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"Is there still time to get back into the crate?" some wiseguy says. A bunch of kids laugh.
"All right, listen up," yells the megaphone kid. "We're going to walk you to the supply jet, where you'll get clothes, rations, and everything else you'll need." They are quick to find out that the megaphone kid has earned the nickname "Amp." As for the Admiral's driver, he's been stuck with "Jeeves."
"It's a long walk," Amp says. "If anyone can't make it, let us know. Anyone who needs water now, raise your hand."
Nearly every hand goes up.
"All right, line up here."
Risa lines up along with the rest of them. There's buzzing and whispering from the line of kids, but it's nowhere near as desperate as it had been in the weeks past. Now, it's more like the buzz of kids in a school lunch line.
As they're led off to be clothed and fed, the jet that brought them here is towed to its final resting place in the massive junkyard. Only now does Risa take a deep breath and release it, along with a month's worth of tension. Only now does she allow herself the wonderful luxury of hope.
29 Lev
More than a thousand miles away, Lev is about to arrive as well. The destination, however, is not his own: It's Cyrus Finch's. Joplin, Missouri. "Home of the Joplin High Eagles— reigning state champions in girls' basketball," CyFi says.
"You know a lot about the place."
"I don't know anything about it," CyFi grumbles. "He knows. Or knew. Or whatever."
Their journey has gotten no easier. Sure, they have money now, thanks to Lev's "deal" at that pawnshop, but the money's only good for buying food. It can't get them train tickets, or even bus tickets, because there's nothing more suspicious than underage kids paying their own fare.
For all intents and purposes, things between Lev and CyFi are the same, with one major, unspoken exception. CyFi might still be playing the role of leader, but it's Lev who is now in charge. There's a guilty pleasure in knowing that CyFi would fall apart if Lev weren't there to hold him together.
With Joplin only twenty miles away, Cy's twitching gets bad enough that even walking is difficult for him. It's more than just twitching now—it's a shuddering that wracks his body like a seizure, leaving him shivering. Lev offers him his jacket, but Cy just swats him away. "I ain't cold! It's not about bein' cold! It's about being wrong. It's about there being oil and water in this brain of mine."
Exactly what Cy must do when he gets to Joplin is a mystery to Lev—and now he realizes that Cy doesn't know either. Whatever this kid—or this bit of kid—in his head is compelling him to do, it's completely beyond Cy's understanding. Lev can only hope that it's something purposeful, and not something destructive . . . although Lev can't help but suspect that whatever the kid wants, it's bad. Really bad.
"Why are you still with me, Fry?" CyFi asks after one of his body-shaking seizures. "Any sane dude woulda taken off days ago.
"Who says I'm sane?"
"Oh, you're sane, Fry. You're so sane, you scare me. You're so sane, it's insane."
Lev thinks for a while. He wants to give Cyrus a real answer, not just something that chases away the question. "I'm staying," Lev says slowly, "because someone has to witness what happens in Joplin. Someone's got to understand why you did it. Whatever it is."
"Yeah," says CyFi. "I need a witness. That's it."
“You're like a salmon swimming upstream," Lev offers. "It's inside you to do it. And it's inside me to help you get there."
"Salmon." Cy looks thoughtful. "I once saw this poster about a salmon. It was jumping up this waterfall, see? But there was a bear at the top, and the fish, it was jumping right into the bear's mouth. The caption beneath— it was supposed to be funny—said, The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly. "
"There's no bear in Joplin," Lev tells him. He doesn't try to cheer Cy up with any more analogies, because Cy's so smart, he can find a way to make anything sound bad. One hundred and thirty IQ points all focused on cooking up doom. Lev can't hope to compete with that.
The days go by, mile by mile, town by town, until the afternoon they pass a sign that says, NOW ENTERING JOPLIN POPULATION 45,504.
30 Cy-Ty
There is no peace in CyFi's his head. The Fry doesn't know-how bad it is. The Fry doesn't know how the feelings crash over him like storm-driven waves pounding a failing seawall. The wall is going to collapse soon, and when it does, Cy will lose it. He'll lose everything. His mind will spill out of his ears and down the drains of the streets of Joplin. He knows it.
Then he sees the sign. NOW ENTERING JOPLIN. His heart is his own, but it pounds in his chest, threatening to burst—and wouldn't that be a fine thing? They'd rush him to a hospital, give him someone else's ticker, and he'd have that kid to deal with too.
This boy in the corner of his head doesn't talk to him in words. He feels. He emotes. He doesn't understand that he's only a part of another kid. It's like how in a dream you know some things, and other things you should know, but you don't. This kid—he knows where he is, but he doesn't know he's not all here. He doesn't know he's part of someone else now. He keeps looking for things in Cyrus's head that just aren't there. Memories. Connections. He keeps looking for words, but Cyrus's brain codes words differently. And so the kid hurls out anger. Terror. Grief. Waves pounding the wall, and beneath it all, there's a current tugging Cy forward. Something must be done here. Only the kid knows what it is.
angs her head on the low opening of the cargo hold on her way out.
"Watch your head," says one of the kids in charge.
