EDGE OF DAY

CHAPTER NINE

"The highway," Car said, "is no longer functioning. Would you like me to join the Maglev track?"

Day's skin was pulled back from the bones on her face. They were only going at two hundred miles an hour but she felt the speed in a way she'd never experienced it on the Lightboard train which ran from London to New York at a thousand miles an hour.

The police followed, siren flashing.

"Would you like me to join the Maglev track?"

"How long can we stay on the highway?"

"Approximately thirty-one miles. The highway has been dug up for magnetic reasons and is no longer operational."

That gave Day about ten minutes. Ten minutes and then what? She'd screwed up. She just didn't know how.

Well, there was Ed for a start. She should never have trusted the lying creep. She should have paid more attention to that voice inside her asking why she'd wipe her own memory to protect herself. She could assume Ed had lied about her hiring him. More like he'd been holding her prisoner. She'd let him fool her for a second time, and now she looked guilty for the shopping mall bombing because she'd run from the hospital!

Okay, this kind of thinking wasn't helping. The stress and pain in her body were overwhelming. She opened the medic droid's box of pain relief, popped a tablet from its plastic casing and threw it into her mouth. Her eyes watered. She'd never tasted anything so vile.

Just swallow it you wuss.

She needed to calm down and think. She breathed in and imagined the nightmare fading away. She imagined that what Will said was true: her situation was a delayed reflection of her inner state of mind. She had to release the fear.

What was the one thing she could do right now to feel safe?

Amber.

There were seven years between Day and her sister Amber. Day was eleven when Amber left home. After her departure they'd only spoken on special occasions—birthdays, Christmas, and, of course, the funeral. When their parents died and Amber showed up, Day barely recognized her sleek, twenty-three-year-old sister. In the space of five years Amber had metamorphosed from nomad into femme fatale.

After the funeral, they'd drunk Margaritas together and Amber had made Day memorize a number. She said if Day was ever in trouble, real goddam trouble, and she had no one to turn to, she should call the number.

"555 2091," Day muttered. Amber had made her repeat it over and over even while they were both wasted. And then she'd vanished again. Day hadn't seen her sister for five years. Well, for the last two she didn't remember, so anything was possible.

"Car," Day said. "Can you dial a number for me?"

"Yes."

"Five, five, five, two, zero, nine, one."

"This is not the number of a personal monitor."

"No."

"I will need to search deeper for a match. It may take a minute or two to comply with your request."

The siren outside whirred on and on. Day focused on deep breathing, even if it was using up lots of the car oxygen. She'd run out of road long before she'd run out of oxygen.

The car speaker played a ringing tone. Day's heart jumped. Her hands prickled with sweat. She gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white.

"Leave your message after the beep," a computerized voice said.

Day swallowed, trying to get some saliva into her throat so she could speak. "I need you to find me. I'm near Boulder, Colorado. I'm in big trouble." She paused for a second, distracted by the sensation that the car was slowing down. The landscape beyond her window didn't seem to go by in such a blur. She looked at the speedometer: one hundred and fifty miles an hour and descending.