I could go back to the World. There wasn’t a very good reason to, but I could. I could probably even face my mother and father, now that I knew who and what I was, and didn’t have to believe in what they thought I was. I could survive out there now. But what could I do? What did I have to give back, that the World would accept?

If I stayed, it would be like having lost the use of one eye, at least for a while. And it would hurt. At least, in the World, there were no reminders of Tick-Tick. That was as much a disadvantage as a recommendation, though.

I could become a cop. Could I go to Sunny and say, “Dinner in six weeks aside, would you teach me the trade?” Or maybe I only wanted to ask her to make me part of something. I had been part of something, before the other part died. I would hate being a cop, but at least I would share it with someone, and that person would appreciate what I was and what I could do.

I wanted to do something, to renounce or embrace something, to make a sacrifice, to make a gesture. It was a dangerous moment. Heaven knows what I might have done if there hadn’t been a knock at the door.

I opened it to a halfie boy with light blue hair and mismatched eyes. I remembered him, a little, from the funeral, and from months before in the street in front of Tick-Tick’s, with a bicycle.

“Sorry to bother you,” he blurted out, “today, you know. I mean—” He gave up and changed direction. “My little sister’s missing,” he said in a rush. “My stupid wiener brother was supposed to look after her, but he went out back to roll dice with his friends and Lumi wandered off. I’m scared—”

I stopped him with one finger, held up. He looked at me past it the way I used to see people look at Tick-Tick when they’d described the sound the engine made before it died. Maybe they’d always looked at me that way, the people who’d asked me to find something. A little awe, a little doubt, and a whole lot of hope.

“We have to find her in half an hour,” I told him, checking my pocket for my keys. “I have a date with some hard-boiled eggs.”

He looked baffled; then he realized that I’d said I’d do it.

“Thataway,” I announced, and led the way.

•

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