Chapter 64
Kid’s world expands, slowly. From one room, to the whole house, to the dusty land around it, until its territory begins to lap at the edges of the real desert beyond. Kid roams the place freely when the great Nathaniel Morgan’s away, sitting on the front steps and looking off at the craggy horizon while Steelix rests nearby.
Kid watches the horizon but does not want to go towards it. It wants to stay here, forever, where it is safe. It can’t, though. It has to leave before Mewtwo can find it. It has to find Mew and hope that will bring everything to an end.
It can’t enjoy peaceful days without the nagging shadow of Mewtwo lying over it, reminding it that this is one more day gone, one day closer to him. It can either leave before he arrives, or he will choose, forcefully, the day it must return to the world. Reluctantly, Kid begins to think about what lies beyond its small sanctuary, and it worries.
It doesn’t help that the great Nathaniel Morgan won’t let it see what’s on the news. That’s the one thing he always changes the channel away from when Kid comes in the room. He doesn’t even care if it watches shows with a lot of gunshots or naked people.
Kid could always watch when he’s gone, obviously. It’s not like the TV gets locked up somewhere. But it doesn’t think it wants to find out whatever terrible things are happening alone, in the dim and empty house. Not if they’re bad enough that even the great Nathaniel Morgan’s worried about them.
“What is happening?” Kid asks the next time it catches him transitioning from a report to some random cop show.
“Lots of wild shit, as usual,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Nothing you gotta worry about.” He glances at the TV, which is currently bright and loud with a bloody action sequence. “Actually, maybe we should…” He reaches for the remote to change the channel again.
“That is not the problem. I do not mind what you put on instead of the news. What I mind is not knowing what is going on.”
“I mean, nobody knows what the fuck’s going on. Seriously, don’t worry about it. It’s all people guessing and trying to freak everyone out so they get more viewers.”
“What are they saying to freak people out, then?”
The great Nathaniel Morgan waves a hand in exasperation. “Look, Kid, don’t worry about it. All you gotta worry about is feeling better. Trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on in this crazy place ain’t worth nobody’s time.”
Kid squeezes its eyes shut a moment, gathering itself. “Please just tell me. It feels worse not to know.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan scowls, then finally spreads his hands and says, “Look, I don’t even know. For real. People going missing and all, crazy stories about zombies, it’s just insane.”
“Zombies?”
“Right? Like come on. And then everything with Kanto, well. There ain’t exactly any way to pretend like Mewtwo ain’t here, and Kanto obviously wants him back real bad. So there’s all that bullshit going on, like they’re all threatening and shit and Orre’s all talking about overreach, and everybody’s wondering if there’s gonna be another war. Great stuff.”
“Mewtwo.” The name plunges Kid’s whole body into cold, like it’s dived into a deep and frigid pool. “What is he doing? What have they been saying about him?”
“As far as I know nobody’s heard a peep out of him since that whole thing with the lab. If anybody knows where he is, it ain’t been showing up in the news.”
That’s not right. Without Kid there to rein him in, he should have torn the whole region to pieces by now. Is he really that scared of Team Rocket still? How many of them are even left? “You said people are still going missing?”
“Yeah. A lot of them.”
“Not just Cipher people.”
“No, all sorts. Sometimes people will wake up some morning and find, like, some whole apartment building”–he snaps his fingers–“gone.”
Kid looks down at its hands clenched together tightly in its lap. That has to be Mewtwo, doesn’t it? But what is he doing?
“Like I said, it’s just weird shit. And there’s fuckall we can do about it anyhow. No use wasting brain power on it. I mean, this whole goddamn region is fucking weird. I swear all the sand makes people fucking crazy.” He pauses, then for some reason says, “Hey. I meant it when I said you don’t gotta worry about it. Come on. Sit down.”
“How can I not worry about it? Mewtwo will want to find me eventually, and when he does…”
“Let me deal with that. I’ll figure it out.”
“You will figure it out? How to deal with Mewtwo? What is there to even figure out? When he finds me, he will take me away and make me do whatever he wants, which will probably be to kill more people. If he finds you, he will kill you. There is nothing you can do about it.”
“Yeah, Mewtwo’s kind of like that.” The great Nathaniel Morgan rubs his face. “I’ll think of something.”
“So you have no idea.”
“I’ll fucking think of something!”
Kid turns its gaze aside at the thorn of anger in the great Nathaniel Morgan’s voice. He will not think of anything. Kid knows this, because there is nothing to think of. There is no dealing with Mewtwo; there is only hoping he can be survived. And usually he can’t.
Kid needs to be gone from here before Mewtwo comes looking, or the great Nathaniel Morgan will die, and Kid can’t say anymore whether he thinks he deserves that. Or, no–it doesn’t think he deserves that, and doesn’t know anymore if he ever did, really. At the very least, letting him die would be the worst way to repay him for saving Kid from Cipher.
Kid does its best to keep its expression neutral, but the great Nathaniel Morgan keeps trying to entice it to watch television, to distract itself from what they both know is coming. Because really, the great Nathaniel Morgan knows as well as Kid that there’s nothing he can hope to do about Mewtwo besides die.
Kid allows itself to be soothed, for now. It sits down on the couch like the great Nathaniel Morgan wants and points its gaze at the television and lets the colored images play across its vision. Inside, it isn’t watching television. It’s thinking about how its world needs to get wider, and soon. It can’t hide out here forever, or even for long. Kid allows the sitcom to wash over it but forgets to even try to laugh, not that it’s very funny to begin with. It isn’t until television has ended for the night and the great Nathaniel Morgan has departed that it realizes he never laughed either.
In the morning, Steelix is sunning himself in the yard as usual, guarding Kid and the house. The great Nathaniel Morgan says he’s too big to let out in the Cipher base, so he has to stay behind.
Steelix doesn’t mind. He says the great Nathaniel Morgan spends so little time gone that he hardly notices. But he seems to enjoy having someone to talk to, or talk at, while his trainer’s away.
Steelix songs are very long. Hours for the ones that are no more than snatches, days for the normal ones, years for the long ones that tell the grandest stories. And how long does it take to learn a song that lasts ten years? Not even Steelix could hear it once and then get it all the way right after.
Kid lingers on the back steps for hours, listening to Steelix sing bits of his favorites, only the good parts. Or he’ll tell a little bit of story, a scene here or there. Sometimes Kid even climbs up onto the broad shield of Steelix’s head to cook on the sun-warmed metal and feel the words vibrate through every inch of its body.
Of course, when it does that it’s hard to hear anything beyond the curtain of Steelix’s song. Kid doesn’t notice the great Nathaniel Morgan sneaking up on it, not with him downwind. “Got him to sing for you, huh?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks, in what’s actually a shout. Kid startles so badly that he follows on with, “Whoah, hey, it’s just me. Sorry about that.” Used to Kid noticing when he’s there. Not used to it failing like this, again and again.
Steelix doesn’t stop singing, not for a moment, but he lowers his head to the great Nathaniel Morgan’s level. The great Nathaniel Morgan leans against Steelix’s jaw while Kid scrambles down off the far side, mortified. “What’s he sung for you, then? Just this one?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks, like he doesn’t even notice Kid’s embarrassment.
“No, a lot of them,” Kid says guiltily. “Deep-song and Sleep-song and Death-song and Grief-song. One about water and some about the center of the earth. Plus Sky-song, that is one he made up.” The stricken look on the great Nathaniel Morgan’s face makes Kid’s stomach turn over. It is bad, isn’t it? It should have left the great Nathaniel Morgan’s pokémon alone.
“Oh. Uh. I guess I should have figured they had names,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Didn’t even occur to me. That was pretty fucking dumb.” Steelix gives his trainer a friendly nudge with his snout. “So, umm, what’s he singing now?”
“This is Dig-song. It is the one onix and steelix sing when they are making new tunnels.”
“They got a song for that, huh?”
“They have a song for everything.” It must be very loud, way down deep in the earth.
“Which one’s your favorite, then?” The great Nathaniel Morgan asks.
“Sleep-song. It really does make you sleepy. It is nice.” It takes Kid a moment to understand the panic in the great Nathaniel Morgan’s eyes. Steelix seems to sense it, because he lets his last lingering note rumble to a halt, then launches into Sleep-song for the great Nathaniel Morgan. About four notes of it. Steelix songs take a long time.
The great Nathaniel Morgan breaks into a relieved grin. “Oh, yeah! Yeah, I know that one. I guess he does sing it at night a lot. That makes sense.”
“Which one is your favorite, Nate?” Steelix asks, and the human flushes when you pass the question on to him.
“Oh. Uh, I mean, I obviously don’t know the names of any of–I can’t really sing them like, umm.” The great Nathaniel Morgan stammers on for a few moments, then seems to give up. He clears his throat and hums a few hesitant notes, shaky and out of tune.
“I do not know that one,” Kid says.
Steelix breaks into booming laughter. “No, of course not. I’ve no reason to sing it for you. That’s his song.”
“His song?”
“Yes.” Steelix nudges the great Nathaniel Morgan again, and the human sways on his feet. “Love-song is the first song any chosen learns. It’s what our parents sing to us as we break out of the egg. We spend the rest of our lives singing it back to the world. Every person you love is different, so the song you sing of them must also be different. We all compose many Love-songs in our lives. That one is Nate’s.” He nods to his trainer. “I’m pleased you like it. It’s so difficult when someone doesn’t see themselves in your song of them.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan returns the nod reflexively, looking completely lost. “It is a song he made for you because he loves you,” you translate.
“What? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” The great Nathaniel Morgan looks back and forth between you and Steelix as though expecting one of you to start laughing at their own joke. “You’re pulling my–I mean, umm, that’s nice, that’s really… Uhh, I do like it. Thank you? I don’t…” He trails off into incomprehensible mumbling. Steelix laughs and nudges the great Nathaniel Morgan’s arm, so the human instinctively reaches out to stroke Steelix’s nose. He still looks stricken.
“Can I hear it?” Kid asks.
“Hey!” Kid wonders if humans can die of blushing, since it seems like they can die of anything. “Look, this is getting kind of fucking weird, okay?” The great Nathaniel Morgan protests.
“Of course,” Steelix says to Kid. “But later.” Kid could swear he’s winking at it, except of course Steelix would never wink.
The great Nathaniel Morgan gives Kid a look like he’s expecting a translation of that, too, but it pretends not to notice. He scuffs his foot in the dust for a second, then says, “All right. Great. That was interesting. Anyway, I just came to tell you I’ll have grub up soon. That’s all.”
Kid can’t suppress a grin at his obvious embarrassment. It doesn’t think he’d tolerate anyone but his pokémon putting him on the spot like that. And Steelix wasn’t even trying to. “I will go in, then,” it says. “We can talk tomorrow. Right, Steelix?”
“Of course,” Steelix booms. He’ll barely notice the time passing.
The great Nathaniel Morgan heads back towards the house, and Kid follows. “You should come up with your own song to sing to him. It is only polite.”
“The two of you’re getting real chummy, ain’t you? Dunno if I like that. Maybe we need some adult supervision out here.”
He must hear Kid stop walking, because he turns around to look, and the smile slides right off his face. “Hey, whoah, whoah. That was a fucking joke, Kid.”
Kid can’t meet his eyes. “I will stop,” it says. “Do not take him away. I knew it was bad, but I will not do it anymore.”
“I ain’t taking him nowhere.” The great Nathaniel Morgan frowns. “What’s up? You think I’m mad at you?”
Kid rubs its arms, staring at a reddish rock near its feet. “He is your pokémon. He is your friend, not mine. And we were making fun of you.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan snorts. “And what, all of a sudden you care about my fucking feelings? Look, I ain’t fucking five. I can take a little ribbing. Besides, you weren’t being mean or nothing. It was nice, you know? Just surprising.”
“You are sure?” Kid always has so much trouble telling when the great Nathaniel Morgan is being serious, and now it really matters. He’s always mad, so why wouldn’t be be mad now?
“I’m sure.” The great Nathaniel Morgan gives Kid a perplexed look, like it’s the one being confusing. “Where the hell is this coming from? Why the fuck would I care who my pokémon talk to? They can talk to whoever they goddamn want.”
Mewtwo would have been mad. Was mad. About Kid talking. About it visiting the Musketeers without him. About making him look ridiculous. Kid still can’t look at the great Nathaniel Morgan. “Well, shit,” he says after a long moment. “Sorry for scaring you, Kid. Look, later, okay? We can sort this out later. For now, let’s eat.” He gestures towards the house.
It takes a few seconds, but Kid summons enough courage to follow him again. It’s even brave enough to ask, “Then… will you? Write a song for him?”
“Okay, so I’m going to tell you to fuck off for that, but in, like, a friendly way. Get me?”
“No.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan smiles, for whatever reason. “Someday, Kid. We’ll get it all figured out someday. Promise.” Whatever that means.
One day the great Nathaniel Morgan returns from Cipher looking as tired as ever but with a smile for Kid. “Good news,” he says as he reaches for a beer. “Think I finally figured out where they’re keeping Mew.”
Kid’s heart starts to race. “Where–?”
“Well, they got multiple bases, right?” The great Nathaniel Morgan wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and drags his pokégear out of his pocket. “I’ve been to all of them. Here, here, here. And this one here.” He points out sparks of light on his pokégear’s map. “This one”–he taps a finger on the closest dot, which looks like it’s in some kind of rocky area–“is the one I think we want.”
“Which one was I in?” Kid asks. The great Nathaniel Morgan glances up at it, frowning. “I want to know.”
After a moment, the great Nathaniel Morgan reluctantly taps his fingers on the dot farthest out in the desert. Not the one he thinks Mew is in.
Kid doesn’t know whether that’s good or bad. It doesn’t really know why it asked at all. “Okay,” it says, and nods.
The great Nathaniel Morgan watches it a moment longer, expression inscrutable, but then scrolls back to the base he thinks has Mew. “Right. Back to this. I’ve been listening, obviously. Sneaking around, seeing what I can find. That’s how I–” He glances briefly up at Kid, flashing a smile that it doesn’t return. “Anyhow. Not all these places have lab facilities at all. And the security on this one here’s much higher.”
The place with Mew. The place he thinks Mew is. Kid thinks it ought to feel elated. Triumphant. Ready to rush out and save its mother straight away. Instead all it feels is cold.
“I haven’t been able to take a proper look around yet, but I know they got mad shadow pokémon down there. And that guy you mentioned, Rixor, I heard he’s around. Apparently he works with them. The high-level shadows. Seems like everybody pretty much shits their pants when he shows up, to be honest. Now, I’ve still got to put some shit together before I can make a proper plan. I think I can at least get some of the security codes for the lower lab levels. Minimize the amount of, uh, smashing that we’re gonna need. I’m close, though. Figured I ought to let you know.” Another smile, and Kid wishes it could return it. “Do you want to come? I know you ain’t feeling great, still, but I figured–”
“Yes,” Kid says before the great Nathaniel Morgan can finish his sentence. It can’t sit this out. It doesn’t want to. Now, at last, it can all be over. Finally Mew can be free.
“Right. I was thinking the easiest thing would be to snag some armor for you. Make out like you’re a new employee I’m showing the ropes. So long as your access is good, I don’t think anybody’ll question it much. You can, uh. You can make somebody up for that, right?”
Kid nods, distracted. “But disguises will not get us all the way.”
“No. Unless I get lucky as shit, I’m not getting the access codes to the inner sanctum or whatever the fuck they’ve got going on down there. Best case, we find somebody who’s got the right swipe card, tie them up in a storage closet somewhere, and then you be them and get us through. Worst case, well, I got Steelix. Removing walls is kind of his thing.”
“If they’re keeping Mew and a lot of other scary pokémon down there, Steelix might not be able to break through.”
“Well, that’s what we’ll be there for,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “We disable their security shit, and then Steelix cleans up after. Or maybe you’d be able to bust through where Steelix can’t.” The great Nathaniel Morgan gives Kid an appraising look. “That’s one thing I was hoping to get from you. I still don’t really understand what all you can do. You probably got all the tools we need to get through this thing. We just gotta figure out how to use them, you know?”
Kid can’t imagine it actually believed that, once. That it could do everything. That it could be everything.
If the great Nathaniel Morgan understood how weak it really is he’d leave it behind. Kid keeps its face blank and nods and lies. “I can do… anything. Anything Mew can do, except not quite as good. And I am not a real psychic, so I can’t do any of that except for attacks, mostly. I can change into anything… alive, I guess. Any animal or pokémon. But not all of them very good. You know about that part.” Could Mew turn into a plant? Kid bets she could if she wanted. Kid can’t. Plants don’t have brains. Whatever it turns into, it needs a brain.
“Literally anything,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says thoughtfully. “That was the kind of picture I was getting, but I couldn’t really believe it, you know? Shit. I’ll have to think about that for a while. Run some options by you.”
He’s starting to look not so tired anymore. Planning. Strategizing. He loves this. Kid wishes it could feel happy, too, but its gut turns over whenever it looks at the great Nathaniel Morgan’s map. It will have to help, or try to, and the great Nathaniel Morgan is going to find out that it can’t anymore. That it’s weak and useless. Just like Mewtwo saw from their very first meeting.
“I was thinking maybe you could have some battles against my pokémon,” the great Nathaniel Morgan says. “Are you feeling up to that?”
No. So Kid nods ‘yes.’
“Yeah. I know you ain’t a proper pokémon and all, but it’s been a few weeks, so I thought some battles might do you good. And we’ll take it slow. Mostly I want to get a better idea of what you can do.”
Kid has no idea how it’s going to fake competence in battle, but it can worry about that later. It nods blankly. The room is beginning to feel very far away, but now the great Nathaniel Morgan’s giving it a concerned look, so it has to try to come back. It squeezes its toes in the carpet, to remind itself of where it is.
“You doing all right, Kid?” The great Nathaniel Morgan says quietly. “I mean, you can feel any way you want about this. I was just kind of expecting you’d already be going on about lowering somebody down from the ceiling or cutting some Cipher guy’s finger off to use on the door scanner, that kind of thing.”
Kid wishes it could tell him the truth. That it’s broken. That, yes, it is scared. Instead it says, “I am okay. I am surprised, that is all. I thought it would take you much longer to find Mew. I thought maybe Cipher did not have her at all.”
“Yeah. Can’t pretend I ain’t surprised myself. I guess it’s about time we got a bit of luck after all this shit, huh?”
Kid doesn’t know if it’s luck, at least not good luck. Things have been bad for a long time now. It would be nice to believe that they could be turning around at last. That everything really will end.
“How long do you think it will be before we go get Mew?” Kid asks.
“Well, like I said, still got to work out those codes. Do a little more scouting, too. And…” He rubs a hand over his scalp, thinking. “There’s weird shit been going down with Cipher. Problems with their shadow system or something. So maybe…”
That pulls Kid away from queasy thoughts of battle. “What do you mean, weird shit? What is wrong?”
“I dunno. They don’t exactly talk about it much to a grunt like me, but from what I hear there’s like computer glitches. Pokémon getting free somehow. Shit going missing. It’s all hush-hush.”
Kid’s blood freezes solid. “Mewtwo.”
“Mewtwo?” The great Nathaniel Morgan looks up in surprise. “Nah. We’d know if it was Mewtwo. He don’t exactly do subtle.”
That’s probably right. “So what, then?” it asks weakly.
“I don’t think anybody knows. If they do, they sure as fuck ain’t telling me. I’m keeping an eye on it, though. If we could time it right, like head down there when they’re having one of their little hiccups, that’d help take some of the heat off. So I’m thinking we’ll wait a bit, and if I see a good moment, we go, and if not, we’ll go ahead anyway after, like, a week or so. How’s that sound?”
Bad. Kid forces itself to nod. It knows that once upon a time it would have insisted that they rush even faster–tomorrow, tonight, now. It would have told the great Nathaniel Morgan to send out his pokémon immediately, so it could demonstrate exactly how ready it was. It can’t muster that sort of courage now. That energy. The best it can do, despite the dread, is say, “Okay. A week is good. And tomorrow I will battle with your pokémon so you can see more of my abilities.”
“Great.” The great Nathaniel Morgan grins. “Just like old times, huh? We did a little training back at the Plateau, but it feels like we barely got to know each other out there. Let’s have some fun with it, huh?”
Yes. Fun. Kid musters up the best smile that it can. “Yes. It will be good to battle again.”
The reason they didn’t train much on the Plateau was that Kid didn’t want to be around the great Nathaniel Morgan any more than he wanted to be around it. It’s strange now to sit here with him obviously enthused to be working together again. Something happened, and Kid doesn’t know what.
“Be careful,” it says.
“Careful?” The great Nathaniel Morgan raises an eyebrow.
“Cipher would hurt you if they found out what you were doing, would they not? They would kill you. So be careful.”
The great Nathaniel Morgan snorts. “That’s rich, coming from you. Don’t worry about it, Kid. I’m being all sneaky and shit. Besides, they cleaned up what was left of Rocket pretty well after Mewtwo got done with them, but they’re still all paranoid about them. They want to keep me around as long as they might be able to use any Rocket info I’ve got.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence before Kid asks, “What do you do all day, anyway? What is your job in Cipher?”
“I guess we’re past ‘don’t worry about it,’ huh? Let’s go with ‘don’t ask.’”
Kid stares down at its feet. “I mean, you must do things besides trying to find Mew. Like actual things they tell you to do.”
“It’s none of your goddamn business. I’m doing what I’ve got to do. For now. To figure out all this Mew bullshit. And if it wasn’t for that, you’d still be stuck down in that basement getting turned inside-out by those fuckers. So I don’t want to hear it, get me?”
“Okay,” is all Kid can manage, when what it really wants to say is it didn’t mean it like that, that it isn’t mad he’s working for Cipher. It doesn’t think he wants to be there. But the words all back up in its throat, and it hunches in on itself, awaiting further anger.
Kid and the great Nathaniel Morgan sit like that for a little while, neither meeting the other’s eye. Kid is the first to break. “I will go, then,” it says. “I will look forward to battling your pokémon.”
“Yeah. Sure.” The great Nathaniel Morgan doesn’t look up to watch it leave. Kid flees with no thoughts beyond getting back into bed and staring at the wall for a while, but it stops short in the hallway, transfixed with fear.
Mightyena’s lying in front of Kid’s door, staring at it. Her ears are pricked. She must have been listening to its conversation.
“Hi,” Kid says uncertainly. Mightyena’s never going to forgive it for what it’s done to her trainer. It’s sure she’s told the great Nathaniel Morgan that he should get rid of it, just send it out into the desert to do what it likes.
“If you didn’t want Nate to get hurt, you would leave,” Mightyena says. Her yellow gaze burns Kid’s skin like an actual attack.
She knows. She knows Kid’s dangerous. The great Nathaniel Morgan said it attacked her and the other pokémon after he brought it back from Cipher, didn’t he? “I-I won’t hurt him,” it stammers, and wishes it could believe that itself. “I don’t want to. You don’t have to worry.”
Mightyena’s head rears up, and she lets out a huff of irritation. “I don’t mean you. I mean all of this. Playing spy and thinking he’s going to get one over on Cipher. You know that won’t end well.”
Kid does. Mightyena knows it does, because she just heard it say that. Kid squeezes its hands together. “We will find Mew soon. I am sure of it. That is the only way to end all of this. I would do it alone if I could. But I cannot.”
“Mew? You really think that’s what this is about?” Kid can only stare at her, confused. “Why do you think we’re here? Any of us?”
“Not because of Mew? What do you mean?”
Mightyena snorts and hauls herself to her feet. “I mean you should leave. You want to help Nate? You want to make up for everything you’ve done? That’s the best thing you can do. Leave, and never come near any of us ever again.”
Kid presses itself against the wall as she stalks past, her teeth bared. It stays there long after she’s gone, and when it finally manages to stumble through the door into its room, it’s shaking.
Of course Mightyena wants Kid to leave. Of course she does. And maybe… maybe she’s right. Maybe it would be better. If Kid could go find Mew itself, the great Nathaniel Morgan could stop working for Cipher, and then he’d be safe. Or at least safer.
But Kid can’t. Too much of a coward. Even thinking of going out there, alone, to the underground, puts such a terror in it that it nearly passes out. It lies in bed and clutches the sheets tight around it and tries to sleep.
It’s safe here, for now. It can close the door and have just these four walls to guard it.
Not for much longer, though. Mightyena wants Kid to leave, and the great Nathaniel Morgan does, too–to go with him, to find Mew. Kid will have to go back into the world again, and once it does, it can never be safe. Kid lies in the dark and wonders how many nights it has left, how many before it will be gone from this place, and does not sleep for a long, long time.