Silence. Wide, empty river. Smoke clearing to reveal that the dinghy is gone. And the speedboats and the mini-tank are gone, too. There’s a board here, a bit of charred motorcycle there, but nothing has survived that blast.

The yellow boat gave its mechanical life for us. It knew that it was destroying itself and would never serve again. But it was the only way to take out our Dark Army pursuers. That was the joy the dinghy felt. One last great act of service.

Come on, the dog demands.

Don’t you understand? It sacrificed itself for us. The dinghy’s final heroic act hits me hard. I flash to my mother, hugging me goodbye for the last time, and my father, shooting off his foot to get me to leave him, and then turning to make a last stand while I fled.

I get it. Now it is for us, the living, to honor its sacrifice by making sure it didn’t die in vain. Let’s go!

It couldn’t die, because it was never really alive, I muse, my mind still reeling.

Good, then if it couldn’t die we don’t need to mourn it, so let’s just vamoose.

Are you really so self-centered that when noble comrades are blowing themselves up for your sake, all you can think about is saving your own stinking skin?

Yes, Gisco admits, that’s exactly the effect that danger in my immediate vicinity has on me. And right now I’m thinking of saving my skin by swimming as fast as possible to the bank and getting the hell away from here before more Dark Army fiends come looking for us.

I have no doubt they’ll come, I tell him, but what’s the point? We run and hide, good people die, and we run again. My mother, my father, the dinghy. What is the point, dog? Enough!

This is a really unfortunate moment for you to become Hamlet and play the “To be or not to be” game, Gisco says. Sure, life sucks sometimes. But you have to keep going till the great boot squashes you. P.J. is still alive, but she’s in mortal danger. I know exactly where she is and who took her, and I even know why. If you don’t save her, she’ll perish for sure. That’s what you have to live for. Do you take it or leave it, that is the question.

I can’t leave it, but I’m not ready to take it yet. I fire off questions: Who took her? Why? Where is she?

She was kidnapped by the leader of the Dark Army, the baddest man of the far future, the dog informs me. Now let’s swim for it. Every second is critical.

Why did he take her? I demand.

For reasons of personal vengeance, Gisco says. He has a score he wants to settle with you.