Chet looked around for the source of the voice and spotted Acuna. "Jesus," Chet said. "Are you all right? You're covered in blood."

"Shut up," Acuna said. "I'm looking for a guy and a woman. They were by your"—Acuna gingerly waved at the WallBall court—"whatever the fuck that thing is. Where did they go?"

"They went out through the skylight," Chet said. "They took my shoes."

Acuna involuntarily looked at Chet's feet, which had shoes on them. Acuna decided he'd spent enough time conversing with this dipshit and looked for an exit. All the stores had their fire doors down; Acuna went back to the window display he'd come from and tried the door that went from the display to the larger store. It was locked; Acuna tried ramming the door with his body a couple of times before he stopped, spat, and became disgusted with himself.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Rod," he said, and reached down to get the gun that Creek had knocked from his hand. Two seconds later Acuna said the same thing as he switched hands to pick up the gun, on account of his right wrist being broken. Acuna stepped back, shot the lock three times, and kicked open the door. He wandered back into the store looking for the back exit. Along the way he passed a display for mountaineering first aid kits. He grabbed one and tucked it under his left arm. God knew he needed it.

Acuna emerged out of a side exit as fire and police were making their appearance, waved in by mall security, who Acuna had seen neither hide nor hair of during what went down. Good job, guys, Acuna thought, winced again and made a note to himself to stop goddamn thinking for a while. He staggered into the mall garage where they had parked their vans, and beat on the side of the van Takk was in. Takk opened the side panel and took a look at his boss.

"What happened to you?" Takk said, in that nasal, high-pitched whine of his.

"Shut the fuck up and help me in," Acuna said.

Minutes later Takk had awkwardly maneuvered his far-too-large frame into the driver's seat and was navigating back to the apartment while Acuna cleaned his wounds as best he could and tried to get hold of the geek. After several failed attempts to raise the geek on the communicator, he finally got through.

"Where the fuck were you?" Acuna snarled at Archie.

"I was getting a snack from the machine," Archie said. "Everything all right?"

"No, everything is not all right," Acuna said. "In fact, everything is a goddamned clusterfuck. Creek and the sheep girl got away. You need to find them for me, geek. You need to find them for me this very second."

Creek got Robin off the mall roof as the fire department and police converged from a distance. Creek took Robin's arm and guided her down the street from the mall to the Arlington Mall stop of the DC Metro. Creek had driven in and assumed whoever was hunting them knew that and would be looking at the parking garage, but not the Metro. Creek pulled out his credit card, paid fares for them both, and led Robin to the platform for trains inbound to DC. There was a stop at Foggy Bottom and from there a cab could take them to the State Department The train rolled into the station; Creek took Robin's arm again and led her into it.

Once inside the train Robin propped herself up against the side of the car and kicked the still-standing Creek in the gut. Creek blocked the kick; Robin burst into tears and collapsed onto the floor of the car. Everyone near Creek and Robin suddenly decided to check out the ambiance in the next train car over.

Creek knelt next to Robin. "What was that about?" Creek asked.

"The shoes don't work anymore," Robin said.

"No," Creek said. "We're too far away from the WallBall court. Sorry about that."

"Who are you?" Robin said. "Really, honestly, now. Just who the goddamn fucking hell are you and what just happened in there and why do people suddenly want to kill me and what the goddamn fuck is going on?"

The last part of that came out as a hysterical shriek; Creek reached over to her hand and patted it gently to calm her. "Take deep breaths," he said. "Take it easy."

Robin slapped his hand away. "Fuck you," she said. "Take it easy. Six men with guns just tried to fucking kill me. I just had to jump through a skylight to get away from them. And now you're taking me who the fuck knows where and I really just ought to scream at the top of my lungs and get people in here to tackle you and take you away. If you don't tell me who you really are and what's going on, right now, I swear I'm going to do it."

"I told you who I am and what"s going on in the mall," Creek said. "You seemed to accept it at the time."

"That's because I thought you were joking," Robin said.

"What?" Creek said.

"Well, Jesus, Harry," Robin said. "All of a sudden a guy shows up and tells me I'm in danger, and you tell me a story about a war. It had to be a joke. I figured maybe I was on a reality show or something. I was just going along to be a good sport. I was looking for the film crew. Either that or you were just some loser poking fun at me with a friend. In which case I was going to go to the mall security and have you arrested for harassing me. Either way, I wasn't thinking it was for real. You think I would have been joking about it if were real? Christ."

"I'm sorry, Robin," Creek said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet and gave it to Robin, and then reached in his jacket pocket and gave her his communicator. "All my ID is in the wallet," he said. "Look at everything in there. And then, like I said before, take my communicator, call up information and have them connect you to the State Department general line. Ask for Ben Javna. Tell him who you are. He'll verify I am who I say I am and everything I told you." Creek stood up.

"What are you doing?" Robin asked him.

"I'm going to go sit at the back of the car, away from you," Creek said. "If you don't feel safe around me, I don't want you worried about me being close to you. Now, go on. Look at my stuff and call Ben." Creek turned and went to the back of the car. A few minutes later, the train stopped to let passengers on and off; Creek noted that Robin had stayed on the train. He took that as a good sign.

"Hey, Harry," Robin said.

"Yeah?" Creek said.

"The guy you wanted me to call is Ben Javna, right?" Robin asked.

"That's right," Creek said.

"Your communicator says you just now got a text message from him," Robin said.

"What does it say?" Creek said.

"You want me to read your private messages?" Robin said.

"Just this once," Creek said. He saw Robin press the button and scan the message.

"What's it say?" Creek said again.

Robin got up and walked over to Creek. She handed him the communicator. Creek took it and read the message.

BIG TROUBLE, it read. DON'T CALL. GET LOST. STAY LOST. TAKE YOUR FRIEND WITH YOU.

Creek closed the communicator and looked at Robin. He opened his mouth, but she put her hand up.

"Don't, Harry," she said. "I believe you. I believe you're telling me the truth. Now just tell me one thing. Okay? Tell me I'm going to make it through all of this alive."