Free Off the Grid by P. J. Tracy Page B

The man had flaws. First of all, he was old; more than twenty years older than Grace and strung tighter than a grand piano treble wire. Worse yet, he was cookie-cutter FBI, even if he was retired. What Grace saw in him was a puzzle. Still, Annie never questioned the choices of the people she loved, and Grace was the best of these. But Annie did miss her.
    Last week, life had taken an unexpected upturn when Monkeewrench had landed a juicy contract for their new game to teach children American history through a 3-D CGI program with voice recognition that allowed students to literally walk into a scene and interact with historical avatars. Right now they were working on the node where users would be able to stand on the bank of the Potomac River during George Washington’s crossing. It was a big step up from the kids’ games they’d started with years ago, but it was nevertheless a return to the education-through-games programs that had made them all wealthy. Besides, Annie loved American history. It had been her minor in college before they’d all dropped out to save Grace from a serial killer.
    “Okay.” A tired growl came from across the loft. “So George Washington asks the kid a question, like what river is this or what’s the date, and the kid gets it wrong. What’s the penalty? I say shoot the kid’s avatar in the head with a musket ball.”
    “Don’t be a dipshit, Harley,” Roadrunner mumbled. “You take away points.”
    “You’re such a buzzkill, Roadrunner. And at the moment, George Washington is bare-ass naked. I need details so I can start rendering the graphics, Annie.”
    She looked over at where Harley was punching thick fingers into his keyboard. With all the computers they were running, it was hot in the loft despite all the cooling units they were running to keep the electronics from melting down, so he’d shed his leather jacket and sat there in a muscle T-shirt that showed every stupid tattoo he’d ever gotten. “I sent you the pictorial,” she said. “White tights, yellow knickers, blue jacket.”
    “Nice.” Harley looked over at Roadrunner, who was hunched over his own computer, his long spine bent like an archer’s bow to accommodate a desk far too low for his frame. He was in his customary Lycra biking suit, and today’s selection just happened to be yellow and blue with white stripes. “Huh. Just like Roadrunner. How do you think old Georgie would look in Lycra?”
    Roadrunner looked over at Harley. “What?”
    Harley gave him a smug smile. “Nothing.”
    Annie put her chin in her hand and thought about that outfit, wondering what one would look like on her, at least as a Halloween costume. Not nearly as divine as the all-white ensemble she was wearing today, she decided. White was a color she rarely chose to wear, and certainly not after Labor Day, but part of the fun was defying convention, not adhering to it. Besides, she’d scored a pair of white fur high-heeled boots that climbed all the way to her plump knees like some kind of fabulous tundra animal coiling up her legs.
    Annie snapped herself out of her fashion reverie and returned her attention to her computer, where she had been puzzling over a particularly complex section of programming before Harley had interrupted her. Normally, it wouldn’t have taken her long to work her way through it, but it was late, and she suddenly felt the dull ache of almost a week’s worth of exhausting fifteen-hour workdays creeping into her bones. “This Southern belle is going to start making some bad decisions if I don’t get home and sleep for a few hours in my own bed. Are you boys going to work all night?”
    Harley leaned back in his chair, stretched, and yawned. “If you’re bailing, I’m bailing. Roadrunner, are you the last man standing?”
    Roadrunner spun in his chair and shook his head. “I could use a couple hours myself. I’ll catch a few on the sofa in a little bit. I’ll get you a cab, Annie.”
    She gave