Really, he knew that the best thing for him to do would be to ditch his current pair of contacts. Except almost anything he might need to do – make a purchase, call Mitchell, anything that might require money – couldn’t be achieved without access to the funds stored in his Ubiquitous Profile, stored in his contacts; his UP was his bank, ID and means of communication all rolled into one. And even if he did buy and register a new pair, he’d still have to transfer his UP to them before he could use them, and then he’d be right back where he started. Dan’s notion of bootleg contacts, complete with their own fake Ubiquitous Profiles, was starting to make a great deal of sense.

Right now, he either risked using his UP or he walked all the way to Sioux Falls.

Sighing heavily, Jeff stepped towards the nearest bus. Its door rattled open at his approach, the hydraulics wheezing slightly. He sat near the back, hunching himself down low in the seat, and purchased a one-way ticket that would take him all the way. He pictured alarms already strobing red in some secret government facility populated by sober-looking men and women dedicated to his immediate demise.

The vehicle was freezing cold, and he wrapped himself tighter in his down jacket. He entertained a brief fantasy of jumping back off, then making his way back to the cabin and the tool-shed to retrieve the contacts containing the stolen database, but a saner part of him knew it would be the best way to wind up dead. And, besides, they’d almost certainly have discovered the safe where he’d hidden them by now.

He pulled the hood of his jacket over his face and rested his head against the cold glass. He then only realized he’d fallen asleep when the bus rumbled into life, bouncing gently as it pulled out on to the highway to follow its pre-programmed route. He coughed and sneezed, and looked around, noticing that he was still the only passenger.

Jeff rode the same bus all the way back to Missoula, passing through several small towns along the way. By now it was picking up and dropping off an endless succession of passengers. A couple of hours later, he disembarked and grabbed a seat on an interstate hopper that flew him over lakes, hills and towns before depositing him on a landing pad just outside the Sioux Falls city limits. It was now nearly seven hours since he’d woken up in the back of the stolen car, and he felt tired, scared and dirty. However, at least he had managed to grab some breakfast from an autocafé during a scheduled stopover.