I ran past them, along the road to Adventureland, past the Tiki Room where I'd been killed, past the Adventureland gate where I'd waded through the moat, down Main Street. I ran and ran, elbowing early guests, trampling flowers, knocking over an apple cart across from the Penny Arcade. I ran until I reached the main gate, and turned, thinking I'd outrun Lil and Debra and all my problems. I'd thought wrong. They were both there, a step behind me, puffing and red. Debra held my wrecking bar like a weapon, and she brandished it at me. "You're a goddamn idiot, you know that?" she said. I think if we'd been alone, she would've swung it at me. "Can't take it when someone else plays rough, huh, Debra?" I sneered. Lil shook her head disgustedly. "She's right, you are an idiot. The ad-hoc's meeting in Adventureland. You're coming." "Why?" I asked, feeling belligerent. "You going to honor me for all my hard work?" "We're going to talk about the future, Julius, what's left of it for us." "For God's sake, Lil, can't you see what's going on? They _killed_ me! They did it, and now we're fighting each other instead of her! Why can't you see how _wrong_ that is?" "You'd better watch those accusations, Julius," Debra said, quietly and intensely, almost hissing. "I don't know who killed you or why, but you're the one who's guilty here. You need help." I barked a humorless laugh. Guests were starting to stream into the now-open Park, and several of them were watching intently as the three costumed castmembers shouted at each other. I could feel my Whuffie hemorrhaging. "Debra, you are purely full of shit, and your work is trite and unimaginative. You're a fucking despoiler and you don't even have the guts to admit it." "That's _enough_, Julius," Lil said, her face hard, her rage barely in check. "We're going." Debra walked a pace behind me, Lil a pace before, all the way through the crowd to Adventureland. I saw a dozen opportunities to slip into a gap in the human ebb and flow and escape custody, but I didn't try. I wanted a chance to tell the whole world what I'd done and why I'd done it. Debra followed us in when we mounted the steps to the meeting room. Lil turned. "I don't think you should be here, Debra," she said in measured tones. Debra shook her head. "You can't keep me out, you know. And you shouldn't want to. We're on the same side." I snorted derisively, and I think it decided Lil. "Come on, then," she said. It was SRO in the meeting room, packed to the gills with the entire ad-hoc, except for my new recruits. No work was being done on the rehab, then, and the Liberty Belle would be sitting at her dock. Even the restaurant crews were there. Liberty Square must've been a ghost town. It gave the meeting a sense of urgency: the knowledge that there were guests in Liberty Square wandering aimlessly, looking for castmembers to help them out. Of course, Debra's crew might've been around.