“This way,” Bren said.
They started off going north along
the Fifth Street.
“How’ve you been, Dani?”
“I’ve been ok,” Dani said, “I saw a
cool infinite tunnel last night.”
“An infinite tunnel?”
“I mean it had an end and I reached
it, but it was longer on the inside than on the outside,” Dani said, “Like, we
took thirty minutes to go like twenty miles I think. On foot. Not running.”
“We?”
“Mary Clamor and I. You remember Ms.
Clamor, right?”
“I think so,” Bren said, “Brunette,
right?”
“Nah, Mary’s kinda… dirty blonde,
like, she’s got streaks of blonde in her hair that are just sort of there
normally,” Dani said, “Like she’s supposed to be blonde but colors her hair
sometimes.”
“I could have sworn I’d seen a
friend of yours with brunette hair and you’d said her name was Mary,” Bren
said, “What were you two doing underground?”
“I was trying to get away from my
parents and Mary was, as you earlier put it, trying to be supportive and all.”
“What were your parents doing?” Bren
asked.
“Being them. I don’t know. It was getting to me a lot more last night than
it usually does. I think I just get the feeling that one of these days I’m
going to pull a Will and stop trying, just to make them mad,” she said, “I don’t
know how they’d handle it if both of their kids stopped living up to their
expectations.”
“Will is still being petulant?”
“Petulant is, like, a wonderful word
for the way he is,” Dani said, “Thank you so much. Now I can call him that the
next time I see him.”
“Well I guess I wasn’t trying to
give you ammunition, but all the same, you’re welcome,” Bren said.
“Where are we headed, by the way?”
They were still headed north, but Bren
stopped. “I was going towards where the last person was that had seen Mort, but
now I’m figuring we should just head east or something.”
“Mort’s the guy’s name, I’m
guessing.” Dani said, “Why head east?”
“Because he was headed southeast for
awhile, and we know pretty well that he didn’t head ‘cross the bridge, so he’s
probably still going eastward. We’ll ask the next random person we find.”
“That sounds time consuming,” Dani
said, “Crazy time consuming. Don’t you have some sort of amulet that’ll tell
you where the Hopeful Serenity is at any time?”
“That would make sense, wouldn’t
it?” Bren said, “But no.”
“Lame,” Dani said.
“Yeah, so lame.”
“Never before has so much lame been
used by so few on so few.”
“I don’t get what you were supposed
to be quoting,” Bren said, “Some politician?”
“Maybe. Some jerk probably,” she
said.
They came to an intersection and
stopped for the crosswalk. On the other side was a girl and a psychiatrist. The
girl looked bored. She looked familiar.
“You recognize that girl at all?”
Dani asked, “She seems, like… familiar.”
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