"So they might imagine you're involved in some way. That's the danger. That's what Brian was trying to tell you."

"I am involved."

Turk registered her determination and decided he wouldn't press her on it, at least not tonight. "Well, maybe you don't have to leave. Maybe you just need to lay low for a little while."

"If I hide, I can't do my work."

"If you mean talking to people who knew your father and asking questions about Fourths, no, you can't do that, obviously. But there's no disgrace in keeping quiet until we figure this out."

"Is that what you'd do?"

Fuck no, Turk thought. What I would do is pack my case and catch the next bus out of town. Which was what he had always done when he felt threatened. No point in saying that to Lise, though.

Briefly, he wondered if that was why Lise's father had vanished.

Maybe the idea of Fourthness had seemed like a door out of whatever secret sin he couldn't endure. Or maybe he didn't take up the offer of artificial longevity at all. Maybe he just walked. People did.

Turk shrugged.

Lise was looking at him with a sad intensity he felt in his throat. "So you're telling me Brian's right and I ought to go back to the States."

"I regret every minute we're not together. But I hate the idea of you getting hurt."

She looked at him a while longer. Two more couples had just come through the door—probably tourists, but who could tell? Their privacy was compromised. She reached across the table and touched his hand.

"Let's go for a walk," she said.

* * * * *

Really, he thought, all we know about each other is a handful of stories and thumbnail sketches: the short version of everything. Before tonight, it was all that had seemed necessary. Their best conversations had been wordless. Suddenly that wasn't enough.

"Where are you parked?" she asked.

"The lot around the corner."

"Me too. But I don't know if I should use my car. It might be tagged with a tracking device or something."

"More likely they bugged mine. If they were following me this morning I would have led them straight to Tomas." And Tomas, an old man living hand-to-mouth out in the Flats, would have been an easy target.

A quick blood test—no doubt forcibly applied—would have revealed him as a Fourth. And then all bets were off.

"Why would they do that, though? Why take him away?"

"To interrogate him. I can't think of any other reason."

"They think he knows something?"

"If they're serious they would have given him a hemo test as soon as they were through the door."

"No. Genomic Security—if we're assuming that's who's responsible—doesn't work like that. Even here, there are limits. You can't steal people away and interrogate them for no reason."