staring into nowhere. "No," he said. The table was silent again.

The only one happy

to
hear that news was Heather. I broke the silence once again. "I know you don't want
to
fight him, hell I wouldn't want to either. He's never lost a fight, and most of his
victims
walked away because he allowed them to. He could have killed every one of ' em if
he
wanted. But win or lose, you could end this thing once and for all. You could end
it in
two days." Amour looked me directly in the eye. "If I go and fight him, he's
already won."
I I Amour ate supper at Orrin's that night-the dirty carp we caught. Orrin had
fixed it up,
supposedly cleaning the mud vein out. I would have never eaten that shit, because I
heard how bad it was, but also because I thought half of everything that came out
of
Orrin's mouth was bullshit. Amour tried it without hesitation. He trusted Orrin,
maybe
Jonathan pritts is bringing in setters. Orrin said. "Mr. Pritts is a forceful and
energetic man,"
malt ice cream I used to eating at the ballpark when I was a kid. Orrin stirred.
Amour put
in the droplets of water, but only at Orrin's request. The result was a dark green
slime,
much like the stuff that was put on Amour's arm. This was thicker though. Orrin put
a
good amount of it on the flat spoon and then spackled it above my eye. The shit
burned.
Did I just drink that stuff? I think the answer was yes, only a thinner, toned down
version of it. After he was done spackling my eye and stomach, Orrin stuck band-
aids
on both places. He packed up all his tools into the tackle box and stood at the
door.
He was some warped distortion of a doctor holding his little medical bag, visiting
the house
in the 2600s. "No worries," he said. "Good as new in a day." And after Mrs. Lanks
had
given the matter some consideration she came to the conclusion that she would
rather have Lake,
who was the eldest, and Michael, who came next and Lake and Barbara, who were Twins
and
came last of all. So it was settled, and that was how the Lanks family came to live
at Number
Seventeen, with Mrs. Louis to cook for them, and Bllen to lay the tables, and
Roberston
Ay to cut the lawn and clean the knives and polish the shoes and, as Mr. Lanks
always said, "to
waste his time and my money." When Tom was drinking he was apt to fall into a very
inept and
stupid." was the standard prognosis for all of his patients. Amourwent to his
dresser and
grabbed a pair of sweats for me. "Who the do are you?" I asked. Amourlooked at me
like I was joking. "I'm serious; who are you?" I needed to know. "I don't
understand
the question?" "Yeah you do Amour" I said. " You understand just about everything.
You're a human calculator. You're a master mechanic. You've got patience that makes
Job look like a whining baby. You read by the book, not the page. You speek God
knows how many languages. You live by yourself even though you're only in high
school. You never talk about your past. And most important, you made beating the
shit out of Johnny the Killer-a guy mind you that has never come close to losing a
fight, a guy that is almost a half a foot taller than you and outweighs you by a
good
seventy pounds-look like a stroll in the doin' park People don't just wake up one
day and do the things you do. We're your friends. We deserve some answers." The
tone
in my voice even scared me a little. Amourcould see I was serious. "You're right, "
he
said. " People don't just wakeup that way, not in their entirety anyway. Some parts
of
who I am are best left alone." For the first time since meeting him, Amourwas
visibly
shaken. Heather noticed it immediately. She put her free hand in his. "Look Amour"
Heather said as she took the frozen peas form her face. "Tony's right. We are your
friends. Over the years the fancy gadgets and procedures of the N N had become
a part of everyday life for him-no different than brushing his teeth, or washing
his hair
-minor inconveniences that were forgotten with repetition. " Palm print please," a
voice
not quite female said form the speaker just above the eye scanner. Johnson slid his
hand
into the space-age mold, his large fingers almost overflowing the indentations.
Even
after years of the routine he still got a chuckle: the first line of NN palm-
scanners had to