(This is the story text from the corresponding Radio Cataclysm podcast episode. If you prefer audio, you can subscribe here. Read and listen early on Patreon.)

Captain Teymore wasted no time. “If any of you knows anything about computers, I need an extra hand,” she shouted. She jumped into the cab of the paddywagon and flipped open the computer console. Steven climbed down from the back of the wagon, followed by a hesitant Matthew and a very weary looking John.

“I can hack anything with a tube,” said Steven. He hopped up into the cab next to Teymore.

“Good,” she said. She handed him the homunculus.

“Ugh,” he said, but he took the creature. It writhed like a worm in his hand.

“Pop it into that tube, headfirst,” she said, pointing at one of the computer's ports. Steven did as she said.

The homunculus flailed its arms and legs. “Nooooo,” it screamed, but was quickly silenced when its head went into the tube.

“We need to subvert its protocol,” Sheryl said. “Use the homunculus to spoof their ISP and set up a proxy server. That should reverse the polarity of the tractor beam.”

“Got it,” said Steven. His hands flew across the keyboard in a blur, typing and hacking as only a surly teenager can. Sure enough, the tractor beam's color turned from purple to green. Meat Rom's body stopped for a moment in midair, then started descending gently back to Earth.

“Huzzah!” said Sheryl. She gave Steven a high five with her good hand.

The computer screen flashed white. A countdown clock appeared onscreen, displaying thirty seconds. It started counting down immediately. “Shit,” said Sheryl. “It's a self-destruct mechanism. That airship is going to blow up right over our heads. We'll have to tandem hack this one, but it won't be easy with only three hands.”

Both of Steven's hands and Sheryl's good one hammered the keyboard until it was nearly smoking. The clock flashed twenty.

“Every time I get through a tube, it reroutes to their firewall,” Steven said.

“I'll clear the cache,” said Sheryl. “That should break the encryption.”

Ten seconds left.

“A key popped off,” said Steven.

“Leave it; it's the tilde.”

Nine seconds, eight. The homunculus burst into flames.

Seven, six, five.

“Their firewall's down.”

Four, three, two.

“Invert the motherboard!”

The clock stopped with one second left. The computer console made a sizzling noise, then a pop. The screen went dark. The hovercraft rose into the sky, then shot away into the murky twilit haze, leaving only a purple trail that soon faded.

“Damn!” Sheryl said. She pounded the computer with her fist.

“What are you mad about?” asked Steven. “We stopped the destruct sequence.”

“If it had hung around a minute longer, we could have attempted to hijack it. We really could have used an airship. This wagon's not going anywhere with all flat tires and a broken axle. It looks like they fried our antenna with a feedback loop, too. I'll try rebooting the console, but I'm sure we'll need to make some repairs.”

“Once we fix the antenna, we could try to boost the signal to the cloud, see if we can ping their GPS and reroute the backdoor encryption. We could turn the airship around and make it come back for us.”

“No,” Sheryl said. “Those things are fast. It'll be halfway to Antarctica by now. We do need to boost the signal, though; I need to contact headquarters, or at least access a news feed. If what the homunculus said is true, we might have bigger problems than a broken axle. First things first, though. We could all use a bite to eat.”

* * *

A painful resetting of the bone and a generous dose of Medi-Gel got Sheryl's arm in more or less working order. She applied some of the healing aid to Bob's scalp and helped him stick patches onto his cowl.

Everybody pitched in who was able, and they finished piling the remains of the Pneuma soldiers and squids on the fire just as the Sun went down. They laid Jim's body at the front of the wagon. Meat Rom still lay supine on a small hill, snoring lightly.

“Any advice on what to do with your friend?” Sheryl asked Burts. He was back on his feet now, but he walked slowly and with a severe limp. “He may be severely injured. The debilitator venom should wear off in an hour or two, but it may be sooner with a man his size. Or later, considering all the beer he drank in the bar. We need to move him, but I can't see you picking him up and carrying him in your current state, even with your super healing powers.”

“I wouldn't have thrown Meat Rom if I thought it would really hurt him. I've got Woulf blood. He's got the same, plus a layer of synthetically grown organic cushioning under his skin. His bones are infused with an experimental material they originally developed for self-healing concrete. His skull and spine have some kind of fluid running through them that protects and heals his nervous system at the same time. He could tell you more about it than I could. My point is, he'll be in better shape than any of us. Being an experimental super-soldier has a few perks, at least. Came in handy when we broke out.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Sheryl asked. “I could have guessed that you were a super-soldier from your blood and your weird strength, but why tell me the rest of it?”

“I figured you already knew,” said Burts. “I thought you were some elite secret forces soldier, undercover as an attercop. They didn't tell you who your targets were?”

“I'm just a Guard. All they told us was that you and Meat Rom are fugitives, and that you stole military grade weapons.”

“Those weapons would be me and Meat. Look, I don't know why your people kept you in the dark. Or maybe the Americans are keeping the Churls in the dark. I don't care. I'm not the one trying to keep my existence a secret. All you need to know is that my beef is not with you. Look, I'll be honest. I had a plan to escape, but if what that little baby man said is true, the plan's changed.”

Sheryl nodded. “We'll all think better with some food in our bellies. I assume you and Meat will need extra rations?”

Burts nodded. “These upgrades come with a hell of metabolism. Two meals for me, three for him. Thanks.”

“Returning to the subject of moving him,” Sheryl said.

“Not a problem,” said Burts. “He's running in safe mode. There's a specific frequency that signals him to boot up.” He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill, warbling whistle that pitched higher and higher until none of the humans could hear it anymore. Meat Rom sat straight up. He looked around, taking in the remains of the chaos. Burts beckoned him over. “I'll bring you up to speed, mate,” he called.

Bob seemed to regain his composure once he put Sheryl's spider mask on. He opened the hatch on the port side of the wagon. “There's some damage in here,” he said. “Some rations were crushed. The water tank is okay. Oh, no. Rover's broken. He won't even power on.”

Sheryl looked over Bob's shoulder at the electric bloodhound. “We might be able to fix him,” she said. “It looks like only the casing cracked in the impact. I think we can get him working. Looks like we have rations for about a week. Let's hope that's enough if we have to hoof it.”

“Why is there a box in here with Meat Rom's name on it?” Bob said. He opened the box. Inside were several dark colored bottles labeled 'To be administered with meals.' Wedged down on the side was a smaller box. Inside that box was a tranquilizer gun with several cartridges and a note reading 'Just in case.' “What is this?” said Bob.

Sheryl unscrewed the cap on one of the bottles and gave it a sniff. “I have a hunch,” she said. “Let me take care of these. Just serve dinner for now.”

“All right, everybody, form an orderly line,” Bob said. “Dinner rations consist of a nutritive gel, a packet of whole grain crunch bites, and a pouch of multi-purpose chocolate powder. I like to add texture to the gel by mixing in the crunch bites. Mix the chocolate powder with half a cup of water for a milkshake consistency, a full cup for chocolate milk, or, if you really want to have fun with it, mix it with the gel and pretend you're having dessert for dinner.”

It was hard to tell with his mask on, but Bob seemed genuinely excited about the possibilities afforded by the dinner kits. The prisoners were less enthusiastic. “The Guard take humanitarian treatment of their prisoners seriously,” said Bob, “and these meals will provide all of the calories and nutrition you would get from a balanced meal.”

“How about a cup for water?” Zeck asked, taking his ration.

“There's a collapsible drinking cup in the ration pouch that will hold liquid for up to one hour before dissolving. Help yourself to water, but please use all you take.”

“Cheers,” said Zeck.

The prisoners and guards alike gathered by the fireside. With all of the empty Pneuma suits piled on, the fire blazed high and bright.

“Just in time to take the nip out of the air,” said Zeck.

“I don't mind the cold so much,” said John. “Been sleeping rough most nights for a long time now. It don't get really cold in the Hinterlands for another two or three months.”

“I just hope the purple animus hasn't left a residue on those suits,” said Sheryl. “It couldn't be as bad as breathing it in directly, but if there's even a little bit in the air, we might all have strange dreams tonight.”

“Out of curiosity,” Zeck said, “what would happen if we were to breathe that purple smoke?”

“You'd probably live. Physically, you'd be fine at first, but you'd have terrible nightmares for weeks. It would take a toll on your sanity and your physical health. You might waste away to nothing until you starved to death. You might harm yourself, or others. You might commit suicide. Or you might recover after a while and be okay. But the nightmares wouldn't ever completely go away. Not for good.”

There was silence for a minute while everybody ate their rations.

“Those homunculi smell like meat roasting,” said Zeck.

“Aw, that's fucking nasty,” said Steven. “Eat a lot of long pork on the high seas, do you?”

“Once again, I'm not a pirate,” said Zeck. “Nor a cannibal. I was merely making an observation.”

“Observe your mouth shutting,” Steven said. “Oy, attercops. Where are my smokes?”

“Are you talking to us?” Bob said, incredulously.

“Yeah, you. My mate Matthew and I had half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter with us when you pinched us in the tavern. We'd like an after dinner toke, if you don't mind.”

“Absolutely not,” Bob said. “First of all, those cigarettes are evidence in the case against you. They are sealed in a bag in the evidence locker. Secondly, the two of you are minors. You're sixteen, and your 'mate' is fifteen. You're asking an officer of the peace, whose sworn duty is to uphold the law, to break the seal on an evidence bag in order to enable two minors to smoke tobacco?”

“Now we're on the same page,” said Steven.

“Steven, no,” said Sheryl. “I'm sorry, but Bob is right. We can't give you the cigarettes. We have graduated nicotine patches if you need some.”

“That's bullshit,” said Steven. “The snake mage gets his staff, the corsair gets his satchel with who knows what inside, but Matthew and I can't have a little smoke after dinner?”

“It's not that they're evidence,” said Sheryl. “You shouldn't be smoking anyway.” She sighed. “I arrested you not because you'd broken the law, but because two teenagers smoking in a tavern in the middle of a school day clearly need help. There are programs in Churlia for wayward teens.”

“Right, because clearly, we're better off being attacked with bombs and lasers in the middle of nowhere. I don't need your help. And I don't smoke. They belong to me, is all.”

“Why on Earth are these cigarettes so important to you?” asked Zeck.

Steven looked at Zeck as if he'd forgotten he was still there. “Fuck off, corsair. Nobody asks you why you wear pantaloons.”

“Does your mother know she raised a ne'er-do-well?”

“Does your mother know the abortion didn't take?”

Zeck gasped. Nobody said anything as Steven stood up and stomped over to the back of the wagon. He climbed in and laid down on one of the benches.

“Well, I think we're all a little shocked by that one,” said Zeck. “I mean, I know the kid's an asshole, but there's a line, and he crossed it.”

“He's really not an asshole,” said Matthew. “He's got it hard, is all. He's really a good guy.”

“He does a damn good job of hiding it,” said Zeck. “I'm glad to see you're feeling better, at least. I went through something similar when I was about your age. I didn't smoke half a pack of cigarettes in one sitting, but it was almost worse. I stole a cigar from my father's humidor. I'd never smoked before, so I didn't know what it was like. I just knew my dad and his friends all did it, and I wasn't allowed, so it must be amazing, and I wanted to try it. I climbed out of my bedroom window and up onto the roof. I gagged as soon I put the cigar in my mouth, but I figured it would be better once I lit the thing. I took one puff and vomited over the edge of the roof, right past the open window of my father's study. Of course, he heard me, and soon enough, he smelled the smoke.”

“What did he do?”

“He grabbed a cigar for himself and climbed up onto the roof. He sat down next to me, lit his cigar, told me to re-light mine, and he made me smoke the whole thing. We sat there, side by side, smoking cigars. One of us loving it, the other feeling sicker than he'd ever felt before.”

“Did it put you off cigars for good?”

“No, I loved cigars after that, just to spite him. I never stole another one from his humidor, but I didn't have to; he gave me one every week after that, and we'd go up on the roof together and smoke. I'm still not sure whether he did it to punish me or to bond with me, or equal parts of both, but I still enjoy a good cigar. I loved my father, and I know he loved me. Just, after my mother disappeared, we had a lot of trouble being decent to each other. Half of the things I did, I did because I wanted to be like him. The other half, I did because he told me not to.”

“Is he still around?”

Zeck didn't answer for a moment. “That's a good question. What about your folks? What will they say when they find out you've been arrested for truancy and minor possession of tobacco?”

“My dad worked in the mines. He died when I was real little. I don't really even remember him. My mom raised me all on her own, working two jobs to make sure we always had food and a place to sleep. Cindy, she's the waitress at the tavern where we got arrested, she used to babysit me when my mom worked nights. Sometimes I'd go to the tavern after school. Not to the bar, but to the office upstairs. I'd do my homework there, and Cindy would bring me a sandwich and soda. That's why I brought Steven there to smoke. It's a safe place. Well, safe as anywhere, I guess.

“Steven got the smokes from a friend of his brother's. His brother's not around anymore, not dead, just not around, but his brother's friend still hangs around town. Steven's dad, well, I shouldn't say. It's not my place to tell you. But anyway, Steven's dad is in a fix, and my mom...” Matthew's lip trembled. His eyes watered up. He took a deep breath and continued. “My mom's really sick. She's got the rasp from all the gases, and skin rashes from the acid rain. This land out here's older than I am, but she got exposed to a lot of that stuff when she was young and the lava was fresh. And we're downwind from the Basalt Valley, so there's always something foul drifting through Rintburg. A lot of people have cleared out of town, but we can't afford to leave now. My mom's too sick to work more than a couple hours at a time, but she won't let me get a job. She wants me to focus on school. If I get a scholarship, I can go to college out of state. Maybe out in Fortune's Landing, or somewhere like that.”

“And you throw that in her face by skipping school to smoke with your friend?”

“No, it's not like that. The cigarettes, see, Steven's brother's friend didn't just go down to the Sta-Mart and pick up a pack. These cigarettes belonged to a soldier who died at the battle of Yellowstone. He opened up the pack, but the fighting broke out before he had a chance to smoke any. He had a habit of taking one cigarette out of each pack he smoked, turning it around, and putting it back in the pack. That was his lucky, and he'd smoke that one last. With this pack, he never got a chance to smoke any of them. He died trying to keep the Churls from opening the volcano.

“I don't know how much you know about Yellowstone. We studied it in school last year. There weren't just infantry there, although there were plenty of them, and they fought as hard as anybody. There were also wizards and battlemages, cybermages, all sorts of magical and technomagical folk. There was one very powerful technowizard who controlled an army of genies. Not djinn, you know. Not actual genies from mythology. I think this guy just thought it sounded cool, and he didn't much much about accuracy or cultural appropriation. Lord knows the Churls don't. Anyway, these were really just semi-corporeal servants that he'd made himself from fallen enemy soldiers. Don't ask me how. They were only good for one wish, and then they were done, but it was still pretty amazing what they could do.

“This technowizard didn't trust anybody else to control his genies, or maybe he just liked the power it gave him. Whatever the case, he sealed them up in trinkets like rings and old-fashioned oil lamps, doubling down on the whole genie aesthetic. Anybody who needed one would have to come and ask him, and if he thought it was legit, he'd make the wish for them. All that power couldn't save him, though. When the Churlian Tephra broke through the crust and the supervolcano erupted, the wizard was killed instantly. All of the genies were freed from his command. A few of them went out fighting. They managed to save some lives by holding back the lava for a few minutes. Those genies burned up, their power expended. Most of them weren't so heroic. Some of them fled over the mountains, and nobody knows where they ended up. Some went back into their lamps and rings. A few of them found other places to hide. One genie saw this soldier's open pack of cigarettes lying on the ground, the open end of his lucky smoke standing out among all of the filters. He dived in, turned the lucky cigarette back around so it looked like all the others, and there he's stayed for thirty years.

“Or so the story goes. I don't know if it's true or not. I could only speculate about how somebody would possibly know all that. Maybe a fellow soldier who survived the Battle of Yellowstone? I don't know. Maybe it's hogwash. Steven says his brother's friend wouldn't sell them if he wasn't sure the story was true, because it would be bad for business if his customers couldn't trust him. All I know is, it's my only chance to help my mom. And Steven's only chance to help his dad. We have to smoke the cigarettes to get the genie out. We don't know which one, or how far down we have to smoke it, so we agreed to take turns. Whoever gets the genie gets the wish.”

“All the more reason those cigarettes don't belong to you,” said Bob. “All magical weapons are property of the government on whose land they are discovered or developed, which would normally make this genie the property of the U.S. Government, with requirements that it be cataloged, reported, and made available for requisition by Churlia at any time. However, if this genie was used or intended to be used in the Battle of Yellowstone, it falls under the category of spoils of war, and it belongs to the Churlian Empire. If the court wizards examine the cigarettes and discover that they really do contain a genie, Emperor Craugh will be most pleased that we've recovered such a valuable item. And, if it turns out we really are at war with the Arterians now, this could be the very thing that gives us a leg up.”

Burts spat in disgust. “You'd deprive a kid of his only chance to help his sick mother, merely to add another weapon to your emperor's arsenal? And you wonder why people hate the Churls?”

Bob seemed taken aback. “This young man has the chance to be a war hero. Matthew, would you rather use your single wish to cure your mother of all her ills, or would you rather allow the proper authorities to use that genie to save countless lives? One life, versus potentially millions.”

Matthew opened his mouth, but all that came out was a non-committal, “Umm.”

Bob continued. “The only people who hate the Churls are misguided insurgents like you, Fawth, poisoned by the propaganda churned out by ungrateful malcontents who don't understand all the Empire has done for them. If everybody hated the Empire, why did they all sign the treaty?”

“The treaty?” Burts laughed. “You mean the decree of Churlian Dominion? As if they had a choice.”

“Call it what you will, every nation that signed that treaty has seen peace since pen met paper. War and death and misery only persist in those countries that insist on continuing to fight.”

“This is your first time off the island, isn't it?” said Burts. “You've spent your whole life in Churlia.”

“I don't see how that's relevant,” said Bob.

“No, of course you don't. You talk about propaganda. How many of the things you just said to me were quoted directly from speeches your emperor gave, or editorials from your local news outlets?”

“Plenty of that was my own thoughts, in my own words. If I quote others, it's only because their eloquence on the subject exceeds my own, and they've already expressed my views on the topic better than I could. I won't get drawn into a debate with somebody who allowed his military to give him superhuman abilities, then absconded with them. You can't own a human, but you can own the improvements you've made to that human. That makes you a thief in my book.”

Burts started to respond, but Meat put his hand on his shoulder. “It ain't worth it, Burts,” he said. “You ain't gonna convince him by arguing. By way of changing the subject, captains, you wouldn't happen to have anything stronger than water, would you?” He'd already polished off two of his ration pouches, and he was well into the third.

“Are you asking for alcohol?” said Bob. He'd taken his mask off to eat his meal. He spoke with an air of authority, but his eyes displayed something like fear when he talked to Meat Rom. Perhaps he remembered the crushing weight of the giant from their encounter in the tavern.

“Yeah, if you've got any,” said Meat. “Doesn't have to be good. Straight ethanol will do. Anything fit for human consumption, or even stuff that's not.”

“The gall of you two. No, we don't have any alcohol, and I wouldn't serve it to you if we did. Guards may not partake of intoxicants while on duty, and prisoners are forbidden from consuming any controlled substances other than those prescribed for medical purposes. If you're an alcoholic, we have medication for that.”

“I ain't an alcoholic,” said Meat Rom. “But I do need something to take the edge off.”

“What will happen if you don't drink?” Sheryl asked.

Meat Rom hesitated. “I already told her about the Woulf facility,” said Burts. “Might as well tell her the rest. They ain't our secrets to keep.”

“Well,” said Meat Rom, “the good folks at Woulf Labs like to create enhanced humanoids who specialize in a particular area. Clearly, you've seen that Burts has been enhanced with incredible strength, speed, and combat skills. The strength and resilience they gave me is nothing to scoff at, but it's mostly there to protect the cargo up here.” He tapped his head. “A supercomputer, built partly by nanobots, incorporated with organic components grown from my own brain. Ostensibly designed to calculate every possible scenario in times of war and provide the best possible route to victory. It could be put to use in a minor battle out in the field, or in a war room during a major conflict involving many nations. That was the idea, anyway. It's got other tricks, as well, but that was meant to be its main purpose. We escaped before they could complete my programming. Not before they wiped my memory and gave me this phony-baloney accent, though.

“As far as alcohol and other sedatives, the computer has an unfortunate tendency to overheat when I think too much. I've tried meditation, but it's difficult to keep my mind from wandering. I always end up running fast and hot, which is a problem, because the power source in my noggin could easily cause a thermoquantum explosion once it reaches three hundred celsius. The only things that keep the needle out of the red are depressants like alcohol.”

“How long until it's dangerous?” Sheryl asked.

“It depends,” said Meat. “I had nine beers in the tavern. That debilitator's pretty much worn off now. Maybe twelve hours from now until it becomes a problem. A little longer if I try to meditate.”

“What if you let it get up to speed? Put your brain to work on a specific task? How long until we had to worry?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Our computer was badly damaged when we hacked the Arterian airship. I'm not sure we have the materials we need to repair it. The console is outfitted with organic interface tubes, both male and female. If we could temporarily link your brain to our computer, we might be able to get it working. All I need is a few minutes to contact headquarters, or access a newsfeed, or maybe contact somebody in the Tephra. We need to know if the homunculus was telling the truth.”

Meat Rom considered her proposal for a moment. He wolfed down the rest of his third meal. “We could certainly do that. I've done something like that before, in fact. But I'd say after nine or ten minutes, even if we disconnect me right away, I'll enter a feedback loop and reach critical temperature in less than an hour, unless I get a good dose of something pungent.”

“We have alcohol,” said Sheryl. “It's in the wagon with the supplies, in a box with your name on it.”

Meat Rom nodded. “I'd say your bosses knew what they were sending you to deal with, then. You two must not be just any ordinary Guards. They wouldn't take chances with such property as us.”

“Well, I did graduate top of my class at the academy,” said Bob. “And I've logged over sixty hours in the training simulator. I've completed the Battle of Toms River five times, once in under fifty minutes.”

“I'm just a peace officer,” said Sheryl. “That's all.”

“Have it your way,” said Meat. “Let's get that computer working. Then we'll see where we stand.”

Sheryl stood and tossed her garbage into the fire. She stepped up to the back of the wagon. “Steven, we could use your help.”

“Fuck off,” he said.

“Steven, I'm sorry. I don't know how much you heard in here, but Matthew told us about the cigarettes. I didn't know. I had no way of knowing. Maybe we can work something out, but first I need to get the computer working.”

Steven sat up. “You know, it's not the cigarettes I'm mad about. You were just doing your job. I wouldn't even be mad if that's the entire reason you pinched us. We broke the law, you caught us. Never mind that you didn't arrest Cindy for letting us smoke in there. I wish I'd been caught by the local PD. Then maybe I could see my brother again. But that's just the way the dice roll, I thought. Now you tell me you arrested us so you could take us to the Isle and put us in some kind of program for troubled youths? You don't even fucking know us. Myself, I don't care about. You can do what you want with me. But Matthew, he's got family back in Rintburg. Do they even know he's gone?”

“They'll receive a letter,” Sheryl said.

“A letter. If the postal service is still even running. I don't know, fuck it, let's get the computer running. At least then we'll know what's happening out there, and maybe you'll be so gracious as to let me call Matthew's poor mother.” He hopped down from the wagon. “Your hand's still aching, so I'll do the soldering and shit. I know Meat Rom ain't gonna be much help with those sausage fingers.”

Sheryl led Steven and Meat Rom to the cab. The dome light came on when she opened the door, casting a half-circle of yellow light around the front of the wagon.

“Well, I don't know about the rest of you,” said John, “but I need to find a ditch to whizz in. I can make a light with my staff, if anybody wants to tag along.”

“Thank you,” said Zeck, “but I rarely urinate, thanks to Borb. The, er, genetically engineered stomach virus in my belly.”

“I kind of have to pee,” said Matthew.

“Now, wait a minute,” said Bob. “You can't just wander off on your own.” He pulled up his cowl and snapped his mask into place.

“We won't go far,” said John. “Just gotta find a little slope that runs away from our little camp. This rock isn't particularly absorbent, and I don't want to step in a puddle in the middle of the night when I get up to whizz again.”

“Well, but, if you go, we all have to go.”

“Oh, I honestly don't have to go,” said Zeck.

“Me, neither,” said Burts.

“But. Sheryl!” Bob called to his partner.

“What?” She answered, sounding exasperated.

“The mage and the kid need to eliminate waste, but the other two won't come along.”

“So? Let them stay.”

“What if they run away? Or gang up on you while I'm not around?”

“Bob, if they were going to do something like that, they could do it with you here, and they'd have done it already. I need you to wake up to the reality of the situation. The most important thing you could do right now is take your blunderbuss and cover anybody who has to relieve themselves. There could be scavengers, ravagers, coyotes, or who knows what out there. I've seen you clenching your jaw for the past ten minutes in that way you do when you have to urinate. Nobody's gonna run away, and nobody's gonna mutiny, but you are going to piss your uniform if you don't take a bathroom break yourself, so you might as well go with John and Matthew.”

Bob shifted from one foot to the other. He gave Zeck and Burts the old side-eye. “All right, fine. Any prisoners who need to evacuate bodily waste, form a single file line in front of me.”

“Not a second too soon,” said John. He thumped his staff on the ground and the gemstone on the end lit up like a torch. John and Matthew lined up ahead of Bob, and the three of them jogged off to find a ditch.

Sheryl climbed into the cab with Steven and Meat Rom. Zeck turned to Burts. “Thank goodness for that,” he said in a low voice. “I thought I'd never get a chance to speak to you alone. We should have a few minutes; it's not easy to piss in a wizard's robe, especially if you're the one wearing it at the time. I'm the courier who was meant to contact you at the tavern. I barely got a chance to spot the two of you before the attercops burst in.”

“You had time to order a drink, though.”

“A drink that saved our skins back there. Borb took that cherry skin, lemon twist, and whiskey and made me a nice little cherry bomb. I thought I might need it, and it turns out I was right. Anyway, I recall somebody else putting away more than his share of daddy's lemonade.” He nodded toward Meat. “Although I suppose he needs it to dull his terrifying intellect. And let's not forget that I got myself arrested just so I wouldn't lose track of you. Listen, do you have the package? Is it in the cargo hatch?”

Burts shook his head. “We were going to tell you at the tavern. There was a little hiccup. The, uh, item was not where it was supposed to be. We have a lead. We're pretty sure we know where to find it, but we need the map I was looking at in the bar. It's in the evidence locker.”

“Can't Meat Rom just memorize it?”

“Yes, but we need the actual map itself. The paper contains a string of nanoparticles arranged in a specific sequence. It's not just a map, it's also a key. That's not the problem, though; we can get it out of the locker. Here's what we do: while everybody is asleep, I'll stand guard while you and Meat break into the wagon and get the map and the kid's cigarettes. I'll smoke the rest of the pack all at once. I've done it before. We use the genie to get us where we need to go. We get the item, you take it to the Pyroclasts, and we all get paid and go our separate ways.”

“No. Absolutely not. The genie's not on the table. You said it yourself. Would you take away the kid's only chance to help his sick mom?”

“No, see, the Churls would use it as a weapon. It would just be another bullet in a gun to them. They would use it to wage war. We're going to use it to prevent one. Or stop one and prevent another, I guess. I'm not just doing this for the money. The Pyroclasts have a plan that won't just end one war; it'll make war obsolete. That Guard was right about one thing; if you have a choice between saving one life and saving millions, you save millions.”

“I don't disagree, but we can find another way. You're not smoking that genie. And think fast; they're on their way back.”

“Fine. We steal the horses. Meat rides one, you and I ride the other. We get the map, saddle up, and ride 'til we hit the border.”

“Now, there's a plan I can get behind,” said Zeck. “I love horsies.”

“It's agreed, then. The Guards will take turns on watch, so we do it while Sheryl sleeps. Bob will be easier to take out. You distract him. I'll knock him out from behind by applying pressure right here.” He touched his neck. “It won't hurt him, but he should be out for at least ten minutes.”

Zeck nodded. Seconds later, Bob and the others returned to the campfire. “Did you fellows remember to wash your hands?”