Interlude Seventeen: Bricked Up
"Do you need anything before I go, Miss Large?"
Lucinda Large jumped. For a moment she thought she was imagining things, conjuring up companionship in her giant, lonely office, but when she looked up she saw the shadowed figure of her assistant hovering in the distant doorway.
"Um, no thank you, Marie, that will be all." Lucinda coughed to try and cover up her shock, but she doubted Marie was convinced. Her assistant's blonde-bobbed head twitched in a nod, but she was too far away for Lucinda to read her expression. I'll be the company gossip by tomorrow – sad old Lucinda, holed up in her office all day, jumping every time a Combee farts.
Lucinda watched as Marie shut the door, the tiny click of the lock echoing in the hollow, empty office. It had been hours since Lucinda had looked up from the reports spread across her desk that she hadn't noticed it had got dark; shadows stretched across the room, swallowing what little furniture and decorations there were and leaving a murky void in their place.
She tried to ignore the growing gloom and focus back her work, but the interruption had thrown what little concentration Lucinda had left. The figures spun around as if caught in a whirlpool, nothing going in or standing out, and Lucinda had to admit defeat for another day.
She let her pen drop to the wooden surface, and Lucinda groaned as she leant back into her chair, arching her back and feeling the eight hours she'd spent stuck behind this desk. It would mean more work tomorrow, but that was a problem for her future self. Today, Lucinda was happy to simply spin around and gaze out at Jubilife City.
Her view at this time of day was the one thing Lucinda liked about working late. There was still a hint of sunlight in the sky, an amber glow smeared unevenly over the horizon, but the world was dark enough that the lights of Jubilife had come alive. The fountain a few streets away was already alight like a rainbow, while the Global Trading Station's rampageous display added a fluorescent flourish to the otherwise drab and steel city.
Yet it wasn't the buildings that really held her interest. Staring down at the crowds as they went about their evenings helped keep Lucinda humble. It was a little difficult given that all the office workers, hopeful trainers and struggling students were sixty-five storeys below, leaving them as indistinguishable as Poké Balls rolling through the streets. She had come far in the last three years, but Lucinda remembered what it was like to be an anonymous dot being stared at by those high above her. Part of her still wished she was down there. To be like them again. Happy, relaxed, carefree… oblivious…
Lucinda sighed into the glass. Her eyes drifted upwards, passing over the neighbouring skyscrapers and scanning the skyline for the sunset, but the first thing Lucinda spotted was her own hallowed eyes gazing gauntly back at her. Lucinda wasn't sure if it was the weight loss or the stress that had turned her lids the same darkly translucent colour of oil on a wet road, but they certainly hadn't looked this way three years ago.
Lucinda poked at them and grimaced. Were they this bad at the start of the year? Her recent restlessness wasn't new. She had endured sleepless nights for months after Mount Coronet, requiring a specific mix of drugs and therapy to help her drift through the nightmares.
For a while, Lucinda had thought she was past it. But now there was this drama in Kanto; Team Rocket returning from the grave, robots bursting through the ground, schools on fire, teenage girls having to fight them off. It had reached a point that Lucinda now avoided watching her own network, but the story seemed to be everywhere.
At least it's good for ratings, a voice awfully like her father's suggested, and Lucinda bit back the urge to scream.
"Oh dear, is the pressure finally getting to you?"
Lucinda shrieked. A second ago there had only been her face reflected back at her, but now there was the malevolent smirk of a teenage girl reflected over her shoulder.
Lucinda swivelled around to make sure she wasn't seeing things, and screamed again now that there was no denying it. If Charlotte was bothered by this reaction, she didn't look it, her smile remaining neutral and unfazed as if fixated that way – which, now that Lucinda considered it, was highly likely.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Charlotte gasped. "My, my, do you speak to all your visitors this way?"
"All my other visitors make a booking!" Lucinda snapped.
"Fair, but your father and I always had a rather lax open door policy," Charlotte said. She remained seated on the edge of the desk, shining golden as the sunset beamed through her translucent body, and she started to look around. "I must say, I liked what you've done with the place. It's very… you…"
Lucinda followed Charlotte's eyes around the sapphire walls and metallic grey carpet. "What? Dull and uninspired?"
Charlotte turned around with a glint in her eye. "Your words, darling, not mine."
"Hilarious. If you've come to insult me, I'm really not in the mood tonight. I've had a hard day, and –"
"Oh, poor you. Such a hard life, isn't it, making millions every few minutes. What a burden!" Charlotte raised a hand to her head and dramatically slumped forwards across the papers, her ghostly hair pooling into Lucinda's lap. "You're a true martyr, did you know that?"
"Alright, that's it, get out!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Charlotte shot upwards onto her feet in one swift, unnatural movement. She raised her hands in surrender and slinked away from the desk. "I haven't come to be annoying, I swear. I could feel your anguish from Unova, and I thought you might need someone to talk to. Master knows your father needed it."
The hairs on the back of Lucinda's neck stood on end. She hardly knew Charlotte, they had only met a few times and that had been three years ago. Yet this strange dead girl, whatever she was, had known Lucinda's father better than anyone. He trusted her, right until the very end…
"What are you doing in Unova?" Lucinda mumbled after a lengthy pause.
"Preparing."
"Fuck me." Lucinda sank into her chair, wishing she could melt into the leather. "You mean it's not going to end in Kanto?"
Charlotte smiled as she shook her head, but the glint in her eye had long vanished. "It never ends, until the whole thing does. You know, your father always offered me a drink," she said suddenly.
"My father never offered you a drink, you helped yourself, and there's nothing stopping you now."
Charlotte shrugged. "If you insist," she said sniffily, and she wiggled her fingers. A glass of ochre liquid appeared in her grip, and Charlotte beamed over the rim as she downed it in one.
"Oooooh, yes, the '69. A personal favourite, for obvious reasons." Charlotte paused long enough to make sure Lucinda caught her wink. "I'm glad this one survived the implosion."
"It's a different bottle," Lucinda said blankly. "I bought it last year. As a tribute. To him."
Charlotte held her tongue here, which Lucinda appreciated. She did not want to dwell on the events that led to her father's death, something that was hard to ignore given that that chaotic night had also handed her this job and this vast, if hastily rebuilt, office. Lucinda often felt his spirit lingering as she sat in the same spot he'd occupied for some many decades. It was hard to ignore his shadow when his name was emblazoned on every pen, paper and paperclip that passed under her nose.
And now here was Charlotte. Lucinda could only imagine the things she could tell her about Arnold Adiem. It had taken nearly three decades of her life to learn why her father had been so cold and distant, and he was taken from her before she could really tap into the truth. Of the little Lucinda did know, Charlotte had been Arnold's co-conspirator, plotting and scheming together to try and protect the world.
If only he had actually succeeded. Lucinda supposed that Arnold had, for a few years, at least. They stopped Team Galactic and prevented the end of the universe, though that had gone right up to the wire. After witnessing first hand the toll that fight had taken, Lucinda had thought they were done. She only had to glance at the news to see how wrong that assumption was.
Charlotte spoke as if she could read her thoughts. "How long has Kanto been keeping you up at night?"
"Too long." Lucinda brushed the reports to one side and found the rundown she was given every night before the evening bulletins. The top story for the third day in a row was the mysterious robots that had burst through the streets of Saffron City. Lucinda had sat in this very chair two nights ago when she called Samson Silph to offer her thoughts, only to be told he had died. She had gone to sleep that night imagining his distorted, screaming face as he plummeted to the earth, Lucinda falling not far behind.
"It feels like all the hell we went through three years ago is starting up again," Lucinda said, talking to the paper rather than Charlotte. "These viruses always start in Kanto and bleed out to the rest of the world. Please tell me it's not going to be as bad as last time."
The question hung in the air for over a minute before Lucinda realised Charlotte hadn't answered. She put the sheet down and glanced up, and the sight filled her with dread; Charlotte sat hunched over on the edge of the desk, staring wistfully at the sunset as the glass sat limply in her hands.
"I can't. I have no idea." Charlotte clicked her fingers and the glass refilled, this time to the brim, and she took a long, slow gulp before carrying on. "For two thousand years I was convinced the world would end with Cyrus. That was as far as my visions took me, because that's where the continuum ended. It basically rebooted after Cyrus was defeated, but I wasn't granted anything beyond Mount Coronet."
"Nothing at all? You just said that Unova –"
"I lied." Charlotte finally looked back at Lucinda and laughed. "You should see your face right now, it's brilliant. So offended, like a little child."
"Why were you there, then?" Lucinda continued, ignoring the interruption.
Charlotte shrugged, a casual dismissal that betrayed her physical age. "I thought I might find some answers there. A path I haven't considered before. Anything to stop history from repeating itself, I suppose," she added with a hint of a smile.
It dawned on Lucinda then why Charlotte was here. This girl had lived through more pain and conflict than anyone else in mankind, the ultimate veteran of all there had ever been. If Lucinda's anguish could be heard from hundreds of thousands of miles away, she dreaded to imagine the cacophony Charlotte's emotions created.
"I hope you don't plan on drinking all of that."
Charlotte grinned and clicked her fingers. A heavy glass rammed into Lucinda's chest, slowly filling with the musky, cocoa-coloured liquid. "Cheers."
"Cheers," Lucinda parroted, and the two clinked their glasses. The noise echoed soft and sombre through the sparsity of the office, and it lingered as the two sat in silence, mulling their thoughts over their drinks.
As the minutes dragged on, Lucinda found herself unable to take her eyes off Charlotte. This was the first time she had seen her since inheriting the job, but Lucinda had often wondered how she'd react if she found herself in this situation. She had long hoped that inheriting her father's job didn't mean inheriting his ghosts as well, but now that Charlotte was here, Lucinda felt compelled to embrace the idiosyncrasy of the situation. Had her father treated these moments as a confessional or a therapy session, or were they moments to plot and scheme and influence the world? I don't want any of those options, but certainly not that. I don't… I can't…
Before Lucinda even realised what she was saying, she found words pouring out of her mouth, thoughts and ideas that had been part of her for months now, but only now, in Charlotte's lofty, all-knowing presence, did it feel right to articulate them.
"I've been struggling since I started this job, not because of anything to do with the business, but because of Dad. He took on this… job, whatever you call it, with you, and that was his entire life, more than any of this. I've been afraid ever since then that I'm going to have to go down that path, and it terrifies me because I have no idea what I can do to stop all of this."
Lucinda could hear her voice shaking, but she refused to stop. "I tried my best three years ago, and I barely got out of that fight alive. People I loved died trying to stop Cyrus. Trainers far stronger than me died. So many Pokémon… I mean, Red's team is meant to be the best in the world, and his Onix…"
Something cold passed through Lucinda's shoulder, and she shivered even though she knew it was Charlotte's hand. She eyed the faint, almost invisible fingers as they rested on her overpriced suit, and Lucinda felt compelled to place her own hand on top, to hold that freezing grip where it was and stop it from abandoning her.
"If it makes you feel better, there's nothing you can do," Charlotte whispered.
Lucinda sniggered despite herself. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"It should." Charlotte's hand phased through Lucinda's, and the girl drifted towards the window until her brow was touching the glass. "There is nothing you or I or any of those people down there can do. There is a select cast of players in this game, and it is up to those people to determine what happens next."
"That's… that's bullshit. What about my father, what about all he –"
"That was different," Charlotte snapped. Her harshness seemed to surprise her, as she paused for a moment to gather herself. "Arnold was supposed to be involved. His fate dictated it."
"Fate?" Lucinda scoffed. She had heard tales about prophecies and premonitions, but they had always struck her as fantasy. "Are you saying the universe is stopping me from stopping the world from ending?"
Charlotte's reflection turned scornful. "It's not as simplistic as that. All of us – me, you, your secretary, those people down there – we're going down our own little paths in life unaware what lies ahead or how long our journeys go on for. For most, their lives are uneventful in the grand scheme of humankind, but for a tiny minority, our actions and choices and experiences propel us towards something beyond an ordinary existence.
"Some walk into it blindly, but others get nudged one way or the other. That is what's happening in Kanto right now. It's what happened to your father. Arnold got a glimpse of his destiny, and he openly embraced the existence he'd one day have. He ensured his path could not be altered, no matter how much he tried to interfere."
Lucinda shut her eyes, trying to take it all in, and found herself back in this office three years prior, rewatching her father's final minutes. The storm. Vanessa. Allison. Was that all pre-determined?
"And so you're saying…" Lucinda started, trying to distract her memory. "You're saying that this... this acceptance of fate is happening in Kanto?"
"Precisely." Charlotte said it slowly, drawing the syllables out like a funeral march. "This fight has already chosen its warriors, and they have accepted that and will battle as they see fit. Everyone down there will simply carry on regardless, most entirely oblivious anything is even happening."
Lucinda wanted to say something but words failed her. She had too many questions to ask and every answer would be painful than the last. Her throat had gone dry, and she could feel her muscles tensing as if constricted by wires. She tried to block it all out, tried to push the dark thoughts away, but every time she shut her eyes, there was her father, dripping wet with blood smeared down his face, silently pleading for her help.
"No. No, no, no." Lucinda leapt up so quickly her chair tipped backwards and smacked against the glass. The vibration seemed to jolt Charlotte more than her shouting did, but she hardly even glanced at the upturned furniture before Lucinda was in her face. "I refuse to accept any of that."
"Accept or deny, it doesn't change the truth."
"Bullshit!" Lucinda hissed. "You can change things. You have all these powers, use them."
"I can't," Charlotte growled.
"Of course you can. Use your gifts. Teleport someone somewhere. Set them on fire. Show them the future. Do something!"
"STOP IT!" Charlotte waved her arm violently, and Lucinda grunted as she psychically thrown back into her desk. She winced as the hard edges dug into her back, but if Charlotte noticed her pain, she didn't care.
"Don't you think I want to?" she snapped, sliding in such a way that the room would surely be shaking if she was on the ground. "All these years, I knew everything that was coming, but could I ever interfere? No. I saw every path, I saw where they all led, and I was meant to sit back and let it unfold. I knew the world was going to end, and I could do nothing more than point someone in the right direction, and even then that came back to haunt me. I can't change the future, Lucinda, and neither can you."
Charlotte turned and walked back towards the glass. Lucinda tensed, expecting her to shatter it in her rage, but Charlotte simply stepped through the window as if it was mist and carried on into the sky.
"That was before Coronet!" Lucinda shouted, no clue Charlotte could even hear her. "If the world could come back from what you witnessed, then that means fate is malleable." She ran up to the window and banged on the pane, watching as Charlotte faded into the final vapours of sunlight. "You said before you don't know what's going to happen. How do you know now isn't your time to do something!"
For a moment, Lucinda wasn't sure if Charlotte had stopped moving or simply vanished altogether; night was seeping into the world, and what could have been Charlotte's hair caught in the wind could just as easily as being a smear on the glass exposed by the darkness.
Then, just as Lucinda was giving up hope, Charlotte turned. It was hard to tell what her blank if wide-eyed expression meant, but it was impossible to miss the briefest of winks Charlotte threw Lucinda's way. And for a moment before she vanished for certain, Lucinda was sure she saw her smile.
Alone again. Lucinda could feel the emptiness of her office behind her more than ever. She knew she had to go home at some point, but she dreading turning to face the bleak, blank space after the last ten minutes, the same hollowness her father had dwelled in for far too long.
Instead, she peered down at the city. The streetlights had turned on, illuminating the last few office workers making their way home, mingled in with the carefree and innocent heading out for a night on the town. The fountain sparkled, the trading station shone, and everything seemed to be at peace.
It was beautiful and depressing all at once, but a few years ago, Lucinda never thought she would be able to see this scene again. No one had, but the city and the country had found a way to repair.
There's always a chance, Lucinda thought, and she moved towards her door, deciding that, for tonight at least, she was going to hope for the best.
The only light in the room came from the television. The bulky, outdated machine sat in the centre of the room, currently alight with the grainy images of a game show reaching its conclusion. As the crowd cheered for the lucky winner, a slight hum from behind the screen penetrated the crackly applause.
It was hardly an ideal vessel, but given Buzz's current situation, it was better than nothing.
His eyes had not moved off the screen for hours. He had left his SilPhone back in the ruins of his office, along with any other devices they could have used to track him. It was a necessary safety precaution, but it meant that Buzz was without access to the internet. He had been waiting for Scar to get in touch, but hours had ticked by since his last update and the radio silence was doing Buzz's head in.
The assault on the Arcethian Academy was his final play. If that had failed, Buzz had no idea what to do next. Amanda's betrayal had left him astray and exposed, his plans shattered and worthless. He may have an army, but Buzz had no method of implementing it, at least not in the way he had envisioned for so long. It would be easy to declare all-out war on Kanto, but then it would just as easy for the gym leaders and elites to take him down.
If Alaska was dead, though, Buzz still had options. He'd turned the television on sometime this morning and had refused to move, waiting for the news alert to announce what had happened. Infomercials bled into chat shows that gave way to soap operas and old sitcoms. Buzz had no idea how much time had passed; the curtains had been closed when he arrived, and the thick fabric succeeded in letting nothing in. It could be lunchtime or midnight or still pre-dawn for all Buzz knew. The television certainly wasn't giving him anything, and it was starting to get on his nerves.
The credits for the game show faded to black, and were almost immediately replaced with a dazzling flash of blue. In the darkened room, the glare was blinding; Buzz squinted and sank back into the couch, feeling the aged springs digging into his legs. The whole room seemed to glow, the normally white walls awash with an artificial navy, while the many photos lining the wall all shone, giving the impression of a dozen screens suddenly transplanted onto the walls.
Then, it started. A logo filled the screen – a chunky white '1' in the middle of a circle like a sniper's scope – for barely a second before the camera began to zoom in on two people sitting at an oversized desk. Buzz grinned at the pair as if they were old friends, and he sat forward, waiting for them to begin.
"Good evening," the male half of the pair began. "This is 1Kanto News. Our top story tonight – the reconstruction of Vermilion Port has faced further setbacks today, after an engineer's report exposed structural deficiencies that may see it shut for years. Mary Masters has this exclusive story."
"What the fuck?" Buzz leapt to his feet and ran to the television before he even knew what he was doing. He smashed his fist against the plastic casing, trying to knock some sense into this brainless bulletin. The port, their leading with the fucking port? What about the robots that fell from the sky, you fucking imbeciles? What about them!
"Remote. I need the remote." Buzz turned feverishly to the couch but it wasn't there. His breathing became more rapid and pitched as he lunged towards the sofa and flung the sagging cushions aside, upending the side table in the process. "Remote… WHERE'S THE REMOTE!"
"What on earth are you shouting about, Franklin?"
Buzz sat up straight. He had forgotten all about her. Easy, when she had likely forgotten about him. What had she been doing all day while he'd sat in front of the screen? "It's not Franklin, ma, it's… it's Basil."
"Oh, of course, silly me. Are you trying to watch your cartoons?"
Buzz turned as the creaking floorboards announced her arrival. Under the harsh glow of the television, his mother looked more gaunt and ghostly than ever. The lines of her crevassed face were exposed in the shadows, and those vacant eyes were lit up like one of his robots. She was wearing the same nightgown she'd had on when Buzz had arrived yesterday, and the smell that followed her into the room suggested she'd had it on for some time.
"No, ma, I'm just trying to find a different channel to watch the news on."
"The news? Why are you watching that for?" She chuckled to herself and shook her head exasperatedly. "Got a report due tomorrow, is that's what's up?"
Buzz struggled not to scream. "Sure, ma, whatever you say."
"Well, stop watching your cartoons and get working then!" she snapped with sudden severity. "Always watching that bloody box. I should turn it off and take away the remote, that's what I should do. Should have done it ages ago. You hearing me, Franklin?"
"Franklin died, ma. It's Basil, your second son. Remember?" Buzz fired back bitterly. He stood to full height and loomed over his mother, or at least this shrunken, shrivelled version of her that reeked of piss and shit. "Remember how your golden child ran off to fight in the war, only to get himself killed? Remember that, ma, or are you too far down the fucking rabbit hole to remember your own name?"
There was a second where Buzz had no idea how she would react. She wore the same stern expression she had assumed a minute earlier, but that said nothing for her state of mind; there was fire in her eyes, but what was going on behind there, not even Arceus would know.
"Basil, do you want some breakfast? I'm in the mood for eggs." She blinked and turned back to the television. "This isn't your usual cartoon, is it?"
Buzz could imagine cracking her head open and spilling her worthless, malfunctioning brain over the carpet, putting her out of her misery. Yet it was a misery she deserved, and soon she wouldn't be his problem any longer. "Eggs would be wonderful, ma," Buzz said as he turned away and sank back onto the couch.
"Wonderful, wonderful," his mother murmured, and she shuffled awkwardly back to the kitchen.
Buzz held his breath as she passed, not wanting to breathe in any of the fumes oozing out from her. He hated being back here, but it was his only choice. He and Amanda had arranged a safe house long before this had all started, but with her having gone rogue, Buzz couldn't risk going there. Someone had once told him family was all you could depend on when all else failed, and it pained him how true that had turned out.
How long he would be trapped here, Buzz had no idea. The bulletin was on to their fourth story now, and there had been no mention of the Arcethian Academy yet. Something had clearly gone wrong, Buzz couldn't bear to imagine what, and now his plans were dashed. His public identity was blown, his ally had betrayed him, his work had been exposed, and his groin still hurt when he moved. The weight of his failure was suffocating, and Buzz wished the couch would swallow him whole and end this misery.
"Meanwhile, in the Sevii Islands, authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire that has ravaged the Arcethian Academy."
Buzz sat up. The female newsreader was talking now, though her face was only in the frame for a few seconds before the image changed to a burnt-out classroom. Her voice carried on over the top as the camera panned to show blackened walls pockmarked with gaping holes. "No students were injured in the blaze, which broke out yesterday afternoon during lunchtime, but large parts of the historic building and the school grounds were damaged in the fire. Investigators believe a gas leak in a science room started the inferno."
The image cut back to the newsroom, this time focusing on both newsreaders. The pair were grinning like identical twins, while a close up of an immature Growlithe filled the screen behind them. "That wasn't the only fire emergency that rescue services had to deal with yesterday. In Lavender Town, one scampy young Growlithe had to be saved after climbing to the top of the Radio Tower. Ollie O'Brien has more."
"No, go back." Buzz stood up again, even though his body was shaking uncontrollably. "Go back, you didn't finish the other story. It wasn't a gas leak, it was me, ME! GO BACK, GO BACK YOU BASTARDS!"
"Basil, what are you shouting about?"
"THEY DIDN'T CREDIT ME!" Buzz screamed, his eyes locked on the television. "THOSE BASTARDS ARE TRYING TO PRETEND IT WASN'T ME. I DESTROYED THAT SCHOOL AND THEY DON'T WANT ANYONE TO KNOW IT!"
"Calm down, Basil," his mother said thunderously. "There is no need for you to shout about some nonsense at school."
Buzz screamed through clenched teeth. "This isn't about school, you moronic bint, this is about them trying to take away credit that belongs to ME! I spent years on this, and these fucking arseholes do not even have the decency to admit who tried to destroy them! The bastards are trying to rewrite history!"
He didn't see the hand coming. It had been years since his mother had last slapped him, but the feeling as Buzz stumbled over was all too familiar. That powerful crack had only strengthened since she'd lost all the weight, her palm now like jagged glass, and Buzz could taste a metallic tinge in his mouth.
"Such a tongue!" his mother snarled. "I didn't raise you to use language like that, and I didn't raise you to just whine and moan whenever something doesn't go your way! If you're being bullied, fight back for goodness sake! Honestly, you are lucky your father isn't here to see you whimpering on the floor, or he'd snap some sense into you."
"That's because he's FUCKING DEAD!"
"Don't talk such utter nonsense." His mother stepped forward as though about to say something else, but a high pitched shriek from the kitchen interrupted her. "That's the smoke detector – have you been cooking, Franklin? I told you not to make anything unsupervised!"
Buzz screamed into the empty room as his mother hobbled away to tend to whatever she'd burnt in the kitchen. He turned to the screen, eyes blinded by whatever garish commercial was currently playing, and longed to put his fist through the screen.
Instead, Buzz slumped back on the couch, rubbing his rapidly swelling jaw. His mother was right about one thing; if his father had been the one swinging his arms around, Buzz would be tending to more than just a bruise tomorrow. How the fuck have I ended up back here?
He could imagine his father towering over him as he often had, thick, square head red with rage, veins popping out in places where you didn't know veins existed. Of course they destroyed your little toys, Frank Bolton Sr. would be roaring. What are you going to do about it? Nothing! You're just a pathetic little shit, letting the whole world walk right over you, aren't you? Answer me! AREN'T YOU!
"NO!" Buzz winced as his jaw pinged, but he clung onto the pain. He had endured enough of it over the years he should have built up a thicker skin than this. His whole life had been nothing but setbacks, always coming in last place and never being able to move up the ranks.
Yet where were they all now? His father and brother were dead, his mother had lost her mind, even Giovanni hadn't been able to defeat Red. Buzz was still alive, he still had a fighting chance, and he wasn't going to give up yet.
You've spent years planning this. You've spent months making sure we got as far as today. Are you really going to throw it away in just a few minutes?
"No, you old bastard, no I'm not." Buzz smiled to himself, and for a few moments managed to laugh. "There's no place like home, is there, ma?"
"What are you going on about now?"
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing." Buzz chuckled as he collapsed back onto the couch. He might as well have some eggs while he was here. For when tomorrow comes around, he's going to need all the energy he can muster.
