T hey never caught up with Leon. Maybe he actually did some pedaling, or more likely did some and used the hub at the same time. Her bike was propped against the oak in the front yard, Leon nowhere in sight, but a buddy of Burton’s, Reece, was sitting in the wooden lawn chair there, with a mandolin across his lap. As she and Burton got closer, after they left the car by the gate, she saw it wasn’t a mandolin but an Army rifle that looked like it had been telescoped back into itself, squashed front to back. A bullpup, they called that. Reece had a ball cap pulled down level with his eyebrows, the kind that continually altered its pattern. Reece had been something in the Army, special something but less special than HaptRec, and admired Burton in a way that she found unhealthy, though whether for Reece or Burton she wasn’t sure.