"It's..."

"Some kind of radio? Can you get the baseball on that?"

"What?" Billy said. "Iyeah! Yeah, I'm listening to a game now."

"Man, that is awesome! Who's playing?"

Billy coughed to give himself enough time to think. "The Yankees and the White Sox."

"You're s.h.i.tting me! The Sox are my team! Mind if I have a listen?"

"Uh...sure." He unplugged the headphones and handed the packet to Bill.

Bill turned it over. "I've never seen anything like this. They look just like regular smokes! Where'd you get it?" He put the headphones into his ears and listened.

Maybe the recording stopped, Billy thought. Billy thought. Maybe Jennifer heard us and turned it off. Maybe Jennifer heard us and turned it off.

"Hey," Bill said. "This ain't baseball."

Billy kicked the stall door as hard as he could. It hit Bill in the face and rebounded. The door blocked Billy's view for a second, then he saw Bill lying against the opposite wall underneath the sink, looking surprised and hurt. Bill spat blood onto his chest. "You're Government." Government."

"Sorry," Billy said. He stood and walked over, looking for something to knock Bill out with.

"Infiltrator!" Bill shouted, and kicked out Billy's legs. Suddenly Bill's thick arm was wrapped around his neck. Billy coughed and struggled. "Help me!" Bill yelled. His voice bounced off the tiled walls. "Security! I need help!"

Billy got an elbow free and rammed Bill's head up into the bottom of the sink. The porcelain shattered, raining down onto him.

"Uh!" Bill said. "You...nnnn..."

"Sorry," Billy said again. Then he felt something hot and wet on his stomach.

"Take that, a.s.shole," Bill said.

Billy looked down. There was a long, thin shard of porcelain sticking out of his side. He was so horrified at the blood that he forgot about Bill, so didn't see his knuckles coming. His head rocked back and hit the wall. Then Billy stopped thinking about anything for a while.

He must have slumped over and knocked the porcelain shard against the floor: that regained his attention. He screamed. He was alone in the bathroom. He felt dizzy. His hands and feet were numb.

He knew he should probably leave the shard in his side, but he couldn't stand it hanging there. He yanked; his vision flared; he felt blood stream down his side. He tried to cover the wound with his hand.

"Infiltrator!" Bill's voice echoed from the sleeping quarters. "Will you guys hurry up, there's a G.o.dd.a.m.n Government infiltrator in here trying to kill me!"

Billy heard keys rattling. Someone, or more likely some people, were unlocking the front door. He got to his feet, fell over, then stood up again. The bathroom door was a long way away. He staggered forward and grabbed hold of the doorway.

Bill was a.s.sembling a gun on one of the bunks. It was an FN M249 automatic, if Billy wasn't mistaken: not very accurate over long range, but pretty much guaranteed to chop him into pieces from ten feet away. Bill raised it. Billy took the only evasive action he could and dropped to the floor. The woodwork exploded above his head.

The front door popped open. Four men in combat fatigues stormed in. They were carrying submachine guns.

"Infiltrator," Billy croaked, and pointed at Bill.

They opened fire, and Bill backflipped across the room. For a second, Billy thought Bill must be incredibly acrobatic. Then he realized, and turned away.

"Are you all right?" an NRA man said to him, and another shouted, "Medic! We need a medic in here!"

"Ag," Billy said, and slept for a while.

43 Apostasy

Hack felt her touch his hair. He felt her hand on his face. "Violet? Violet!"

"Shh," Claire said. "It's just me."

He struggled awake. "What time"

"It's just after six. There's a phone call for you. It's Violet."

Hack threw back the covers. Relief washed through him. Violet was alive! He ran to the kitchen and grabbed the receiver. "h.e.l.lo? Violet?"

"Hi." She sounded small and far away. There was a lot of background noise, as if she was in a car on a busy freeway. "I can't talk long. I'm calling from an airplane."

"A what?"

"I just wanted to tell you I'll be away a while. I got a job."

"What airplane?"

"I'm going to London."

"London?" He felt confused.

"Yes."

"But...how come...when are you coming back?"

"I don't know. Maybe a couple of weeks."

"Weeks?"

"I sold my software. To ExxonMobil."

"Oh, Violet, that's great! How did"

"I have to go. I'll call again later."

"Wait! How come you didn't call before?"

"I've been busy. I had to go to Dallas."

"Dallas?"

"Hack, I have to go."

"Why didn't you call me from Dallas?"

"I'm calling you now, aren't I? Come on, don't d.i.c.k me around."

"I'm not d.i.c.king you around." Hack heard the whine in his voice. He turned his back on Claire, who was waiting in the doorway. "I just think you could have called so I didn't have to worry you'd been killed."

"You know, forget I called. I thought you might be happy for me."

"I am, Violet, but"

"You're like a rope around my legs, you know? Everything I do, you try to hold me back. It's too much."

"Violet, I've never held you back! We've lived on my income for a year!"

The phone clicked in his ear.

"Violet? Violet?"

Hack couldn't move. After a while he felt Claire's arms encircle his waist, hugging him from behind. "You okay?"

"She's..." He couldn't speak.

"She doesn't deserve you, Hack," Claire said softly. "She never did."

Hack went in to work, but he couldn't concentrate. He spent most of the day staring out the window and chewing on his pen. So many things had turned out lately to not be what Hack thought. First there was Violet, who was neither as affectionate nor as dead as he'd believed. Then there were the things Claire's hippie friends had said, things that made more sense than he really wanted them to. Like how he was being exploited by Nike. That was truer than any of them knew.

But most confusing was Claire. It was possible she was just being nice to him, Hack knew. Claire was sweet. But it was also possible she still cared for him. It was possible she'd never stopped caring for him, the whole time he'd been with Violet. That thought kept running around and around in his head.

"Hey, Hack," a woman across the aisle said. "You still with us?"

"What?"

"You're staring at nothing."

"Oh," he said. "Yes, I'm fine."

She rolled her eyes. Hack felt annoyed. He was sitting right here, did she think he couldn't see her? No one respected Hack at Nike. No one respected him anywhere.

He stood up. "I'm going to get going."

She looked startled. "It's only five o'clock."

"Yeah, well," Hack said. "I'm still going." He had things to do.

The cabdriver thought it was pretty funny, Hack not knowing where his own car was. Hack was having trouble seeing the humor in the situation, but that might have been because it was costing him a buck a minute to uselessly circle the airport parking lot. Then it occurred to him that Violet might not have driven herself here at all: she sure hadn't paid for her own plane ticket. He had the cab take him to the ExxonMobil building and walked up to reception. "Excuse me, where's your visitor's parking?"

"To use visitor's parking, you need to book ahead, sir." The receptionist smiled sympathetically.

"I don't want to use it," Hack said. "I just want to know where it is."

"But, sir, there's no point in me telling you where it is unless you've booked."

"But Ioh, fine," Hack said. He would wander around until he found it. He started to walk away. The receptionist said: "Ohare you the owner of a red Toyota?"

He stopped. "Yes."

"We had that towed."

"Towed where?"

"I'm not sure...there's a firm we use, you'll need to call them." She slipped a card across the desk.

"Can I use your phone?"

She looked at him doubtfully. Hack resisted the urge to drop his eyes. Instead he met her gaze with what he hoped was force and natural authority. "Um...sure," the receptionist said. She slid the phone across the desk. "I really shouldn't let you, though." She smiled.

"Thanks." He tried not to show his surprise. What a reaction! Hack had never gained such results in his life. There was something to this a.s.sertiveness stuff. "I won't be long."

"Take as long as you need," the receptionist said.

The tow truck company would give Hack's car back only if he came out to their lot, showed them some ID, and paid them five hundred dollars. That wasn't such a great development. Hack didn't have five hundred dollars, not even close. The man from the towing company wouldn't budge no matter how much force and natural authority Hack used.

Still, he felt upbeat on the cab trip back to Claire's. He felt like he'd discovered something important. People like John Nike hadn't been pushing him around for no reason, Hack realized: he had let them do it. He'd expected expected them to do it. Well, all that was going to change. Hack was going to take control. them to do it. Well, all that was going to change. Hack was going to take control.

Claire wasn't home yet. Hack sat on the sofa and jiggled his leg. He couldn't wait to talk to her. He wanted to ask about that group of hers. He wanted to know if they did more than just talk.