But when we got outside and he started marching toward downtown, I realized that he meant it. “Wait,” I said. “I can’t. I need to text Sebastian—”“You can do that when we get there,” he said. “The Cakery’s only a couple blocks away, and there’s a slice of chocolate banana pecan calling my name.”So I gave in. Because, well, it was cake. While we waited for the waitress to bring our order, I wrote Sebastian to tell him the transceiver was finished. I expected he’d get back to me as promptly as he had last night, but by the time I cleaned my plate and drank two cups of coffee, he still hadn’t answered.“He’s probably just busy,” said Milo. “Didn’t you say you’d asked him to lead Deckard on some kind of virtual wild-goose chase?”“Yeah, but that shouldn’t stop him from answering a text. Especially from me.”“So you think something happened to him?”I considered the infinite set of possibilities, most of them unpleasant. He’d lost his phone or had it stolen.
