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One of his superiors must have been a human being under his funny-looking
suit. Clothes in the home timeline kept making Gianfranco want to giggle. The
man gave Gianfranco permission to go around Rimini with somebody along to keep
an eye on him. Eduardo was the somebody.
The Roman arch in the middle of the square was the same here as it was in his
alternate. The little cars zipping around near it and under it sure weren't,
though. There were many more different styles, and they were painted in much
brighter colors. And there was another difference. "The exhaust doesn't make
my eyes sting!" he said.
"That's right," Eduardo said. "They burn hydrogen, not gasoline or gasoline
and motor oil, like German Trabants." He made a face Trabants were nasty. "The
exhaust is water vapor, not a bunch of stinking, poisonous chemicals."
"I've heard talk about using hydrogen back home," Gianfranco said. "It's
nothing but talk, though."
"They probably won't try to do it till they run out of oil," Eduardo said.
"And that's liable to be too late."
"How will you get me back to my alternate?" Gianfranco asked. "1 don't think
you can put me back in the basement at The Three Sixes."
"I don't think so, either, even if it would be nice if we could," Eduardo
answered. "I don't know anything officially, you understand. My guess would
be, they'll take you over to Milan and insert you there."
Gianfranco wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. It made him seem more like
a needle than a person. And he said, "What? Back at The Gladiator? Aren't the
Security Police still all over it, too?"
"Not any more. We monitor them," Eduardo said. "The shop is still locked up,
but that's about it. They don't think anybody else will show up there."
"So if I appear down in the basement in the middle of the night . . ."
Gianfranco began.
"You've got it," Eduardo said. "All you'd have to do is come out and go home.
Of course, you might want to wear gloves while you're in the shop."
"I don't know why, except maybe when I touch the door to leave," Gianfranco
said. "You probably have more fingerprints inside there than I do, but I can't
think of many other people who would."
Eduardo laughed. "I can't even tell you you're wrong. You sure wasted a lot of
time in there."
"I don't think it was a waste," Gianfranco replied with dignity. "If I hadn't
spent so much time there, I never would have got here even if you did have to
kidnap me to get me down the stairs."
"That's not why 1 did it," Eduardo said. "Things were going wrong. We couldn't
get down there unless I grabbed you."
"Whatever you do with me, I hope you do it soon. My family must be going out
of their minds," Gianfranco said.
"And they're probably furious at the Grosettis because of me," Eduardo said.
"They didn't figure I'd turn out to be such a desperate criminal. But none of
what happens next is my call.
It's up to the bosses at Crosstime Traffic. They'll decide when they're good
and ready, and that'll be that. Any which way, it's all over for me."
"What do you mean?"
"I won't be going back to that alternate. No chance they'll let me, and I
don't think I would even if I could. I've been burned. I'm bound to be on
every wanted list in the Italian People's Republic. If I show my nose there,
everyone will jump on me with both feet."
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"Oh." Gianfranco nodded. "St. I guess you're right." Ed-uardo wouldn't be
coming back to see Annarita any more, then. That didn't break Gianfranco's
heart, even if he did his best not to show it.
The higher-ups at Crosstime Traffic figured out what to do faster than Eduardo
had made Gianfranco think they would. That afternoon, he and Eduardo got into
an A If a Romeo to go back to Milan. "Please fasten your seat belt," a woman's
voice said after he sat down.
He did. "How does it know?" he asked the guy who was driving, a fellow in his
mid-twenties named Moreno. Whether that was first name or last Gianfranco
never found out.
"Sensor in the seat, and another one in the lock mechanism." Moreno spoke a
French-flavored dialect. Gianfranco had to listen to him closely to follow
what he said.
He drove like a maniac. Gianfranco had never imagined going from Rimini to
Milan so fast, not unless he flew. He was glad he wore the seat belt. How much
good it would do in case of a crash at that speed was a different question.
Every time the Alfa hit a bump, Gianfranco almost went through the ceiling.
They were doing better than 160 kilometers an hour when an unlucky sparrow
bounded off the windshield. "That little bird is "
"Kaput," Moreno finished for him, with a wag of the hand. Gianfranco would
have said something like very unhappy, which didn't mean Moreno was
wrong there was a tiny splash of blood on the window glass.
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