The next time Ray wakes up he feels a lot better. He feels like getting up and moving and – like he really needs that bathroom now. He decides that must be a good thing – his body wouldn't be wasting water if he were dying of dehydration, right?

It turns out that 'bathroom' was a generous term – there's an old fashioned china latrine with a chain and one of those tiny sinks wedged into a corner. The water is brackish and muddy, but he splashes some on his face and anyway and wishes briefly for a razor. He determines to think only about the present moment. If he looks back, he'll get lost there, and thinking about the chain of events that have brought him here makes him feel crazy and helpless and out of control. He can't afford that. It's enough to deal with the debt of gratitude settling heavily on his shoulders.

He goes back to the storeroom with the pallet bed, and tries the door. It's still locked, so he knocks it and calls,

"Hello?"

No answer. He coughs and tries louder but still nothing - his pulse picks up and he knows harder, adrenalin rapidly building to a minor freakout with alarming speed, when the door swings suddenly open. He's face to face with wide hazel eyes in a cherubic face, the bright-dyed hair he remembers from his half-dream.

"Oh!" exclaims his rescuer: "Were you locked in?" His voice is melodic and he speaks rapidly: "I'm so sorry. Ghoul means well, he's just kind of over-cautious sometimes, but you'll love him once you get to know him. Anyway you look a lot better. Are you feeling better?"

"Uh..." Ray clears his throat again. "Yeah. Yeah I am. Thanks."

"Come and sit down though." The redhead practically ushers him out of the doorway, and into the front parlour of an old-style American diner. He gestures for Ray to sit in one of the dark red booths and slides a warm can of coke across the table to him. "Sorry it's diet. I'm sure you could use the sugar and all, but my brother kind of has an addiction."

"No this – this is great. Thanks." Ray's still staring around, kind of overcome, and his brain tries to catalogue the other people in the room. There's a woman with red lips and black hair wearing a US army tee as a dress with a leather belt, and a skinny guy in a yellow jacket absorbed in an e-reader. A child with frizzy hair and round bright eyes was building a Lego city under a table. All of these people are alive, in living colour. His eyes are drawn back to the girl. She's too old, but with that hair he can almost imagine her how ishe/i would look, maybe in a few years –

- Enough.

"Thanks for everything," he elaborates, as the redhead slides into the booth opposite. "I guess you saved my life."

Redhead's eyes widen even further, apparent grief and compassion. Ray is slightly concerned he's about to touch his hand.

"What were you doing out there alone?" he asks. "Wait – I mean – you don't have to talk about it. But if you iwant/i to talk about it that's fine too. I'm Party Poison by the way."

"You're Party Poison?"

"Our respected leader," says the skinny guy without taking his eyes of his e-reader. It is utterly impossible to tell if he's being sarcastic.

"'It's not like that," Redhead – Poison – assures Ray.

"It kind of is," says the woman.

"But we all make decisions together and stuff. This is a democracy."

"I'm Ray," Ray says.

"Oh – dude," Poison winces. "You don't have to tell us your real name yet."

"Um, – I don't have any other name."

That gets skinny guy's attention and he looks up: "Well what did your crew call you?" Ray is struck by the odd resemblance to Poison: odd because hard to pin to particular features, they don't have the same eyes or nose or jaw, yet they are obviously related. He guesses this must be the brother.

"I wasn't in a crew," Ray admits. "I just left Battery City like – I'm not sure how many days ago." There's a beat of silence, and he recalls the short guy's wariness: "I'm not drugged," he says quickly. "Or – hardly, if I am. I've been cutting down on the pills for months, went cold turkey before I got out, there can hardly be anything left in my system." He spread his hands.

"We believe you," says Poison. "It's just – well – how did you get out? We don't see that sort of thing everyday, you know."

"I had help. There's a sort of a, a network," he draws it in the air, sketchy connection of undefined points: "but I don't know that much about it. I only met with one person face to face. And she was wearing a mask. People have to protect themselves, you know we may not all be revolutionaries but we're not all good little BL/Ind citizens either." He stops. Poison looks at the skinny guy and they hold a kind of conversation through the medium of eyebrows.

"Okay," says Poison at length. "Well, that's Kobra Kid. He's my little brother. Over there is Fuck Machine, and we call the motorbaby Grace."

"We're Killjoys," says the little girl. She's entirely unexcited by the profanity. "We fight dracs and one time Party and Ghoul got the kids out of a laboratory but I wasn't allowed to come. I helped a lot though. iAnd/i I can shoot. But I'm not allowed my own gun till I'm ten."

"I said we would italk about it/i when you were ten, Gracie," the woman says.

"How long is that?"

"You can figure it out. Do a take-away."

Ray tears his eyes away as Grace holds up ten fingers, and assiduously starts counting down.

"Wait," he says. "Did she says Killjoys?"

"Our reputation precedes us," says Kobra.

"It – I'll say!" Ray exclaims. His mind is spinning. Killjoys. Fuck. If there was one crew whose name was whispered amongst the discontents with reverence – and a side of fear – it was the Killjoys. Known for the ruthless massacre of Dracs and Crows as much for the liberation of political prisoners and experimental subjects, Ray had just expected them to be – scarier. Their leader ought to be bald and grim, maybe an eyepatch or a robotic hand or something. Right now Poison looks more like an earnest schoolkid than a ruthless resistance leader. "You guys are legendary."

"Oh I'd dispute that," says Poison thoughtfully. "I don't think we've been around long enough to call ilegendary/i, that implies-..."

"So what did you do? In the city?" Fuck Machine asks Ray. "Can you fight? Build? Any medical knowledge?"

"I was a data analyst," Ray admits. "And I know a bit about cars and bikes. But –"

"But?" Kobra looks at him. Ray doesn't know why he's saying this already, but he can't the stupid feeling that this must be ifate/i or something, that he's found ithis/i crew,with this particular dream...

"Once," he says quickly, "Before the Helium wars. I was a musician. I mean, I wasn't igood/i, I was only sixteen so I didn't have time to be igood/i exactly, but that was what I wanted."

Poison and Kobra look at eachother, and apparently conduct a conversation through the medium of their eyebrows. Then Poison turns back to Ray. He's smiling.

TBC