Offworld by Robin Parrish Page A

poles and buildings. More than once, Chris and Terry were
forced to go off-road to get around the piles of stationary traffic.
    Eventually they both turned north onto 417 toward Jamestown,
the suburb where Trisha's boyfriend Paul lived.
    "Hey, Chris?" Terry spoke into his earpiece.
    "Yeah?"
    "Isn't 417 a toll road?"

    "Why? You out of change?" Chris quipped.
    It wasn't long before the toll appeared, six lanes for differing kinds
of drivers-some with electronic credits, others with radio-enabled
passes that deducted funds automatically as a vehicle passed, which
didn't even require the driver to stop.
    Every one of the six lanes was blocked off with a long line of
vehicles. Concrete barriers prevented any attempt to slip around the
roadblock.
    They had no choice but to stop and take the time to move each
car individually until one of the lanes was cleared. Fortunately, every
car still had its keys in the ignition. Unfortunately, the electric or
hydrogen-fueled engines on almost all of them were dead, having
idled until there was no power left. Shifting the cars into neutral and
manually pushing them aside by hand was often their only option.
    An hour later, when the work was finished, Chris froze where
he stood in the middle of the road. He had just moved an old station
wagon out of their path but now stood completely still, the hairs on
his arms standing at attention.
    The dead calm of the highway had been disturbed by a new
sound. A sound not coming from the four of them. One of the first
he'd heard at all besides the wind.
    The others were already back in their respective vehicles, waiting
for him to return so they could resume their trek. But he didn't move,
listening carefully to the new sound. It clicked.
    Chris bolted for the SUV, cranked the engine, and gunned it back
out of the toll stop area.
    "What?!" Trisha cried from the passenger's seat. "What is it?"
    Chris didn't reply; he barely heard her. He rolled down all of the
vehicle's windows, concentrating, listening.
    Their path became an on-ramp that returned to the highway, and
as soon as the walls surrounding the toll ramp were gone, he barreled straight through the low steel barrier between the northbound
and southbound lanes.

    They'd barely crashed through the barrier into the southbound
lane, traveling in the wrong direction, when Chris slammed on the
brakes, screeching the tires to an ear-piercing whistle and stirring
up smoke.
    A tiny subcompact was coming straight at them and it likewise hit
the brakes as hard as it could. The noses of the two vehicles crunched
lightly against each other as both came to a sudden stop.
    Chris had to shake his head to clear away the jarring sensationthere hadn't been time to put on his seat belt as he looked through
the windshield at the place where the driver of the other car was.
But the subcompact's windows were tinted, making it impossible to
see its occupants.
    Terry squealed to a stop behind him in the pickup. As Chris
jumped from the SUV, his friends rushed out of the vehicles as well.
He glanced back at them with a mixture of surprise and concern,
then climbed over the hood of the SUV and approached the subcompact's side door.
    Terry caught Chris' glance immediately and pulled out a highpowered handgun from his waistband, holding it down at his side.
    Where did he get a gun?
    It didn't matter just now. Because suddenly they were not the only
four people on Earth. Whoever was in this car had to know more
about what was going on than they did, and it went without saying
that anybody left behind was, by default, automatically a suspect in
whatever had happened to everyone else.
    Chris crept carefully to the driver's side door, but before he reached
it, it clicked and swung open, and the driver stepped out.
    A diminutive girl, no more than twenty years old, stared back
at him. She was less than five feet tall, her red hair cut well above
her shoulders, without bangs, covering her