All the lights in the house were out, and Eric held Nicole’s hand tight as they followed the man through the living room and down a hallway. Then he gave a startled grunt as the man stopped so quickly that he bumped into his back.

“Wait a moment.” A small lamp flicked on, causing Eric to blink sharply. A tall, lean man bent over a telephone, his back to them. Nicole stared at Eric for a moment, then raised the stun gun.

“Jeff, this is Don Anderson. I…yes, yes. I heard it. It’s the rebels. I have two of them in my house. I…yes, of course I mean it. I have them right here. Can you take them and send them on? There are Guardians all over the neighborhood.”

Nicole dropped the muzzle of her weapon, a great wash of relief flooding over her as she squeezed Eric’s hand.

“Good,” Anderson said quickly. “We’ll come through the garage.” He hung up the phone and turned around. “All right, let’s go.”

“Thank you for what you’re doing,” Eric said fervently.

The man waved that away and then clicked off the light. “Let’s go.”

For the next hour, that was the pattern—one neighbor passing them through his house and on to the next. Sometimes they skirted as many as three or four houses, sometimes they crossed the alleys straight across, but steadily they moved farther away from Nicole’s neighborhood. Each time there was a quick handshake, a fleeting touch on the arm, and a solemn wish for luck. If any of the people—sometimes a single man, often a couple, once an elderly widow—were thinking of the consequences of their actions, they gave no sign. They were grim-faced and talked little, sometimes moaning in pain as their fear triggered bursts from the implantations, but no one hesitated or seemed regretful.

Eric had lost count of how many homes and yards they had transversed when one of their hosts—a man in his early forties, with two wide-eyed teen-aged boys—stopped them just as they were about to leave his garage. “Wait,” he said. “I have an idea.” He spun around and went back into the house, leaving his sons posted in the alley to watch.

Eric sank down on the cement and leaned against the car parked in the garage. For a moment Nicole stared at him in the darkness; then she joined him. It was too dark to see her face, but he could hear the anxiety in her voice when she spoke.

“How’s your leg?”

“Sore,” he admitted, massaging it gently, “but at least it’s functioning. I’ll be okay. How’re you doing?”

“Marvelous, considering. I can’t believe these people.”

“Neither can I. Aren’t they something?”