"Who are you?" he said, gasping.

The boy laughed. "I hate cops, too."

Then they were in the air, and speeding towards the west.

Ron Carver watched the back of the young boy's neck for twenty minutes, while he steered the ancient copter expertly across the skies. He figured that the boy might have been fourteen or fifteen, but there was a competence in the way his hands moved over the controls, and a steeliness in the way his head sat on his thin neck.

They didn't make much conversation, but Ron gathered that the boy was a member of something called the Red Rockets, an organization with some inexplicable purpose.

It was only after the copter had landed on the roof of a half-decayed slum in the worst part of town, that Ron realized who the Red Rockets were. They were kids, all of them, banded together for mutual defense and in common antagonism toward the world. When he clambered out of the copter, his rescuer grinned and said:

"This is it, pal. This is where the gang meets."

"The Red Rockets?"

"Yeah. This is Shock's house. He's the leader."They had to descend by stairs; there was no building elevator. When they reached the second floor, the boy put a finger to his lips, and rapped one-two, two-two on the apartment door.

A boy no older than Ron's new body opened it. His dark pinched face grew smaller and darker when he saw the stranger. He looked back into the room before letting them in.

The room was a study in decay. Someone had once wallpapered it in an optimistic pink pattern that was now sardonic in the surroundings. The furniture was rudimentary, and there were no working light fixtures. A battery lamp was sitting in the middle of a wooden table, and three youngsters were playing with a ragged deck of cards.

The tallest of them arose when the newcomers entered. He was the only one wearing a jacket; the others were in shirtsleeves. His hair was black, and unruly to the point of being ludicrous. His wide mouth twisted when he spoke.

"Who's this?" he said. "What's the idea?"

"He's okay," Ron's protector said. "He's an okay kid. I spotted him on a rooftop down on Park. A million cops after him. I dropped down in the copter and picked him 

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