Lake Mutagenic was still as a sheet of glass.
Lars stood on the edge of the shore, watching his breath freeze into ice in the winter air.
Bender had disappeared here. There were still scorch marks on the ground where he'd short-circuited. Skreem had disappeared here too, but there was nothing left of her. Nothing to say she'd ever existed.
He wondered how she'd felt, standing here. Had she known she was about to die? Had she felt it hanging over her, the way Lars could now?
That was the worst thing, he thought. The way he could feel his future slipping away, like water rushing down a drain. But he didn't know when the end would come. It could be a day from now, or a week from now, or a year from now, maybe . . .
It could be now.
He stared at the plate glass surface of the water.
No. It couldn't be now. Leela had made her deal with Kif, Lars had to be there to hand himself over. To end the war. Leela needed him. The mutants needed him. It couldn't be now.
You couldn't do that to Leela anyway, he told himself. She wouldn't understand. She'd never forgive you.
Someone cleared their throat, and Lars looked up hurriedly. He didn't know how long he'd been standing here staring into the depths of the lake, but he had the feeling it was long enough that it would seem strange to someone else.
But Leela's father didn't seem to think so. He was looking out over the lake too, frowning sadly.
"It's time," he said.
Lars nodded. There was nothing he could think of to say.
Morris helped him unstick his crutch from the mud.
"Leela's waiting for you."
"Oh."
"At B19. That's the drop-off point, we agreed. It's on the high ground, see, so it's not as much of a . . . climb."
"Oh."
Lars glanced down at his leg. He hadn't thought of that.
He wondered what else he couldn't do, now. Over the months in the sewer, he'd learned how to get around, for the most part. He knew which doors he could open with one hand, and which were so heavy he had to set his entire body weight against them. He knew which stairs were so steep his leg muscles would revolt if he even tried to climb them, and which ones were shallow enough that he could drag himself up - slowly, painstakingly, angling his body to one side. He knew where his crutch would get stuck in the floorboards if he didn't set it down just right, and where the ground iced over in the mornings and would become treacherous if he wasn't paying attention. It occurred to him that he didn't know these things about the surface world. Back on the surface, he wouldn't know how to navigate his way upstairs in his own house. He hadn't even considered that.
Even the walk to the drop-off point was taking its toll. Lars could feel his good leg cramping. It had been a while since he walked this far, and he'd already been standing too long at the lake. He set his jaw and carried on, trying to keep up with Morris's nervous stride.
Leela's father seemed lost in a world of his own, chewing at the inside of his cheek.
"You don't have to do this," he said suddenly.
"What?"
Morris wrung his hands.
"You don't have to put yourself in danger, for us. You can't trust the surface, you don't know what they'll do. And you're one of us now. You don't have to go through with this crazy plan just to impress my daughter. You can stay with us, we'll work something out. Leela would understand -"
"Leela doesn't want me to go."
Lars swallowed, feeling suddenly awkward. He hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected anyone but Leela would fight him on his decision.
"Leela doesn't want me to go," he went on, explaining. "But I want to go. And she's not stopping me, because this is the best way to end the war. It's the fastest way. You know it is. And you know we need that, you know we're running out of food, and people are getting hurt, people are -" He stopped, unable to make himself say the words. Dying. People are dying. "It has to stop."
"I know, but -"
"This is the best way," Lars insisted. "It might even be the only way, I don't know. But I do know Leela wouldn't even be telling me about it if there was a better option. And you know that too. You know if there was a better way, she'd find it."
Morris was silent, as they left the mutant settlement behind.
"I know," he admitted at last. "If anyone could figure out a way through this, it's Leela." He shook his head. "It shouldn't have to be this way."
"But it is this way."
The ground had started to rise. His leg was burning now. One more step, Lars told himself. One more step. He'd feel stronger when he saw Leela, he knew. He'd stand a little straighter then, forget about the pain. Just one more step.
"I know what I'm doing," he told Morris, hoping to all the strange new gods of the future that he actually did.
Morris laughed, the sound booming deep and rich as they entered a tunnel.
"No, you don't," he said at last. "You don't know what you're doing, any more than I know what I'm doing. They made me mayor, you know. Mayor. What am I supposed to do with that?"
Lars shrugged, and Morris laughed again.
"I guess I'll figure it out. Leela seems to think I should know. Seems to think there's mayor material in me, somewhere."
"Maybe there is."
Lars could see her now, silhouetted in greenish light up ahead. She was pacing, the way she did when she was trying to think. Leela had a lot of restless energy.
Morris had gone quiet again. He was watching Lars watch Leela. There was pity on his face.
"I was always rooting for you," he said. "I read that opera you wrote her. The lyrics weren't all that. It was probably better with music. But I remember thinking, wow, this guy really loves my daughter." He smiled. "She was the hero of your story."
Lars felt himself straighten, the shadow of a smile tugging at his mouth.
"She still is."
Leela had seen them coming. She'd stopped pacing and was standing now, watching them approach. The gloom of the sewer was so deep that Lars couldn't make out her face until he was ten steps away.
Her mouth was tight when she smiled at him, and it didn't reach her eye. It's okay, he wanted to tell her, I'll be okay. But Leela needed to stay strong, and the mutants needed to think she was sure. So he smiled back instead, and nodded, and hoped she could read everything she needed to on his face.
"I'm ready," he told her.
The mutated surface cop was sitting on an upturned oil barrel behind her, guarded by two mutants Lars knew only in passing. They'd dressed him in the remnants of his old uniform, but he didn't seem to know he was wearing it. He was staring unseeing at his feet. Every so often he raised his head and stared at the tunnel ahead.
Lars wondered if he was afraid. Maybe not. He looked like a sleepwalker, like a man whose personal fear horizon had receded so far into the distance he couldn't remember how it felt to be afraid at all. Maybe that was what happened to a person when they stared death in the face. Lars could feel it happening to him too, the slow falling-away of all the things he suddenly knew didn't matter anymore. He wondered how long it would go on for, and what would be left of him by the end.
Amy was standing under the rusted green archway. She was directly in the path of the cold air, bobbing up and down on the heels of her boots in a futile attempt to keep warm. Snowflakes were piling into dirty gray sludge at her feet.
She looked up when she saw Lars, and raised a hand in greeting.
"Hey, hostage buddy."
Leela huffed.
"Stop that. You're not hostages."
"I know. I was just kidding." Amy fluffed the fur on the hood of her parka. "I know we're bargaining chips." She winked at Lars. "Hey, bargaining chip buddy."
"Hey, Amy."
"Ready to face justice for our evil fraternizing ways?"
Lars grinned.
"You know it."
"Me too." Amy sighed. "You think there are cameras up there? I bet there are. Gah, and I am at minimum cuteness right now! It's bad enough I have to face Kif like this. I can't believe the whole world is gonna see this dull sewer complexion. And look at my eyes! They're so puffy! I'm still hungover. Spluck."
She pulled a face, and Lars found himself smiling again. Amy was deflecting, he knew, but it was a welcome distraction and it was putting the mutants at their ease.
Leela had frowned at the mention of cameras. She tugged at her heavy wool coat, twitching it so fell more loosely. The coat belonged to Lars and it pretty much drowned her anyway, especially with the sweater she had on underneath. But the surface didn't know she was pregnant, Lars suddenly remembered. Only Kif knew that.
Morris and Amy exchanged awkward looks, then quickly looked away again. Lars guessed they were thinking the same thing he was – that Leela's pregnancy was getting harder and harder to hide. And the more she tried to hide it, the more obvious it became that she was hiding something.
But it wouldn't do any good to tell her that, so Lars kept his mouth firmly shut.
"Well." Leela checked her gun, patted the knife in her boot. Touched the weapon Lars couldn't identify at her hip. "It's time."
She raised her fist and thumped on the bolted-shut metal.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
She turned back to them.
"I can't control what happens from here on out. Amy, you'll probably be safe enough. No-one on the surface wants Leo Wong for an enemy, and Kif would die before he let anything happen to you."
She held out her hand, and waited for Amy to take it.
Then she held out a hand to Lars.
He glanced at Amy, who looked as bemused as he felt. Leela looked like she was about to start a prayer circle, the most un-Leelalike thing he could think of. Amy shrugged and Lars gave in, letting Leela take his hand.
Cold steel closed over his wrist, and Amy yelped.
Lars stared down at their joined hands in blank incomprehension.
Leela had handcuffed them together.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But Lars, you fraternized harder than anybody. And there's a good chance you'll antagonize the surface further by saying something sweet but idiotic in my defense."
Lars opened his mouth. Leela cut him off.
"Don't try to deny it," she said wearily.
She turned to Amy.
"Amy . . ." She swallowed. "He doesn't matter to anyone up there. Not the way you do. I'm sorry, but the only thing I can think of to keep him safe is to keep him close to you."
Lars felt his arm jerk as Amy pulled Leela into a hug.
"I'll stick to him like glue," she said fiercely.
Leela blinked rapidly.
"Thank you."
She squeezed back, briefly, then let Amy go.
Standing in front of Lars, she stared at him. Like him, she was probably wondering what else there was to say.
"It's the best way," he told her.
"I know."
"I'll be fine. I'll stick to Amy, like you said, like glue, and I'll keep my big mouth shut, and this'll all be over before you know it."
Lars smiled reassuringly, and watched as Leela nodded.
"I believe in you," he said softly.
BANG. The storm drain reverberated as Kif hit it from the other side. The signal to open up. The signal for them to cross through in safety.
BANG.
BANG.
In the rush of movement Leela stepped closer. Her mouth brushed his, a kiss as light as an indrawn breath, and then she was gone, and Amy was pulling him forward, into the light.
The cold hit him first, as they climbed up through the tunnel. Leela was talking to Kif up ahead, but their voices were indistinct. Snow had piled up in the mouth of the storm drain, clawing up to their knees, and even with Amy's help Lars was struggling to pull himself through it.
"- new mayor of -"
"- stand fully behind my daughter-"
"- still committed absolutely to the cause of mutant freedom -"
"- as a gesture of good faith -"
That last one was Kif, Lars realized. Speaking in his official voice. It suited him. Made him sound more authoritative, somehow, more comfortable in his own skin. As if he'd been waiting his whole life to step out of Zapp Brannigan's shadow and lead, for once.
Leela's voice was moving further away.
"Hey," Amy snapped beside him. "Let go of me, you goons -"
The NNYPD were trying to pull her away from Lars.
Lars tugged her back, moving to stand in front of her so her arm wouldn't be yanked out of its socket.
"Get your hands off of her," he growled. "If you want to push someone around, buddy, bring it o – oof."
The guy who had tried to grab Amy socked him in the stomach. Lars couldn't be sure - he was too winded to look up and see - but it didn't feel like Asshole Cop had used his fist.
He doubled over. Easy, easy. If he breathed in too hard he'd be sick. On Amy, probably. And then no-one would clean it up. And being sick wasn't all that macho. He really didn't want Leela's last memory of him to involve him puking on his shoes.
He straightened up again, with effort.
"Hah!" he wheezed. "That all you got? I can take more than that. I can -"
He grunted at the impact of a second blow. Yeah, that was a nightstick. Had to be.
Asshole Cop was all up in his face now, shaking Amy's wrist where it was cuffed to his.
"Lose the cuffs, joker."
Lars was too winded to speak. He only managed to wave one arm and look annoyed, until Amy spoke for him.
"He doesn't have the key," she snapped. "Neither of us do." She was staring at Asshole Cop like he was a speck on her shoe. "I tossed it."
Lars often forgot just how rich Amy was. It was easy to do, because she wore sweatpants all the time and treated money like an afterthought – something she had the luxury of forgetting about, but not something that gave her status.
And then, suddenly, she looked down her nose at someone, and summoned a voice he had never heard her use before, and Lars was forcibly reminded that Amy Wong was heir to an entire planet.
"I'm Amy," she said coldly. "Amy Wong. Of the Mars family Wongs."
Asshole Cop dropped her wrist. His face had turned the color of leftover oatmeal.
"Yeah," Amy said. "Those Wongs."
She shook the feeling back into her wrist, still looking at Asshole Cop as if he was the one who had just crawled up out of the sewer.
"Maybe they didn't tell you this, but Turanga Leela? She's my friend. And this guy here, he's my friend too."
She took Lars' hand, through the cuffs. The steel had to be biting into her wrist as hard as his, but Amy didn't even flinch.
She tossed her head, and her voice turned somehow, impossibly, colder.
"Call me crazy," she said, "but I don't trust you to treat my friend right. So until Lars goes free, we're sticking together. And everything you do to him, you can do to me too."
She smiled and patted Lars sweetly on the arm.
"So you can take us away now. And you can give us the full, super deluxe police hospitality experience. Awesome! But just so you know? When we're done, I'm calling my Daddy. And my Daddy? He's calling his lawyers. All his lawyers. Maybe I'll call some too. Just for fun. And if you lay one itty pinky finger on any of my friends, I'll sic every lawyer on this planet on you."
She winked at Leela, and blew Kif a kiss in the stunned silence.
"Okay officers. I'll come quietly now."