Disclaimer: The characters in this story range from the completely fictional to the real-people-trapped-in-the-Bluejay-universe. These interpretations are responsibility of the author and of the creator of the Bluejay universe.

"Barry, we're in the shit," the redheaded woman says, turning away from the window. "Todd Fuckin' Carter is on his way."

"Great, either someone got caught random or Thornrest and Madison Green are compromised. Oy. Emily, why did I ever get into revolution?"

"It was either that or die," she replies.

"Fair enough." The balding man seizes the microphone for the public address system. "All hands, get the fuck out of here! I repeat, everyone get their asses clear of this place!"

But as Emily uses the telescope to see further down the street, she catches sight of something that disturbs her. "Shit in a peach basket. He's got Dee Clay with him! Get me the fast-actin' peroxide, 'cause I'm gonna stand and fight. If that Britney-kissin' bastard thinks he's gonna make an example of her on our doorstep, I'll spit in his eye and tell him to fuck off." Barry tosses her a bottle, and she quickly pours it on over the sink set by the door for that purpose. It starts to work almost immediately; she seizes a gun and a baseball bat and flies out the door to defend the stronghold.

Todd and Dee approach the apartment building, well-kept by New York standards, gingerly. Emily stands on the stoop, blocking the door, gun pointed straight at Todd. "Get your hands off her," she snaps at him. "She don't deserve your hands on her."

Dee takes in the dyed blonde hair, the look of hatred, the slight Southern drawl to the voice, and assumes the worst. "I think we've got a problem."

Todd puts his hands up. "I'm not here for the reason you think I am. I-" He stops, because he's not sure how much he can say.

But Emily is taking in Dee's form with the eyes of a wanderer lost in the desert who's just seen an oasis. Unconsciously, a low whistle emerges from her lips. "Just tell me you haven't changed sides, Miz Clay," she whispers.

Dee shakes her head, and the tension level goes down a couple of notches. Todd starts again. "I'm not here for Britney or Richardson. I've got proof from a little redheaded girl up a couple of blocks, she wrote me a note. I'll-"

"Drop your gun on the ground first."

He does so. Emily comes for the note. As she reads it her eyes narrow. "Barry! It's for you!"

Barry pokes his head out the window. Emily gives him the note. He scrutinizes it with unusual care. "Very few people know the Thornrest Lady's given name, but this is signed with it. She says he can be trusted and that he no longer works with the government, instead undermining their efforts in the guise of helping them. Dee added her affidavit, and I recognize her signature. More to the point, she taped a couple of joints to the note. If this isn't legitimate, we're not particularly safe from infiltration anymore. Let them in."

"You sure you don't want to kiss him?" Emily teases.

"Maybe ten years ago I would have, but ten years ago he would have tried to kill me for it. Besides, we're not signing him up. Just get inside, would you?"

Emily looks back at her friend with a smile, then lowers her weapons. "All right. The man has spoken. Come on in. We actually have climate control." She indicates the door. Dee and Todd go through, Emily following them. "Welcome to the Refuge of the Disciples of St. Sue. Barry, would you be kind enough to get on the horn 'gain? I gotta show them 'round, show 'em what they have to work with."

"Send them out, call them back, make up your mind, woman! Sheesh, do I look like I have all day?" But Barry's tone is teasing, and he picks up the speaker. "All hands, Emily's alarm was false. I repeat, Emily gave me a false alarm, it's safe to return to the building. Our guests are trustworthy and true citizens of New York. Please do not be alarmed. Honest."

"You always gotta pin it on me, don't you?" she drawls.

"Give credit where credit is due, and blame too." The banter is worn, familiar; it carries no bite. It's clear to everyone that they've been at this for years.

Emily looks up towards Todd. "So you're a rebel, huh? Wouldn't've 'spected it of a nice Midwestern boy like you. I mean, you are the guy who-"

"Caught and killed Bin Laden. I know. I was there. Kind of. I broke out of the mold they wanted me to fit into. Dee saved me. I thought the word had gotten out."

"Pardon the most notorious group of terrorists in American culture for not believing that the staunchest attacker of terrorists has come back to the side of sanity," Barry says sarcastically. "Though we aren't actually suicide bombers anymore, it didn't make sense to send people off that we couldn't replace. Suicide is a last resort."

"But it's one we're willin' to use," Emily says softly, and all of them understand that she had genuinely believed she was going to die when she faced down Todd in the doorway.

"Speaking of which, wash that gunk out of your hair. You're not dead and we're within family." Barry shoos Emily off with a parental wave of his hand. She leaves.

"I knew she wasn't a natural blonde, but..."

Barry understands where Todd's question is coming from. "First step to becoming a Disciple is, at least for blondes, dying your hair dark. It weeds out a surprising number of Channel 2 or Channel 8 posers. But we were named for a blonde, and we have to honor her memory somehow. So whenever one of is heading out on a mission, even if it's something as simple as guarding the doors, we dye our hair blonde. We even have a quick temporary version, for situations like the one before. Always be prepared."

"It must take a lot of courage to be a Disciple," Dee says. "With the government after you, knowing that the next thing you do could get you killed..."

There's a sad smile on Barry's face as he looks back at Dee. "Yes, and for the few Disciples that are heterosexual, it's a big sacrifice, something I applaud and respect them for. But most of us were marked for death anyway. We do have the option of leading ordinary lives in New York, falling in love and scaring the tourists. I know that. But I can't live the rest of my life behind the walls of the ghetto, waiting every second for them to decide that it's time and drag us off to who-knows-what. I'd rather fight and have them come for me because of something I did, not because of something I couldn't help but be." He sighs, and in that moment millennia of grief crash over him, eons of pain shadow his face. "Whatever happened to 'never again'? What didn't we fucking learn the first time that someone thinks they should do it all over again with a new scapegoat? Some nights I think I could die happy if I only knew that answer."

"Because they never think it's the same thing," Dee replies. "Every time someone tries it, they think they've found the answer. They always think they're entitled to rid themselves of the scum among them, that there's something wrong that killing insert-minority-group-here is going to solve. *We* learned from Hitler and Yugoslavia and Darfur, but a lot of people didn't, and they won't unless it's them or their family getting dragged off to the slaughter. People are stupid like that sometimes, they can't see anything unless it's right in front of their faces."

Emily returns, her hair once again a deep dark red like sunset. "I *hate* being a blonde," she declares, shaking her short locks to clear the last of the water from them. "So, y'all decide on anything while I was out?"

"Genocide is bad. Very bad," Barry says gravely.

Emily shares a look with Dee that says volumes about the inadequacies of men, or at least the perceived inadequacies of men. "Took y'all that long to figure that out? Look, we need to get some facts established here. Now that we know you're not here to kill us, where do we go? You just want to know we're alive? You want to join in? You fightin' the power for real, or you just like messin' with their heads? You gotta tell us where you want to go with this."

Todd nods agreement. "I have a base in Toronto and I do a lot of work through New York. Allies are always good to have; if we join forces I can put more effort into going into enemy territory. I'd need to know numbers, armament, skills, that sort of thing."

"And we're not willing to give that information out all that easily." Barry leans forward across the table at which they've all taken seats. "There are a lot of lives at stake here, and we don't trust strangers all that easily, no matter what kind of safe-conduct they get from the Thornlady."

"What would we have to do to get your trust?" Dee asks, tired of beating around the bush.

"You're fine," Barry tells her. "But he's gotta prove himself. I think the usual entry test would be sufficient, though perhaps I can get a little more information on this. Todd, in your relatively expert opinion, would a Channel 1 drone be able to kiss, or be kissed by, someone of their own gender, if they steeled themselves for it and were prepared for it?"

"They'd fry what's left of their brain before they'd let it happen," Todd replies. "They think being gay is catching. They'd never get into a situation where that would happen."

"All right then. Kiss me, you handsome hunk of man."

Emily rolls her eyes. "You gotta be so campy about it?" she asks.

Barry opens his eyes and looks at her. In a tone that suggests forced patience, he says, "I have to live up to the stereotype somehow, don't I? Honestly. Otherwise I'd be the shame of my people. Now leave me and Todd. This is something for men- you women wouldn't understand."

"If it has to do with men, we don't *want* to understand," Emily replies with as much dignity as she can muster up towards someone lying languidly on a desk that looks ready to collapse at any moment. She turns her attention to Dee. "If you don't want to see the boys make complete fools of themselves, we got some great archives down in the basement, game tape from the days when we had to guess who was family and who just looked the part. Interested?"

"And miss the boys looking like idiots? Come on!"

Todd gives Dee a half-hearted glare. "Just make sure Terrell never finds out about this. He'd never let me hear the end of it." As he bends to his work, he misses the mischief-laden smirk that passes over Dee's face. She turns her back politely enough, but Emily has a hand mirror out, so they both watch the awkward, fumbling, horribly botched situation, faces crinkled with silent laughter that hurts to keep in.

The buss ends, mercifully enough for all concerned parties. "You need to lay off the vodka," Barry says, holding his nose and fanning the air in front of him. "And no biting."

"Oooh, sounds like we missed something interesting," Dee laughs.

Todd can't believe that he's blushing, but the situation seems to call for it. "He surprised me!" he accuses, pointing at Barry. "He grabbed my-"

"Oh, Goddess!" Emily interjects. "I thought we'd cured him of the ass-grabbin'. At least for the straight boys, 'cause it's not right to stop him grabbin' back if someone starts it."

"Who says it was his ass I was after?" Barry asks with a smirk.

"I know this might be difficult, but can we talk about something other than my ass?" Todd says with what sounds suspiciously like a slightly plaintive note in his voice.

Emily tosses a glance at Barry, who merely smiles and sits in one of the chairs, immediately all business again. "Almost a hundred people have been sworn as Disciples since the reformation in December of 2009. My best guess is that there are seventy members still active, the rest having been lost on missions, through clashes with government forces, and one rather lurid case of an attempted conversion." He glances at Emily, whose face has set into hard, pale lines, and whose fists are clenched at her sides. "The would-be idiot was one of her friends-"

"I was not friends with that trash," Emily interrupts. "I knew her, I worked with her. That don't make me friends with her."

"In any case, that's history now. As for supplies, we have several kilos of high-grade explosive- nothing nuclear, but we can cause some serious damage. Enough guns for the entire group, with some left over, mostly in the form of rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, though there are three machine guns and an assault rifle in the armory. We grow some staple crops on the roof, along with a little bit of hemp. Most of our agricultural needs are taken care of through imports, though; we have an agent in Jamaica who brings us food and pot every other week. More importantly, we grow a lot of our own grain so that we can brew some of our own moonshine. That's come in handy more than once, I have to admit. We don't usually fight en masse, so we don't have that experience of listening to one leader."

"Liar," Emily says. "Don't listen to him on that. Man just doesn't want to admit he's a leader of a bunch of women. It's somethin' to do with the peckin' order the boys have. He took over bossin' the group around a few years back, far as I know, 'cause the lady in charge died on a mission. Why do you think he's in charge of testin' the guys?" She looks at Todd and Dee evenly, chin high in the air with pride. "I think you wanted to know how committed we are, or was it how much we should be committed? All the way, Todd Carter, all our lives, to the end if need be. We don't want to die, 'cause Disciples don't grow on trees, but it's a price we're not scared to pay. We're sworn to a real simple oath here: you look 'em in the face, you spit in their eye, you tell 'em to go fuck themselves, and you always go out with style. And a lot of us swore somethin' else too. We won't run away again. Most of us had to run from where we were before, and we're tired of runnin'. Better to stand and fight than to run and leave someone to die."

"You're projecting again. We don't know that he would have been any help, and perhaps if he had stayed the Amazons would never have had a chance to form."

"And maybe she wouldn't be dead, and that kinda matters! We never kept anyone clear anyway, so what good did we do?"

"That's not true and you know it." Oblivious to the presence of their guests, Barry takes Emily's chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. "I have this straight from the Thornlady and Madison Green, and you can ask them if you doubt my word. They both swore to me at separate times that without your work and Slash Stewart's, they would never have been able to reclaim Ariel, and that's the most important deprogramming they've had in the last five years. And I've heard it said that your work has been the only thing that kept our... guardian... from blowing honest New Yorkers to kingdom come." He refocuses on their visitors. "Sorry. Even the best-meaning of rebel groups have their dirty laundry that needs to be aired, but we shouldn't have done it in front of company."

"No problem," Dee assures the duo. "As long as everything's okay."

"It's not quite, but it will be later," Barry promises, throwing Emily a significant look. She ignores it, staring off into the distance at nothing in particular; her hands tremble ever so slightly, and a wave of exquisite pain passes over her face. The shift in her appearance is abrupt, but it seems to be the natural progression of things.

"'Scuse me for a moment, if y'all don't mind," she says suddenly, running out of the room before anyone can actually voice an objection. Todd and Dee look to Barry for an explanation, but he just crosses his arms and sighs heavily. Disciples protect each other; whatever Emily's issue is, her friend isn't about to reveal it to someone who just showed up today.

"It might be a good idea for you to wander around the Refuge a bit, get an idea of who and what you're working with here. We don't have a very complicated system, but if you want someone to guide you, I'd be willing to help. It's up to you." Barry shrugs.

"Agreed. And while I appreciate the offer of letting me go around by myself, I'd guess you'd be more comfortable if you were there to keep me from looking into things I shouldn't. Lead on."

"And what about me? Are you just going to do the male bonding thing, or am I allowed to tag along?" Dee asks, hands on hips and a look of sheer death in her eyes.

"You've got free run of the place. I believe Emily extended an open invitation to the archives to you. Trust me when I say that it wasn't just a line. We have game tape dating back to 1997 and forward to 2019. We've also been archiving political material from the previous decades that had anything to do with mocking the right wing. It reminds us that there was once a time when differences of opinion mattered- or, for that matter, existed. It's refreshing."

"Sounds interesting," Dee muses. "It's always nice to take a look back. Where do I go?"

"All the way downstairs; we keep the tapes in the safe deposit boxes from the old Chase bank. The logs and the Dead Letter Office are also down there. You can ask Michelle for information on those- she's our historian." Barry points down a flight of stairs, and Dee follows the suggestion. Once she's gone, he turns his attention back to Todd and indicates the upstairs. "Let's see who's around to talk to."

"Who's around?"

"Not everyone lives here. Just those who don't have anywhere else to go- and, of course, those of us on the run from the law. I don't think we have more than thirty people here at any time." Barry leads the way up a narrow staircase, and Todd follows. As they enter a dark corridor, they start to see people who back away nervously from the legendary hero. After the second or third such look, Todd finally lights a joint, and the familiar aroma is enough to loosen people up around him; they start to stop and talk, and he gets a sense of how the Disciples were formed ten years ago.

"Our first generation was only local girls: New Yorkers, Jersey girls, a couple of Connecticut people. Most of us were lesbians, and we were all die-hard hoops fans. We dreamed big. We wanted to go out the way she did, with style and with purpose. Some of us put together magnificent plans. We took out government buildings, schools, you name it. Then some of us got smart, and we realized that we were making gay people seem dangerous and crazy, so why the hell shouldn't they kill us? So we went a little underground and changed tactics. We still put together some big explosive things, but now we work a little more carefully. We're actually willing to come back alive." The bespectacled Filipina brushes once-black hair out of her eyes and sighs. "I lost more friends that way..."

The second wave came from what used to be called red states- the heartland of America, the areas that were more traditionally conservative and concerned with religion, the places that had been the natural breeding ground for Britney and the concepts promulgated by Channel 1. "Texas, eight years ago," one couple says, with a wistful look shared as if they're missing their former home. "Tennessee, six years back," a soft-spoken woman drawls, brushing a tear from the corner of her eye with the sleeve of the orange sweatshirt she wears. "Indiana, seven years ago," one dark-haired man says, nodding familiarly at Barry.

The third wave fled the former blue states as Britney's power grew and the once-liberal areas became as rock-ribbed conservative as the heartland. "Oregon, five years ago," one dark-haired girl sighs. "Florida, six years ago, and we haven't looked back," is the report from one group of men who look rather happy with each other. "Pennsylvania, four years ago," a pretty blonde whispers, enclosed in the safe haven of her girlfriend's arms.

The Disciples aren't as uniform as Todd had been led to believe by government intelligence, although he's the first to laugh at the very phrase 'government intelligence'. There are groups and cliques within the Disciples, as Barry explains. "We call ourselves the West Coast Brigade now, but we weren't always so... open. A lot of us fled Phoenix when the environment turned as unpleasant as the desert around us. San Francisco seemed like the best option for us, because it was more convenient than New York. So a group of us got together and left. And while we were there..."

"They met us," a lean woman with short gray hair and an intense air finishes. She sits for a few seconds, drumming her fingers against the wall; soon she's back on her feet, keeping stride with the two taller men. "You've never seen a city change the way Seattle changed in, oh, maybe four years. A whole group of us noticed the change on the message board that we haunted; the points of view that we used to dismiss so easily were winning the day. We tried to get them back, but when a guy who used to be a Moore supporter talks about how we must stand behind the president at all times and anyone who doesn't should be shot in the street, it's time to find a new hometown. San Francisco seemed like a nice option. We met up with the Phoenix crew, and life was good until someone shot at two of my friends while they were walking their dog."

"After that happened, those of us that still could rented a van or three and drove cross-country, because we realized that whether we liked it or not New York was our last safe haven," Barry continues. "Between our two groups, we had a network of friends and acquaintances all the way across our route that we thought we could rely on. Well, some of them we could- of course, a lot of those ended up having to leave with us. Some of them just slammed the door in our faces and told us to go to hell. But a few of them, especially in the Southeast, pulled guns on us, and we had a couple of shootouts. We got here eventually, as you can tell. At least most of us did. The memories still burn a bit."

The most recent group subsumed by the Disciples is the Amazons, and they meet with him en masse in one of the apartments. There are about twenty of them, all female except for the two men in the back row who spend a lot of time kissing each other. One brunette lights a joint, takes a deep drag, then passes it to the woman sitting next to her and lights another one. Seeing the look that Todd gives her, she confesses, "I used to chain-smoke cigarettes when I got nervous. Now I chain-smoke joints, but I know that's a really bad idea, so I just do the chain part myself, I don't smoke the whole thing. Hey, it keeps me sane, and it helps keep those of us who like boys sane."

"Thanks, Yankee," the recipient of the joint says. She shrugs. "I had one advantage on the rest of the group. I was an addict even before Britney. I was used to altered states." She falls silent, and all eyes turn to a slender, pale woman with dark red streaks in dark blonde hair. "Tell it, Wraith," someone says encouragingly.

The woman dubbed the Wraith sighs. "Do I gotta?" she asks with the faintest tinge of a Southern drawl still clinging to her voice like a summer cold. Nods from the group support that opinion, and she speaks. "I've always been a writer. I've always been gay. They go hand in hand. I write 'bout what I know. I used to write 'bout my favorite players, and I thought I was a freak for doin' it. Then I met someone else who did the same thing, and another, and another, and soon we had a whole group online. When things started goin' bad in my hometown, I knew I could come to New York 'cause my friends would support me. When the government started tryin' to butt in here, we knew we had to put our skills to use. Four of us founded the Amazons, and 'fore the Internet became evil, we put out a call for anyone in the fandom to join us in New York. I'm the last founder left, and it didn't end well for Switch-Hitter, Fuhgeddaboutit, or Slash Stewart."

Todd pounces on that. "Slash Stewart. You knew her?"

"She was my best friend for fifteen years before she died, yeah, I'd say I knew her. She feared nothin'. She used to pretend she was one of those religious crazies and she'd hand out rumors on the corners just off the tourist traps so she could make a getaway quick. She made sure that none of us were in the public eye as much as she was. She wrote damn good stuff, too, she was the best in the group."

Eyes roll all through the room, and the woman holding the Wraith's hand so fiercely says, "You have to stop putting yourself down, honey."

"We can let him decide later," Emily says, entering the room and taking an empty chair. "Don't look so surprised at me, Todd. I used to be an Amazon too. That's where I went when the West Coast Brigade finally made it to New York. I didn't go right to the Refuge, that only happened after the shootout at our old digs."

"I don't know if she ever swore the oath, but she knew where the Refuge was and that we could be safe here," the Wraith says. "When the feds were comin' for us 'cause we'd been causin' 'em too much trouble, makin' people think, she told us to get out and that she'd cover for us. I tried to get her to leave. I tried to stay with her. She won out, though. She knew she was probably gonna die, but she didn't care. So we lost her and Fuhgeddaboutit, 'cause-"

"New York girls always go down fighting," Todd finishes. "I've seen it myself."

"Right, I forgot you were livin' in Brooklyn. But even if she wasn't a New Yorker, I think she would've stayed. She had nothin' left but us, and if she had to protect us, that was that." The Wraith sighs heavily. "I wish her boyfriend had stayed at least a while longer. She missed him bad. We got some great angst out of her when he was gone, but that don't mean it was a good thing."

"It definitely wasn't a good thing. I know the guy, he's one of my top guys back in Toronto. I don't think anyone knows Britney the way he does. He didn't want to leave, but he was on the run from the law and didn't think he had a choice in the matter. If he could've, he would have asked her to come."

"She wouldn't have anyway," the Wraith says softly. "Askin' her to leave New York would've killed her sure as the feds finally did. She loved this city too much to walk away from it."

There's a respectful silence after this, although for a second it seems that Emily is doing her best to bite back a comment. Whatever it is, she doesn't say it, and after a long moment the group opens up a little more about their personal origins. All of them had been part of the same discussion groups online, and most of them still write. Their former homes echo the independent waves of arrivals, the earliest refugees coming from Southern states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas. The later arrivals indicate the growing power of Britney in what were once strongholds of liberal thought, coming from the cities in the heart of blue states: Boston, Seattle, Detroit, Philadelphia, even the District of Columbia. Finally, the woman who shares joints with the Connecticut Yankee says, "I left San Francisco when it started to go downhill, and I still miss the fucking dawn over the fucking Bay."

"I miss my friends," one woman says. "I wrote in a lot of different fandoms, and a lot of the people there turned, even though they wrote slash. I knew I'd lost another friend when they stopped posting slash and started posting het and flaming the slash. It surprised me how many of my friends went over to the dark side of the force."

"It shouldn't," says the woman whose hands are intertwined with the Wraith's. She shakes long curly hair out of her eyes. "I came from Seattle. More like I ran from Seattle. I used to be proud of my city, but it changed so quickly... it lost its soul. Seattle is dead to me."

"It's not their fault," Todd tells her gently. "Britney was tested on Washington. They had plenty of time to fine-tune it and get everyone under."

She looks at him with stunning blue eyes and says, "Some fought it. How come all of them couldn't?"

He doesn't have an answer for her.

While Todd is busy upstairs trying to chat up strange (very strange) women, Dee has been digging through the archives, watching political commercials and commentary from the left wing past and enjoying game tape from years ago. The archivist, a pretty brunette with green eyes, introduced herself at the beginning of the session precisely as Michelle Sheridan- "I can't just be Michelle, there've been too many of them here, including the one who almost betrayed us," she explains.

"Betrayed?" Dee inquires.

Michelle nods. "She was actually an Amazon, one of the founders. A pen name of Switch-Hitter really should have warned people, though. She liked both sides of the plate- she'd write about girls and girls, but she was more fond of boys than girls. When the feds raided their base, she joined the rest of the Amazons in fleeing, but her heart was never really here. They say she went Channel 1 and tried to give our location to the government, but her friend knew that something was wrong and got the word out that she'd switched sides. The next morning, her body was found on the front steps, one bullet through her head. That's the only time we've ever had infiltration, and that was a bizarre situation."

The gentle glow of the television's light plays over Dee's face in a bright splay of colors. She stares at the screen intently, remembering the days when basketballer and lesbian weren't synonymous, when her teammates were as mixed and eccentric as New York itself, when it was a guessing game who liked men and who liked women and who liked whoever. She remembers stories, tales, laughter that lasted for hours, and wonders where it all went wrong. She sees herself on the screen, and it seems impossible that she was ever so young and innocent; was there really a time when things didn't hurt this way, when the bitterness and pain and fear didn't show on her face? Was she ever really that beautiful, or is it just an illusion of the videotape? Her memories have faded under the weight of persecution and hatred, and it doesn't seem fair that within these archives some part of her that's never known these things, never can, never will, still exists.

She wonders if this was her fate. Dee, short for Deirdre; Deirdre, an Irish name meaning sorrowful, or troubler, or wanderer. Some things never change, no matter how hard she and everyone around her tries to make a difference. She's had her share of sorrows, and she's been forced into some wandering.

"Would you like to leave something in the Dead Letter Office?" Michelle asks suddenly, putting the brakes on Dee's reverie for a moment.

"The Dead Letter Office?" Dee asks, not even pretending to hide her confusion.

"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't know. It's a way to reach out from beyond. We all leave something there for the people we love; if one of us dies, one of their friends goes there and picks up their letters for delivery. You can update whenever you want, but the catch is that you can't remove a letter from the office if you change your mind about someone, so often people date the letters. We just... no one ever wanted to take the risk they wouldn't be able to say everything that needed to be said. I know Wraith's in here every other week or so, telling Opal how much she loves her. Crazy Amazons." Michelle smiles fondly. When Dee stares blankly at her, Michelle fills her in on the same history that Todd heard from the Amazons themselves. "I've got a lot of their work stored in the archives here," she adds. "Heck, you might even be in some of it; when they left their hideout downtown, they brought Slash Stewart's laptop with them, and she had copies of all their old work on that. I think that thing's older than I am, and that's saying a lot."

"I think I'll take a pass," Dee says. She doesn't want to admit that the thought of people writing about her private and personal life disturbs her to no end, and she'd rather not find out how accurate or inaccurate they were. Instead, she pops another game tape into the VCR and lets the memories flow. Michelle seems to recognize her need for this time with basketball and remains mostly silent, only interrupting Dee's reverie long enough to offer popcorn or the remote.

After a little while, Dee gets the sense that someone else is watching with her. She pauses the tape and looks over. There's a very dark-skinned girl in the chair next to hers, maybe eleven years old. Dee's not sure, because she's never been good at guessing ages. "Hi," she says to the girl.

"Hi."

Michelle looks up from cataloguing at the sound of conversation. "Taryn, that's Dee. Dee, that's Taryn. What happened? I thought you and Ariel had round four-seventy-three today."

"Ari's late," Taryn replies. "Someone probably asked her to do them a favor. I know she'll get here. She always does." She looks at Dee. "You wanna watch when Ari comes?"

"I don't know. What would I be watching?"

"Oooh! Oooh! Chelle, can I show her? Please?"

"Okay, just remember not to take her down the dogs' hallway. They don't know her, and they might try to attack her." Michelle picks up the remote off the table and turns off the TV as Dee follows Taryn to a cozier part of the sublevels.

"You live down here?" Dee asks.

"Yeah. I kinda like it. It's real quiet most of the time, 'cept when the dogs start acting up. I like the security, and it's always the right temperature. I really don't like the winter." Taryn stops in a doorway and flips a light switch. "Like my room?"

"Yeah," Dee says, honestly enough. It's small but comfortable; though it's not painted, there are enough posters and pictures on the walls to make the room not so stark. A plethora of soft things covers the floor and most seating space. The theme of the room seems to be pink, surprisingly traditional for someone living with the Disciples. Taryn moves an armload of stuffed animals to the end of her bed and indicates that it's all right if Dee sits down. Once Dee's gotten herself comfortable, Taryn takes a seat at the strikingly unusual chessboard; instead of different colors for the two sides, the pieces are all black, differentiated by the markedly different styles for each player. One set of pieces looks very modern, made from black glass, while the other is far less stylized and seems to be made from some sort of black stone. "Interesting chessboard you have. Why don't you use different colors?"

"Why would we? We can tell 'em apart just fine."

"The only chess sets I've ever seen had the same kind of pieces for both players, just in black and white."

Taryn stares at Dee as if she's gone mad. "Ew! That's just... why would I do that? I wouldn't want to be white."

"Most people would, actually. White always gets the first move in chess."

"Most people are weird," Taryn declares. Dee can't help but laugh at that, because it's accurate in more ways than this girl who hasn't even reached adolescence knows. But maybe she does, living with the Disciples.

"How long have you lived here?" she asks the girl.

"Forever," Taryn says matter-of-factly. "I've always lived here."

"So your mom's a Disciple?"

"I guess she was. I never knew her. Chelle says she died ten years ago."

"Wow. How'd you survive without a mom?"

"I dunno. I was maybe two and not paying attention. I don't know anything about her unless people tell me." Most people would sound sad or regretful in a situation like this, but Taryn just sounds factual, maybe even a little dry. It's clear that she doesn't resent the mother she never knew for leaving her this way, and that's a surprisingly mature attitude for someone of Taryn's age, to the point where the surprise shows clearly on Dee's face. "I never knew her, remember? I can't hate her if I don't know her. If she was a Disciple, then she looked them in the faces, spat in their eyes, told them to go to hell, and went out with style. That's all anyone could ask."

"Spoken like a true Disciple," someone says from the doorway. The voice belongs to a teenaged black girl of breathtaking beauty, even if that beauty is already worn and faded a bit. This has to be Ariel, Taryn's apparently long-time chess partner. "Sorry I'm late. Are we playing round-robin?"

"Nah, she's here to watch. Let's cut to the chase. Which set do you want, the glass or the marble?"

"You choose."

"Sis..."

"Really. Whatever you want."

Taryn rolls her eyes and claims the glass pieces. "Coin toss all right for starters?"

"Yeah, sure." The game starts with Taryn winning the toss and earning the first move. Everything happens quickly from there, almost too quickly; neither of them is particularly skilled at chess, but Dee has no way of knowing this. She's not really all that interested in the game, either, so when she thinks both of them are too engrossed in the game to notice her absence, she leaves the room. Without a guide, she's lost in the corridors, and she soon gets the sense that she's completely and totally lost; these halls don't look familiar, nor do they seem to lead to anything that she's seen before. She's nervous and a little scared, and as it becomes clearer that she's lost, she calls out, "Help! Hey, I'm a little lost here, anyone feel like giving me a hand?"

The only answer her plea receives is a howl that seems too primal to come from a human throat, and it ramps up Dee's fear right to shivering terror. The hallway she's gone down is blank and austere, marked only by a few heavy-duty doors with narrow slots; they look like the doors to prison cells. Dee hadn't thought that the Disciples took captives, but there's always the chance that they use rooms like this for people they're trying to deprogram. She looks through the slot in one of the doors to see who or what is in there that needs such heavy protection.

What she sees is a dark, stocky figure in rags; it's nearly impossible to tell if the person is male or female, only that they're very angry at everything and anything that comes within their range. Broken, yellowed teeth gleam dimly in what light penetrates the cell, and brown eyes are wide with madness. Dee steps away nervously, and the figure runs at the door screaming. The crash as all that weight hits the door is deafening, jangling along Dee's already-tense nerves. Even though there's thick inches of strong metal between her and her would-be attacker, she still feels like things will go wrong any second.

That's when Michelle enters the scene with a gun. "How'd you end up down here?" she asks. Before letting Dee answer, she steps in front of the door and fires the gun. The figure inside lets out a small shriek and stumbles back. "Remind me to tell someone that we're running out of tranq darts," she says, purportedly to Dee but more to herself.

"Who or what was that?" Dee asks, still shaken up by the experience.

"Someone who was fucked long before Britney," Michelle replies, and there's a tinge of grief to her voice. "Drugs and alcohol do bad things to your head. They may protect the straights from Britney, and they may be insulation from the bad memories for us, but let's face it, they're bad for you. Mixing them is a really bad idea. Mixing them with mental instability is an awe-inspiringly bad idea. We've run across a few people who really don't have anything left but anger at the world and a need for drugs, and while I don't agree with this, some of the higher-up people have decided to take them in. In some cases, we let them out as berserkers- that's the part that really gets to me. Taking someone and using them without any concern for what they want, or think, or feel- that shouldn't be our way. That's Britney's thing. But some of them are just too dangerous to be out on the street."

"It's pretty messed up," Dee says noncommittally, trying hard to get the image out of her head. As she and Michelle walk back to the archives, she changes the topic in order to give her something else to think about. "Tell me about Ariel and Taryn. They seem kinda young to be here. Taryn mentioned that her mom died when she was really young, and I know that she's been here as long as she can remember."

Michelle smiles. "They're our little girls. I think half the group would walk through fire if it meant those girls got something they wanted, and all of us would do it to save or protect them. Yeah, Taryn's been with us since she was two or so. It's sad, really- her mom never even named her because she didn't want to form an attachment to her own daughter. We ended up naming Taryn ourselves, after her mother. Ariel's a little different. We actually got her back from the abyss when she hit puberty a few years ago. Between our efforts, the Amazons', and her mother's, we managed to get the programming knocked out of her pretty little head, more or less. The cost was high, and even then we didn't get her completely clean. She still crosses herself a little too often, and she doesn't have any chutzpah, which is why she's fifteen and knocked up."

"Pregnant at fifteen? You've gotta be kidding me."

"She's always looked older than her age, and she can't say no. You do the math. If her mother knew... but her mother's past knowing, we can be thankful for small mercies. Ariel's mother lost her sanity to pull her out of it; she sacrificed herself to Britney in order to get Ariel out. She realized that she was lost, and she decided to go out with a bang." Michelle sighs. "Those two girls are the daughters of two of our greats. They're part of why we fight- to make sure they have a real world to grow up in."

Dee holds the door open so they can reenter the archive wing. "There's a lot of reasons just like them," she says, and Michelle nods agreement. The brunette climbs up on a ladder and takes out a tape in a plastic case. Dee catches it as it falls and loads the VCR. Ariel and Taryn's story is a sad one, even if the girls don't know the extent of it, and Dee feels a little guilty that she wants to get the thought out of her head as soon as possible. Anything will do for that, anything at all.

A short while later, someone knocks loudly on the door. A pretty Latina woman bolts in with a smile. "Chelle! Chelle! Shimmy's here!" she yells, only standing in one place long enough to jump up and down with excitement. Noticing that Michelle has a guest, she adds, "Sorry to break up the party, just thought you might want to come up. You spend way too much time down here, chica."

"Hey, if Shimmy's here, the party can only get better." Michelle turns to Dee. "Shimmy's our drug runner, among other things. If you wanna stay down here and look around, that's fine- everything's marked and labeled pretty clearly. Nikki, tell me why I stay down here?"

"'Cause you're a geek and a nerd and a dork and you need to get out more." Nikki kisses Michelle on the cheek and leads her upstairs.

"Uh, can I come too?" Dee feels stupid for even asking the question, much less the way it came out.

Nikki looks back at her. "Damn right you can. Hot blondes should never have to be alone. Chelle, you shouldn't even have let her get the idea into her head that she could be by herself down here." She indicates the staircase with a tilt of her head, and Dee follows the two Disciples as they chat their way to the main level. It surprises Dee how late it's gotten and how long she's been in the archives.

There's a very tall woman with wildly multicolored beads in her long black braids waiting for them with a handtruck. When the three of them, plus a few people trickling down from the higher floors, arrive, she breaks into a smile a mile wide. She greets most of the group with kisses, and when her eyes light on Dee she wraps the blonde up in a bear hug and gives her a peck on the cheek. "Welcome to the family, little sister," she says, her voice thick with a musical Caribbean accent.

"Whaddya bring us? Huh? Huh? Whaddya bring us?" Nikki asks, reverting to the hopping up and down that had annoyed Dee somewhat before.

"Well, this box is the usual, enough to keep you all satisfied and then some until I come back again. This box has some fresh fruit, because I know you need it in this season. The little box on top has some books imported from South America so you can read for a change, plus two weeks of the French papers, and those cost a pretty penny." Shimmy reaches into the voluminous pockets of her sweatshirt and withdraws a plastic case. "Emily, this is for you and Light in the Dark. Try not to go through it too quickly, it takes a while for my sources to get their hands on this."

Emily- one of those who came down from upstairs- opens the lid of the black box just enough to satisfy herself with its contents. She smiles mirthlessly at Shimmy. "Thanks. I had to use my last shot an hour ago."

Dee looks around the group, seeking someone who will give her an explanation, because she has the sense she should know something about what's going on here. But each person whose eyes she tries to meet flicks their gaze away, unwilling to be the one who explains the situation. She finally gives up and listens to the gossip that Shimmy brings from the southern climes. It's not all bad, but it could definitely be better: Britney's influence in the islands of the Caribbean is still great, too great for anyone's comfort, but her power in her Channel 1 incarnation still hasn't taken hold; she can only control the people through her less-important channels, and she has no sure way of bringing them to the mainstream that she and her creators so desperately crave everyone on. Nor can she use those other channels to convince people to give up key aspects of their culture that keep them somewhat insulated from her full effects. There, the fight has stalled, but at least it hasn't been lost.

But when Shimmy came here, the passenger in a tiny propeller plane, she had to make several stops in the United States as they refueled and headed to the safe haven of New York, and the news from those areas is not nearly as encouraging. The Spanish-speaking cities of Florida are changing from Channel 5 to Channel 1; traditionally, strongly, proudly black towns have switched from Channel 4 to the mainstream network. Racial, cultural identities are being shed at a faster pace than ever before, and Shimmy's scared of what the country is becoming. "One more time," she says. "One more time, and then when I get back to Jamaica I'll keep going south. They speak English a little in Venezuela, maybe I'll go there and hide out until this country gets its senses back. Or maybe I'll go overseas. I hear Ireland's nice, and I've always had a soft spot for countries starting with I."

"You always say one more time, una vez más," Nikki laughs. "Y nunca vas, you always come back. ¿Qué cambiará? Nothing, that's what's gonna change."

"I've never been this serious before," Shimmy replies. "I'm scared like never before."

"And with good reason," Dee says. Everyone looks at her as if she's gone crazy, some of them registering her presence for the first time. "Things are getting worse- it's not just your imagination. We got tired of them trying to run our lives, so they got tired of us fighting back. Britney and her masters are stepping up the outrage and the lies, and they're coming for us." Her eyes sweep the group, and she's only a little disappointed that her hunch was right as Michelle, Nikki, Shimmy, and the rest of them register exactly who and what she means. It takes a lot for her to say the next few words; it hurts, it burns, it aches, it cuts, it terrifies her. "They wanted to start the same way they did in '09, take someone who ran off at the mouth too much for their liking and make an example of her for all to see. I was supposed to be the example. That's how I know they're at it again, except this time they won't be satisfied leaving the job for another time. We've fought back just by existing, let alone what you guys do here, and they've had enough of that. When they come, because they're going to come, no doubt about it, they're not going to stop until they've killed us all. Once we're gone, who's left to fight?"

"You're making somewhere else look very good right now," Shimmy sighs.

Dee gets up on the step to erase more than half a foot's difference in their heights and looks the black woman in the eye. "Once we're gone, who's left to fight?" she repeats, investing the words with a new meaning.

"I've fought long and hard enough."

"They're still here, aren't they? The fight's not over." Dee's voice resonates, and apparently so do her words; a couple of the women start to applaud her. She's a little embarrassed by the unexpected attention and by the slight narrowing of Shimmy's eyes; it's clear that she's struck a nerve in the other woman, and maybe sometime she'll get a chance to find out what she said, but this isn't the day. Shimmy chooses to ignore Dee's last few words and rolls the handtruck into the depths of the building, leaving the medium-sized box from the middle on the steps.

Nikki rips the box open. "Awright, that's what I'm tawkin' about!" she says triumphantly, taking out a handful of finely rolled joints. She claims one for herself, then passes the rest around, each woman taking one or two like Halloween candy, back when Halloween still meant something mysterious and fun. A woman with long curly hair takes out a lighter for everyone's use, and soon they're all reasonably mellow, chatting and laughing freely.

Shimmy's arrival had caused Emily and a few of the other Amazons to scamper downstairs like the final bell at school had just rung, and once they were gone the rest of the group had gotten back to what they were doing before Todd's arrival. He slumps in one of the empty chairs now, clandestinely keeping an eye on one woman who had introduced herself as the Atheist.

"Don't bother," Barry says from the hallway. "You don't stand a chance with her. Connecticut Yankee or Light in the Dark, you got a shot. But what are you thinking, trying to hit on an Amazon?"

Todd shrugs. "I need a drink," he says, since that seems to be a pretty decent solution for most problems. "Maybe even a lot of drinks."

"I can understand that. The still's on the roof, and I don't think anyone decanted the last batch of moonshine. C'mon up." Barry leads the way up the narrow, creaking staircase that provides access to the roof. Most of the rooftop space is devoted to the boxes and tubs of earth that allow the Disciples to grow grain for their still. Barry indicates a beaten-up table and a pair of battered wooden chairs. "Sorry there's nothing better up here, but we save whatever's left over for our little café, and a batch of refugees took the good furniture. Look on the bright side, at least they're not metal; it's still cold enough to freeze your tuchis off if you're not careful. Let me just nip into the dovecote and pour us some whiskey."

Todd takes the proffered seat and waits. As soon as the former dovecote's door closes, he hears a click; in fact, it comes so quickly after the sound of the door that for a moment he tries to convince himself that it was just the clear sharp echo bouncing off the neighboring apartment building. But he's an old soldier, and he knows the sound of the safety coming off a gun as well as any fighter. Instinct kicks in almost before he knows it, his hands bringing the gun to bear as he leaps from his seat. "I know you're out there!" he yells. Dusk is slowly falling over the city, making it harder and harder to distinguish more than shapes and silhouettes, but he sees a rustle in one of the rows of corn. He swings the gun in that direction, trying to track the tiny movement that he's now not so sure he really saw.

Barry exits the dovecote with two glasses half full of cloudy liquid. He observes the situation with surprising detachment and asks, "What's going on here?" His tone suggests exasperation and resignation.

"There's someone up here with a rifle. But then, you knew that already, didn't you? You led me into a trap!"

Barry raises his eyes to the heavens. "If I had wanted you dead, I wouldn't have kissed you. That's just tacky." Very calmly, he places the glasses on the table and turns back for the dovecote.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Todd demands, his voice rising in pitch; the only reason he doesn't bring the gun to bear on Barry is that he knows the other man isn't armed, while the stranger in the night is.

"Getting myself a glass of moonshine. Since we have an extra guest, I ought to leave these two for you guys." Barry raises his voice enough to make it clear that he's talking to whoever is out there. "You can come out for a drink if you want. He's not our enemy. He fights the same forces we do." With that, he reenters the dovecote, seemingly grateful to be out of the potential crossfire. For a long moment that does bad things to Todd's heart, there is silence and stillness so complete that it seems like the world has come to an end. Suddenly a figure materializes out of the shadows. Short, slender, probably female, hair either cut short or tied back tightly, rifle clutched in two small hands: these are the only details Todd can make out on this moonless winter night.

When Barry returns to the scene, he reaches over and turns on a lamp whose flickering light makes things clearer. The rifle-wielder is indeed female, with dark gray hair worn in a ragged shoulder-length ponytail. There's still some girlish beauty to her features, but it's buried under layers of city grime and well hidden behind the stark lines engraved in her face by hatred and bitterness, stress and privation. Her eyes glitter a cold pale gray like the reflection off subway steel. Loose-fitting pants and a long-sleeved shirt are her raiment of choice, both items of clothing an indeterminate color but seemingly a permanent shade of dingy gray. She doesn't seem to care about her appearance, which throws the meticulously cared-for rifle into sharper contrast with her. When she looks at Todd, it's clear that she's looking through him, but it's hard to tell whether she's that indifferent to his presence or if she wishes she could bore holes in him with her stare.

Barry reevaluates the situation with a glass in his hand. "How about I propose a toast?" he suggests, raising the glass. "Here's to liberty."

"I'll drink to that." Todd seconds the motion, knocking back a good gulp of the whiskey. After a couple of coughs, he says, "Hell, with this I'd drink to almost anything."

The woman turns her terribly intent glare to Barry for a long moment, fury etched on her face, before she takes the glass off the table and drains it. Once she's done with that, she looks out over the roof, watching the traffic lights carefully. Something catches her eye. She raises the gun, sights carefully, and fires. Five floors below, a pristinely dressed man with blond streaks in his dark hair clutches his chest and falls to the sidewalk in his death throes.

"Needed to empty the gun?" Todd inquires.

She looks blankly at him, as if wondering why he's talking to her, then nods sharply. One shoulder jerks up in something that might be a shrug before she slips away down the stairs.

"We're well-guarded here, when we need to be," Barry says casually, sipping his whiskey. "The rest of the time, we let her loose on the rest of the city to fulfill her quota. If she doesn't kill one zombie a day, she gets testy. It's hard to tell whether she's testy or not, but I think it means she's more trigger-happy than usual."

Todd puts it all together, thinking of half-forgotten glimpses on city streets, of bodies that suddenly fall without reason, of whispered legends told in shadowed alleys, and a name that strikes fear into the heart of even the hardest, maddest New Yorker. "So that's the Gray Lady," he muses.

"In the flesh," Barry agrees, stressing the last word just slightly as he mocks the most prevalent tales told about the Gray Lady. "Be glad she sleeps during the day, because she would have killed you before Emily had a chance to lighten her hair."

"I thought she'd be taller."

"One of her many flaws," Barry says dryly. "Though I think of the homicidal psychosis as a slightly bigger one, as is the talking to inanimate objects but ignoring real people. I find myself disturbed by people who name and talk to their guns. Even for me that's a little phallic."

"You sound like you know her pretty well."

"A lot of us here know her story; it was all over the papers when it broke. Lover found dead in her apartment, clothes and everything strewn all over the place; she tried to report the crime and got a year in military prison for her troubles. She went underground after that and let everyone believe that she was the one who died. Some people think that she's deluded herself into believing that she's her lover and that she was the one who died in real life. I don't believe it myself; it's a little too deep for her to really pull off."

"You sure you just know her through her story?" Todd asks.

There's a distance in Barry's eyes, and his hand tightens around the glass. "I never said that," he mutters. "But that was another time, a lot of lifetimes ago. And this is the part where you stop this line of questioning." It's clear that this is a sore spot for the older man, and Todd stops asking questions when he sees how hard this has hit Barry. They sit on the roof sipping whiskey in silence, each man lost in his own thoughts.

Michelle draws out the punchline to an unspeakably dirty joke, gesturing obscenely with the hand that's holding her joint, and the rest of the women break out into hearty guffaws. "I can't believe you said that in public!" Dee gasps through her laughter. "My God!"

"I get that a lot," Michelle says with a smirk. Nikki ruffles her hair with a smile that's at least R-rated.

A couple of people move out of the doorway as a figure steps out. The Gray Lady doesn't acknowledge the stares that she receives, merely walks through the crowd as it parts for her. Dee is slow to move, unfamiliar with the Gray Lady, and so they come face-to-face. She can see the beauty, a face she vaguely remembers from her past, underneath the filth and the grief, and it doesn't seem right that someone so pretty should be hurting so much. Their eyes meet, Dee noticing that she and the stranger are the exact same height. But all such analytical thought is lost when she feels the full impact of the Gray Lady's stare. Like Todd, Dee gets the sense that the Gray Lady isn't exactly looking at her; unlike Todd's idea that she was looking right through him, Dee feels like the woman with the empty gray eyes is searching for something inside her soul, maybe an answer to whatever questions remain unanswered, maybe a way to defeat the demons inside her mind. Whatever it is, the Gray Lady seems to have found it. When she blinks, there's some different awareness in her eyes. One pale hand strokes the side of her gun gently, but the expression on her face is as hard as stone. She leans closer to Dee and whispers in a voice cracked from disuse, "I used to be you. Don't be me." With that she steps to one side and vanishes into the night.

Dee's still staring at the spot where the Gray Lady stood just a moment ago; she doesn't realize that the others are watching her cautiously. Glances are exchanged as the women try to decide who should make the statement. Nikki finally takes matters into her hands. "Chica... madre de Dios, she actually talked. You got the Gray Lady to talk. What did she say to you? ¡Dinos, dinos!"

But Dee doesn't, can't, won't, tell them. There's no way that she can explain the curious sense of kinship she felt with the stranger, the affinity that made her believe those eight words told to her in a chillingly soft voice. It's all too easy to see herself in the rigid figure of the Gray Lady, too clear that they once walked similar paths. The thought of becoming that cold and detached, and yes, that psychotic, terrifies Dee, because until now she hadn't thought that she could feel that level of hatred and anger at the world. Seeing the Gray Lady as a real person, and as a woman so similar to her, is a sharp reminder that this war against her people is enough to drive anyone insane.

The silence is painful and awkward as it becomes clear that Dee won't reveal what the Gray Lady told her. Little conversations start around her, but no one invites her into any of them. When she tries to interject, her words pass ignored. She's left alone, and Todd's presence on the staircase comes as a relief.

He's talking quickly to Barry as he exits the building. "Keep quiet the next week or two," he says. "Everyone needs to stay inside. Don't go to the still, don't cause any trouble, don't even let any pot smoke get out the window. Just pretend you don't exist for the next couple of weeks, and I can make the government believe the same thing. The head honchos won't want to believe it, but they'll have to. After that, I'll be in touch. We're gonna need you guys in the next few months, because this is the big one. Can I rely on you?"

"As much as yourself," Emily says.

Todd flashes a crooked grin. "That's not saying much."

"You knew what I meant."

"Sure, but I know what you said, too." Without letting Emily get in a comeback, because there really isn't a good one for this, Todd gestures to Dee that they should go. He turns back to the ragged group of Disciples on the front steps. "We've got to leave. Monday, they'll want my report in Washington, and I've got to escort Dee to the border before I go back down that way. Monday, you guys need to go deep underground. I'm serious. You have to make sure no one can find you."

Michelle makes a rude noise. "We're New Yorkers," she says, purposely including the West Coast refugees in her gesture. "Whether we were born here or not, we're New Yorkers. If we don't want to be found, you fuck-well better believe we won't be found. We're not that stupid, you know. We'll wait as long as we need to, just as long as we get our shot at the bitch."

"Don't worry. There'll be plenty to go around." Todd's voice is grim, lacking in much of the trickster nature that pervades his being. This is war, and in war he reverts somewhat to being the Blue Jay, merciless and ruthless soldier. In some ways, this is the sanest side of him.

Dee attempts to lighten the moment. "Do you remember where we parked? It shouldn't be too hard to find Canadian plates in the city." The joke falls flat, and she shrugs. "Hey, I tried. But yes, I would like to get out of the country that wants me to die, even if I'm in the one part of the country that disagrees."

"Thanks for coming. Maybe next time you can stay a little longer." Barry puts out his hand, and both Todd and Dee shake. After a moment, Emily also allows for handshakes. The rest of the group settles for waves and nods. The two rebels walk off up Broadway, exchanging notes on the different facets of the Disciples that they experienced. Todd's car is parked safely in a garage on a side street, and when Dee gets into the passenger seat, she looks at Todd and says, "Don't ever let me end up like the Gray Lady. That's not what you saved me for. If there's ever a reason for me to get that bad, just kill me. Please. It's better than living crazy."

"I can't do that, Dee. There's nothing wrong with living crazy. If I had to kill you for it, I'd have to kill myself too."

Dee laughs. "You're not crazy, Todd."

Todd puts the key in the ignition and starts the car. Before they start moving, he looks her in the eye and says, "According to who?" He guns the gas and they roar north, neither of them looking back.