Teddy didn't actually stay up all night, although he considered it. More than once over the course of the night, when he grasped just how dark it had gotten, he reminded himself that he couldn't keep doing this forever. So... when he actually started to feel fatigue setting in, he forced himself back from this beautiful old game console... thing... and went to bed.

He didn't manage to sleep well. All the new thoughts and experiences swirling through his head made it difficult to do anything but lay there and process them for another hour or two, after which he caught a bit of sleep.

He awoke to Elaine's boot rolling him off the side of his bed, but neither that nor the shiner he got on his head from falling face-first to the ground really woke him up as much as the tea did. He would have preferred coffee, but the tea was black, hot, and strong, and just the scent of him brought him around enough to realize that Elaine was squatting in front of where he sat on the floor, giving him a very judging look.

"What?" he asked, nursing the cup she'd provided.

"Today you and me are going out," she declared. "We'll find those merchants, see if they know anything. Come on, up an at 'em. Already talked to Anna, she and Jim will take care of things here."

Teddy allowed himself to be coerced into standing up and forced into the bathroom. The experience brought back some memories of girlfriends past... but Teddy didn't dwell on it, and couldn't. A look in the slightly-cracked mirror he had found for the bathroom showed that he needed another shave, and the stress wrinkles on his face were worse than they'd ever been. He judged his own eyes in the mirror and thought that again that he was developing a shady look that he was sure he didn't deserve.

None of that screamed out to him that a woman like Elaine would ever be interested, and frankly, he wasn't sure he could handle someone that intense. Still... his reflection gave him a crooked smile, but he shook it off and started to get cleaned up.

By the time he was done and dressed, he had actually thought about what Elaine said, and it wasn't a prospect that made him happy. Chasing down the merchants, as he'd said yesterday, was more than just going into town... and the only transport he had that was anything like fast, was her.

He stepped out of his room to find her there, dressed in fatigues and combat boots again, waiting expectantly, and gave her a sheepish, cringing sort of smile. "So I guess, uh, you plan..."

"Yup." Elaine looked him up and down, her expression neutral. "I know, Teddy. I remember you freaking out when I picked up your little hover-scooter thing. I get the feeling you aren't going to like flying with me all that much, but..." she shrugged. "I need your help, and you're a big boy now. You can handle this, right?"

Teddy looked at her, taking a moment to steel his nerves. The combination of the two things brought back unpleasant memories of finding her in the rubble, taking a knife to her neck... he squeezed his eyes shut, forced himself to calm down. "Yeah," he said. "I can handle it."

"You've been through worse. Come on, climb on my back. If you need me to stop, just hit me or something."

Teddy opened his eyes to find her kneeling, and with a few more deep breaths, he hopped on, wrapping his arms around her neck. "This okay with you?"

"Teddy, the only way you could hurt me is with knives..." she paused. "More likely, grenades. You could try to strangle me and I could dance through it all. Whatever keeps you from falling off is fine with me."

The mention of falling off did not ease Teddy's nerves, but a moment later, with a strange sense of momentum that he honestly wasn't expecting, Elaine lifted off the ground.

Teddy expected it to be like riding his hover sled, or possibly like riding on a person's shoulders as they walked, but as he clung to Elaine, he could tell that whatever power gave her flight, it was incredibly precise. Teddy could have sworn, any time that his eyes were closed, that they were still on solid ground; Elaine was simply a rock-solid platform for him to cling to. Yes, there was wind, and dust, but once they were moving, there was no acceleration--the constant, even motion seemed to him like nothing more than high winds, as long as he kept his eyes shut.

Of course, Elaine had straightened out as though she was laying down, so if he closed his eyes, it felt like he was laying on top of the woman, on the floor, with the wind blowing... which brought to mind images that he did not need to be distracted by right now.

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The first hop was short, no more than a minute, and they were in town. Elaine, as could have been predicted, caused quite a stir by appearing out of the sky, but while the situation would have mortified Teddy by himself, before he knew it she had whisked them both inside the closest trade house that was on the list.

It wasn't the finest building in town--Teddy had been inside each of the traders' offices at least, and Jorge's was low on the list of quality--but for the same reason, it was one of the places Teddy was more comfortable. There was only one receptionist, Jorge's son Juan, and aside from the locked rooms containing trade goods, there were just two offices, Jorge's and Alli's. Usually, one of the two of them would be here, and the other making a run to either north to Minneapolis, if they wanted to stay in Canada, or down to Indianapolis and the border.

Juan, behind the desk, was already shouting "Papa, papa!" by the time they'd opened the door, so clearly it was Jorge who was at home.

Jorge, when he walked out from his office, was very tall--topping seven feet and lanky. His smooth voice and accent made him sound a lot more like the southerner he was than a native Canadian like his wife, but he was always pleasant about it. "Teddy! It is rare to see you out of your compound. Come in. And this lovely lady is...?" He ducked out of the doorway and gestured Teddy in, stopping only long enough to fawn for a minute over Elaine.

"Elaine Many. Pleased to meet you." She offered a hand, which he kissed, Teddy rolling his eyes slightly as he stepped through the doorway.

"Elaine. A lovely name. Come in, sit." Again, he had to duck through the door, but on the far side, the room was spaciously laid out, the stuffed chairs a little more distant from each other than the narrow room would normally suggest, to accommodate his long legs. "What can I do for you?"

Elaine looked to Teddy, who was still a little high off of the adrenaline of the flight. "We're trying to get in contact with anyone who might have been able to make use of the computers I ...salvaged." Teddy managed to only hesitate a bit on the word. He was usually pretty good about not letting his feelings show, or at least, he hoped he was. "We are trying to do our own project with them and we are looking for any help they might have."

Jorge stroked his chin, nodding slightly to himself. "Well my friend, as you know we have sold them mostly on speculation. Nobody was ever quite sure that what we had was what they wanted, especially since we did not have any demonstration code to prove that they worked. But... sometime last year I started to get a repeat customer. He wasn't exactly looking for your servers in particular, just any computers he could get his hands on. I would meet him in Indianapolis, but I believe he was staying on this side of the border--he said he represented a client on the far side of Ottowa, but he never gave me any specifics." Jorge glanced between them several times, thinking. "What kind of project, if I might ask?"

"Nothing too fancy," demurred Elaine. "If I can get some of the ansibles working I'd like to make a cargo vehicle."

"You are an engineer?" Jorge's voice carried surprise, but also approval. "I imagine you are as talented as you are lovely. Where do you come from? I do not recognize you, and I recognize most of the people who do business in these parts."

"I spent a lot of time in the wastes," said Elaine smoothly. "Teddy and I met up and I was... impressed with his scavenging abilities."

"To have survived in the blasted lands, you are either very dangerous or very well connected, yes?" Jorge's voice carried a hint of darker amusement. "I hope you are not planning on taking poor Teddy's work away from him. We rely on the trade from his business more than it may seem--"

"I firmly believe that Teddy's work is necessary," she interrupted. "Believe me, I have no interest in displacing him, or seeing anything untoward happen to him." She offered a warm smile. "I am a dangerous woman, but... only to my enemies, I promise you."

Jorge didn't bat an eye, just nodded for a good ten seconds straight, considering that. "Well," he said after a moment, "if you are trying to get in touch with this mystery client, I can send a message along..."

"Actually," said Elaine, "I plan on chasing him down directly. Would you mind giving me some information on whoever your contact was? I plan on simply heading out that way to try to figure these things out myself."

"I do not mind," said Jorge, looking Elaine up and down again. "Do you have a cargo vehicle of your own right now? Because if you are heading that direction, I might pay you to deliver the man some goods. Assuming of course," and he glanced at Teddy, "that my friend here will vouch for you. It is inconvenient, my wife Alli always heads to Indianapolis at around the same time, but my supplier can never seem to get the goods to us on time."

"As long as the goods aren't too bulky," said Elaine, "I can carry quite a bit."

Jorge's eyes swept to Teddy and stayed with him.

"I trust Elaine with my life," admitted Teddy, with just a hint of a cracked smile. Although Elaine was doing a fine job with her performance, he just couldn't stand leaving so much unsaid--it just wasn't in his nature. "Though I must tell you, Jorge, that she is... underselling her abilities a bit. I have no doubt she could carry your whole warehouse to Ottowa if she tried."

That caused Jorge to flick his eye back and forth between the two of them, suspiciously. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face, and he started nodding.

"You're the one," he said. "That's interesting. I had thought it was perhaps only rumors, but now I think I see. Let me look at my request board. Perhaps we can work something out."

Elaine smiled winningly, and Teddy hoped he had done the right thing by revealing their hand.