"Yeah, I was born here, grew up here. It's not a bad place to live."

Kim was quiet for a moment, as if she was carefully planning her next remark.

"What is it like - to grow up?" She showed no feeling in her request, no trace of sadness that she would never know childhood.

Sorber laughed before he spoke, surprised at her question.

"Well, there's a question and a half. Guess it depends - on where you're born, what your parents, brothers and sisters, are like." He thought for a few seconds. "The main thing, I guess, is that everything seems to happen in the moment. There's no future and no past. It's all now and if something's fun, then you want to do it and if it's not, then you don't." Sorber shrugged, dissatisfied with his response.

"I don't know if that really answers your question. My childhood was OK, it had its share of ups and downs." Sorber reflected. "Growing up? isn't always easy." His voice trailed off.

"I see. Do you have a family?" Kim asked.

"No, Kim, no I don't... my parents died a few years back and I have no brothers or sisters."

Kim said nothing in reply.

"You like music, Kim?" Sorber changed the subject and moved to turn the radio on.

Kim considered the question for a moment as the gentle sound of an old ballad filled the automobile; somebody with a voice like silk sang tenderly of the blindness of his love.

She spoke matter-of-factly over the lyric, "I neither like it nor dislike it, Doctor Sorber, as until today I've never really heard - "

"What the? - " Sorber interrupted her as a set of headlights drew dangerously close behind them.

"Why don't you just get in here with us?" Sorber snapped sarcastically at the tailgater and tapped his brakes in an attempt to get the other vehicle to pull back from them.

"What's happening?" Kim asked - was that a note of panic in her voice, Sorber wondered as he switched the vehicle back to manual and sped away, his mind pulled in numerous directions all at once.

The car behind them kept pace, staying bumper to bumper with them, though Sorber couldn't make out any of its details through the mist and the rain and the relentless high beam glare of its headlamps - just that it seemed to be some kind of dark green four-by-four.

"What the hell is this idiot playing at?" He murmured bitterly.

The pursuing vehicle encroached further, filling the rear view mirror and, as they sped frantically onwards, Sorber and Kim were flung forward in their seats as the jeep nudged the back of their car; grinding the rear bumper under pressure from its front crash bar and causing Sorber to swerve as he struggled to keep control of the vehicle.

Desperately, he looked for an 'exit' sign whilst trying to steer a path through four lanes of traffic at eighty miles an hour. The jeep stayed close behind as if magnetically attached and both cars ploughed on through the rain, ignoring the harsh blares from the horns of other vehicles. For a moment, the chase struck Sorber as quite incongruous with the romantic lyrics still issuing from the car radio. He switched it off.

"Hold on." Sorber ordered.

Kim gripped the sides of her seat as he revved the car onward, accelerating away from the haunting presence of the jeep and toward the potential safety of the off-ramp. Sorber passed a large grey truck which sprayed micro-tornadoes of mist and filth at the other traffic. Without indicating, the truck pulled out from the inside lane, blocking the path of the jeep which then had to hit its brakes, seeming to almost fume as it did so. Sorber saw his opportunity and raced down the off-ramp towards a junction where he turned a sharp left into a muddy track behind a refuelling station. They jerked to a stop as he slammed on the brakes and the car's momentum threw Kim forwards, her trajectory halted by both her seatbelt and Sorber as he flung his arm protectively across her path. He looked up quickly towards the overpass to see the jeep continue on its way, still close up behind the truck that had blocked its pursuit. His first thought was of Kim.

"Are you OK?"