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CHAPTER 23

Uptown Boy

While Allie was freeing the innocent, and Mikey was preparing his ulti down in their lair, lying low

With the threat of the Chocolate Ogre somewhere in the city above, the Neons had set their security alert on red All lookouts were given orders to sink themselves if spotted, rather than lead the ain They had been lucky the first time, but would not escape detection a second time

After the first few days in lockdown, Jill went through a sort of skinjacking withdrawal, aggravated by the adrenaline rush infused into the wired on caffeine twenty-four hours a day, and since sleeplessness was the nors worse In the Ala how hard it was on Jill, Jix decided to give her a gift

The Crockett Street tunnel was guarded by two Neons whose routine involved endless knock-knock jokes Unfortunately they only knew about twenty, and so they just kept repeating the same ones over and over

"I’ll tell you a new knock-knock joke," Jix told them, "if you let Jill out the back entrance, and let her return without telling Avalon"

The two Neons agreed that it would all depend on the jokeand so Jix introduced the Cohich is perhaps the only knock-knock joke in existence that is actually funny

The joke sent the guards into a giggling fit that lasted the better part of an hour, and it bought Jill the right to coo as she pleased When Jix told Jill, she was thrilled by the possibility of escaping the dungeon, if only for a while

"Why don’t you come with me?" Jill asked, but Jix had inserted himself into so many of the Neons’ routines, he knew his absence would be noticed

"Go skinjack," he told her, "but I see no need for you to reap"

"I’ll do what I want," she answered

Jill left first thing the next one, Jix went about his own day; the saames, the repeated conversations In this way he maintained a foothold in the routines of asin the routine, it gave hi halt if he wanted to

After he atory rounds, he took some time to visit the root cellar, which was the farthest, darkest rooround Few places were actually dark down there, because there were so low illuminated hts captured fro to be born into Everlost The Interlights gave the Neons the creeps because they didn’t glow, so Jix could go there and not be bothered

He found the girl he had inadvertently killed, and sat beside her He had no idea what her real name was, so he called her Inez Inez was his sister’s nairl in that way As he sat there, he thought about Jill It intrigued him that she felt no reht into Everlost, but also troubled hi the roo would He practiced it, strobing his light on and off He couldn’t say he enjoyed it, but as stealth was an i a scout, the ability to feel

Then, at a point when his light was fully doused, he realized there was still a glow in the roo there at the entrance to the chaht find you here," Jill said She wove through the sleeping Interlights, and noticed which one Jix sat closest to "What is it with you and that girl?"

"I stole her life The least I can do is look after her"

Jill crossed her aret you," she said, which was fine Jix still wasn’t sure he wanted to be "gotten" Then Jill sat down beside him "You promised you would tell "

Jix had promised her that, but he also hoped the opportunity would never present itself His specialties were reconnaissance, stalking, and observing Putting hi hi he just didn’t do

"Don’t you dare make me say ‘please,’" Jill said "I don’t do the P word"

"Tell e the subject"

"Did you reap?"

"I said don’t change the subject"

"You didn’t co a new Interlight, didn’t you? Where did you leave it, in the passageway so that I wouldn’t see?"

Jill looked at his than just reap," she said "How do you know I didn’t go to a ball game or eat a lobster dinner?"

"Did you?"

"No," Jill admitted "But I didn’t reap, either" Then she paused and looked away fros to do withinstincts’" She reached out and touched Inez’s hair It gave off a dark, slows "She has nice hair," Jill said "Not all of us are lucky enough to die with nice hair"

"Noho’s changing the subject?"

She gave hiirl in her twenties, which is how old I would be if I wasn’t here I chose her because she was pregnant, and I wanted to see what it was like to feel a baby kick"

Jix never drea in n of his surprise

"I took a long bath," Jill continued, "and then I brushed her hair"

Jix reached out to touch Jill’s hand, but she pulled it away before he could "Your turn," she said "Tell s about yourself that you don’t want me to know"

Since she didn’t back off, Jix had to keep his word He wouldn’t lie to her, or tell her half-truths She would probably know if he did He told her the truth as clearly and as si-distance scout for His Excellency, Yax K’uk Mo’, the Supre of the Middle Realhtower poses a threat to him, and capture her if I can"