Agency

68 Dogpatch

Netherton was watching Verity in the drone’s left peripheral display as she turned to look back.

“Where are we?” she asked. “Where’s the motorcycle?”

“Dogpatch,” said Sevrin, which meant nothing to Netherton. “They’re four cars back.”

Verity unfastened her safety belt and turned completely around, to kneel on the seat. Netherton watched her profile. Virgil, he saw in the opposite display, was similarly kneeling, peering back.

“We stop for red,” Sevrin said, “they get closer. Like now.”

Netherton reflexively squinted at the display’s narrow rearview band as the van came to a halt, producing, to his surprise, the sudden enlargement of a motorcycle, coming up behind them along the street’s centerline, its driver’s face hidden by a white helmet.

“Slows, when getting closer,” Sevrin said. “Never right behind us. Technique.”

“I may know who that is,” Verity said.

“Sit down,” Sevrin said, “buckle up.” The light changed and he drove on.

Verity and Virgil, on either side of the drone, turned back around and fastened their belts.

“How do you know the person you think this may be?” Ash asked.

“Maybe drove me to Oakland,” Verity said. “Eunice arranged it. I got an e-mail as soon as she was gone, written earlier, telling me to go with him. He works in 3.7, the coffee place on Valencia, not that we knew each other.”

“Did he tell you anything about his relationship with Eunice?” Ash asked.

“He never spoke. Assume he can’t.”

“Now,” Sevrin said, taking a sharp right, almost simultaneously braking, hard, into a paved space. A car passed, a second, and then the motorcycle, one of the largest Netherton had seen, swung smoothly into what free space remained, stopping about three meters from their sliding passenger door.

The rider put his booted feet down and sat on the motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket and an immaculately white helmet.

“That your man?” Conner asked.

“I think so,” said Verity.

The rider raised a hand, flipped up the helmet’s visor. He wore a white filtration mask. Above its upper left edge, Netherton saw a glint of metal.

“That’s him,” Verity said.

Netherton flinched, as the drone suddenly shifted position to his left, putting more of its torso between Verity and the man on the motorcycle. Its arms, no longer handless, were extended now as well, though Netherton had scarcely seen that happen, the left grasping the back of the front passenger seat, the right the end of the bench. Virgil, finding himself between the drone and the stranger, unfastened his seatbelt again.

The rider gestured, twice, with his fingers. Come.

“Your call,” Conner said.

“I’ll speak with him,” Verity said.

“I let you past,” Conner said, “Sevrin opens the door, you get out. I’m behind you but at the open door. You good, Sevrin?”

“Good,” Sevrin said.

“Say go,” said Conner.

“Go,” said Verity, already moving forward, as the door began to open.