“And the key to all this is in my body?” said Willy. “Wally must have left us some clues. We just need to look.”
The trail to Willy’s body began and ended with Sintil8, who had, like us, disappeared off the grid. The thought of tracking down a gangster like Sintil8 frightened me, but then, our choices had boiled down to the lesser of two rather nasty evils. The only clue we had was Sintil8’s real name, Sergei Mikhailov, which Patricia had dug up for us.
Clouds of Cognix smarticles released in San Francisco the day before began to float in on the breeze, even up here, and I could feel small channels and rivulets of information begin to flow, connecting me to the multiverse. As refreshing as it felt to my metasenses, it now took on an ominous feel as well.
“Let’s get a move on, people,” I said as my phantoms shivered. “I think we should stay away from major cities as much as possible.”
“That’s not where I think I am anyway,” added Willy for good measure.
The four of us with physical bodies shouldered our backpacks of gear. I checked around the campsite for anything left behind and kicked some dirt onto the smoldering remains of the fire. Then, sharing nervous grins, we started out on the path that led into the great redwood forest and beyond.