eshing not to be lied to. My skin was all tight from
the dried saltwater, and that felt good, too.

"My Dad, the other day? He came home and was all, 'This is a conspiracy to drive
us out of our house. It's because we bought a house with damn high ceilings.
Some big damn alien wanted to live there, so they put us here. It's because I
did such a good job on the ceilings!' Which is so stupid, 'cause the ceilings in
our old house weren't no higher than the ceilings here, and besides, Dad screwed
up all the plaster when he was trying to fix it up, and it was always cracking.

"And then he starts talking about what's really bugging him, which is that some
guy at the workshop took his favorite drill and he couldn't finish his big
project without it. So he got into a fight with the guy, and got the drill and
then he finished his big, big project, and brought it home, and you know what it
was? A _pencil-holder_! We don't even _have_ any pencils! He is so screwed up."

And The Amazing Robotron's lights rippled again, and a huge weight lifted from
my shoulders. I didn't feel ashamed of the maniacs that gave me life -- I saw
them as pitiful subjects for my observations. I laughed again, and that must
have been the most I'd laughed since they put us in the bat-house.

#

I'm getting my sea-legs. I hope. My mouth is pasty, and salty, and sweat keeps
running down into my eyes. I never even began to realize how much support the
exoskeleton's jelly-suspension lent me.

But I've made it to Eglinton, and that's nearly a third of the way, and to
celebrate, I stop in at a coffee-shop and drink a whole pitcher of lemonade
while sitting by the air-conditioner.

I got the word that they were tearing down the bat-house only two weeks ago. The
message came by priority email from The Amazing Robotron: all the bats were
dead, or enough of them anyway that the rest could be relocated to less
expensive quarters. It was barely enough notice to get my emergency leave
application in, to book a ticket back to Earth, and to finally become a murderer
all the way.

Damn, I hope I know what I'm doing.

#

The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla told me all kinds of stories, and I was
sure he was lying to me, but when I checked out the parts of his story that I
could, they all turned out to be true.

"I don't actually _need_ to be here. I've come here to get away from all the
treachery, the deceit, the filthy pursuit of the dollar. As though I nee