(A/N: Well, the little rhyme in this chapter was written a long time ago by Lewis Carroll, featured in his book 'Through the Looking Glass'. It belongs to him, and I'm merely borrowing it for this fic. Thankee!)

Will you walk a little faster said a whiting to a snail…

Jet was in bed, staring up at the ceiling, and for some inane reason he had a nonsensical rhyme careening around throughout his head. It was the last thing in the world that he needed, but it did the job of blocking out the other thoughts in his head, the confused ones, and he dared say, the frightened ones.

There's a porpoise close behind me and he's treading on my tail…

(-i had…a heart attack…-)

But it was there, nonetheless, playing second fiddle to Jet's stupid rhyme. The boy frowned and rolled over onto his side, trying to fall asleep again. He had slept for almost an entire week, so he thought it would be truly impossible to get to sleep again, but his body was immensely tired and unusually frail, and he felt sleepy already. It was a frightening thought to consider. No, don't think about it!

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance…

They are waiting on the shingle won't you come and join the dance?

(-gallows and clive they were talking about how i was gonna die-)

Will you won't you will you won't you join the dance?

Jet clenched his gun wielding hand. It felt like he had been lying there forever. "I'm going fucking insane." He said, wanting nothing more than to get out of there. Where had he heard that rhyme from anyway? Somewhere along his drifter travels? A memory from the original Jet Enduro? Had Malik Benedict sung it to him sweetly whilst he slowly developed in his Filgaia Sample cocoon? God, now that was a terrifying thought.

He slipped out of bed. It felt too hot and stuffy inside the Baskar residence, the air was almost constricting. He wanted to be outdoors again, in the cool and open night outside. It seemed like an eternity since Jet had last felt the touch of wind against his face. He would be able to think better once his temperature had gone down somewhat.

His socked feet touched the floor. Jet didn't bother to put on his shoes because he did not see them anywhere at first glance, and the idea only half occurred to him in the first place. The silver-haired android felt stronger than the last time he had risen from this bed, more sure of himself while he was alone. Nobody else appeared to be inside the house, it was just him. Yawning, Jet stretched and ran a hand through his messy hair, slightly flattened from his lying down. He walked down the steps easily and with no problems, pushing the painted Baskar door open and enjoying the welcoming rush of night air that assaulted his eager senses. It was late in the evening, nearly early morning, but the breeze felt so good, not too warm and not too cold. Perfect.

Feeling a chill run through him and causing the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck to rise, Jet walked through the damp dew-covered grass, mindful that he was getting his socks wet but honestly not caring. He could already feel the hot burning flush inside his body diminishing in the cool air of night. Cicadas were muttering their constant 'reek-reek' under bushes and the dark shadows of trees around him, competing against the crickets in a well-matched battle of the insect bands. Jet folded his arms to keep his biceps from being nibbled on by passing mosquitoes.

"Will you walk a little faster…" He mumbled to himself, stepping towards the three tall spears dug firmly into the ground. Had anyone ever succeeded in pulling them up from out of the earth? He had to walk faster, he could feel that something was following him in his own shadow, distant now, but still on the trail. Tracking him. Looking over his shoulder for that shadowed intruder, he continued, wrapping a hand around one of the spears. "There's a porpoise on my tail…"

He couldn't be that weak. Jet tensed his muscles and heaved upwards, trying to slide the long pole up and out of the ground. The soil was not loose, but it was certainly dampened, malleable to his needs. He could have used both hands to make the job easier, but this was a matter of personal pride for him. He had fallen, slipped into the dark and had woken up weak and fragile. It had to be no more than a passing dream. Because if it wasn't, then he was wandering, wandering in the dark.

Sweat made his hand slippery. It slid upwards a little and Jet totally lost his grip. The spear had not yielded an inch, either. "Damn it!" Cursing, he let go and kicked at it, frustrated at himself for failing. For all he knew not even a muscle-bound strongman could have removed those poles, but that was beside the point. It was how he felt that was the most important part, and his… his heart attack had left him as weak and as frail as a kitten.

"Jet?"

He flinched towards the owner of that voice, guilty at being caught in a childishly tantrum-like state. Virginia was sitting down a short distance away, on the edge of the large flat stone that marked the very center of the Baskar Colony. She had not changed into her pajamas yet, she was still fully decked out in her drifter regalia. The only real difference between her and the Virginia of the daylight hours was that her hair was loose and not bound in a plait, half tamed, for she was brushing the tangles out of it when she had noticed him.

"Virginia," Jet said harshly, looking at the spears in anger, "What the hell is wrong with me?"

She was looking at him in perplexity. He was getting to the point rather quickly for somebody who was still recovering. "It's cold out here." Virginia replied, ignoring Jet's question. "You should be inside, where it's warmer. You'll get sick." Standing up, she moved over to him and touched his arm. Automatically he moved away from her, glancing at her as if she made no sense.

"No." He intoned grimly. "It's inside that makes me feel sick. That place is empty, I won't get any answers there. 'Feels like I'm being avoided. It's not right just leaving me in the dark. I want to know what happened. I remember something hurting badly, and then falling. After that there was nothing but darkness." Jet caught Virginia's concerned expression and softened a little. "Okay, maybe you're right. It is a little cold out, but I need it to wake up properly. If you tell me what's going on, I'll go back inside."

"We don't like keeping things from you, Jet. You must know that." Virginia said quietly, gently taking his hand and leading him towards the stone seats. She sat down at the edge again and patted the rock as an invitation for Jet to do the same. He threw himself down as well and stared at her, expecting answers. He looked grumpy, but respectfully grumpy, waiting for Virginia to speak. She looked up at the stars. The sky was covered with clouds and not one could be seen. It made her feel terrible, somehow. In situations like this, it was always implied that the stars would be there to comfort them. What a load of crap.

"I heard you all talking about me. You were saying things about symptoms, and my 'status', and how long I live for and stuff. I'm confused, Virginia. Shane said I had a heart attack, but that's the kind of thing that happens to old men and women, not me. I'm not even twelve years old yet! But my heart, it felt like it was trying to stop."

"I don't know what to say." Virginia confessed to him, looking at her clasped hands. "If I had an answer for you I'd say it. You should know that I wouldn't keep things from you. It must have been something to do with the Prophets, I'm sure of it." She continued to brush her hair again, slowly, like a physical motion to accompany her thoughts. "Clive had a theory, but it's not a good one. No, it's a terrible one. I think it brought pain to him for even saying it out loud."

"What's that?" Jet asked, knowing that curiosity killed the cat, but had to press onwards anyway.

"Well, Jet, you're a copy of another person, the Jet Enduro from ten years ago, right? That's part of who you are as the Sample. Clive put forward the idea and said that between a copy and the original, there is the chance for a flaw to appear in the system of the copy that renders it inferior. He said that once, a long time ago he read a book on technology of the ancient Elws, where they could produce copies of an organism through genetic manipulation. That's probably how you were made, isn't it?"

"Most likely." The boy said, nodding his head slightly. "I reckon the Prophets never really invented any technology for themselves, they just stole knowledge from the demon archives and the other races of the past."

"Then Clive said something frightening, something I didn't want to believe." Virginia looked Jet hard in the eye. "Are you sure you want to hear?"

"At this point I've probably heard everything." Came the twisted reply.

"One of the Elw's first experiments was to produce a perfect genetic copy of a basic animal, Clive's book said that they used a sheep. The original sheep lived to its full life span without any problems, but the so called 'perfect' copy of the sheep, it lived for only a fraction of its intended life span, barely even a third of it! It didn't get sick, it just died of old age. Jet…"

But the boy was already beginning to understand. "And the Prophets only copied the technology of the Elws, they never bothered to improve on it any more than they needed to. And I was only meant to be a sample, nothing definite that had to live for a very long time. I guess it makes sense, then."

Virginia looked hurt. "That's only a theory, it isn't the truth until we can prove that it is so. But, so far, that's what we believe what might be happening to you…"

Surprisingly, Jet laughed. "Ah, so that's what Clive meant with my 'symptoms' and my 'status' being so different. I'm the only eleven year old old man in the whole of Filgaia! And I'm going to die!"

"You're going to accept that so easily?" The drifter leader was surprised, she had not even begun to accept information like that as truth, even if it had been spoken out loud by Clive. Jet leant back, enjoying the smell of the outdoors. It smelt of pine needles and wet wood, of an impending rainfall. That was good, Jet hadn't seen or felt rain for a very long time. As an afterthought, he placed his right hand over Virginia's. Usually he wore a thick and cumbersome hand guard to protect him like a shield in combat, but his hands were bare now, he felt, as well as he looked, like a complete civilian, somebody who had not drifted or wandered a day in their life.

"No." Jet answered solemnly. "I don't accept it. It's all a load of bullshit to me. I'm still young, I have a lot of living left to do on Filgaia, and like you say, I have to catch up with everybody else in the memory department. You said you would help me with that, you're not backing out of it, are you?"

Shaking her head resolutely Virginia leaned towards him, a little ticked-off at his accusation. "Of course not! You know I wouldn't do that to you. It's just… this has me scared, Jet. What happened to you, I've never seen it happen to anybody before, not like that. If you're sick, or if you're dying, it's going to hurt me as well, you know…"

"I'm not one of Clive's ancient cloning sheep, Virginia. Look, do you see any wool on me? Just check, I might have missed something." Virginia sighed out a relieved laugh and pushed him away, admiring Jet's ability to smile and to make her laugh at a time like this. Would the Jet Enduro from a year ago have even tried to attempt something like that? She thought not.

"You look human to me." She said, and then bit her tongue, abashed. "Oops, sorry."

"Yeah." Jet nodded, agreeing with her. "I look human. I'm human, aren't I? Yes. It was hot that day, and you know me, I'm kind of pale and the sun just burns through me. I think I might have fainted from heat exhaustion, it's not uncommon for drifters to do that."

Virginia was still unconvinced, but played along because she didn't want her load of worry to bleed into Jet, who was still not quite recovered from whatever it was that had struck him. She felt bad handling him with extra care, like he was made of glass, but she cared about him too damn much to risk him breaking under the pressure. "Well," She intoned, "Let's wait and see what happens."

"Trust me."

"Yes… you're right. I'll trust you."

It was Jet who stood up first, offering his hand to her. It was only a small, subtle motion, but it spoke of Jet's desire to be strong again, to be in control, and he wanted to show to Virginia that the control and strength he had possessed whilst they had travelled across the planet was still there and inside him. It was ready to make him back into the Jet Enduro she was familiar with once more. The Jet Enduro that she loved.

She took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Jet gritted his teeth and bit down on something inside of him when the act caused a dart of pain to shoot through his arm and nestle fiercely in his chest, coiling around his heart and causing it to flutter, for just the briefest moment. He refused to believe it when the impulse reached his mind and forced himself to forget about it immediately, though Virginia caught for short glimpse a phantom of pain moving behind Jet's violet eyes. It never happened.

Jet, you little whiting, you can ignore the porpoise, but he'll always be on your tail…

That crazy song again.

"C'mon." He said, a little breathless. He wanted to put this day behind him. "Let's go to bed."