We left Todd there, communing with his new life partner. Adaobi said it was a special time, one that both of them would always treasure.

I, on the other hand, was in the flying car. In the back seat, leaned against the bony shoulder of one Lux Interior, staring sadly into space, occasionally sniffling.

Stupid Winnies. Stupid TODD!

"It's okay, Owen," Adaobi said from behind the wheel. "It happens to all of us."

"Did it happen to you?"

"God no."

Despite myself I snorted a laugh. Lux patted my shoulder. "You'll be all right," she said.

I could feel their emotions, their actual sympathy for me. And maybe a little amusement, which was justified. I was being a big baby about the whole thing.

I sat up. "Sorry. I'm fine. I just really like this place, I think. And I like the people here. But…I have stuff to do, right? I'm…Owen Walsh 007. I have to get my friend back to safety."

"He's safe where he is," Adaobi said.

"HE'S not my friend, man! My friend. My good friend whatsername here."

"Safety," Lux said.

"She's not safe?" Adaobi asked.

I frowned. "She's safe, I think. Lux?"

She was thinking. With that brain made of cold-cuts, unlike her former super-cool AI brain. "I'm … I'm having a lot of fun, Owen Mateo."

"You're my responsibility. Everything you've gone through is my fault."

"I think I'd like to know more about this," Adaobi said.

I looked at Lux. She nodded. We both told Adaobi the whole thing.

She turned and looked at me over her shoulder, like she was backing the car up midair. Right arm over the passenger seat. She didn't say anything. Then she turned back to her driving.

"Good boy," she said quietly.

She took us to Top O'the Winnie, a little juice bar run by a Cazador proprietor. It was indeed at the highest point in the village. Here we could look out with little spyglasses mounted on the rail, seeing the entire herd as it travelled.

"This is Lir, he's my bud." Adaobi reached over the counter and scritched the back of the orange Cazador, who leaned into it, closed his eyes and laid back his big ears. "I asked him to set this up on my roof when he showed up last year. We watch Star Trek sometimes."

"Ms. Adaobi," said the Cazador. His voice wasn't the high-pitched friendly chirp of Schmendrick. He sounded almost surly. A man after my own heart.

My Human readers might not remember what a Cazador is: a kind of mammal that looks like a turkey-sized velociraptor. Doggish, foxy face and big triangular ears. Long heavy tail. Big clawed nightmare feet, smallish dextrous monster hands.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

One of those hands passed a smoothie to Adaobi, and one to me. "What would you like, movie star lady?"

As he took her order, I tried mine. It was perfect. It was tart, rather than sweet. If anyone had engineered a drink specifically for me, this was it. "This is incredible, thank you Mr. Lir. Is that a Cazador name?"

"Last Unicorn, Prince Lir. He's so cool he made the Unicorn-"

"--regret her immortality, right? My favorite book!"

"Mine too!" He aimed his pointy face at Adaobi. "This dude can stay."

Lux waved. "How about me?"

"You'd be welcome anywhere, movie star."

"This is Owen," Adaobi said. "Baby shot him down hard."

"He didn't die, though." Lir shouted at me as if I were deaf. "You didn't die! Sometimes people die."

Lir left us to do some kind of Cazador proprietor thing. Adaobi hustled us out on the balcony, where Lux was using a telescope to see if Todd was doing all right.

"Why haven't you called the Feast?" Adaobi demanded. She sipped furiously at her drink to show her ire. "You should call them. They'll help you."

"They're nuts," I said. "Mad god stuff."

"They got you out of jail!"

"Why was I in there? Have you thought this through?"

"I just found out about it."

"Then give me a sanity check on this. I wasn't the only Owen duplicate. We even met one, in a new body he'd picked out for himself. Why make so many? This is a concerted effort to make a lot of duplicate me's, and turn them loose. What's the point?"

"I thought you were in a prison. You escaped."

"I was the seventh one to escape. Why leave the escape route open after the first failure to contain your prisoner? And I have to admit: it was easy. I thought I was pretty slick, but I was supposed to get away. All of us were."

Lux and Adaobi exchanged a glance. "Why do that, then?" Lux asked.

"The guy who made me, the President? He keeps making me. Turning me loose. He wants me to do something. I think he expects me to find the first Owen Walsh, the one in the Feast. And when I do, something happens."

They thought it over. "How many?" Adaobi asked. "Seven?"

"And those are just the ones we know about. One of the first things AI Lux said to me when we met: you get an Owen now and then. This has been going on for a while."

"Know how to use that phone?"

"No, Ms. Adaobi. I only get threats from people who hate me on it."

She walked me through it. How to make calls, how to get online. How to find online locations: Ai proxies, sensory theaters, SSMR interfaces, LLMMO's. All sorts of things of which I had zero understanding.

"You're on," she said. "What would someone like you look for?"

"Chubby girl porn," Lux said.

"I prefer the term Plus-Sized Erotica. I'd look for a site, a message board. Something I was familiar with back in 2026. Something with security."

"Give me names of important things. That only you would think are important."

I thought the briefest of moments. "The chancla."

She held up my phone. The eye-wateringly high-def holographic display had a simple, primitive-looking site up: HELP OR FACE THE CHANCLA. And a flying slipper for a logo.

"That's me, all right," I said.

"Lots of you's," Adaobi said. "What's the passcode?"

"Molly is a Good Girl who Bites You With her Face."

Her eyebrows went up. "That's in. What's the next one?"

"Roberto's Carne Asada Burrito."

"Nope."

"Roberto's Carne Asada Burrito After Surfing All Day, Washed Down with a Pepsi from a Can, Not a Bottle."

"You're in."

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