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"That’s cool I’et out" I forced et so from the van"

"Attempts to break the isolation seals will be met with necessary force"

"Necessary force" was a polite way of saying that the house security syste to get the doors open "Noted," I said "I’ht there, and I won’t even be turning on the engine Promise"

"Your compliance is appreciated," said the house, and went silent I wted a few seconds to see if it was going to try to evicthappened I started for the van, , it et really messy, really fast Use of lethal force by private security systems has been authorized since souns with du infected His estate tried to sue the security firht around and sued the state, saying they hadn’t been allowed to do the things they had to do if they wanted to keep their client alive

"Mangue She reached the van a few steps ahead of ainst the door "Do you ree Nice to see you" I pressedthe van identify me as an authorized driver The locks clicked open "So does this ed Her face still looked wrong without her sunglasses, alien and familiar at the sa with things that are too big for you to handle So Maggie goes into vapor lock, and Mahir shouts at the eh to his wife, and you…"

"I see dead people walking around and giving me orders Great" I offered her a pained s you here This would get old daeratedly "There’s a bright side to everything"

"Really? What’s the bright side for Florida? Because I’ one" Our field equipment was piled haphazardly around the van’s interior, stacked on counters and taking up most of the floor space It would take an hour,ready for an excursion I couldn’t bla it away in this condition--they weren’t expecting to leave the house without a lot of notice, and they weren’t field operatives--but I still had to grit my teeth when I saw that the weapon racks hadn’t been properly secured If we had to run for any reason, we’d all wind up getting killed by our own carelessness

"If you’re not seeing one, I can’t see it either You know that"

I bit back the urge to swear at her Fighting with George used to be one ofoff steaone; it doesn’t see when neither of us can really leave the room Besides, in ivable and she’d leave e, ever I wasn’t so ht

"Hey, George, doout how you’re just a figination and helparound calling h of that from everybody else"

"Your wish is y co up to join , naturally, but her feet stillsounds when they hit the floorboards, and her shadow on the walls moved just the way that it was supposed to I had to adh I knew that probably wasn’t what n

"Really? ’Cause right nohat I’ for is a tank" I paused "Maybe two tanks Becks will probably want one, too, and I don’t want to be greedy"

"Always thinking of others, that’s you" Her fingers brushed the back of my neck as she moved past me I shivered "The last ti it back here, with the rest of the backup network hardware"

"We moved that around Valentine’s Day, when Becks did her ‘romantic places to take an Irwin’ article series" I snapped ainst the counter to watch as I dropped tothe van floor, and pried up the trapdoor it had been concealing We don’t have a coht would have been prohibitive, not to mention the structural instability it would have introduced--but we had a few extra storage co the firstspots for contraband ere doing certain types of articles, and the rest of the time, they were a convenient place to hide snack foods… or excess hardware

The first co cartoon pn and Russian girlie azines I smiled despite uts, but what you did not have was taste"