Neal Stephenson - Reamde

“Heard” being more likely, since weather had been overcast almost the entire time. The pilots were by no means convinced that they’d achieved anything like a proper search of the area. Consequently, the investigation had been at a standstill for the last few days. The families—who had flown up to B.C. and who now seemed to be operating some sort of crisis center out of a hotel in Prince George—the nearest conurbation that even remotely resembled a major city—were insistent that something must be wrong and were coming dangerously close to saying impolite things about the RCMP’s conduct of the investigation.

Reading between the lines, it was easy enough to make out what was going on. The police—though they wouldn’t dream of saying so openly—were almost certain that the hunters and guides were all dead, probably as a result of driving over a cliff in fog. If they were merely stuck, they’d have made their situation known on the radio, or they’d have hiked out to a major road, something they were more than equipped to do. But the police couldn’t just come out and say that. So they had to manage the situation by expressing confidence that the aerial search would turn something up sooner or later. Beyond that, there was little that they could do other than make comforting and reassuring noises when cornered by reporters or distraught wives.

Olivia, needless to say, had a different theory altogether. It was difficult to imagine anything crazier-sounding than that a nest of international terrorists had stolen a business jet from Xiamen, crashed it in the mountains of British Columbia, murdered a Suburban-load of bear hunters, and headed for the border.

On the positive side, though, it should be an easy enough hypothesis to investigate. The Suburban might be four-wheel drive, but it was unlikely that Jones and company had driven it off-road for a thousand kilometers. They’d have taken the path of least resistance.

Actually, she reflected as she googlemapped British Columbia, it wasn’t merely the path of least resistance. It was the path . This region did not have a road grid. It just had a road. Unless they had taken an extremely circuitous route along logging tracks in the mountains—unlikely, this early in the year—or looped around far to the east, into northern Alberta, they’d have had to proceed south on Highway 97.

And why not? If Jones had managed to hijack the Suburban out in the middle of nowhere, he’d have understood perfectly well that he had only a few days—perhaps just a few hours—in which to do something useful with it before some kind of alert was sent out. He would have headed straight for the U.S. border along Highway 97, through Prince George (actually right in front of the hotel where the families of his victims had set up their base camp), and down into the more ramified system of highways that spread across southern B.C. If he didn’t make it across the border right away, he’d look for a way to ditch the Suburban where it wouldn’t be noticed, and he’d transfer to some other vehicle.

And then he’d think up a way to cross the border, probably out in the middle of nowhere. Something that would be difficult to prevent even if they knew it was going to happen and had a full-scale manhunt under way.

They wouldn’t need to buy food, since they could eat camp rations stolen from the hunters. Hell, for that matter they could just go hungry for a day; it wouldn’t be the first time.

The only thing they would need would be petrol. Gas.

Another look at the map.

If they had acquired the Suburban up in the region where the search was going on, and if its tank had been reasonably full, they’d have been able to make it all the way to Prince George before having to refuel. Of course, there were other refueling stations scattered along the road north of there—people had to buy gas somewhere—but Jones would have avoided those instinctively, not wanting to make a memorable impression on the proprietors, who might have recognized the Suburban as belonging to a local guide service. No, he’d have taken it all the way to the relative anonymity of Prince George and then he’d have bought his petrol in the largest, most impersonal gas station he could find.

Tomorrow she would be driving north to Prince George. Somewhere in that town there must be a surveillance camera that had caught the image she needed. And if she could only sweet-talk its owners into giving her a copy of that image, then she could use it as a sort of sluice gate to divert a great deal of misdirected Jones-hunting energy into a more profitable channel

Tonight, though, she had to sleep. Was, in fact, sleeping.

MOST OF CSONGOR’S time in T’Rain had been spent blundering about in a state of hapless newbie confusion. Only his long experience as a systems administrator, struggling with Byzantine software installations, had prevented him from plummeting into despair and simply giving up. Not that any of the sysadmin’s knowledge and skills were applicable here. The psychological stance was the thing: the implicit faith, a little naive and a little cocky, that by banging his head against the problem for long enough he’d be able to break through in the end. The advances he had made in understanding the Carthinias Exchange had raised his spirits a bit. On the other hand, watching Marlon run a small war was crushing his morale. The immense power of Marlon’s character, his inventory of spells, weapons, and magical items, the size of his army, and his facility in soaking up relevant data from the boggling array of displays and interfaces on his screen and acting immediately upon that information, all bespoke many years’ experience playing the game and made it clear to Csongor that he was as out of his league here as he would have been on the field at a World Cup soccer match. Nevertheless, the dogged sysadmin in him would not concede defeat and kept gazing stupidly over Marlon’s shoulder, trying to make sense of what was happening and to pick up a few tips as to how he might make better use of Lottery Discountz’s cruelly limited set of powers.

For that reason he was completely surprised and utterly unprepared when Qian Yuxia stormed across the Internet café and hurled a cup of water into the face of a man who had been sitting there for approximately the last half hour. “I am not a friggin’ T-bird!” she exclaimed.

Then she said it again.

“You want a T-bird, go look some other place!”

Csongor had never heard the English expression T-bird before, but Yuxia had now uttered it three times, so he was pretty certain he was hearing it correctly. He had no idea what it meant.

The victim of the assault was a tall, lanky white man with a scraggly blond beard and green eyes that looked alert and more bemused than angry. He had been surprised by the water in the face, but after that he had sprung to his feet and turned to face his assailant. Not in a threatening manner—he was careful to keep some distance—but in a way that made it clear he was ready to address any follow-up assault should Yuxia care to mount one. He was looking at her interestedly and was by no means afraid or even embarrassed. But the moment Csongor went into movement, this fellow noticed it, and he shifted his position as if to make ready for any threat from that quarter. The green eyes gave Csongor a quick head-to-toe scan and locked in immediately on the right front pocket of Csongor’s baggy trousers, which happened to contain a loaded Makarov. Somehow he seemed to guess what was banging around in that pocket. And this fact changed everything. The man showed both of his palms to Csongor, a gesture that said both Look, my hands are empty and Stop where you are . Csongor faltered, not so much out of obedience as because he was nonplussed by the stranger’s behavior.