Carly Becomes a Wheelbarrow

By: SilvorMoon

The hallway was quiet. It was still early in the morning, and most of the prisoners hadn't bothered to wake up yet. What point was there? Breakfast wouldn't be served until nine, and there was nothing to do until then but lie in their cells and dream that they were somewhere else. The only light came from a few dim bulbs spaced down the center of the hallway, providing just barely enough illumination that a prisoner could walk around his room without tripping over anything. Not that there was much to trip over: there was little furniture in these rooms other than the beds.

Carly paced anyway. She hadn't gotten a good night's sleep for the three nights she had been here. The first day, she had done little else but lie in her bed and sob, or simply stare at the walls. What else could she do? Her trial had been a joke: even though there was no evidence to prove that she'd had anything to do with the break-in, and the men involved all swore they had never seen her before, the fact that she was a stranger in town, a vagrant with no money and no job, had been enough to turn the case against her. Her court-appointed lawyer had made no more than a token effort to defend her, and she had been convicted of attempted burglary almost before she'd had time to get settled in her chair.

Now she was stuck here, with very little idea of how long she would be imprisoned or what she would do when she got out. All her belongings - her car, her camera, even her toothbrush - had been impounded, and she had no idea if she'd ever get them back. The only thing she'd managed to save was her deck, which she'd had the foresight to tuck into her bra, and then raise a righteous fury when the harassed-looking officer assigned to her had attempted to put his hands there. Not that it was doing her any good here, but there were some things you couldn't give up, no matter what.

Idly, she rubbed at the new mark on her cheek. It still itched a little, and she wondered if it would always bother her now, or whether that was something that would wear off in time. It felt smooth and slick, metallic under her fingers, like a piece of thin foil. She wasn't allowed a mirror in her prison cell, in case she tried to break it and do something with the shards, so she had never actually seen what they'd done to her face. It was only by touch that she knew the shape of it: an arch like a crescent moon, with a small dot encircled by it. It would never come off. How could she ever hope to succeed at her chosen career when anyone who looked at her would see her as a criminal? How could she do anything?

Still, there was only so long she could sit around feeling sorry for herself. Hers was a naturally optimistic mind, and giving up wasn't in her nature. She would find a way to work with this. If she could just get out of this prison, somehow, she was certain there would be a way to sort things out. They couldn't stop her from working forever just because of one little mistake...

On an impulse, she took out her deck and shuffled it, and then drew the top card.

"Fortune-Telling Witch Hikarichan. All your wishes will come true..." she read. She smiled, for the first time in days. "I knew it! Things will turn out all right. I've just got to keep trying!"

"Who's making all that noise?" called a voice. A guard approached and looked through her window at her. "Oh, it's you. You're awake - that's good. You need to eat breakfast so you can get going."

"Going?" she repeated. "Go where?"

"To the island," said the guard. "Didn't you know? You're being released today."

Carly tried not to faint at the word "released".

"No," she said weakly. "I didn't know that."

"Well, hurry it along. You need to be ready when the chopper leaves, or you'll be left here. Not that you'll be much better off either way, but we need to clear up space for the real criminals. Small-timers like you don't need to be cluttering up the place..."

Carly barely paid attention to what he was saying. Obviously her Fortune-Telling Fairy had been right. She pranced with impatience as the guard unlocked her door and ushered her into the cafeteria. It was still too early for the regular meal to be laid out, but there were a dozen or so other prisoners besides herself getting food, and Carly could only assume that they were also being released today. She was too nervous to be interested in eating, but the guard encouraged her to take something, so she managed to polish off a muffin and some cold scrambled eggs, and gulped down some tasteless coffee. At last, the guards rounded everyone up and marched them out into the courtyard. There was a large helicopter waiting there.

What is that for? she wondered. Then it clicked: the guard had mentioned something about an island. Hadn't she heard somewhere that the island of Satellite was inhabited mostly by criminals? Did that mean they were going to send here there?

For a moment, she had the crazy urge to break ranks and make a run for it... but of course, there was nowhere she could run to. She was surrounded by guards and by the walls of the prison.

Stay calm, she told herself, as she marched into the helicopter with the other prisoners. Okay, Satellite is a slum, but that's not much worse than where you were before. At least you'll be out of here, and you can start thinking of what to do next...

She had never gotten a very good look at Satellite before. She had spent most of her stay in Neo Domino trying to find a job, and Satellite was just a smudge way out on the water that wasn't worth her attention. Sure, she had heard people saying things about it that didn't sound very encouraging, but most of what they said didn't offer much in the way of detail. She had formed the impression that it was a bad neighborhood - a slum, dirty and crime-ridden, but still basically just another part of the city. Before the helicopter landed, though, she knew better. She stared out the window and couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. She had known it was going to be bad, but she had thought that at least the buildings would be in one piece...

That's not a city. That's not even a slum. That's a disaster area! Do people really live here?

The helicopter landed on a pad at the edge of the island, and the guards hustled everyone onto solid ground. Carly stepped out carefully, as if expecting land mines, and looked at her new surroundings. Everything was broken-down and filthy, littered with old junk and refuse that she didn't care to look at too closely; she could almost hear the armies of rats scurrying around just out of sight. Few of the buildings in the immediate area had all four walls still standing, and none of them had real windows anymore. A thick smog hung in the sky, and the water had a greasy look to it.

"Well, you're free to go," said one of the guards.

"Go where?" she asked.

She must have looked more than a little lost, because the guard apparently felt sorry for her. His expression softened just a bit.

"If you want to earn some money, you can get work at the processing plant up there," he said, pointing to a building in the distance. "There's a shop where you can buy food and clean water. After that, though, you're on your own."

"Oh. Thanks," she said automatically.

With no other direction she wanted to go, she started toward the plant. She noticed that a few other people seemed to be wandering in that general direction, too, trudging along without enthusiasm. She started to speak to them, thinking to ask them some questions, but she squelched the urge. These people didn't look like they'd tell her anything, and some of them looked downright unfriendly. She didn't want to start making enemies her first day there.

As Carly drew closer to the plant, she became aware that the garbage smell was getting progressively worse. It dawned on her to wonder just what it was that this plant supposedly processed. She got her answer as she pushed the front door open and found herself facing a room full of conveyor belts and vast heaps of trash. The air inside was warm and stuffy, and smelled like the bottom of a dumpster after a week-long heat wave, mixed with an overtone of unwashed bodies. While she was staring at this in dismay, she was accosted by a bored-looking guard.

"New here?" he asked. "Gloves are in that box. Plastic goes in that bin, metal in that one, clean paper in that one, used batteries in that one. If you find any electronics that look salvageable, put 'em in that pile over there. Got all that?"

She nodded and picked up a pair of gloves. They were a bit too big for her, stiff and clumsy, and smelled of old sweat. She grimaced, but pulled them on anyway, and took her place next to a conveyor belt. Several other people were already there, picking through the trash, so she followed suit. The group worked in silence, glumly sorting garbage into one bin or another, never speaking or even meeting each other's eyes.

Is this really all there is to do on this island? Am I going to be up to my elbows in junk for the rest of my life?

For a moment, her bright dreams of fame seemed to shimmer before her eyes before melting into nothingness. Against her will, she felt tears pricking at her eyes and spilling down her cheeks, over that hateful mark...

"Hey," said a voice next to her. "Don't cry. It's not that bad."

Carly sniffled. "I'm not crying."

She took off her glasses to wipe her face on her sleeve. When she put them on again, she found herself looking into the eyes of a man who watched her through his own pair of spectacles. He had a thin, pale face and dark hair bunched into a ponytail. His eyes were kind.

"You're new here, aren't you?" he said. "I'm Blitz. That's Nerve. He's Taka. We've lived here forever. We can show you the ropes, if you want."

"Thanks," she said. "I could use some help. I'm Carly. Nice to meet you."

Taka, the heavyset blond, waved at her. "So, what are you in for?"

"Attempted burglary," she said, "but I didn't do it! I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"They don't care," said Nerve bitterly. "Anybody who doesn't fit in gets shipped here sooner or later. Their justice system is a joke."

"I can't stay here, though! I had plans... I'm going to be a reporter!" she blurted.

Blitz shook his head slowly. "Nobody gets off this island. People have been trying for years. It can't be done."

"There has to be a way," she said stubbornly.

"Well," said Taka, scratching his head, "a couple of our buddies have been working on it, but so far, they haven't had much luck. If anyone can do it, though, I'll bet it will be one of them."

"Who are they?" asked Carly, clinging to this scrap of hope.

"Well, there's Yusei, who lives with us," said Nerve, "and then there's Jack... but we haven't seen him in a while. He went off by himself a while ago."

"He always did seem to think he was better than everyone else. Ever since he was a kid," said Taka thoughtfully. "He sure could duel, though. You gotta give him that."

"Is he really good?" asked Carly.

"Best I've ever seen," Nerve admitted. "The only one who can even come close is Yusei. I'll bet the two of them could even take on the pros if they ever got the chance."

"Hm," said Carly, filing that information away for future reference. "Do you think I could meet them someday?"

"Sure, I guess," said Blitz. "Yusei, anyway. Some days he even comes to work here, but lately he's been all wrapped up in trying to build a new D-Wheel. Like Nerve said, though, Jack's been kind of scarce lately. He had some kind of a falling-out with his old friends and went off on his own."

"Do you duel?" asked Taka.

"A little bit. I still have my deck," said Carly. "It's the only thing I managed to save. They took all my other stuff..."

"I'll play you on our lunch break," Taka offered.

"We get lunch?" she asked.

"We usually buy something at the shop," Blitz explained. "Have you got any money? No, wait, of course you don't. I'll cover it. You can pay me back at the end of the day."

She ate lunch with her new friends, sitting on the ground outside the garbage plant and playing cards with them while slurping ramen noodles made with hot water from a tap. After they'd eaten, they returned to work, chatting and swapping stories. By the end of the day, Carly was in better spirits, though she felt more in need of a hot shower than she ever had in her life. Unfortunately, there were no hot showers in the offing, or any showers at all. Feeling tired and filthy, she took her place in line with the rest of the workers to receive her meager pay.

"So what are you going to do now?" asked Blitz, as she gave him the money she owed for the food. It didn't leave much for her. "I'd like to offer you a place with us, but we're already pretty crowded..."

"It's fine," she said bravely. "I'll work something out."

"Good luck, then," said Nerve. "Look after yourself! Try not to move into a place where someone already lives."

She agreed that she wouldn't, and set off with a determined step, delving into the ruined city.

It was one of the strangest trips she had ever taken. It was like walking into another world - or perhaps a distant, apocalyptic future where all of humanity had been wiped out and their civilizations destroyed. All she could see were uniformly gray, broken buildings, cracked pavement, and heaps of garbage. She had to chart a zigzagging course just to keep from stepping or falling into something that would have been unpleasantly sticky, or worse. A few times, she thought she saw people moving about, but they kept their distance from her, and for once, she wasn't curious to see what her fellow humans were doing. All she wanted at this point was a safe place to curl up and sleep.

After she had traveled a few blocks, she came to what had once been a large building, now crumpled in on itself until it was nearly flattened. However, as she poked around one of its far corners, she discovered that there was still one room in back that was more or less sound. She crawled under a slab of what had once been the ceiling and crept in for a closer look. It had once been part of a library - a reference section, by the look of the titles she could still make out. There was an ancient chair, which appeared to have been made into a nest for mice at some point in its history, but a careful inspection showed that it was currently unoccupied. The room was thick with dust and cobwebs: no one had been there in years. Carly curled up on the chair, placed her glasses on a nearby desk, and closed her eyes.

So I survived my first day in Satellite. I have a job and a little money now, and some friends, and a safe place to sleep. I'm tired and hungry and I smell like I've been crawling in a garbage heap all day, but okay. Things could be worse. She shifted position, trying to get comfortable in the lumpy chair. Things could be a lot better, though. I'm trapped on this awful island with no way to get off. I'm going to be picking garbage forever if I don't think of some way to escape...

Lying alone in the dark, surrounded by moldering books, Carly mulled over her options. She was still sifting through plans, each more implausible than the next, when she finally dropped off to sleep.


Over the next two weeks or so, Carly's life fell into a routine. During the day, she labored at the recycling plant. She spent her lunch breaks making friends with the other workers there, swapping gossip and playing cards, exchanging life stories. Despite what she'd been told, not everyone on the island was a criminal or even particularly unpleasant. A lot of them were people like her, who simply hadn't fit in and so had been arrested and shunted out of the way. Some of them had lived on the island before the explosion, before they had ever imagined it would someday be an island, and were now stranded there through no fault of their own. Some of them had families there, parents and wives and children. Some of them had family they hadn't seen in years, because they were on the mainland and communicating with them was nearly impossible. Carly liked the islanders. They were interesting, and she had a reporter's taste for interesting people. During the day, at least, she almost enjoyed living on Satellite... except for the garbage.

The evenings, though, were a different story. She spent the hours between the time she got out of work and the time she absolutely couldn't stay awake any longer exploring the island, learning what she could about it, and above all, trying to find a way off of it. She learned that there were only two exits that didn't involve being able to fly or being able to float across the ocean. One was the tunnel that the garbage was dumped through every night. Its gates opened for a very brief time, and it was possible that someone very fast and very skillful - a particularly talented D-Wheeler, for example - could have gotten through it before it closed. Carly was not a talented D-Wheeler, and at any rate didn't have a bike to ride, so that wasn't an option. The other way out was the tunnel used for the comings and goings of the Security officers who patrolled the island looking for trouble, or possibly just for people to harass. That tunnel was open most of the time, but it was also heavily guarded and always had officers in it or around it. Still, it looked like the best way to get out, if only there was a way to sneak past the guards.

But there didn't seem to be a way. Each night, Carly went home tired and dejected to curl up in her library chair to try to sleep. Her clothing was almost unrecognizable now, stained by the filth she worked in every day to the same gray color as the streets and buildings. It was starting to get ground in under her nails. She was getting the feeling that the island's miasma was somehow seeping into her pores, turning her into a part of itself. There was a part of her that was afraid that if she stayed there too long, she'd become somehow rooted to the place, until she would never be able to get off of it even if a way opened up for her. Even as it was, she wondered if she'd ever get completely clean again.

She was contemplating this grim possibility at work one afternoon, so deeply in thought that she almost missed what her friends were talking about.

"Again?" Blitz was saying. "What did he do now?"

"The same thing he always does," said Taka. "Stupid Crow. You'd think he'd know better by now. How many times does this make?"

"I think this is his eighth," said Nerve.

"No, it's nine," Blitz corrected. "I think he's trying to make it an even ten. Or a dozen."

"Any idea how long he's in for this time?" Nerve asked.

"Just a month, I think. They caught him before he could get anything good," said Blitz.

"Wait, what's going on?" Carly asked.

"Nothing much. Our friend Crow got arrested again," Blitz explained. "He's always getting arrested, and as soon as they let him out, he goes out and does the same thing again."

Carly blinked. "Why does he keep doing it, then?"

"He's got these kids," said Taka. "Crow collects orphans like some people collect stamps. Then he goes out and steals cards from the Security warehouses to give them to play with. Then he gets arrested and hauled off to jail, and then they ship him back over here and he goes back to his kids and wants to do something to make up for leaving them alone, so..."

"Wait, wait," said Carly. "You can get arrested while you're already over here?"

"Why do you think there are so many Security officers around all the time?" Nerve retorted.

Carly persisted. "And if you get arrested, they take you back to the mainland?"

"Don't get any ideas," Blitz told her. "If you did get arrested, you'd be handcuffed to an officer from here to jail. There's no escaping that way. If there was, you'd think Crow would have done it by now. He's sure had enough chances to try."

"Hm," Carly said.

"You aren't getting ideas, are you?" asked Taka.

"I might be," said Carly. "I need to think about it."

So for the rest of the day, she worked in silence, mulling the idea over. Her friends, sensing her preoccupation, let her have her time. When the day came to a close, she was still lost in thought.

It might work. It has to work. But I can't do it alone...

"Hey guys," she said, "didn't you say you had a couple of friends who were good duelists? Do you think I could meet them?"

"What, today?" said Taka. "I don't think Yusei's going to be home today. He said before we left that he was going to Martha's. Her stove broke down again, and that's always an all-day job."

"What about the other one? Jack, I think you said?"

"Well, he might be around," said Nerve, "but you never know. He can be kind of... prickly. You're better off not just dropping in unannounced. He might not like it."

"I can at least try. Please," she said.

"Well, if you're really desperate to talk to him," said Blitz, "he usually hangs out at the old theater. I'll give you directions, if you want, but I really don't think it's a good idea."

"Why not? He's your friend, right?" asked Carly.

"Well, he was," said Nerve. "These days, though... Things have changed."

Nevertheless, Carly was able to talk them into giving her a map showing her how to get to Jack's favorite hideout, and as soon as work let out, she said goodbye to everyone and scurried off to find the theater. It didn't look like such a bad trip. The theater was apparently located in one of the better parts of town, one where most of the buildings were more or less still standing, albeit in something of a state of disrepair. If she didn't look too closely, she could almost convince herself that she was walking in an ordinary city.

Perhaps if it had not been so well-kept, Carly might have been more cautious. As it was, she let herself be lulled into a sense of security. If she had been thinking more carefully, she might have realized that better buildings would mean more people. Even then, she might not have worried; she had gotten used to the idea that people on the island weren't as bad as the rumors made them out to be.

Then she heard the footsteps. She stopped, listening. They were coming closer. She turned around and found five young men, probably in their twenties, swaggering up the street, grinning at her. All of them had the gold marks of criminals. She didn't think they were there to welcome her.

"Hey, there, girlie," said the young man in the front. "We haven't seen you around here before. Stop and talk to us a while."

"N-no, sorry, I'm kind of in a hurry - I'm late for an appointment," Carly babbled.

"You sure you don't want to hang out with us? You're pretty cute," said another man, darting to stand beside her. "You could have a lot of fun..."

He reached out to stroke her cheek, but she swatted his hand away.

"Get off me," she snapped. "Leave me alone!"

"Not until we've given you a proper welcoming party."

The circle was closing around her now. Carly cast about desperately for an escape, but she was already surrounded. She swung a fist at the nearest man, but he caught it easily and pulled her towards him. Giving up all pretense at being in control of the situation, Carly screamed with all her might and began thrashing around like a wild thing. The men only laughed and latched on to her flailing arms, wrenching them painfully behind her back. They began hauling her away - she wasn't sure where, but she was sure she wouldn't want to go there. She screamed with new intensity.

"Who is making all that noise?"

It wasn't a very loud voice, but it nevertheless cut through even all the racket that Carly was making. There was a sense of command behind it, so much that everyone froze in their tracks. Carly fell silent. Whoever had spoken was standing behind her, so she couldn't see what he looked like, but she had a feeling that he was no one she wanted to cross.

"Stay out of this," said one of her captors. "This doesn't have anything to do with you."

"You're in my block," said the new voice. "That makes this my business. I say, let the girl go."

"You're overlooking one thing, buddy: there's five of us and one of you."

Carly couldn't see the icy smile, but she could hear it loud and clear in his voice. "Nearly fair odds, then."

"You saying you want a fight?" the man who had been in the lead asked. Carly could hear his voice shake slightly, and she realized with sudden hope that, five-to-one odds or not, he was scared.

"I've been bored this week," said the mysterious man. "Liven things up for me."

There was a sudden scuffle. Carly found herself shoved aside as the gang attacked as one body. She straightened herself up, telling herself she ought to run while no one was paying attention to her, but she couldn't tear her eyes off of what was happening just a few yards away. The five men who had captured her were now swarming around another young man with gleaming blond hair, who seemed to be having a fine time fighting with them. As Carly watched, he drove his fist into the face of one man, grabbed a second by the arm and swung him around to propel him into two of his comrades, and then deliver a swift kick into the gut of another. No one could even get close to him. Carly watched, entranced, as the stranger sent all five of them fleeing into the shadows. He dusted himself off, looking vaguely disappointed, as though that hadn't been enough of a challenge. He began walking over to where Carly was still standing rooted to the spot.

"Did they hurt you?" he asked calmly.

She shook her head. "No, not really..."

"Good," he said, and turned to walk away.

"Hey, wait!" she said, scrambling to catch up with him.

He stopped to look at her, fixing her with a glare that said, "This had better be good." Up close, she realized that he was even more imposing than he had been from a distance. He was considerably taller than her, for one thing, forcing her to look up at him. He had a proud, fine-boned face with the most intensely violet eyes she had ever seen. She had never realized anyone could even have eyes that color. Just looking at them gave her the sense of an intense personality, just as much as his noble bearing and proud voice did. His body was slender, but he was obviously strong and agile, to have handled five attackers so neatly. Carly realized she was staring.

He's gorgeous, she caught herself thinking, and pushed the thought away. She had other things to worry about right now.

"I'm looking for someone," she said. "His name is Jack Atlus. He's supposed to live around here, somewhere. Have you seen him?"

"You've found him," he said.

"Oh," she said. "Um."

"Look, say what's on your mind or go away," said Jack. "Don't waste my time."

"I need your help," she began.

"I just gave you my help. That's probably more than you deserve."

"Please, just listen," she said desperately. "Do you want to get off this island?"

He gave her another one of those razor-edged looks.

"Of course I want to get off the island," he snapped. "There's not a single person who doesn't want to get off this godforsaken place. It can't be done."

"Oh, yes it can," she said. "I have a plan. But I'm going to need some help. My friends said you're the best duelist on this island, and you can hold your own in a fight, and that's the kind of person I need. If we work together, we can escape."

"What makes you so sure this plan of yours will work?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Just hear me out," she said, a bit desperately. "I'll tell you my plan, and you can decide if you want to help me or not."

He considered the idea for so long that Carly was sure he was going to reject her. Then he said, "Come with me. We'll talk somewhere private."

Without waiting for her reply, he began to walk, and she began trotting along after him. He didn't appear to be paying much attention to her, but he was walking slowly enough that she could easily catch up and fall into step alongside him. She was glad of that; her encounter with the gang had left her badly shaken, and she had developed a sense that Jack could protect her from anything up to a full-scale nuclear war. It was reassuring to have him marching along beside her within reaching distance. Her heart was still racing, perhaps not entirely from her brush with peril. Not many people had ever taken an interest in a clumsy, bespectacled, fashion-blind girl, and walking beside an extremely attractive man was something new.

They reached what must have been the old theater. It hadn't withstood the disaster as well as some of the buildings had - its unsupported roof had collapsed, leaving it open to the sky. Carly could see rows of seats inside, most of them half-buried in rubble. The stage was still sound, though, and there were signs that someone was still using it. A chair rested at its center - not just a chair, but a throne, perched on a low dias. Jack led her up to it and dropped into the throne with the ease of one who has done so a thousand times before. Carly, not knowing what else to do, sat down on the dias at his feet. He looked down at her, those intense violet eyes locked on hers, and she could see the hunger in them. It wasn't the kind of hunger that had led the men in the alley to grab her. It was for something far beyond her, but looking at the throne, she thought she could guess what it was, and she knew she'd come to the right man for the job.

"Talk," he said. "Tell me how a girl like you has figured out how to do what no one else has done in seventeen years."

"Well..." she said, choosing her words carefully, "it's like... there's this old story about a man who works at a construction company, standing guard. And every day, this same guy pushes a wheelbarrow full of dirt past him, and the guard just knows the guy is stealing something, but every day he searches through the dirt, and every day he doesn't find anything. Finally, after years and years, the guy retires, and the guard asks him on his last day what it is he's been stealing all that time, and it turns out he's been stealing wheelbarrows."

"Does this story have a point?"

"Yes. The point is, you can get anything past anybody as long as they're looking at something else. It's the old magician's trick. They don't do magic, really, they just make you look the other direction while they're doing things." Carly took a breath. "And that's why I need your help. Because I'm going to be a wheelbarrow. And you're going to steal me."

"And how do you think I'm going to do that?"

Carly told him. Jack listened. He didn't say anything while she was speaking, but she could feel the force of his attention boring down on her as she spoke. When she was done, she sat fidgeting, watching him, wondering if this whole idea was completely ridiculous and she might not have been better off just to stick with sorting trash.

"Hm," said Jack at last. "Have you told anyone else about this?"

"No. Just you."

"I see. Where are you staying now?"

"Um..." she said, taken aback. That wasn't the sort of question she'd been expecting. "I've got a room... I think it's in an old library..."

"That's not safe," said Jack. "I think you had better stay here, where I can keep an eye on you."

"Thank you!" she blurted.

"You don't know enough about surviving on this island," he said. "What made you think that if you told me your plans, I wouldn't just abandon you and escape with someone I already know?"

She blushed. "I... I didn't..."

"You expected me to behave with honor. Not everyone here will do that. You're going to have to learn to be more careful."

"So you're going to help me?" she asked hopefully.

"I would do anything to get off this island," he said flatly. "You're the only one who has ever offered to help me." He shifted, sliding off of his chair, and gestured at the theater. "And what have I got to lose?"

She was forced to admit that it didn't look like much.

"It's better downstairs," he said. "There's an empty dressing room you can have."

He stood, and Carly followed him as he led her down a flight of creaky stairs to the dressing rooms downstairs. He opened the door to one of them, and Carly peeked curiously inside, and discovered that it really was better than the upstairs - better than her nook in the library, in fact. The dressing rooms were underground, and therefore somewhat more stable than the space above. This one actually had a few lights that still worked, and some furniture, and a sofa that was still in passable condition. The worst Carly could find wrong with the room, other than the fact that it was full of dust and cobwebs, was a crack up one wall, through which a bit of moss was attempting to grow. There was a shelf that had some battered-looking notebooks, probably old scripts, lying haphazardly on top of it. There was a large cracked mirror across one wall, and a few hairbrushes and ancient, dried-out makeup strewn across the dressing table.

"It's nice," she said, and meant it. It was amazing how much her perspective could change in the space of a few weeks.

"You think this is good?" asked Jack, rasing an eyebrow.

"It's better than the library," she said, "and it's better than jail."

Jack reached out and brushed her hair away from her face, running his fingers over the mark on her cheek. She tried not to shiver at his touch.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I was standing around too close to where a burglary was going on and they arrested me with everyone else. I didn't do a thing."

"I see," Jack replied. "You realize that if you go back to the mainland, you'll be a criminal? It's illegal to leave the island. As soon as they realize what you've done, they'll start to hunt you down. That mark of yours is unremovable. They can use it to follow wherever you go."

Carly hadn't thought about that. She didn't think about it for very long now, either. She shook her head.

"There's something I need to do," she said. "Staying here would just be giving up. As long as there's even a little bit of hope, I'm going to keep trying."

His expression shifted, very slightly. He sat down in one of the creaky chairs that stood along the edge of the dressing table.

"Tell me about it. Your dream," he said.

"Oh, um, well..." she said. She could feel her face heating. "I... I always wanted to be a reporter. I was going to travel the world and meet all sorts of people... I've always been inspired by watching people doing really big things, you know? I wanted to be right in the middle of it all..." She trailed off, feeling foolish. Jack didn't even seem to be paying attention to her anymore; he was staring off into space with a thoughtful expression.

"You want to meet great people," he said. He laughed. "I'll help you with that, then. I am going to be the greatest duelist this city has ever seen. I am the greatest. Do you believe me?"

She looked at him. Dueling, she'd always been told, was a test of a player's spirit. Strategy and luck came into it, but it was said that when it all came down, the player with the strongest will came out on top. If that was true, then she was willing to bet that Jack won every time.

"I believe you," she said.

He looked pleased by her acceptance.

"We both have something we need to do out there," he said. "I'll help you now, but when the time comes, I'm going to want your help, too."

"What can I do?" she asked.

"I'm still deciding," he said. "Let me think on it. For now..." He stood up again. "For now, we have alot of work to do if we're going to escape this island."

"Right," she said. "Let's go."

To Be Continued...