When he returned with the empties, it wasn't Candy waiting for him behind the bar. It was Tempest, soaked with rain and looking the same pale shade of green she had the day Fry crashed the hovertruck.

"What? What's wrong?"

Tempest shook her head.

She grabbed the half-empty bucket of ice.

"This needs a refill," she said loudly. "And you need to change the barrel. C'mon."

She dragged a bewildered Fry after her.

"Candy never showed," she said, as soon as the door to the bar swung shut behind them. "She never got the doctor. No-one got the doctor. I asked around – no-one's seen him since Vondra called off his debts. It looks like he tried to skip town."

"So?"

"So, he never paid up to his landlady, and she let me into his place. All his stuff is still there. Shells and diaries and all that shit he'd take with him if was really leaving."

She knocked on the door of the basement, in a familiar four-knock pattern. A code, Fry realized.

"Mort says the doc is still here," she went on. "On-world, I mean. Alive, he thinks. But he says he's got a bad feeling, and -"

Fry nodded. He didn't need her to elaborate. He'd spent enough time around Mort to know that a bad feeling Mort was admitting to was a bad omen for the rest of them.

"What about Candy?" he asked. "Maybe Mort could find her, if he -"

"He already looked at her cards." Tempest shivered, speckling Fry with raindrops. Her mouth was set in a grim line. "I don't know what he saw, but he went right out and he wouldn't let me go with him, so I know it wasn't anything good."

The basement door opened, and Vondra yanked them both inside before Tempest could say another word.

"You told him?"

Tempest nodded.

Vondra turned her attention to Fry.

"Did anyone recognize you?" she demanded. "Did you run into Yearling? Run your mouth at the bar? Did you do anything I need to worry about?"

"No! No-one even looked at me," Fry said truthfully. "And Captain British Douchebag wasn't there." He hesitated. "You think he did something to Candy?"

Vondra's expression darkened.

"Mort thinks she's in trouble. He thinks our friend Yearling is worse than he seems."

"Maybe Captain Glottus would know," Fry suggested. "You could ask him."

"You think I didn't think of that? I've been trying. But I pumped him full of morphine two hours ago, and he's not coming round. All I'm getting is pink clouds, when he'll open his eyes in the first place."

"Can't you give him some kind of anti-morphine?" Fry said hopelessly. "That's a thing in the future, right?"

"No."

"Oh."

"There is something. I found that robot trying to deal to Candy last night. I took what he had and barred him, but -"

"What did he have?" Tempest asked curiously.

Vondra hesitated.

"Quantum Blue."

"Meth?"

"Uh. Call me crazy," Fry interrupted, "but that seems like a bad idea, maybe. Really maybe."

Vondra gave him the look that suggested she thought he was being an idiot again.

"Why do you think I haven't done it yet?"

"Oh."

Fry stared down at the unconscious captain. The morphine had shallowed his breathing, and he didn't look in pain anymore. But his lungs were making that noise again, like they were filling up with blood.

He looked sicker when he was asleep, Fry thought. He looked the way Leela had looked in her coma. The way Lars had looked when Fry went to the hospital to see if he was really dying. Unconsciousness wasn't sleep. It was creepier than sleep. When someone was asleep, you could still reach them. When they were unconscious, they were gone. It made you feel alone, in the worst way.

Fry shivered. Maybe it was just the threat of the Brainspawn, or the way Mort talked all the time – but he suddenly felt like he was back in the hovercar, coasting on fumes as the ground drew closer. He had the same helpless feeling – that something bad was about to happen, and all he could do was hurtle closer to it, and shut his eyes against the crash.

"Vondra."

Fry jumped.

Mort was back. He was soaked to the skin, water weighing down his coat and gleaming off the bald dome of his head. And his thin arms were clamped around a pale, drowned-looking figure. He could barely hold her up.

Vondra swore.

Candy's head lolled. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't shivering, though she had to be cold.

"Hypothermia," Mort murmured. "She was behind some crates, in an alley off the Hub. I don't know how long she'd been there before I found her. An hour, maybe."

"They dumped her," Vondra said flatly.

Mort nodded.

They shared a look

"She's bleeding," Tempest said, as she and Vondra helped the girl out of Mort's arms. She raised Candy's hand, and stared at it.

At first Fry thought she'd cut her hand. He didn't understand what he was seeing, through the blood. And then, like a camera shifting into focus, he saw what was wrong.

"Her fingers," he said numbly.

Every one of her fingernails was gone.

Vondra swept them all aside, impatient.

"You," she snapped at Fry. "Get her on your bed. Put every blanket you can find on her, and get me Eric's morphine. And you - " She turned to Tempest, and snapped her fingers, hard, under the Amphibiosan girl's nose. "Hot water. As much as you can carry. And then you get back to the bar and you put on a smile, and you play dumb. Understand me? Nothing happened here."

"I . . . "

"I know she's your friend. But I need you to keep it together, Temp. Can you do that?"

Tempest took a deep breath, blinking up at the ceiling until her expression steadied.

"I can do that," she whispered.

Fry watched as Vondra soaked towels in hot water and laid them over the unconscious girl. Mort cleaned her hands, and gave her a dose of morphine.

"I can do it," Fry said, when he reached for the bandages.

Candy's hands were gruesome – Fry felt like throwing up when he looked at them – but Captain Glottus had looked worse after Fry shot him. And he had to do something. He couldn't just sit here, and watch everyone else help.

"She hates blood," he heard himself say.

He was doing it again. Saying things that weren't important and no-one needed to hear, because he was scared and he couldn't stop himself talking.

But when Vondra groaned, it didn't seemed to be at him.

"She hates blood," she echoed. "Of course."

Mort was leaning on Fry's shoulder. At the look on Vondra's face, his grip tightened painfully.

"You think she talked," he said.

Vondra settled a hot cloth over the girl's forehead.

"You think she didn't?"

"It could have been why they dumped her," Mort suggested. "If they realized she had nothing . . ."

Vondra laughed. It was a harsh sound, but there was a sad note in it.

"Yearling would only give her up if he had what he wanted. You didn't find Four-Eyes tossed out like yesterday's garbage, did you?"

"No."

"Right. Because he's not human. No human nervous system. Not much you can do to torture a Decapodian. But little Sara -"

"Yearling tortured her?" Fry blurted out.

Vondra gave him the look again.

"No," she said coldly. "Her fingernails just dropped off of their own accord. What do you think, fly boy?"

"But – but . . . he's in the DOOP," Fry said fruitlessly. "He can't just -"

"My brother is bleeding out in my cellar," Vondra snapped, "because the DOOP have orders to shoot him on sight. The same DOOP that framed him for a crime he didn't commit. What part of this story surprises you, exactly?"

"But . . . that was different." Fry struggled. "Captain Glottus was a soldier. And he was going to expose them." He stared down at Candy. "She's just . . ."

"Involved," Mort said quietly.

And Fry understood.

Candy had been in on the secret because she'd seen Captain Glottus arrive. They hadn't been able to hide him from her, because she'd been there, outside, when Fry crashed the hovercar. Like Tempest.

And once she knew, she couldn't unknow.

Mort was talking again, this time to Vondra.

"How long do you think we have?" he asked.

"I don't know. Tonight, maybe." Vondra glanced over at her brother. "He knows what he'll find, but he'll need a pretext to get in here. A raid, probably. The men'll hate it, but he won't care. He'll cut his losses." She met Mort's gaze. "We should too."

Mort nodded.

"I'll talk to Strungler. The girls can be off-world before sundown, but if we don't wait for dark . . ." He looked down at Candy.

"We'll show our hand," Vondra nodded. "Yearling will have his spies, I know. I don't care. Get her out of here, Mort."

There was a pause.

There was another problem, one so obvious even Fry could see it. But no-one wanted to be the one to say it.

It was Mort who broke the silence, at last.

"We can't move Eric," he said

Vondra shook her head.

"No."

"And you won't leave him."

It wasn't a question.

"No," Vondra murmured.

Mort shut his eyes, like a man standing in the path of an oncoming train, who couldn't stand to see it hit.

"There's nothing I can say," he said.

That wasn't a question either. His voice had that timber to it, the one that was more than just conviction.

And then his throat twisted, and he sounded helpless and human again.

"Is there?"

Vondra shook her head.

"We came into the world together, Mort. He's not leaving it alone." She hesitated. "How much can you see?"

Mort was quiet.

His gaze passed from his wife to his brother-in-law, and finally to Fry.

"Enough to make me afraid," he said at last. He shook his head. "For all of you. Don't stay more than a day here, Von. This place . . ."

"I know, I know." Vondra sounded tired. "Something's coming."

"Believe me."

"You know I do."

Vondra leaned in and kissed her husband. Fry stared at the wall and tried to make himself invisible, suddenly acutely aware of his status as the only other conscious person in the room. He was jerked back to earth by the sound of his name.

Mort had asked about him, he realized.

"I'm staying," he blurted out, at the same time Vondra said, "He's staying."

Mort nodded. He didn't seem surprised.

"Then take care," he said. He fished something out of his pocket and handed it over, and then he clasped Fry on the shoulder. "Get home."

Fry blinked.

It was one of Mort's cards, one Fry had seen before. The one of the little girl, dot-sized in an empty landscape, staring up at the eclipse.

The card made him feel uncomfortable, somehow. The little girl looked so tiny, like she shouldn't be out there on her own. And the eclipse didn't look fun; a spectator event the way eclipses were on Earth. It looked threatening, looming over her like it wanted to swallow her up.

Vondra was frowning at the card too, but Mort had already scooped up the unconscious Candy, and it was clear they were out of time.

So Fry tucked the card in the front pocket of his flak jacket, and tried to ignore the creepy feeling it gave him.

The door swung shut behind Mort. Vondra stared at the other side of the door, but didn't bother to lock it. Fry guessed there wasn't much point. Not anymore.

She turned to him at last, and Fry felt it again – that feeling he'd had with Tempest at the bar, as if something had shifted in the way she saw him, without Fry knowing what he'd done to cause it.

Vondra was looking at him now with something that seemed almost like respect.

"So," she said. "You're with me."

Fry nodded.

Vondra made a strange sound. It might have been a laugh.

"The three of us, then. To the bitter end."

She crossed to one of the panels in the wall, picked up a whip, and used the handle to pry the paneling free. Her hand came up holding a bottle of bourbon.

"Better face it in style."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Vondra had drawn up a syringe of something electric blue from a vial. It had come out of the hole in the wall, and Fry had a pretty good idea what it was. He just wasn't so sure it was a good idea.

Vondra didn't seem sure either. She stared from her unconscious brother, to the syringe in her hand.

Then she picked up the bottle of bourbon, and took another hard swallow.

"Fuck no. But we're all out of options, and I won't let them take him like this. Hold him down, space cadet."

Fry pinned the captain's shoulders as Vondra hunted for a vein.

"One. Two. Thr . . . oh, fuck-here-we-go-kid . . ."

Captain Glottus gasped like a drowning man, and his eyes flew open. They stayed open, staring unblinking at the ceiling as his limbs locked up. He let out a garbled roar of pain, and then -

"Hold him down!" Vondra shouted.

She threw herself forward, pinning her brother to the ground with her own body weight, as Fry tried desperately to keep him still.

It wasn't working.

The captain was thrashing violently. Even in his weakened state he was hard to hold onto. Tendons corded in his neck. A kick almost sent Vondra flying; Fry saw her grit her teeth and hold on. Then Glottus's arm smacked him in the chest, knocking all the air out of Fry's lungs. His ribs screamed under the force of the blow and Fry almost let go, but then he felt wet blood spray his face, and . . .

Glottus was coughing, the fit fading into his normal struggle for breath.

Fry scrambled to his knees and tried to pull Glottus up, back into a sitting position. Vondra hit him on the back, trying to clear his airway.

At last the spasms subsided, and the Captain's gaze became less fixed. Fry could pinpoint the exact moment he was able to focus on them, and it seemed Vondra could too. They both let go at the same time, and fell back panting.

It took Glottus three attempts to choke out a word.

"Fuck."

Vondra handed him the bottle of bourbon.

"You're telling me."

"Fuck."

"Hold that thought, little brother. You're in for a world more pain."

Glottus tried to swallow a gulp of the bourbon, failed, and spat it out.

There was fresh blood seeping through his bandages.

"Talk about a rude awakening," he muttered.

"It's about to get ruder. Eric, what do you know about a Captain Yearling?"

"Yearling? Never heard of him." Glottus shut his eyes again, setting his jaw as he tried to get his breathing back under control. "Knew a Lieutenant Yearling," he said vaguely. "Five years back. No. Ten. Got the bastard court-martialed."

"For what, Eric?"

Glottus frowned, his eyes still shut. When he spoke he sounded hazy, as if he was dredging the words up from some deep pit of memory.

"First phase of the Hippolate war," he said. "After their Supreme Leader surrendered. We were supposed to bring him in. Turns out he had an escape pod. Must've been a one man model though, 'cause he left the wife and kids behind." His expression flickered. "Yearling thought they might know where it was headed. Had some sick ideas about how we could make them talk."

He tapped the back of his hand, where a crescent of tiny pale scars ringed his knuckles. When he balled the fist, Fry suddenly realized they were the marks of someone's teeth. Yearling's teeth.

"I had some ideas of my own about that."

Vondra exhaled.

"And you never thought you should share this little story with me?"

Glottus shrugged.

"It was over. It was done."

"It's not over. They sent him here, Eric. He's Captain Yearling now, out here. And you never told me he had special reason to hate your guts, or special skills with a goddamn rusty pliers, so I underestimated him. And he got one of my girls."

Glottus went very still.

"The little blonde one," he said at last. "The weak link. He always went for the weak link." He remained frozen in place. "What did he do to her?"

"Backstreet manicure," Vondra said. "And one hell of a beat down. Mort had to carry her out of here. With the last of your morphine supply."

"Good."

From the way Glottus had his teeth clenched, it was clear he was feeling the lack of morphine. But he didn't argue against giving it all to Candy.

Fry wouldn't have either.

"So." Glottus grunted in pain, as he hauled himself into a sitting position. "Mort's not here portending my doom, and you broke out the good liquor. And woke me up to drink it too. I think I see where this is heading. You, me, and the Sundance Kid," he declared. "One last stand, huh?"

"Something like that," Vondra admitted. "I don't intend to go down without a fight."

"And I can't talk you out of this bonehead blaze of glory."

"Not a chance, brother."

Glottus nodded.

"Then do it smart. Create a diversion." He tapped the half-empty liquor bottle. "This place'll go up like a torch, if you set it up right. If we're going down, we may as well take the bastard with us."

Vondra regarded him for a long moment. Then she seemed to make up her mind.

"I'll clear the regulars," she said, nodding. "Catch your breath. And you, change his bandages," she said to Fry.

"Okay."

Glottus watched her leave. And then his expression tightened, and he clapped his hand to Fry's shoulder.

"Help me up, kid," he said. "And hurry."

Fry stared at him.

"You're leaving her?" he sputtered. "But – but – you can't leave! You won't make it."

"But Von will." Glottus shook his head. "C'mon, kid. This isn't her fight. I can't let her go down for me."

Fry glanced back at the door.

But Glottus was right. The Brainspawn were Fry's fight. The Captain had gotten dragged into it too, but no-one else should have to die because of his mistakes. Whatever he had done to get rid of the brains before, it clearly hadn't been enough. If anyone should put their life in danger to try and protect Captain Glottus, it should be him.

So he nodded, silently, and took the Captain's weight.

Out in the street the rain was coming down hard, churning up the surface of the water. The sky was choked with cloud. In a weird way, it looked like the whole planet was boiling. Only, it was cold. Could water boil cold? The Professor would know, Fry thought absently. And Amy would know, and actually tell him.

But neither of them were here. How long had it been, since he saw their faces? It felt like a lifetime. Fry found himself struggling to remember little details, like how many liver spots there were on the Professor's hands, or how it sounded when Amy laughed. It was only Leela and Bender he remembered with perfect clarity. He didn't even have to close his eyes to see their faces in his mind's eye. He wondered how long he'd have to stay away for, before even they would start to fade.

Lars would know, he thought suddenly.

And wondered why he'd thought that. Why he'd even thought about Lars, now. He never thought about him normally. Except sometimes to think about how much he hated him. Or to wonder, in a sullen kind of way, what it was Leela loved about the guy.

But learning that Lars was him had done something Fry couldn't explain. Lars wouldn't stay stable in his mind anymore. Fry tried not to think about him, but when he did, he found Lars kept shifting in his head, so that sometimes when he thought of him he was seeing himself, and sometimes he was seeing his dad. Or Captain Glottus. Or a weird mix of all three of them.

It was making him harder and harder to hate, despite Fry's best efforts.

"Where do we go?" he asked, to distract himself.

Captain Glottus was leaning hard on his shoulder, making it hard to breathe. Fry had the feeling his broken ribs had opened up again, in the struggle to bring Glottus round from the morphine. He was doing his best to hide this fact.

"West," the captain grunted. "The docks. Get a gun. Get a ride. Worth a try."

He was talking in shorter sentences now, like he didn't have the energy to string more words together.

But he had a plan. All Fry had to do was get him to the docks, and then the Captain would take over, plan their next move, like he always did.

It was a reassuring thought.

The rain was driving down so fast now that Fry could barely see. The world ahead of him was gray – gray streets, gray sky, gray water. But off in the distance Fry could hear yelling and the stomp of heavily booted feet. Yearling's men, raiding Vondra's place. It sounded like she was putting up a fight. Or somebody was.

Fry tried to move faster.

"Which way is west?" he asked.

"Turn left," Glottus told him, and Fry obeyed, swerving them away from the main body of water and into an alleyway. There were trashcans piled up along the walls, and -

The alley ended in a dirty red brick wall. There was a door – rusty and disused looking – set into the wall, but it was one of those emergency exits, that you opened by pressing down on a bar in the inside. From the outside, it was blank and smooth.

Fry ran his hands blindly across its surface. Maybe there was a latch. Maybe it was invisible.

Glottus had let go of him, and gone to lean against the wall. When the door failed to yield, even to his attempts at kicking it, Fry gave up and turned back to the captain.

"I can't get it to open," he admitted. "We can't get through here. Or maybe we went the wrong way, I don't know."

He licked his finger and held it up to the wind, the way he'd seen Leela do sometimes when they were lost. Fry's wilderness survival skills ended at that point – he never actually knew what the wind was supposed to be telling her, or how Leela was able to read it – but it didn't help him here anyway. There was no wind for him to feel. Just the rain, driving down endlessly.

Maybe Captain Glottus had a compass, or some way of telling direction Fry didn't.

"Are you sure this is west?" Fry asked him. "Maybe we went east instead. Or north. Or some other direction."

Glottus didn't seem to be paying attention. He had pulled the gold data nugget from around his neck and was staring at it, as if there was some great secret written on its dull gold surface. Or some grim joke.

"Hey." Fry tried to help him up. "Hey, did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

Glottus stayed leaning against the wall. All Fry's attempts to pry him off it were suddenly failing.

"So we need to go." The yelling was getting louder. It didn't sound so distant anymore. "We need to go yesterday," Fry urged. "How do we get to this dock place?"

"We don't."

"Huh?"

Glottus sighed.

"The docks are twenty minutes from here, kid. And they'll be swarming with DOOP. You might as well cover me in gift wrap and drop me on Yearling's doorstep."

"But . . . but you said . . ."

"I know what I said." Glottus grimaced. "I needed you to keep moving. Draw me away. If they don't find me with Von, they can't prove she was involved. And if they find me with you, they won't care. You're nobody. Just some kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. No friend of mine, Marty McFly." He tapped the fake ID pinned to the front of Fry's jacket, and managed a weak grin. "You already look like you came off worse in a fight. Broken ribs, if I'm any judge. They won't question it."

Fry absorbed this. Suddenly all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, a sound that felt like drowning.

"You lied to me."

"I did."

"You . . . you used me."

Glottus nodded, somber again.

"I did."

"But . . ."

"But nothing, kid. I already told you, blaze of glory's not my style. This is my fight, and I'm not about to drag you all down with me."

"It's my fight," Fry argued. "The brains are my fight."

"Yeah? Well, the DOOP is mine, kid. And anyway, you're not the only one who has beef with the brains. They killed my men. Who knows, maybe they had me do their dirty work for them. Seems like that's how they operate."

Fry opened his mouth and shut it again, suddenly rendered speechless. In all the weeks he'd spent with Captain Glottus, turning the issue of the Brainspawn over and over in his head, he had never once had that thought. Not even when that brain at the gas station had made Glottus attack him.

Even then – when he had seen their power over other people first hand – it had never occurred to him to wonder if, maybe, they could have made Glottus hurt other people too. If, maybe, his memories of the attack on his men couldn't be trusted.

Glottus hadn't caused all the deaths the DOOP were trying to pin on him. Fry knew that. But maybe he had caused some of them.

"You didn't," Fry said, as much to convince himself as anyone.

Glottus put a hand on his shoulder again.

"You can't prove that, kid," he said. "And I can't either. I'll go to my grave wondering." He snorted suddenly. "Lucky for me, that's not far off."

"You can't say that."

"Yeah, I can. Know when you're beat, kid. I'm a dead man walking. May as well face it with some dignity."

Glottus held out his other hand. The gold data nugget was nestled in his palm.

"Do me a favor," he said. "Would you? Take this. Give it to Carlos. Tell him . . . tell him to do what he wants with it. He can expose the DOOP and their lies, or he can toss it in the nearest nebula, if he wants. His call. I owe him that."

"No," Fry said, as Glottus dropped the chain into his hand.

Glottus ignored him, and went on as if he hadn't spoken.

"Tell Von I'm sorry I lied to her. Tell Carlos I love him, for what that's ever been worth. And tell him . . . tell him to tell my kids what they need to hear. What'll make them happy. I never was good with words. Never was good with anything. Not even this." He gestured down at his ruined uniform. "But they were the best thing I ever did." His mouth twitched in something that was almost a smile. "Tell them that."

"You tell them."

The voices were louder now. Fry could hear footsteps.

"I won't leave you," he insisted. "No way."

Glottus sighed.

"All this dumb loyalty is touching," he said. "Really, it is, kid. But we're out of time."

His other hand came up, a blur in Fry's peripheral vision – and then pain exploded in Fry's skull, and he felt himself go down. Water soaked into his clothes, but he was too numb to feel it. Blackness was swirling in on him, flowering out from the point of pain. Fry tried to fight it, but it pulled down on him like a weight, dragging him under.

He couldn't get up.

The world became a blur of fading impressions.

There were boots, kicking up the water as they stormed in on him, and there was gunfire, and there was shouting . . .

And there was Captain Glottus's voice, quiet in his ear, before it all closed in on him.

"You did good, kid. . . You did good."