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idea what she was saying.
    “We don’t have our AI and can’t understand you,” I said.
    She nodded and pointed to a drawer, saying something else I didn’t understand.
    “I think there’s a pad or earwig in there,” I said to Irawan. The girl nodded her head, indicating I was right. She also talked to the little boy, who seemed on the verge of crying.
    Lieutenant Irawan opened the drawer and pulled out a reading pad. She was still wearing her jump suit and I knew it would take over the functions of the small device.
    “If I let you go, will you keep calm? We don’t want to hurt anyone. We’re actually in trouble and running from the officials.” I wanted to be ambiguous about which officials we were running from.
    She replied and the pad started translating for us. “Yes, please don’t hurt us. We won’t say anything.”
    I wasn’t dumb enough to believe she wouldn’t turn us in, but I also believed she’d behave for the time being. I let her go. “Just don’t make any sudden movements and we should be okay,” I said.
    “What do you want,” she asked.
    “We’re on the run and need to get out of sight. We’ll be out of your way as soon as we figure out how to get some transportation.”
    “My brother has a vehicle. He could take you,” she said.
    “He'd get in trouble for helping us,” Irawan said. “Don’t be so quick to involve your family. What if we stole his vehicle? I have money.” She unzipped her jumper, reached in and produced a card and handed it to the girl with the reading pad.
    The girl waived it over the pad, gasped and asked, “This much?”
    “Twice that,” Irawan said and took back the card. “If you get us to safety, I’ll give you two of those.”
    “Let me call my brother,” she said.
    “Not until morning, after the curfew, when we can actually leave. Would you make us something to eat?”
    Morning took forever to arrive. We’d had only two hours of sleep in the last thirty-six, but we had to wait for daylight.
    “I’ll leave one chip with you,” Irawan explained. “This way your brother will know we are on the up and up. If he gets us to within two kilometers of our base, I’ll hand him the other chip. If he turns us in, I’ll be sure to mention how helpful you’ve been.”
    The girl blanched at Irawan’s naked threat. “I’ll call him,” she said hesitantly.
    Half an hour later, a small blue hauler pulled up in front of the shop beneath the apartment with its door open. We’d wrapped scarves around our heads to avoid identification, although the drones wouldn’t need much. Once in the hauler, we pulled a heavy, smelly blanket around us and hunkered down.
    “Thirty minutes,” he said. “It’ll be safer if I take back streets.”
    He drove like a madman, careening through the streets with his low flying anti-grav hauler. The principle of the vehicle was simple; it floated a meter above the streets and was powered by small arc-jets to push it in one direction or another. It was an extremely inexpensive vehicle, not to mention a little slippery to navigate.
    “We’re as close as we can get,” he said. “There’s a Soledad checkpoint up ahead. I can go no further.”
    “Two chips to buy your vehicle?” Irawan replied instantly.
    “Let me see them,” he said. She handed them over. He didn’t even turn around, just hopped out of the vehicle and walked away.
    Irawan handed me the reading pad and said, “Set up a secure channel with Cent-Comm. Tell ‘em we’re coming in hot.” She jumped into the driver’s seat and took off at the vehicle's max speed. At this point, I was more concerned about our side shooting us than theirs. I doubted that the checkpoint we were approaching had ever seen action, I was certain our base had seen plenty.
    “Well. They know we’re coming. It didn’t sound like they believed me,” I said.
    “Get down.” She swung the back end of the hauler around. Two men had jumped out of a temporary building which was