“Go warn ’em,” Timmy Jim said, standing in front of Ron. “Go tell ’em everything I just told you. They won’t believe you. They won’t lissen to you. Not ’til it’s too late.”

“I can go?” Ron asked.

“Yeah . . . go. Go. I set you free, whitey. Just like Lincoln. Go on Outside and tell ’em all about us. Won’t do you any good. They won’t believe you. Not ’til they see us comin’. And we will be comin’. That’s a promise.”

Timmy Jim walked past Ron to the door, opened it, and left. Ron sat there on the edge of the bed, unmoving.

“Not to warn them, Jim,” he said to the empty room. “To change them. I’m going back Outside to change them. They know the City exists. They know the kids are in here, in this jungle, turning into animals. They know it, but they ignore it. So I’m going to change them. I’m going to rub their noses in the filth they’ve left behind them, just as my face has been rubbed in it for the past year. I’m going to make them listen, make them realize. I’ll break all the patterns. I’ll change everything and everybody. I’ll break their Career vectors and their curfews and their endless Tracts. Even if I have to make myself President, I’ll make them change. They can’t let the cities fester like this. They can’t do this to people! It’s like a cancer. We’ve got to cure it or it will kill us all.”

Finally understanding what he had to do, Ron strode out of the hotel and down to the gate. He pushed through the swarms of people flocking into the City for a vacation good-time. In his mind’s eye he saw Dewey, saw Sylvia, and little Davey and Al. Even Dino. And Timmy Jim, dark and powerful, ready to change the world his way.

At the gate, the white-helmeted police guard looked at Ron strangely as he showed his ID. Ron knew that he was thinner than the photo on the card. There were lines in his face that had never been there before. Finally the hardtop handed the ID back to him.

“You’re leaving? But the fun’s just getting started.”

“Yes,” Ron said. “I know.”