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what this meant. Was James daring him to say something? Or was he facing up to something from their shared past? Fuck, who knew?
    “All right, listen. This was my original plan, so let’s start there. I was hoping we could leave tonight, so the plan was I’d come over after nightfall, we’d activate the dummy and switch off your chip simultaneously. Then we’d have twelve hours to recode your chip before turning it on, showing you as a level-two parolee. We have a Blue agent in Colorado who works in Red Satellite Tracking. He creates false identities and tracking codes, reprograms the AI if possible. He’ll run interference when he can.”
    Matt’s Blue chip could truly be turned off, undetectable by Red tech. But Red chips had trace radiation so it could always be detected, even if off. Anyone with a chip in a Red state was either Blue, Red militia, or a criminal. Like someone who was queer.
    “Then we get the hell out of Boise and we should make it through Ontario within three days.”
    “Three days? What, are we walking?”
    Matt took pleasure in smiling really big and telling him, “Why yes, we are.”
    One kind of nice thing about the Red was the number of people who couldn’t afford transportation other than foot-power. Or the occasional horse, but they were expensive too.
    It was much easier to hide when you were on foot. The extractee and his extractor had to get out on their own, and Matt had learned through experience that walking was the lowest-profile form of transportation. “We’ll get picked up by a Feng Niao bird in Baker. Or Forward Operating Base Joseph if we have to take the second backup route.”
    After a flicker of surprise, James just nodded. “Guess they can’t send the military in for me, huh?”
    “Violation of Four Corners Agreement.” SOUFCOM could have sent a team in for him when he was still being detained, but not once he was “free.” Inside the Red states, the only way out of a detainment camp was through an oath of fealty and a real-time tracking device. Fortunately, oaths given under duress were considered invalid in the Blue. If Blue military personnel took the oath and got out, the military had to contract with QESA or another NGO to extract their soldier, but couldn’t do it themselves. That was an act of aggression, and against the Four Corners Agreement.
    Tracking devices were tricky. Contracts to extract someone wearing a level-one tracking device were almost never issued. Nearly everyone had to wait the two years for the switch to a level-two device. So if an extraction agent was sent in after a guy like James, the Blue wanted him badly.
    “What about your Brain-link?” If James had one, and he most likely did since he was an officer, they might be able to reactivate it, which would make all their com easier.
    “Don’t have one. In Psi-force only com specialists do.”
    Matt blinked. That was kind of weird. Most SF officers and non-coms had them. “Won’t really make a lot of difference; half the time I can’t turn them back on anyway.” The tech of implanting a com device in someone’s brain was tricky and delicate. And largely beyond Matt’s understanding.
    James nodded, leaned back, and crossed his arms, tipping his chair back and looking thoughtful. And relaxed. Matt could tell by his twitching jaw muscle he was anything but.
    “Our first backup is to head to Payette and walk across the Highway 52 bridge with our fake IDs. Our second backup is to grab a couple of bikes waiting for us in a barn outside of Weiser. We ‘steal’ those and ride like hell for the Snake River, then up Hells Canyon to the Hells Canyon Dam.”
    “That’s pretty far north.”
    “More safe spots, though, and sort of defies logic. Like, we should be getting out of the state as fast as we can, but instead we take forever. Creates circles of confusion.” Matt waved his spread fingers around.
    “You’ve got this all planned out. Done it a few times?”
    “Come out of Idaho