As xe approached the concrete wall, Rakkel caught the scent of water.

Xir shadow stood emblazoned across the wall, giant and gangling, projected there by the sun's last rays of light. It loomed over xir.

"Don't just stand there," xe told it. "Peek over the top and tell me what's on the other side. Is it the river? It must be the river, right?"

Xe felt so unsettled here, so out of place in this abandoned maze of warehouses and sunset, that xe almost expected the shadow to answer. It did not, of course. It didn't do anything useful except exude a foreboding aura. Which, xe thought, the wall already did quite well on its own.

The wall seemed misplaced, put here by accident instead of around the abandoned military complex where it belonged. Or like it was part of some surrealist's photo-collage, pasted here deliberately to be provocative. Even the buildings next to it didn't match: Some of the doors opened right onto it, so that they barely had room. And the street broke off suddenly, gaps in the cobblestones where the pattern didn't line up with the wall's edge. There were no guard booths or barriers near it. No security cameras, as far as Rakkel could see. Just a big, smooth, gray wall with coils of wire atop it. If not for that wire, it would've seemed unearthly. As it was, it seemed caricaturesque, grotesque, unreal without being alien.

Xe turned to the right and began walking along it. Xe didn't know what else to do. Eventually, xe thought, there'd be a break, or a gate, or a ladder, or even a crumbing section. Or at least a way around. Xe zigzagged from street to street, weaving in and out around the warehouses.

It grew fully dark. The stars came out.

Xe felt xe'd been walking for an hour or so, when xe realized there was that distinctive, ruined skyscraper again, barely visible against the stars, but on the other side of xir. As if xe'd gone around it in a half-circle. Which xe clearly had done. Which meant that this wall wasn't enclosing something ahead of xir. It was enclosing xir, and the warehouses, and the skyscraper, and wherever xe was, whatever this section of the city was, xe most assuredly wasn't supposed to be there.

At least that explained why there weren't any signs up. If there were any, they'd be on the outside of the wall, not the inside.

Xe wondered about Guy, and Phil, and Mme. Flore. Did they know their abandoned office building was part of this walled-off, forbidden zone? Did they know why it had been walled off? Did they care?

Not knowing what else to do, xe kept walking. Xe began to feel tired underneath a vague haze of adrenaline. There would be no rest in this place, though. Xe needed to get out. Then xe could sleep. Not before.

Xe still smelled water, which frustrated xir. Xe'd thought when xe first approached the wall that xe was starting to get xir bearings: Here was one of the rivers. But now xe'd made a half-loop of the place, and the water had gotten no farther or closer. The river couldn't be everywhere, could it?

Where was xe?

Where WAS xe? And how had xe gotten there? Xe looked up at the stars, half-expecting them to form alien constellations. Instead, xe saw the light from the city reflecting off the thin and ragged clouds, reassuringly close.

Xe'd made three-quarters of a circle by xir estimation, and had been walking for what felt like hours and hours, before xe found the gate. It wasn't large. Just a little concrete arch in the side of the wall, squared off, with a rusty old metal double-door set in it. Xe tried the handle: Locked, of course, or possibly locked and rusted solid. Xe knew a thing or two about locks. It was the rust that worried xir.

Xe fished around in xir messenger bag for a small zippered case.

It wasn't that Rakkel went around breaking into places all the time. Not exactly. But xe did have a fondness for figuring out how things worked, and that included locks. Besides that, while on the road, xe'd been through some areas once populated but now reclaimed by nature, where xe'd found it useful to get past a lock or two to forage some long-abandoned but well-preserved foodstuffs, or to scavenge other useful materials. Which xe'd anticipated before leaving home. Which was why xe'd brought xir lock picks along.

They weren't fancy. Just a tension wrench, a simple rake, and a couple of basic picks for when the rake didn't work, which wasn't actually very often in practice. And a couple of padlock shims, though xe kept losing or breaking those and having to make new ones. Xe wasn't any kind of expert at this. The thing about locks was, a little bit of knowledge went a long way. Most people didn't have any idea how to pick a lock, so most locks didn't need to be very hard to pick. This one, xe thought, might prove to be one of the exceptions - but it wasn't. The four pins went right where xe wanted them and stayed there immediately, and the handle turned.

And the door didn't open.

Xe wrenched at it to no avail. The hinges refused to budge, lock or no lock.

Xe'd started out xir journey with a crowbar, but it'd broken and xe'd left the pieces behind, placed somewhere conspicuous in the hopes that some future traveler might find them and use them for something. Xe wished xe had even the pieces now.

But, xe thought, there was some good news here. The door lock hadn't been particularly sophisticated. That suggested this wall was meant to keep people out, not in. Or at least that whoever'd been in charge of setting the barricade up hadn't been very conscientious. Either way, it meant xe had a better chance of escaping.

Maybe xe could attack the hinges, xe thought. Xe looked and found them on the side of the door towards xir, where xe hoped they'd be. Rusted, xe thought, meant not just that they were stuck, but that they were fragile, right?

Xe'd already clawed xir way through one old painted-over skylight today. Xir grooming claws still ached badly, though.

Xe looked at the lock picks in xir hand. They'd been crafted to be light and supple, not durable. Xe'd cut them xirself out of very thin sheet metal using the Trolley's big laser cutter - so xe had a good idea how much force they could and couldn't withstand. Or at least, xe thought xe did. It probably wasn't enough force to break apart the hinges.

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But they'd suffer a bit of poking, xe thought, wouldn't they? At least xe could get some idea what condition the hinges were in.

Xe selected the tension wrench, which was probably the strongest and most durable of the tools, and jabbed the topmost hinge on the left door with it.

Whereupon the hinge crumbled and fell to the ground.

"Oh," xe said out loud.

Xe scraped away the remaining fragments, then took the tool against the other two hinges, which also fell right off, then tried the door again.

It seemed to shift a little more. But something still held it to the second door.

Xe attacked the second door's hinges the same way. They held together a little better, but not enough to stop xir. Then xe went to the side of the doors, stuck xir claws - reluctantly - into the gap between the doors and the door frame, and pulled. Xe strained with all xir might. Finally, the doors came free and fell down. Xe jumped back as they slammed into the ground, smashing chips out of the stone cobbles and making a tremendous boom.

On the other side, they'd been barred with a big, solid bar.

And on the other side of the doorway, xe could see sloping rocks, and just beyond them, flowing water.

Somewhere along the bank of the Sedgeriver, the smooth, liquid black water sprouted a pair of white ears.

The ears rose, glistening in the moonlight, above a black-muzzled face. In turn, a slender, gray torso, fur sleek and dripping.

Rakkel stepped up onto a little platform, then climbed up a ladder onto the street above, then collapsed onto the ground, exhausted. Xir messenger bag lay on the street beside xir in a puddle of its own devising.

Xe closed xir eyes, then opened them again - their pupils shone in the dark like a pair of copper coins in a public fountain - then got to xir feet. Xe pulled a cyan bundle out of xir messenger bag. It crinkled. One side winked up at xir with a lascivious pink eye.

"If you leaked," xe told it, "and ruined my newly-repaired AR device, then you and I are through. You're a rain poncho. Keeping things dry is your one job."

The kangaroo said nothing.

Xe looked around. Xe thought the area looked familiar, despite the moonlight - xe'd walked down this street this morning. If xe walked back up it, xe was pretty sure xe'd recognize the turnoff towards xir hostel; it had a big tree with red bark growing at the corner of the intersection.

Sure enough, two blocks later, there it was. And just beyond, the Charming Garden Hostel.

Xe approached the front gate. Xe had no idea what time it was, but xe felt sure 11:00 had long since come and gone: It'd be locked by now. Xe fished in the messenger bag for the little plastic card the woman had given xir.

A noise made xir look up.

Something lay at the foot of the gate, snoring.

Xe frowned at it. The something had a familiar, distinct silhouette: A flat-ended snout, a pair of ears almost as ostentatious as xir own.

"What," xe said, "are you doing here?"

Welton, fast asleep, didn't answer.

Xe sniffed and stepped closer. "What," xe amended, "are you doing here all covered in vomit?" Xe sniffed again. There was a strong smell of alcohol, and a faint whiff of chipotle peppers.

"I'm really too tired for this," xe added. "Ugh. Couldn't you have chosen a better evening? I don't have the energy to carry you all the way back to Doople's."

Instead, xe carried him inside the hostel, and made it up two whole flights of stairs before he woke up.

"Hgnwa," he grunted.

"Okay, good," xe said, "you can walk now. I was about to abandon you on a landing. Even my exhaustion is exhausted, whatever that means."

"Where?" He looked up. "Rakkel?"

"How much did you drink?"

"Ow," answered Welton.

"Yeah, I bet. Get up. I don't care how drunk you are. If you can make it to the bed, you can have it. Otherwise, it's mine."

"Wuss...?" He looked down at his chest. "Whose? Wuss vomit is...?"

"Yours, obviously." Xe dragged him to his feet. "I'm sure there's a public shower or something around here somewhere."

"Ugh," he said.

"Yeah, that's what I said." Xe pulled him up the staircase as best xe could. After some difficulty determining which limbs were his legs, he began stumbling more or less on his own.

"'levator," he said on the third floor. "'s safer."

"There aren't any, believe it or not."

"I don't... I don't want to take the stairs. No stairs."

"I don't either. But it's that or nothing."

"Don't let me fall. Don't let me fall!"

"I won't," xe said. "Come on. Hang on to the handrail."

On the fifth floor, he barfed again.

"Why'm," he said, "why'm I... why do people drunk? Am I dying?"

"You're not dying," said Rakkel.

"I could be. I could be dying. Maybe I'm alchegic to allergihol."

"Allergic to alcohol?"

"I could be," he said.

"Pretty sure you're just normal to alcohol," xe said.

"Thish.. this really... is this really what drunk ish?"

"Yep."

He was silent until the seventh floor.

On the seventh floor, he said, "Good... good galaxiesh... my parents!"

"Your parents?"

"My parentsh! Were right!"

Whereupon he collapsed on the carpet.

Xe left him there to scout out the floor layout. There was a loop of hallways, with doors along every wall. Xe vaguely remembered that the woman had told her xir room was at the "end of the hall," which seemed perplexing, but xe quickly found a match to the number on the key in one corner of the loop. Another door said "SHOWERS" on it. Xe went back for Welton and dragged him the last few yards to the shower room.

"Almost there," xe told him.

"Don't wanna shower," he mumbled. "Just wanna sleep."

"In vomit?"

"Uh-huh."

"Too bad. It stinks, and your bunkmates won't appreciate that."

"Uh," he said.

Xe hoisted him up onto xir shoulder and hauled him into the shower room.

"You oinked," xe told him as xe dragged him into one of the shower stalls. "Did you know that?"

"Yuh," he said. "'m a pig. Pigs oink."

"It was really more of a 'hgnwa,'" xe said.

"Thassa oink," he agreed.

"Just as long as you know."

"What sound d'leemurs make?"

Xe began stripping him, decided not to bother, and turned the water on.

"We make all kinds of sounds," xe said. "Right now, the sound I'm making is 'next morning, you'd better be grateful I'm doing all this for you, you idiot.'"

"'m grateful," he said. "'m grateful right now. Thanks."

"Good," xe said. "You know, I thought it'd be awkward if we ran into each other again, but I didn't even begin to imagine. Stay there until you're clean." Xe stepped into the next stall over to wash off the residue from xir swim across the river.

Once they were both good and clean, xe found some towels and toweled them both off. The shower had brought some life back to Welton; he staggered along beside xir under his own power to the room xe'd been given.

Xe unlocked it and stepped in. Two of the three bunk beds were full of innocently sleeping bodies, but one was empty - thankfully, on both the top and bottom. Rakkel wouldn't have thought xe had enough strength left to climb into the top bunk, but that was before xe'd carried Welton up seven flights of stairs and into a shower, so clearly xe had reserves of strength hitherto unknown - and xe didn't want him rolling off and hurting himself. So xe pulled him into the bottom bunk and climbed into the top one xirself.

"You and I are going to have to have a talk in the morning," xe started to say, but fell asleep three words in.