truck shot out, rolling Abbey back. There was a screech of rubber as the truck cornered and another high-pitched roar as Ford floored it.
She heard the pop pop of gunfire, felt the truck swerve and go into a powerslide, then spin back in a fishtail and continue on.
“Jesus,” she cried, trying to keep from being thrown about.
“Sorry.”
Another distant pop pop.
With a tearing screech of rubber and a sickening sideways slide, the truck took a sudden bump that threw it up, airborne for a moment, then a violent bottoming out. Now the truck was pounding and shaking along what was either a bad dirt road or a field, lurching up and down, rattling hard, stuff jouncing up and around her.
“You can get up now.”
Bracing herself, Abbey lurched back up and into the seat. Sure enough, the truck was tearing across an abandoned field toward a set of railroad tracks. Ford turned and raced parallel to the tracks, following an old tractor path, and after half a mile came to a raised road crossing; he gunned it up onto the roadbed, skidded sideways, crossed the tracks, and bombed down the dirt road, fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour.
“Take a look, Abbey, make sure we lost him.”
Abbey turned. There was nothing but the dirt road, the big field full of stubble, the looping tracks of the truck, and in the far distance, a broken fence and the road they had just come from. Abbey thought she could just see the yellow spot of the Beetle, by the side of the road.
“He’s gone.”
“Excellent.” Ford slowed down and they soon came to a paved road. Ford turned onto it.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, flicking an old french fry from her hair. She looked around at the truck for the first time. It was an old-model pickup and it stank of stale cigarette smoke and sour milk. She was filthy from the car floor, which was heaped with food trash and dirt. They passed a sign for the interstate and soon they were humming along.
“I don’t like this,” Abbey said. “I don’t like this at all.”
“I’m truly sorry, Abbey. I’m getting you to a safe place, right now.”
“I quit. This job sucks. I want to go home.”
“Not yet. I’m sorry.”
“Did we just steal this truck? Or is that a stupid question?”
“Yes to both.”
She shook her head and wiped her eyes, which had unaccountably teared up. “This is like a bad movie.”
“Yes.”
“So where are we going?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’m taking you someplace where you’ll be absolutely safe and leaving you there until I can fix this problem.”
Abbey sat back, rummaged in the glove compartment, found some tissue, and blew her nose. “I had my iPod in that suitcase.”
“That’s the least of your worries.”
“But all my songs!”
“I’ve got to get you into a safe location. I’m thinking of a cabin in New Mexico I’ve used in the past . . .”
“New Mexico? In a stolen car? We’ll never make it.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. My friend Jackie’s family owns an island off the coast of Maine with a fishing shack on it. Got a solar panel, water from the roof—perfect place to go to ground.”
The car hummed along the interstate. “And Jackie?”
“She’ll come with us. She’s cool. And she knows boats and the sea like no one else.”
Ford moved over and took an exit. “So how do we get to this fishing shack?”
“Borrow my father’s boat and go at night.”
“That just might work,” said Ford. “You understand, Abbey, I’m going to leave you there for a while until I straighten this mess out. I can’t stay. You’ll have to fend for yourselves.”
“I’m all for hiding. Getting shot at really sucks.”
“Good. Then we’re going to Maine.”
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you,” Abbey said, taking a deep breath. “I made a pretty wild discovery on that NPF drive.”
Ford looked astonished. “How did you break into it?”
“I guessed the password. You aren’t going to believe this—there are pictures on that drive of something on Deimos. Something unnatural. And very old. Corso labeled it the DEIMOS MACHINE.”
Ford stared at her. “Come now.”
“ ‘Come now’ yourself. There are a whole suite of images of it. At the bottom of a crater called Voltaire, hidden in the shadows, barely visible. A machine of some kind. No shit.”
“It could be a natural geological feature. Or a scientific prank.”
“No way.”
Ford gazed at her, his pale blue eyes probing. “What does it look like?”
“A round, rimlike thing, like a cylinder,