“Now, don’t get too upset, kid,” he said. “Raymond’s a dumbass, but I can’t believe he’s that much of a dumbass.”

“Thanks, I guess.” I sighed and nudged the key across the table absentmindedly. “So what are we going to do with this now? GSAF is going to be all over my back for it.”

Emil frowned. “GSAF knows about this?”

“Yeah. My friend found it on-site yesterday. I thought we’d managed to sneak it out without them noticing, but they were at my school today asking about it.”

Emil stood up so abruptly that his chair folded and collapsed on itself, falling to the ground with a deafening clatter. “Why didn’t you tell me GSAF knows about this?” he shouted. His eyes had that dangerous look to them like they’d had on the train platform, and suddenly I was kicking myself for having let my guard down.

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. In unison, our heads jerked around, staring at it in horror.

Emil crept over to the door and peered through the peephole. He cursed, then crept back over to the table. “It’s them.”

“What?” I whispered. “But how? Why?”

“Because of this,” Emil snapped. Before I could react to his invasion of my personal space, he’d yanked my palmtop out of my pocket and shoved it in my face. “Don’t they teach kids anything anymore? The government can track you at all times with these stupid things.”

My jaw moved up and down noiselessly. “So what do we do now?”

“We get the key out of here.”

I shoved it into my backpack while Emil gathered up the books with his data inside, everything except Podkayne of Mars. I watched, aghast, as he tossed the paperbacks into the fireplace. The dried-out spider weeds he’d used as kindling had smoldered down to almost nothing, but when the paper hit the embers, the fire roared back to life.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

“Never you mind. Just get going. Take this.” He pulled the coin out of his own shirt pocket, thrusting it into my hands. Then he flung my palmtop down onto the sofa and, quickly, dragged me toward the fire escape.

“Where am I supposed to go?” I said.

“Into the hills. There’s a map in that Heinlein book.” He grabbed Podkayne off the table and tossed it to me. “Follow it and wait for me in the cave. I’ll meet up with you later.”

“But what are you going to do?”

Emil scoffed. “Do you think I’d have made it this long if I didn’t know how to deal with GSAF? Now get moving!”