Megan took a deep breath, then shook her head. "Not until I know for sure what I'm talking about," she said. "Is the other machine free?"
"For a miracle, yes," her dad said. "Your brothers both decided to go out at once… the place has been unnaturally quiet. But, Megan, why not have some lunch first. If you're going to worry about things, there's no point in doing it on an empty stomach."
Her stomach growled emphatically. "Yeah," Megan said, "not a bad idea… "
The simple fact of hunger distracted her more than Megan would have thought. Even when she was done eating a sandwich that would have astonished even Mike, she didn't much feel like going virtual again that afternoon. It was partly that Megan was conscious of spending a whole lot of her time in the Net lately, more than usual, but also an acknowledgement of a feeling of discomfort with Burt's basic problem. For all her occasional problems with her brothers and her parents, Megan was troubled by the concept of home as Burt must see it; as a place you didn't want to be, somewhere you wanted at all costs to escape from. Maybe if I'm going to figure this out, she thought, later that evening, while curled up with her father's immense copy of The Complete Dickens in a chair in the living room, I'm going to have to try to think more like someone who doesn 't see home as the center of life, the safe place… There were certainly enough people in Dickens' writing who felt that way, and Megan spent the rest of the evening immersed in David Copper- field, trying to get a handle on the insecurity and the pain.
The next morning was Monday morning, and for Megan, Burt's business and the matter of whatever was going on at Breathing Space retreated somewhat into the background, especially after she left a virtmail for Wilma about having seen Burt, and Wilma didn't answer it, though her system acknowledged that she'd read it. Maybe he's been in touch with her, finally, Megan thought. Maybe things have gone off the boil, a little… Which would be good. While the school year was fast winding down toward summer, there were still final exams to think about; in particular, the upcoming advanced- placement math final was giving her the creeps. She had been doing all right in classwork, and much to her relief had finally been getting to grips with the parts of calculus that had been eluding her, these last couple of months. But now, with the final exam only two weeks away, Megan was starting to get nervous. She left the virtmails piled up on her desk for the next couple of days, and spent practically all her free time immersed in integrals and other associated discomforts, telling herself that she would never need this junk once she was working for Net Force as a strategic operations analyst. And when that day comes I'll toast marshmallows over my burning math books…
It was fairly late Wednesday evening when she looked up from her fourth attempt to solve one particularly knotty integral and glanced at where Saturn was in the sky. She did a quick calculation in her head. My God, it must be eleven-thirty, Megan thought. Why am I still here torturing myself like this?
She looked down at the integral on the math-workbook datapad on her desk. "Oh, go on," Megan said in annoyance, "show me the answer."
Her handwriting on the surface of the pad disappeared, to be replaced by the tidy print of the workbook program's output. Megan leaned down to look at the result, started to swear, and then stopped herself. Too damn simple, she thought. Why do I always go at this stuff the complicated way? Sometimes it's genuinely easy. Why do I have trouble believing that?
She straightened up, and at the same moment heard the sound of someone "knocking" for admission to her workspace. "Yeah?" Megan said.
Wilma stepped suddenly out of the air into her space. That surprised Megan. Wilma wasn't terribly good at staying up late. "Wil? What's up-"
But immediately, from the look on Wilma's face, Megan knew. "Have you heard from Burt at all lately?" Wilma said, urgent.
"Uh, no, not since Sunday. I've been sort of busy-"
"He's gone," Wilma said.
Megan let out a long breath. "Gone where?"
"I don't know. I tried to get in touch with him a couple of times. Monday, Tuesday… He was there, but he wasn't available. I left him virtmails. No answer. And then, a little while ago, I queried them again… " Wilma shook her head, and her face was a study in shock, the face of someone coming to terms with something she'd been trying hard to believe wouldn't happen for a long while yet. "He took all his things this afternoon, they said, and left Breathing Space… "
Megan swallowed. Oh, God, did I make this happen sooner than it might have otherwise? she thought, flushing first hot and then cold with fear. So this is how you keep him from "driving drunk99? Hey, nice work.
"Megan, what am I going to do? We've got to find him!" Wilma said.
"Yeah," Megan said. "We'll find him." But she had no idea how.
Chapter 5
The rest of that evening was difficult. Megan found herself trying to reassure Wilma without actually lying to her. Yet she couldn't even say "He'll be all right," because she had no indication whatsoever that he would be. In fact, Megan couldn't say much of anything, between just letting Wilma talk her fears out, and herself dealing with the rush of sidelined concerns about Breathing Space and Burt that were now washing over her, full force. When Wilma finally headed back to her own space, after midnight, Megan sagged back in the chair behind her desk and just stared into space for a little while, thinking about what to do next.
"Space manager," she said finally.
"Listening, Megan."
"I want to talk to whatever administrative staff are available at the Breathing Space Net address I accessed Sunday."
"Working on that for you. Do you have a name to search for?"
"No. Just get me whoever's on supervisory duty for the facility where Burt Kamen was staying."
"Very well. Waiting for an answer."
Megan stood up behind the desk. A moment later she found herself looking at another desk, in a handsome office done in mauves and grays, colors she suspected had been picked for their restful qualities. Behind the desk was sitting a handsome middle-aged woman, conservatively dressed in a dark business jacket, a woman whose face reminded her a little of her mother's: high-cheekboned, with eyes slightly slanted, the skin around the eyes and mouth a little lined, but in ways that made Megan think of authority rather than age. "I'm Donna Killester," the woman said. "How can I assist you, Miss, uh, O'Malley?"
"I'm looking for my friend Burt Kamen," Megan said. "I understand he was staying with you until earlier today."
"He was," Ms. Killester said, "but I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about where he's gone. We've already had a couple of inquiries about him today, but I'm afraid I couldn't help them, either."
A couple? Interesting. Did his folks finally get off their fundaments and do something? "You can't tell me," Megan said, "or you won 7 tell me?"
She tried hard not to sound too challenging as she said it. Ms. Killester smiled just slightly and said, "Obviously there are confidentiality issues involved. But in this case, I mean 'can't.' Mr. Kamen didn't leave any indication of where he was going, or when he might be back, if indeed he intends to come back at all, since he didn't leave any personal effects deposited with the facility where he was staying."
"He can come back, though, if he wants to?"
"Of course he can," Ms. Killester said. "Our charter is very clear on our responsibilities to any young person who comes to us. We turn no one away unless they're chronically violent, or chronically involved in criminal activities… in which case other social services organizations get involved, as you might imagine."
Megan nodded. "Is there any way I could leave a message for him, in case he does come back?"
"Yes, of course. His Net access and virtmail accounts here are still active, so that friends and relatives can get in touch with him. They stay that way for a year. Or even longer, if a review indicates the extension is warranted. It's a very basic part of our service, one that's easy for us to provide, and it's not one we would cut off without good reason."