es,” said Helen, despite her intentions to lie if the topic was raised. She looked at Blain, who’d remained in the corner. He was looking at the dogs.
     Busy sighed, shoulders sinking, and walked around his desk to sit back down. He tapped his fingers in a flourish that read: that’s that, and looked up at the ceiling. “You realize this makes things a little more difficult for us, here.”        
     Helen looked down. Was she being scolded? There was warmth in Busy’s voice, but an air of condescension as well, and she was familiar with this particular mixture. She didn’t trust it. She had to admit, however, as she examined the seams along the cuff of her long sleeved shirt, that Busy’s intonation weighed in more heavily on the former than the later. Perhaps, she thought, letters a reluctant trickle, this condescension was not entirely undeserved. It suddenly seemed to Helen naïve to expect fair treatment, some peer status here in the belly of a city she’d ignored for years which now, having swallowed her up, was trying to digest her reason for having returned.
     “I should go,” she said hopefully, standing up.
     Blain’s dog growled.
     She sat back down, avoided eye contact with the beast.
     Homeland security guards were at this point (given my green light) descending quickly into the plant, moving through the moving internal organs of the chop-shop, the ladders and poles, the gears and platforms pushing weightless tin. Things were a little too tense for second guesses, and Helen was a little too deep underground to merit restraint. Too, the troops were itching for action, having spent so long idling, on stand-by, half-convinced that Helen’s instincts obviated their once-essential role. Intervention was imminent.
     “What are we going to do with you,” Busy sighed.
     The dogs were at attention, and Rocket, not quite catching on, had taken on the once encouraging role of the pups who now sat undisturbed by his beseeching expression, paw prints on reluctant fur. Helen met Blain’s hard stare, and looked away, training her eyes on familiar turf. She found Busy’s fingers and followed them up to his hand, his arm, his face. This was not so uncertain, she thought. This was no cataclysm. Busy looked back at her and a smile wandered onto his face, standing solid once it gained position.
     In position too were the guards, nestled in the nooks and crannies of this city below the street. They were not smiling. That I was able to call them off, I now realize, was something of a miracle.
     “My husband is a weatherman,” Helen said. The words sounded strange coming out of her mouth. A non-sequitur. Did it explain anything? Why she was here? Why she was Missing? Despite her reservations, it seemed to satisfy Busy.
     “Yes, we know about your husband.” Busy motioned for his partner to join them at the desk, and Blain ambled over, obviously against his better judgment. Helen didn’t feel like she had much more to offer, and was hoping they wouldn’t press her, try to wring more information from her already parched rag of understanding. She was at a loss.
     Busy leaned toward her, looked up at Blain and back. “We want to help you,” he said.
     Helen looked at Blain.
     “We sure as hell aren’t going to turn you over to the cops,” Busy continued. “But we’re not sure, Blain and I, where that leaves us.”
     It was Helen’s turn. She opened her mouth, knowing this was an appeal for more information. She tried to think of something to say. The words thank you flickered in her mostly empty mind, but they seemed meaningless. Just sounds. By this point Rocket seemed to have sensed the peculiarity of the moment, was sitting at attention along with the other dogs, and his plaintive expression tickled her cheek. Helpless, she felt them begin to blush, and a softness blurred the boundaries between her skin and the air around it, smoothing her into the room like evaporation. She smiled.
     “My sense is, Helen, that you don’t particularly know what it is you’re doing.” She was growing more fond of Busy by the moment. “But that’s not really our concern.” He paused. “Is it Blain.”
     Blain grunted agreement. He shifted his weight, folded his arms, and Helen was not unaware of his tacit reluctance to play along with this, Busy’s overly generous approach to an unfamiliar woman and her soft, suburban dog. An unfamiliar woman wanted by the law. I knew we should keep an eye on Blain, but the situation was obviously not dangerous and, true to the book, I avoided unnecessary intervention, continuing to pull back soldiers until Helen was again alone down there, watched but unworried by her watchers.
     “Our concern is to keep you safe, and help you get to where you’re going.”
     She pictured Asseem’s long eyelashes and early adult stubble, and felt a quick anxiety dart around inside her, hide behind organs and travel through blood. On her own, her lack of any real plan was completely acceptable. Help meant she had to form one. It was a mixed blessing.
     Of course to anyone watching, Helen’s poor planning seemed, unerringly, an asset. It was a charming airy quality that infused her perambulatory, absent-minded professor style, and gave a measure of authenticity to what otherwise might be mistaken for insouciance. She set out into the world as though led by some cunning internal voice which steered her through the distractions of everyday life, sensing just enough to avoid the pitfalls. Considering my team had only been brought to intervention once, this voice was obviously not only cunning, but astute. Which endeared her to me more. I imagined taking her to foreign cities and letting her explore, find the hidden streets, the people no one knew, the alleys and secret stores. She’d be drawn to them automatically, intuitively. We’d make maps of the world and burn them.
     But today she was clearly trying. She wanted the map. She wanted to pull its charred paper from the fire, to piece together what was left. Busy and Blain were waiting, and Rocket had walked up to her side, sniffed her hand and rubbed his face against it, hoping to be pet. She indulged the dog.
     The situation had lost tension to the Nth degree, and despite the pressures Helen felt internally, she was enjoying the room’s relative ease, and was able to focus, for a moment, on Rocket’s soft fur, his steady breathing, and the radiant heat between her hand and the dog’s blurry body. Rocket nuzzled further into her attention and she pressed back, grabbing his hair a little, and combing it into little greasy points. Would Busy be content with no resolve? Will he ultimately want something? She wasn’t sure, but found herself chasing the thought out of her head, realizing that far from feeling pursued, she felt relieved by the company. By these strange men.
     “So,” Busy broke the silence,” where are you going?”
     Rocket whimpered and looked up at Helen, whose hand had abruptly stopped pulling points from his oily fur. The other dogs, heads on paws, shifted slightly to accommodate the small change. The room grew closer, small. The plain white walls crowded Busy and Blain, and they leaned forward. Helen drew a long breath, and spoke a few unplanned words in exhalation.
     “Honestly, I hadn’t really narrowed it down much further than Seattle,” she began, “you know, as a start.”
     It seemed easy enough, after all.
     She continued. “You have to understand that I love Jack very much, of course.”
     Busy nodded and Blain just shrugged.
     “It’s just that lately…”
     “You’ve been wondering…” Busy spoke slowly, as if to a child.
     “Oh Busy,” was she actually blushing? She tried to think when the last time, if ever, she’d blushed before. “I used to be such a different person.”
     “You did?”
     “I did.”
     “But…”
     “But then I found a way to escape.”
     “I see.” He didn’t see, of course. And Helen knew she wasn’t being clear. But it didn’t matter. As he’d told her, she didn’t have to explain. She was caught between the need to justify, to emphasize the sturdy foundation of her seemingly erratic behavior, her abrupt appearance, and her apparent inability to explain herself on the one hand, and a desire to maintain her illusive, uncharacteristic persona and see what these men would be willing to do for a helpless woman.
     I couldn’t help rooting for her. I’d seen her take wild advantage of men before, and it had been too long since she’d done me proud.
     “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” she continued. “It’s just that Jack wouldn’t understand.”
     “Of course not,” said Blain in his single, suspiciously snide contribution.
     Then a few moments of silence.
     “I’m looking for a man named Asseem,” Helen said, finally. She said it with a directness she hadn’t exposed to these men before, and noticed them tense up, just slightly, to accommodate the change in tone. Had she made a mistake? She thought about back-peddling, but could only bring herself to slow the forward spin.
     “Of course, I haven’t seen him in years,” she continued, this time in the more worried, helpless tone they’d come to expect from her, “so I’m not even sure he still lives in Seattle.”
     “A long lost friend, eh?” Busy asked.
     “Or a long-“
     “Yes,” Helen interrupted Blain’s thought, wanting to keep the already difficult discussion on course, “a friend from school.” She looked down at Rocket, and realized he’d fallen asleep. He lay on his back, legs in the air, bent, body arched to one side. She too was tired, she realized, and couldn’t stop a yawn from crawling out her mouth. It was late, after all, or early – there was no clock in the room, and they were deep below street-level with no windows. It might have even been light already. She looked at the men sheepishly, and began to calculate the danger of catching a quick nap before moving on. The small room began to feel warmer than before, and Helen noticed again the low steady hum of the giant ETM machines down the hall. It seemed to grow louder, then more faint, and somewhere in this cycle spread into an array of more subtle tones and tunes, the tiny matrices of sleep creeping into her perception of the sound.
     She shook herself.
     “It’s late,” said Busy. He was standing again, or still. Helen couldn’t quite remember whether he’d been up, or down, or for how long. Blain was no longer in the room.
     “Why don’t you go ahead and take a nap before we get going. Blain and I need to think about the best way to approach this anyway, you being Wanted and all.”
     Helen realized she was in no position to demand anything, or argue. That if Busy needed some time, he’d take it. She thought of a host of other good reasons for sleep. She pretended to deliberate on the matter.
     “I suppose you’re right,” she said, looking though lazy eyes. She reached down to rouse her dog, who whimpered before craning his neck to see her, look at Busy, and yawn. “Wake up Rocket, we’re going to sleep.”
     “We’ve got a comfy couch in the break room,” the man promised. “I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”
     Rocket stretched and was looking up at Helen with a quizzical expression, waiting for her to indicate intention. Blain must have taken one of the dogs with him, wherever he went, because only one remained, and it had entirely dismissed the proceedings, bored by the lack or risk, perhaps, or tension in the room. Busy stood by.
     “Do I have to put the earplugs back in?” she asked, remembering the hallway.
     “’Fraid so, ma’am.” He held out his hand.
     “A nap sounds good,” she said, being helped into a stand. “Promise not to let me sleep all day? My husband is worried, obviously, and I might as well get done whatever it is I need to get done as soon as possible.”
     “Sure thing, Helen.”
     Hearing her name in Busy’s mouth was strange, but not unpleasant. It almost seemed more appropriate than it did coming from Jack. And as they made their way down the hall, her thoughts punctuated by earplug beats of her exhausted heart, she wondered how many people there were like Busy around. What it would have been like to live with a man like this all these years. An honest man. Brutal. Someone with less weather and more storm.
     When they arrived at the break-room, Busy motioned for her and Rocket to enter first, then followed her in, closing the door firmly behind them. He took out his plugs, indicating the safety of doing so, and she bent down to take out Rocket’s first, thinking that they must be like a blindfold for the mutt.
     Busy watched, after the display of affection saying, “I don’t think most people would think to do that, what you just did.”
     “Really?” Helen yawned. She made straight for the couch.
     “You sure this isn’t your dog?”
     Helen thought about the question as she lay down. She had to admit that she felt close to Rocket. But before she could answer Busy continued.
     “Because one thing you’re going to have to consider is the danger of taking him with you. Chances are they’ll be looking for him too, or at least looking for you with him. The pair of you, right?”
     Helen hadn’t thought about it. And just then, lying down, closing her eyes, it didn’t seem to matter much. The thought of leaving Rocket behind seemed absurd. The risk of being caught, minimal. With Busy as her guide?
     “I’m just saying it’s something to think about.”
     Done. She was on the verge of sleep. Time was doing funny things.
     “Another thing I’d recommend is that we get you an AS-Mask, if you don’t already have one.”
     Sleep, sleep, sleep.
     “We’re going to try and stay underneath the city for the most part, but even here I’d recommend wearing one. There are all sorts of folks down here. And everyone’s looking for things to deny.”
     Sleep. Sleep.
     “Do you have a mask Helen?”
     She tried to find the right command to give her head for an affirmative nod. Her muscles resisted her sloppy attempts, but she swore, as she fell, finally, to sleep, that she gave Busy the answer he needed.