I step out of the truck, and my brain, fuzzy around the edges, lurches into alert mode. I crouch slightly before I realize I’m doing it, using the truck door as cover. Part of me wonders when this became a thing, my initial instinct to treat every situation like I’m walking around in Syria or Yemen or some other place where the citizens are happily killing one another. I don’t even know what triggered this until I see the door to my motel room. The window next to it has the curtain drawn, like all the other rooms, but there’s a bright seam of lamplight at the very edge of the curtain. I turned all the lights off yesterday when I left, just before I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle. The sign is still hanging from the door. No maid turned on the light, then.

I scan the motel parking lot, then the closed doors of the rooms. Seeing nobody, I reach back into the truck and from underneath the driver’s seat pull out a CZ 75 9mm. Holding the pistol low, I dash across the parking lot toward my room. Nobody shouts or steps out from another doorway, and when I reach the building I flatten myself against the wall to one side of the door to my room. With my left hand I take my room’s key card out of another pocket—my jumpsuit has all sorts of pockets, holding all sorts of things—and slide the card into the slot above the door handle. The tiny light next to the slot blinks green, and I push the handle down and open the door, going in crouched, my pistol up to cover the room.

The bedside lamp is on and I can see a man—Black, bald—standing next to my bed about ten feet away. His back is to me and his hands are already raised to shoulder height. “Don’t move,” I say, reaching for the zip tie cuffs I have in yet another pocket, my pistol aimed dead-center at his back. “Get down on your knees.”

“On this carpet?” the man says in a familiar deep voice.

Relief floods me and I lower the pistol. “Caesar!”

Caesar turns his head to look at me, lowers his hands, and raises an eyebrow. “Nice jumpsuit.”

I put the pistol down on the nearby dresser and kick the door closed behind me before crossing the room to hug him. He smells like eucalyptus and burnt cinnamon. “How did you find me?” I ask, my face still pressed against his chest.

He hmms in response, and I can feel it vibrate from deep inside him. “Twitter.”

“Twitter?” I lift my head and look up at him, still wrapped in a hug. “Are you kidding? My Twitter handle is generic as hell!”