plows charged across the grounds.

They found the proper gate. The sign said the plane leaving from here was heading for Chicago in about an hour. No aliens that she could see, but then very few of them had ever been noticeable.

2:59 -- exactly two hours from Bart's call. Apache looked down the concourse. No sign of the man.

3:05 -- still no Bart. She began to hope this was a good sign at last.

And when the man finally showed up at 3:23, a bandage to the side of his head and glaring, Apache stood up and grinned.

"I want the files," Bart said without preamble. "I'm in a very difficult position."

"Sure as hell are if you expect me to give the files to you."

"Baby isn't here," Bart said. "That's what I hoped. So it's a race now to see which one of us finds her first, is it? Give me the files and I'll leave the hunt entirely to you. You don't want me to find her first, not now."

His hand touched the side of his face where she could see a dark, nasty bruise spreading. Apache paused for a moment, wishing she had handled this better from the beginning.

"I left the computer at the front desk of the hotel. You're welcome to it."

He stared at her for a long moment and she didn't look away. People watched them oddly, sensing something wrong. Bart obviously didn't want to make it worse.

"It would be easier to take you and not have to worry about it," Bart said. "You realize that."

"I realize that if you thought you could, you'd have done it already. Go get the damned computer. I don't care. But you better hope the drug doesn't leave any permanent damage to my sister. This universe won't be big enough for you to hide in -- and I mean that quite literally."

His eyes flickered again and he took a step back. He looked desperate. She didn't like to deal with desperate people.

He turned and walked away, his pace just short of a jog. She let him get a good distance ahead before she started away as well.

"What now?" Mickey asked.

"We get clear of here. Fast."

"I'll call Alan. He can probably still grab Bart before he gets the files --"

"Good point. But Bart won't get the files. I told him where I left the computer, not the disk."

"Oh hell." Mickey grinned and kept pace with her. "You and your sister are damned dangerous. Where do you think she is?"

"I don't know. I wish I did. We're going back to the hotel to watch for her. The weather might have slowed her up. The Gods know what kind of transport she has, or if she's walking." Apache said. She was almost breathless by the time they made the lower level. She saw a taxi pulling off down the street and no sign of Bart. Odd way for him to be getting around. "That bruise on his face was more than an hour old. Baby's been free for quite a while."

"Then where --"

"I don't know. I honestly don't know. Bart doesn't have her. That's all I care about right now."





Nine



It took her a while to figure out where she was. Bellevue sat south of Omaha. Apache was to the north. Apache meant safety. That was all she needed to know.

It had stopped snowing but the cold night came early. She wanted someplace to rest. Some place safe...

The hotel. With Apache.

Baby turned the car in that direction, daring even a little more speed, daring, almost to hope that she could find her sister and ask what she should do next now that she'd escaped. It troubled her not to know. Unsettling. She knew --

She knew only that something was wrong. Bart could tell her what to do, and she had to obey him -- except if Apache told her something different. If Bart told her not to listen to Apache, she would have to obey him. Even over her sister.

She found the street and turned northward, going slowly because she didn't know an address and could only hope for something familiar. When she passed under the freeway Baby knew she was close.

The sign glowed just ahead, welcome and a relief. Safety. Apache.

But just as she pulled into the parking lot she saw someone get out of a taxi --

Bart!

Not safe, not safe at all! She dared not stop here. She kept going through the lot, feeling grateful that Bart looked anxious to get inside. She didn't entirely panic and draw attention. By the time she had driven back out of the lot, Baby knew she could only keep driving until she found safety.

And there was, really, only one place she could think to go, if she could just remember how to get there. If she could just remain safe that long.





Ten



Apache and Mickey got back to the hotel just in time to find Bart reaching across the counter and grabbing the registration clerk by her blouse.

"I want that damn computer now you officious, stupid little --"

Apache shoved her hand into the small of his back. Hard. He let go of the girl, who leapt back, wide-eyed while Bart fell forward, hitting his already battered head on the counter.

"I changed my mind," Apache said. "You can't have the computer after all. It's Baby's."

Bart spun around -- and froze. By now Apache and Mickey had company. A full half dozen of the Barbarian Security Force had shown up, along with a couple Klingons and a Narn.

"I will find her before you do. Then we'll see what kind of deal you think you can get."

Apache stepped forward and caught him by the shirt, much the way he had held the poor clerk, and had his full attention.

"You better hope that you never see my sister again. You better hope that when I do find her that she's all right. You better hope I don't end up hunting you. Is that clear this time?"

Bart said nothing as she let go. He started to turn but the Barbarians stepped forward and cut off his escape.

"I don't know what's going on here, but maybe we should talk," one of the men said. He held out a wallet, his police badge showing. Sgt. Tarr. "This doesn't sound much like a game to me."

Bart looked at Apache saying nothing.

"My sister's missing. She was last seen with him, and now he's here trying to grab her computer, but won't tell me where she is."

"That true?" the officer asked, looking back at Bart.

He appeared too stunned to answer. Apparently he hadn't expected Apache to bring in the locals. He obviously hadn't read much about her career. Apache never did things people expected.

The policeman looked annoyed, so Mickey confirmed the statement for him. In a moment the clerk called the police and the officer went out to talk to the taxi driver while his Security friends kept watch over Bart.

Apache and Mickey sat on the chairs in the lobby while other people passed by, whispering and looking shocked. The real world wasn't supposed to touch their convention. Even the gaggle of vampires was visible and worried.

"Is this wise?" Mickey asked.

"It keeps Bart busy. We need to get ourselves cleared to move on. Besides, the local police might have better luck helping us find Baby then we'd have on our own. I want to know where that taxi picked Bart up. I want to know where he took Baby. It's a place to start looking."

"You seem to know what you're doing," the Barbarian cop said as he stepped closer.

"I was with the police force in LA and in Phoenix," she said, fishing her current ID from her pocket. "Now I work for an international organization along with my sister, Morning Glory."

He took the ID, turned it over several times, and looked back at her again.

"Tell me this really isn't a game."

"It isn't. Call the number. Call the FBI, if you like. They know about us."

"Us, as in FUTURE, or us as in you and your sister?"

"Both, actually." Apache started to feel anxious but quelled the feeling while she dealt with this man. "Make the calls. Mickey and I are legit -- and it's important that we get moving and find out what happened to Baby before Bart's companions do."

"Baby?"

"Long time nickname for my sister."

Tarr nodded and went back to the desk. Apache had the urge to stand and pace and knew better, having been on the other side of that badge a few times herself. She sat still, her hands in her lap. She didn't pretend not to be worried.

He came back soon enough and this time he looked a little unsettled.

"I've never gotten an answer so quickly from the FBI before. I said Sangre and they asked which one. When I said Morning Star and that the other was missing -- someone else came on. He sounded worried. Asked that I keep the FBI informed. Is that good?"

"Ah. Someone else who's worked with the FBI," Apache said with a little grin, despite the situation. "I find it amusing they are interested at all. I assume they didn't say to grab us and hold on till they got here?"

"No, which surprised me, given their rather intense interest. The cabby gave me an address down in Bellevue. I've called ahead and cleared with the local police there. Let's go check it out."

He left the fake fur mantle with one of the other security barbarians who had brought his jacket, and only stopped to speak with the two uniformed police that were coming in. Mickey went for the car and he didn't argue.

Bart looked up as they passed.

"These people won't hold me for long, you know."

"I don't doubt it. Actually, I hope the people you work for come and get you. I don't think they'll be happy about what you've done here. I suspect it would save me all kinds of trouble in the future, wouldn't it? Or maybe you'll get lucky and Alan will show up first."

Bart didn't say anything else.

As they stepped out into the dark evening, Tarr looked at her and said nothing.

"I work for Alan," she offered. "He was supposed to be working for Alan as well, but -- he has other employers."

"You are honestly spies, aren't you?" Tarr asked, amazed at last.

"Yes, of sorts." She shrugged. "It's usually a lot less important than the work you do."

"But not this time."

"Not this time," she agreed.

He didn't ask.

Apache sat in the back seat letting Tarr direct the way across town. She didn't listen to what they said. Instead she leaned back and thought very hard about what Baby would do.

If Baby had been all right, she would have come straight back to Apache, of course. Or called. This had gone on too long already. She couldn't pretend there wasn't something seriously wrong.

Alan had called by the time they made it to the Bellevue motel to ask about Bart and what she wanted done. She left it in his hands. If he could get hold of Bart before someone else did, that would help, but she wasn't going to make the future difficult for either of them by demanding he handle this. It might matter, later, if they didn't make demands and mistakes that they'd have to deal with at another time.

She'd never let someone else pay for her negligence and mistakes. Not until this time.

And the phone didn't explode either. Someone might want to know what was going on.

The Bellevue hotel looked nearly deserted though the manager said they'd been full up the night before when the storm drove everyone to shelter. Apache appreciated having Tarr on their side yet again. She could have gotten the answers she wanted, but it would have taken longer.

The man who fit Bart's description had rented the room for another three days. The manager, a young woman of Mid-Eastern background, hadn't seen anyone but Bart go in and out of the room. She had noted with surprise that he took a cab tonight instead of the gray van he had been driving the other days.

Mickey looked more startled than Apache. She knew her sister hated driving with a passion most people reserved for cleaning septic tanks or visiting the dentist. She did know, though, that Morning Glory Sangre would drive if she absolutely had to.

Tarr called in a report on the missing vehicle and then the three of them and the manager went up to the room. By then another police car was pulling into the lot, and the entire matter started to look far more serious than Apache wanted it to be.

The room was empty. A heavy metal lamp was on the floor, a trail of blood nearby, along with a phone that had never been hung up. Tarr looked at it and frowned.

"Baby hit Bart," Apache said. "That's how she got away."

"Wound on the side of his head, yes. I just -- I don't like to see things like this," he said. "Especially when we don't know what he's done with the kidnap victim."

"She got away from him, I'm certain of that," Apache said. "He wouldn't have come looking for me if he still had her."

"Those are Baby's knives," Mickey said, pointing to a rather impressive stack of weapons. Tarr looked at them and then back at Apache with one eyebrow raised.

"Yes, I carry knives too." She pulled back her jacket and showed one. "That's always been our preferred weapon. You will note that I didn't pull it on Bart even under these circumstances."

"It's not a good sign that she left her weapons behind and took the car though," Mickey said. He honestly sounded upset, which surprised and unsettled Apache. It made it harder to keep her own professional distance when one of her fellow workers took the trouble so much to heart. Mickey kept looking around, shaking his head. "Her brace isn't here, though."

"Good. Means she can get around without much trouble." Tarr looked at her again. "Knee brace, right leg."

One of the police called Tarr aside. That gave Apache a moment to think about what she found here, and to hope that maybe the police had already found Baby.

No. So they went back out to the car, leaving the police to look over the site. Tarr came and sat with them and asked questions. Apache provided a picture of she and Morning Star, two years ago on one of their yearly vacations to the Bahamas. The man looked at it, startled.

"I saw her at the convention," he said. "I didn't know she was the one we were talking about. She's really your sister?"

"Yes. Don't look embarrassed. Everyone asks that question."

"Huh. Wonder why. We'll have copies of this made and this returned to you. She seems to be free now, but didn't come back to the hotel. We have people watching there. You seem to think she's under some duress --"

"Drugged. I don't know about the chemical makeup and I understand that it's still experimental. I can get more information from The Office -- FUTURE's central office -- if we need it. All I know is that it's left her muddled. She should have called me by now. Or if she is in that van, she should have shown up at the hotel."

"All we can do is look for her, then," Tarr said.

"Yes. But here's the unfortunate part. Baby is a damn good field agent. Some of those instincts are still with her. She did take the car. I hate to say it, but I think she's going to be damn hard to find."

She was right.





Eleven



Baby had left Omaha looking for something -- someplace. But she couldn't remember how to get there. She had never driven there herself, and besides Baby kept forgetting her current location. So she drove.

She made decisions at each step of the journey. The first was to get rid of the Van. Bart's Van -- that couldn't be safe. So early in the morning she left the car in the parking lot of a large apartment complex. It might go unnoticed there for days. She walked quite a ways before she found a used car lot with vehicles that looked trustworthy. She used one of her dozen credit cards, surprising the man when the entire price of the car cleared without question.

And then she drove off again, this time in a small nondescript sedan with an In-Transit sign in the window. Drove all day, paying for gas and an atlas with the money from Bart's billfold. And then, when the night got dark she pulled into a small, nameless town and found a cheap hotel. She locked herself in and sat down in the chair by the door. It wasn't safe to sleep.

Call Apache, she thought, and actually reached for the phone. And stopped herself. No. Phones weren't safe. Phones blew up and people -- people? -- tracked you down. No phone calls.

She had to find a safe place. Baby pulled open the atlas and tried to figure out where she was and where she was going. There were so many similar places. One of them had to be safe.

She slept in terrifying snatches and left when the first light of dawn turned the world gray again.





Twelve



The next month proved the worst Morning Star Sangre had ever spent in her entire life.

She stayed in Omaha for the first four days until they finally had some clear indication that her sister had driven south. The police found the van in Oklahoma City. Apache went down and located the place where Baby had bought the car, using a credit card and name that she didn't recognize. Apache suspected it was one of those her sister used during their games of hide and seek.

Gods, she wished this was all a game this time.

Bart had been transferred to another jail and disappeared in route. Apache didn't know if he was any closer to tracking Baby down or not. Mickey stayed with her, a liaison with both FUTURE and the local police. It did help because, quite honestly, she had gone far beyond any ability to deal rationally with people.

She could not figure out what Baby was doing. The pure frustration of it drove her crazy.

By the fifteenth day Morning Glory had been spotted more than once. She'd changed cars twice more now. Alan, being bluntly honest said that current tests showed the drug would not wear off on its own and that it would even be wise to get the antidote to her as soon as possible.

Which Apache really wanted to do, if her sister would just stay in one place long enough so she could catch up to her. She planned to give Morning Glory the antidote, sit her down for a long discussion about what the hell game she'd been playing -- and then she planned to strangle Baby -- but only after she'd succeeded in her quest to save her.

The list of places Baby might have been spotted jumped all over the southwest in that first week. On February 20th she was in Amarillo, on the 28th in Moab, Utah. Apache, guessing she had headed back to LA, had started that way -- only to be told that Baby had been in the El Paso, New Mexico on the 1st and on the 8th she apparently took a trip down into Mexico.

Apache and Mickey drove into Mexico and began searching -- Apache hoping that her sister might stand out a little more down here. Then, on the 12th someone reported seeing Morning Glory at the Grand Canyon. Much annoyed by now, Apache stopped and waited. On the 18th someone reported her in Taos. Apache and Mickey headed that way, once again checking through small towns, out of the way hotels, all along the path. The long, tedious work of tracking her sister had started to drive Apache even crazier. Luckily, before they had driven all that way to Taos, they had a legitimate and fairly recent report of Baby in Farmington, New Mexico. Someone from the Highway Patrol had actually gotten close enough to even ask her name.

They met with the woman from the Highway Patrol that afternoon in a convenience store parking lot right on Highway 64. She stood waiting and nodded when the two neared, dropping an empty soda can in the trash.

"You saw this woman earlier today?" Apache asked. She handed over the photo of her and Baby. The woman looked at it and glanced up again, handing it back.

"Yes, she's the one I saw," the woman said. The policewoman had short black hair and wore dark glasses in the late afternoon sun. Apache wished she could see the woman's eyes. She had never liked dealing with people when she couldn't fully see their faces. "It was right here, about 5AM. She was on foot, asking the store clerk about the local roads. I asked if she was Morning Glory Sangre and she straight out said she was. I asked if she realized people were looking for her. She -- looked odd for a minute, maybe confused. Then she said it wasn't safe, and that she had to escape. She ran. She moves damn good despite a limp. Went right over a couple fences. I never saw the car she took off in."

Apache grinned with relief, knowing someone had honestly seen Baby. Mickey leaned back against the car and made a little sound as though he hadn't really breathed in days. She had the distinct feeling he hadn't believed they would find Baby until now.

"That was almost seven hours ago, now. Sorry I couldn't be more help."

"You just confirmed she was here," Apache said. "And this is the closest I've gotten to her. You've really helped. Thank you."

The woman smiled. Apache remembered being with the police and how nice it had been when someone said they'd helped instead of cursing them.

"I can't guarantee this, but I heard the car when it pulled out and I listened as best I could. I think she headed west on 64, though she could have branched off and gone either toward Aztec or Bloomington."

"Thanks!"

The woman nodded and got back into the State Patrol car, driving away with a wave of her hand. They'd attracted stares and people seemed startled that it had been a friendly encounter. So often anything involving police turned bad.

Apache climbed back into the jeep, Mickey sliding in beside her. He had started to look gaunt and scruffy, she realized. She didn't like to think what she looked like.

"We'll head back west. Maybe another report will come in," Apache said.

Mickey made a few calls while Apache drove. They'd acquired a second cell phone that Alan had sent to them. It seemed an exceptionally good little piece of equipment since the battery never went dead, and it never lost signal no matter where they went. Apache didn't ask about the technology or why FUTURE wasn't making a fortune in a market begging for something this reliable.

They drove all the way to Bloomingfield, passing the domed roof of the Salmon Ruins museum, and on through the small town.

"Nothing," Mickey needlessly said as he put the phone down.

"We'll go north to Aztec. The only places south of here are Albuquerque and then on back to El Paso. She's already been there and as far as I can tell, she doesn't go to any place twice."

Mickey nodded and settled back, watching the cars that they passed. No one knew what her sister drove this time. It was just past noon now. If Apache could make just a couple right guesses this time she and Mickey might be in the proper area and find where she rested tonight.

She wanted this to be over. She wanted her sister safe again. Bart was out there somewhere, hunting them both, probably just as desperate as she in his own way.

Damn.

"Apache? You said you were going north," Mickey said.

"Yeah?"

"You just took 44 South."

She hadn't even been aware of the turn.

"Damn. Sorry." The road had four lanes and a divider with no easy way across. She kept driving southward looking for the next way back.

"There's another place to get across," Mickey pointed out.

"Another?"

"You've passed two. Maybe you better let me drive."

"No. It's all right." She slowed and cut across the road, heading north, back to Bloomingfield. Mesquite bushes and sand lined both sides of the road. There wasn't much in settlement out here until they reached the town again. It was an interesting place, really, with the Salmon Ruins Center to the west, Chaco Cultural Park to the South, and Aztec Ruins to the north. Looked like a great place --

She pulled the car over to the side of the road.

"Apache?"

"I think -- I think I understand," she suddenly said. She took a couple deep breaths and looked at Mickey who sat staring at her in silence. "Give me the atlas and the list of places she's been spotted."

Mickey obeyed without question or comment. Apache flipped through the pages, matching towns to places, before she nodded.

"What?" Mickey asked.

"Get the longer reports. Tell me about the sighting at Moab. I want to be certain."

"Sure." He pulled his notebook and began looking through the notes. "Moab, Utah. She was heading north on 191 and stopped for gas. It was hot and the man inside said he made her take a glass of water because she looked so pale."

"North on 191. Yes." Apache made a mark at Moab and then pointed an arrow south. The next was El Paso, right? And she was heading into Mexico. I think I know where she was going there. What's the next spotting?"

"Grand Canyon, walking on a trail. A park ranger asked if she was all right."

"A trail near some ruins?" she asked.

Mickey looked up, startled. "Yes. The report says she was on the Tusayan Ruin and Museum Trail."

"At Moab she would have been heading up north from Hovenweep. At Taos she would have gone to see the Pueblo. She headed into Mexico because there's a set of ruins to the south, called Casas Grandes in Chihuahua. And then she came here." Apache waved her hand at the world. "Ruins all around us. She's looking at ruins. She's trying to find home."

"The San Zoticus Reservation," Mickey said. "You have some cliff dwellings there." He grinned. "So which one do we try first? Should I call Alan and have people wait at the other places?"

"No. I headed south because I was already going for San Zoticus. I already knew." She inched the car back out on the road and got them turned back around again. "This is the 19th, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Last New Moon before the Spring Equinox. Hell." She took a deep breath, forcing calm.

"Apache?"

She had to ease her foot back from the gas pedal. No use annoying the local State Patrol. If they pulled her over now it would only take longer to straighten the problem out.

"You probably don't know much about the San Zoticus Apache. We're not exactly the most well known Native Americans. That's because the tribe managed to stay separate long after the Europeans began to colonize the area. Archaeologists can't decide if the site is more Sinagua or Pre-Pubeloan/Anasazi in origin, but they do know that the site remained continuously occupied long after all the other cliff dwellings were abandoned. I think the government decided we were Apache just because it was useful to give us a designation."

"Yes?" Mickey asked.

"We have our own rituals. Some of them are fairly common to other tribes in this area. But there are a few that are ours alone. One in particular is a favorite on the reservation, and even the missionaries couldn't drive it out when most of the tribe became Christian. The holy day is when the families gather to say prayers of peace for the dead. That takes place on the last new moon before the spring equinox -- the last of winter before new life begins. At dawn the Shaman begins whispering all the names of those who died in the last year, a litany calling the ghosts closer. At sunset the village elders gather the tribe together for the last telling of the winter tales. Afterwards the families create their own tales to speak to the Gods, telling them about the people who have died. Then, when the brightest star of Orion reaches a point above the old ruins, the shaman cuts the links of the ghost from the tribe, and they are set free to go in peace. The Day of the Dead and the Lost, Mickey. I never called."

"What?"

"They think we're dead."

"And --"

"And I was already heading for home because the shaman has been calling my name since dawn. And Baby's. This time I do know where she's going."





Thirteen



The right road! She knew she had found the right one this time. The unmarked dirt path led up into the mountains, dark and empty, and so beautiful that she almost cried. Home waited at the end of that road. She knew this place, and felt it call her in her heart.

Apache would be here, where they belonged.

Up through the winding roads, over streambeds that ran with spring melt water, across ruts and around boulders left by recent floods. The car ran out of gas. She left it and continued on foot. She'd been tired for days, but now the nearness of the place invigorated her. Almost there. Almost home.

She glanced at the sky. Orion had begun to rise. She hurried again. If she didn't make it in time she wouldn't have the link any more. She'd be lost.

The wind whispered her name, though. She could follow that call for a while longer.





Fourteen



Apache started to turn off at Apache Junction and head up toward the mountain roads, but she didn't know if they'd had any bad rains lately to wash the old trail out. Not a safe drive in the dark. At the last moment she jerked the car back to the freeway, winning a harried honk from someone in the other lane and a gasp of surprise from Mickey.

"A little warning, you know --"

"Sorry. We're going the long way -- past Phoenix and up Highway 17 to the turn off."

"We've made good time," Mickey told her again. He seemed a little uneasy. "If she's heading this way, she should be safe, right? Your family will take care of her."

"They will -- most of them -- if they can catch her. I get the real feeling if I'm not there in time -- if the Shaman cuts the link --" She glanced at her companion who probably didn't feel very comfortable with discussions of ritual magic and old powers. "It's what we believe that counts."

"I know. And the funny thing is that you believe so much that I believe. It's a shame you don't dare call ahead, but I understand. Bart's bound to pick up that kind of message. He obviously has better transportation than we do."

"I'd call Alan -- but I'd be trusting that he has as good of transportation as Bart, and I don't know if it's ture. I do know someone always picks up those calls, though. I can't count on Alan getting there in time, not with Baby's life at stake. I've already made enough stupid mistakes." It helped to talk this time, she realized. It helped to keep her mind from wandering off and listening to the wind. "If for some reason I miss her here, I will call in the other forces. But I think it's safer this way for now."

"You're right."

"We're only about three hours out," she said. She could see the brighter lights of Mesa ahead, blending into Phoenix just beyond. She glanced up at the stars but found them already half lost in the city glare. "I think we're going to be damned close."

"You better stop for gas."

She looked down and nodded, impatient of the delay, but knowing it was better than walking the rest of the way.





Fifteen



The stars shown crystal bright, almost too painful to look at. Her head had begun pounding again. She almost couldn't hear the call any more.

It didn't matter as much this time. Baby had found the right place, finally. Somewhere along the trail she'd picked up an old worn branch to use as a cane, helping her keep her balance on this last long stretch. It smelled of pine resin, pungent and more real than anything she could remember in the last few -- days? Weeks? She remembered Bart, and remembered she had to get away and be safe. Everything else blurred.

And this place, at last, promised safety. She came over the last rise and saw the abandoned mission, the new school and the pretty town. The old ruins stood beyond the jumble of new world buildings, outlined by bon fires and for tonight more alive than the rest of the village. Dozens of cars sat in the parking lot, and up on the trial she could see strangers sitting on blankets and folding chairs, while most of the tribe gathered closer together around a bright fire. She easily picked out the Raven Shaman in his feather headdress and black cape. She hadn't been home for any of the rituals in well over a decade and was glad to see they still existed. Old ways, old laws, before the world changed.

Baby went past the house where Lisa and John Owlfeather lived. She liked them, even if she felt a stranger in her sister's presence. She hadn't thought about brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews and all that other family stuff until Apache brought her back here again. Being with Apache had always been family enough.

The house stood empty tonight. They'd all be up there with the Raven Shaman. She wondered which ritual this one would be. She couldn't remember the date. She shivered in the cold as she walked down the deserted streets and through an alley -- something ran away, tiny feet dancing against the old inlaid stones. She found the stairway up to the ruins, a path that would be a much faster climb to reach that fire than walking clear down to the parking lot and back up again.

Stairs were her bane, though. She looked at them for a long moment, and then began moving upward. They were old, stone carved and weatherworn -- and treacherous on the best of days. She took them as quickly as she dared, listening as the voices came clearer in the cold dark night.

"I didn't know until they were gone," Lisa was saying. "They were just part of our lives, an embarrassment for a twelve year old, but a wonder when I was thirty. And then they just walked away, and I realized that I'd never thought they were family until then."

"Gone," Cloud said. She clearly heard his voice as she made her way up the last few steps. Sad. She couldn't remember a time when Cloud Sangre sounded sad and lost before. "They were my companions more than anyone else in the family. I was too young, and I couldn't feel the loss for Vitorio and Marie the others felt. I couldn't see those two as outsiders, either. I would have gone with them, but wisely, they didn't ask. No one tried to convince them to come back -- but some of you would have come after me. That would have made their parting worse. And besides, I always belonged here. It's a shame they never realized that they did as well. I don't suppose most of you realize that the school, the college fund, the money for the museum -- all the little projects that we've had in the last five years were funded by Apache and Baby."

That brought sounds of shock and surprise. Baby wished he hadn't told them, though. The others weren't supposed to know.

She topped the stairs at last, standing by the side wall of the ruin and watching the Sangre family gathered around the fire. Raven Shaman stood before them, whispering, whispering. She realized, suddenly, that the shaman was John Owlfeather, Lisa's husband. That was good.

Whispering her name. Whispering Apache's name.

"Always tied together," Robert said softly. "Always the two of them. It's fitting that it should always be that way. Always Apache and Baby."

She took a stumbling step forward, slipping around the crowd. Robert was right. They should be together.

"Is -- is she here?" Baby asked softly.





Sixteen



Apache stopped the car and abandoned it there, blocking the exit for several people. She'd forgotten that the ritual -- and the feast afterward -- had started drawing more people every year. She almost cursed as she charged up the inclined path toward the fire and the crowd.

Someone stepped in front of her.

"Please respect the -- holy shit!"

The reaction and the wording was so unintentionally funny, that it win a grin out of her. She knew the face, recalled a name in the next breath. "Is she here, Jed?"

"Who -- your sister? No --"

A blood-curdling scream came from the area of the fire. Veronica.

"I think she's arrived," Apache said and dashed up past Jed, with Mickey at her side.

Up to the fire. People got out of her way. She nearly sprawled into the flames but someone -- her brother Kyle -- caught her arm. He made a little sound of surprise.

She blinked several times and saw Veronica in Lisa's arms, nearly fainted. John, Robert and Cloud moved toward another figure, who backed away, a shadow ready to disappear.

"No! Stay there!"

Everyone turned and stopped moving.

The fire made more noise than the several hundred people who watched. Apache fished the antidote out of her pocket, glancing at it once to see how it opened -- as if she had not studied it all those sleepless nights -- and then back at her sister. She eased her way around the fire.

"The rest of you get back. Baby won't run from me, will you?"

"They s-said you weren't here."

"Just arrived," she said, trying to sound calm. She could see Baby now, wild haired, thin and pale as a -- ghost. No wonder she'd scared the hell out of Veronica. "I've been trying to catch up with you for a month."

"I couldn't remember. I couldn't...find this place. You told me to escape when it was safe. You didn't tell me what to do next."

"My mistake. I made a damn lot of them this assignment, didn't I?"

"Did you?" Baby tilted her head. She didn't run, praise the Old Gods on this holy night.

"Why didn't you come back to the hotel?" Apache asked. She had moved close enough to almost touch Baby, but didn't want to take the chance until she knew she could hold on.

"I did. But Bart was there. Not safe. You said safe."

"Oh. Bad timing. And you didn't call?"

"Phones -- burn up. Explode. And the others find you. Not safe."

"Excellent point again," Apache said. "Hell, you did a lot better than I did."

"I was lost."

Apache dared a hand on her sister's arm. Baby didn't pull away. "You aren't lost now, Baby. We're home. We're safe."

"Good." She closed her eyes and then shook her head. "I'm still... lost."

"This will help."

She laid the disk against her sister's neck and pulled it back after a slight tingle. Small amount the courier had said. A little at a time.

Baby's eyes went wide. Her legs buckled. Apache grabbed at her and Robert helped to hold her up.

"Baby?"

"Not -- almost -- damn, Apache --"

Her head bowed. When she looked up she had that lost look again. So Apache laid the disk on her sister's neck again, for a bit longer this time. Baby's eyes closed, her head fell forward, and then came back up more slowly. She looked around, focused on Apache.

"I'm going to kill Bart and hang his head on the wall," Baby said. "He better hope he never crosses my path again."

Apache shoved the disk in her pocket and sat down on the ground. Robert knelt, Baby in his arms still.

"That's all right. I'm going to kill you. Morning Glory Sangre, if you ever do something like this to me again --"

"What is going on?" Robert asked.

Baby looked over her shoulder, startled to find herself in her oldest brother's arms. Then she looked around the entire area and up at the sky.

"Day of the Dead and the Lost," she said. "No wonde