“Did your Mends run away and leave you?” The child nodded. “Would you like to come inside a minute? It’s warm and I could fix you a cup of hot milk.” The temptation was too great to resist, Slowly the child nodded. Amanda reached for her hand and the child cautiously accepted. At that very moment, a woman shot out from behind the trees and seized the child’s arm.
“No,” she cried, pulling the girl toward her. She too was dressed in a makeshift costume. “I’m sorry, we’re lost. Come on, Dierdre.”
“It’s all right,” protested Amanda, but the child’s mother was already vanishing, dragging the weeping girl toward the open road. She was too far gone in her mistrust to accept the kindness of this stranger; kindness carried danger with it.
Amanda stood perfectly still as the pair of squatters retreated. Her eyes filled with tears, and she wondered for a moment what sort of life the Exile mother had had before the troubles, the Transition. Perhaps she’d been a doctor, a professor, a patriot of some sort who had some to be thought dangerous. The Transition turned everyone’s fortunes upside down, and Amanda flushed at the realization that her own position was one of the few that had actually improved. Before the takeover, Peter Bradford had been… what? A minor official among dozens of others, living, as did almost everyone in Milford County, in the shadow of the Milford clan. Life was so easy then—a new car every third year, meat on the table, and, with prudent saving, college for the children. An easy life—but where was the distinction? No, the distinction did not lie with men like Peter Bradford, but with those like Devin Milford, the risk takers, the windmill jousters, the dreamers.
Once, Amanda Bradford told herself, Devin Milford had actually dreamed of her . It was back in high school, when Devin and Peter Bradford were close if somewhat unlikely friends, and Amanda Taylor had been pursued by both of them. Even then, with unfailing intuition, she understood somehow that Devin offered excitement, grandeur, and the sort of insecurity that thrilled her but that she could not finally accept. Peter Bradford offered safety, calm, and, yes, love; he was a steady man, a good man. Why then did Amanda sometimes catch herself wondering if she had somehow failed her deeper self in picking him?
Jackie Bradford rode her bike slowly and carefully along the neglected, potholed road, her thoughts on the dance tryouts that afternoon.
So deep was her concentration that she was unaware of the hum of a motorcycle coming up behind her. The hum had mounted to a roar before she noticed.
Justin Milford, nineteen, gunned the engine of his Harley-Davidson, a lovingly tended machine that was older than he was. That motorcycle, the leather jacket and goggles that went with it—and Jackie Bradford— were about the only things in Milford County that Justin liked.
“Hi.” Justin was one of those people who could make that single syllable sound intriguing, sexy, and even vaguely threatening.
Jackie was delighted to see Mm but maintained her cool. “What are you doing here?”
“I woke up this morning and was dying for a kiss. Thought I’d come in to town to see if I could find anybody who looked halfway decent.”
“Maybe you better keep looking.” She held back her smile.
“I’m always looking,” said Justin as they approached the beginning of a long, gradual rise. “Let me give you a tow—you’ll want to save your energy for tryouts.” She was flattered that he remembered and stopped her bike. Justin brought the Harley to a halt beside her and handed her a rope that was attached to the rack in back of the motorcycle seat. “Ready?”
He gunned his engine and the rope snapped taut, dragging Jackie Bradford’s bike at a giddy pace. The maneuver was gutsy, perilous, intoxicating—the perfect distillation of the effect Justin Milford had on her. At the top of the hillock, Justin stopped short, and Jackie’s momentum carried her right into his arms.
He slipped off his goggles, and leaned over confidently for his reward. They straddled their respective bikes and kissed: a flurry of awkward but enthusiastic pecks and smiles.
“I’m only doing this because you remembered my tryout,” she whispered.
“It’s the right way to start the day,” he said with all the confidence of one much more experienced than she. “Gets the juices flowing.”
“I’m late for school. Gotta go. I love you.”
“What about tonight? The Cavern?”
“My father won’t let me go all the way to Omaha.”
“Don’t ask your father. Just go.”
“Let me think. Come by after school. After tryouts. Okay?”
“I might,” Justin said, and pulled his goggles down.
Jackie stomped down hard on the pedals and raced, late now, to the safety of school. She heard the roar of Justin’s bike as he sped off in the opposite direction.
Kimberly sleepily watched Andrei come out of the bathroom, dressed in slacks and a sport coat; he was one of the most powerful men in the New America, yet he looked less like a politician than like a cross between a successful executive and a professor. He walked to the bed, unaware that Kimberly was awake. He bent down to her and kissed her, surprised to find her arms tightly around his neck, pulling him down onto the bed.
“Get back in here.” She smiled lazily, her morning breath milky and warm.
“No time now, but come along. We could make love in the car.”
“Pervert.”
“There are many women who would love such an offer.”
“Maybe you can find one on the way to the office.”
He kissed her. Her brown eyes clouded over. He watched her in fascination. This was not an act; frequently she experienced these sudden, agonizing swings of emotion.
“Are you all right? You seemed very sad this morning.”
She nodded, as though dismissing it. “I’m fine.”
Andrei knew that was not true, but he had learned from public life that it was much easier to let it pass. He went to the closet, picked up an overnight bag, and came back to the bed.
“I need you today,” she said.
“You have your play to rehearse. You’ll probably not even notice I’m gone.”
He kissed her again and she responded slightly. “Remember about tonight,” he said.
“Do we have to go? I mean—to Omaha?”
“Yes we do, my dear. The nomination of a governor-general is an epoch-making moment in the political life of your country—of our country. Besides, you’ll get to perform.” He got up and walked to the door, opening it.
“Andrei—”
“Yes?” He turned back to face Kimberly again.
“I love you.”
Andrei nodded. “Be ready at six.”
Mikel was waiting when Andrei reached his big, bright comer office high above Lake Michigan. The room was furnished with white rugs and sofas, abstract paintings that had been officially labeled decadent, and sleek silver stereo and video equipment. Atop a large, neat desk stood a framed photograph of Kimberly alongside a small statue of an American Indian. It amused Andrei to surround himself with bits of Americana.
But Mikel was not amused. He was efficient, humorless, and ambitious—the sort of man, Andrei knew, that one must use wisely and watch carefully. Andrei thought it possible that Mikel spied on him for his enemies in the KGB. The possibility neither surprised nor offended him. It was part of the challenge of staying in the game.
“Good morning, Colonel.” Mikel rose swiftly from the conference table, his close-cropped hair precisely parted and flawlessly slicked down.
“Good morning, Mike!, You are aware of my trip to Washington?”
“Yes. Your plane is waiting.”
“You canceled my day’s appointments?”
“Yes. With one difficulty. Magistrate Marion Andrews considers her business urgent. I told her you would see her this evening, upon your return from Washington.”