"It's no use," he said aloud.
Then he heard the copter overhead.
He looked up, thinking it was a police vehicle. But then he saw the outmoded design of its fuselage, and the young face at the controls.
It hovered over his head, and a rope ladder unfolded. The youthful pilot said: "Quick! Climb in!"
He blinked at the voice, unbelievingly. Then he scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the dangling ladder. He barely made it into the copter; the pilot had to help.
"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.