2
lack urban plastic rat hole. Wide windows all along one side, ticket desks at the other, exit way in the distance, at the bottom end, left luggage right behind me, lights high overhead, pillars at skewed intervals form one end to the other, exit out to the buses back and on my right. I'd almost memorized the layout at the start. I'd had to.
On my left, an alcove filled with pinball machines and automatic soda vendors; I'd gotten the soda from there. There was no one in there at the moment. Further down the terminal hall, there was a larger game room for less transient people, and a cafeteria.
I watched the exit at the bottom, and the exit from the game room and café. My contact was a remarkable young creature called Kerry Fossen, and it would be like her to sneak up in back of me and shout boo, making me piss my pants, and thanks, Area Fourteen. He'd love that. I'd damn near made a total physical wreck of myself traveling Greyhound all the way from Fresno to St. Louis. And now, just to use a simple and highly descriptive phrase, I was pissed off.
Area Fourteen loves handing me need-to-know assignments. Usually the stuff I didn't need to know was the crucial stuff. I did a lot of fast talking and even faster running. I wasn't meeting Kerry to arrange for her to be shipped up to Area Fourteen, nor was I the one to be shipped. All the damn Mastercomputer had to do there was ship either of us a Bullet; instant zap, and there we are. Fortunately for my disposition, the midway contact had brought me something to allow me to get a decent, if short, sleep.
I quit bitching at myself and watched harder, checking faces and looking for anything unusual. Kerry was a fine agent, one of the most reliable -- some of them were garbage, barely capable of growing fat and old at the same time. If Kerry had a contact time set, she'd do her damnedest not to undershoot or overshoot it.
I sighed and gave my eyes a test swing to make sure I could keep her in line of sight. Lady has a walk w