I'm still a relative newcomer to the internet. This was brought home to me by the new flurry of activity surrounding Dollhouse, Joss's new series.

This will be the first time I'm heavily involved in a forum for a show in production. I belong to other boards for series like Heroes and Burn Notice, but I tend to avoid topics about the episodes during the season because I'm always running behind. (I work nights and have to tape everything.) Besides, those aren't my boards, my home boards, the places I have to go each and every day, so no great loss if I go a couple of weeks or months without visiting them and seeing stuff.

But now Dollhouse is prepping for production and there's all kinds of new stuff floating around. Casting sides are out -- heck, I'd never even heard of casting sides until yesterday! People are posting bits and pieces of dialogue, talking about characters that weren't in Ausiello's post, and I'm sitting here thinking, But I don't wanna know! Except I do! Unless it's an important plot point! Or if knowing ahead of time will stop it being funny!



Many of the people I know were around for Firefly's initial run and are old hands at this kind of thing. Now I'm going to have to pick my way through rumors and speculation, plot detours around spoilers, and stick my fingers in ears and sing 'lalalalala' whenever one of the actors says to Crrrraig, 'Well, I can't tell you much, but I can tell you that ...' I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!

It's going to be a looooong six months.



Because I really want to know!!!

[NOTE: I'm thinking of re-doing this into non-'Verse because of where it's headed (after this entry). If so, I'll be editing the two earlier posts too, possibly even making all 3 readable ]

I took advantage of the quiet and rested for a moment. The room we were in looked like it had been a standard reception area with a counter and a door on the opposite wall. Most of the floor was gone, but there was enough around the edges that we could inch our way over to the door. I felt Charlie tug on my sleeve. I looked down and he was pointing not towards the door but towards the blank wall to the right of us. I frowned, trying to see better. Through the gloom I could barely make out the remains of a banister hanging precariously over empty space. I looked back down at him and shook my head. He nodded again and pushed me hard to the right.

"Hey!"

I clapped my hand over my mouth. How stupid can you get? I thought, my shoulders lifting upwards to my ears to try and hide the rest of me, just like a turtle. "Pretty gorram stupid, I guess," I muttered under my breath, then glared down at Charlie when he tugged at my arm to get me to shut up. I heard the scrape of a chair in the distance and grimaced. Since we were by then standing in the middle of the doorway, my only choice was either to go right or to climb over Charlie. I had no idea if the door opposite us was even usable, so right was my only logical choice.

I managed to slip into the corner without opening my big mouth or tripping over something. We leaned against the wall and listened to the guard's footsteps. They were slow, with a pause at each doorway, and were getting slower after each pause as if the guard was uncertain. Finally his shadow appeared on the inner wall, grew larger as he stuck his head into the room, and then disappeared when he moved on. I let myself breathe again but didn't dare move since the walls between the rooms were so thin. He checked three more rooms, stopped, and then began retracing his steps. I held my breath just in case but turned out it was unnecessary: his cough started up again within steps and continued all the way back to the loading dock.

Charlie and I looked at each other and heaved sighs of relief. I pointed to the door and pushed him lightly but he shook his head, went up on tiptoe, and whispered in my ear "No floor!" Man, I was batting 1.000 in this place!

Closer inspection with dark-adapted eyes revealed that our situation wasn't as hopeless as I'd thought. The banister hanging in space had been fastened to the now nonexistent floor to prevent falls into the stairwell; the stairs themselves were just a couple feet in front of us and looked as if they were still solidly attached to the wall. Sure, there was no banister on the lefthand side and a distinct sag towards the center of the room, but if we were careful and tested each step we might get low enough to jump to the floor safely.

Charlie moved to go first but I pulled him back; his weight might be enough to weaken a step that would fail when I stepped on it, but if I made it down he was more than likely safe. For once I was right. Only one of the steps tested iffy and I avoided it; the rest creaked slightly with my weight but held. Charlie simply skipped down them, an old pro at these steps.

But now we were even further below the street level. There was enough light coming from above to show debris scattered on the floor, but nothing else. Charlie put his finger to his lips until I nodded, then made his way over to a black doorway, presumable to the central hall. He turned the corner and vanished.

I didn't care for the way we kept going down. The farther down below ground you go in any building, the less likely you'll find a way out. I was hoping this level would have an old cargo elevator to the outside -- even if it didn't work, we could probably climb up the shaft.

Charlie was taking long enough that I was starting to get worried. I paced along the edge of the shadow, my eyes automatically trying to pierce the darkness along the side of the room. My efforts were rewarded with the faint gleam of metal -- or was it plastic? -- from underneath the stairs. I stepped closer, brushing aside the cobwebs, and crouched down to inspect my find. It was a little disc, no more than 2 cm wide and maybe a quarter of a centimeter thick. It had an almost oily appearance, the gleam shifting in the light -- I wasn't quite certain that it was my own movements causing this. There was no dust on it, astonishing in this extremely dusty room, though perhaps it was dropped recently. I couldn't see any track in the dust that would indicate if it had bounced or rolled at all.

Picking it up, I nearly immediately dropped it again. I frowned. It had felt oily, too, a very weird feeling as if it were actively repelling my skin. I tried again and this time cupped it in my other hand. It almost looked squirmy. I couldn't imagine what it might do but it could be worth a pretty penny in the right place. I tucked it into my breast pocket and made sure the flap was securely closed because it felt like it was about to jump right out.

Another few minutes of wandering aimlessly through the shadows passed before I noticed that the blackness of the doorway was slowly brightening.

It's been an odd week. This past weekend, almost out of nowhere, gossi reveals he's looking for someone to take over the boards (although I think that math thread helped him to that decision ). Naturally my first selfish thought was "What about Goners?". (If you aren't familiar with it, gonersmovie.com was IS a site in search of a movie and was IS also run by gossi. I went so far as to PM gossi who basically said he had no idea what he would do with Goners. I told him I'd start a thread asking for suggestions and went off on my merry way.

I hate to admit it, but I wasn't that upset about BC changing hands. I figured this would be a good chance for me to cut down my presence here and online in general. There are lots of people here I enjoy posting with, but this isn't my home forum, not the way Goners is. Goners is like Cheers, a place where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. Sort of like RWD, except I'm not as wicked smart nor as (let's face it) mean as those people can be. That's not to say they're mean all of the time, or half the time, or even a sixteenth of the time. But when they get sarcastic and start going for the kill, I make tracks for the nearest exit. And then I come back an hour later because half the time somebody will say something truly silly and the thread will take a 180-degree turn and next thing you know they're talking about how awesome GB would look in chocolate -- and nothing else.

Back to Goners. So I made my thread and got lots of suggestions, all of which said "don't change it!" except QuoterGal's -- she offered to host it if gossi was truly set on getting rid of it, but she also suggested a "Joss Whedon Development Hell" site where all the little projects Joss hasn't yet brought to fruition could be suitably obsessed over. That would be something gossi wouldn't have to spend a lot of time on (with good mods like QG and GE -- but not me! ) and we would be happy to pay for our memberships.

The next day Goners was gone. I hurriedly came over to BC to check on it because I'm almost sure all of gossi's sites are on the same server, but BC was okay, Dollverse was okay, drivefans was... Hmmm, drivefans was gone. This was almost to be expected since nobody posted on that site anymore except two or three overly obsessed people (yes, I was one of them ). But the fact that drivefans is gone bodes ill for Goners. It sounds too much like a deliberate takedown, rather than a hardware or software issue. I PM'd gossi but it wouldn't go through because he's either turned his PMs off or he's deliberately blocking me. Either way, he doesn't want to hear from me.

So we're at an impasse. Is it down or is it gone? Gossi's not talkin'.

If it's just down, I hope gossi doesn't take the opportunity to dump it forever. If it will take money to fix it, we would be more than happy to chip in. We offered to let gossi make it a paid membership board a long long time ago.

If it's gone, I'm ... at a loss. There's a lot of stuff on that site that people would've liked to archive. Is it permanently gone gone or archived gone? Can it be resurrected on another server with another admin? We just want answers.

But if it's gone gone, gossi has answered a question that has puzzled Gonersarians for millennia: Who is the Gossiganger?

Gossi is the Gossiganger.



Let's all just hope it's down or archived gone. I don't think gossi would deliberately trash everything we've done over the past two years. Even gossi has had fun on Goners a time or two, and of course he loved being the Goners "expert" on Whedonesque.

I don't know if he'll ever read this or if he'll even return to BC at all, but I have two things I want to say to him:

I'll miss you, gossi. I hope everything's okay.

Wow. Sarah Jessica Parker! Even I know how much of a fashion icon she is. I'm not surprised there were some tears shed.

Victorya's dress was near perfect. Except I didn't like the scarf/sash/ribbon, but I'm just not a scarf/sash/ribbon kind of girl. I think it's a shame they can't use the plaid on the vest in the version offered at Steve & Barry's, but I understand why. The dress you and I can buy will be either black or burgundy with a gray or black vest. Dress for $19.98, vest $14.98. They're reporting you'll be able to buy it now. At first I couldn't figure out how they managed it, but I always forget the shows were taped months ago.

Elisa, Elisa, Elisa. I didn't think she'd pull it off, but Sweet P offered some honesty and that seemed to work to pull in her more outré creative decisions. It was a cute outfit, definitely not something I'd wear but the dress was nice.

Christian got his hand slapped. Better for him to get it over with now, maybe he'll pay attention and last through to the finals. This is not about you anymore, Christian! Last week was "show us your vision" week -- from now on it's "client, client, client".

The losing outfit? I was surprised Marion wasn't fabric-savvy enough to know that knit would stretch like that. He said in an EW interview he's too avant-garde to be successful at this kind of challenge, but gee he couldn't design a simple skirt? When SJP picked him, she said she liked his "color sense and sophistication level". He let her down on both counts.

Tim Minear was interviewed by geekerati tonight. Kind of boring for me, actually, because about two-thirds of it was taken up with strike information for those not familiar with the strike. Since I'm pretty strike-literate right now, I was able to do some real work while half-listening. (And let me tell you, it's not easy to transcribe when you're listening to two different voices and want to understand both of them!)

Some of the more interesting things he said:

He feels a little silly about the strike, because here he is driving up to the picket lines in his Mercedes, like he really needs the money. But he goes on to say the strike isn't for him -- nowadays he makes way more money in his overall deal with the studio than from residuals -- it's for the people who rely on residuals to pay rent.

He also gave us a little bit of info on Miracle Man. Someone asked him if Miracle Man was going to be like Grace [Saving Grace] on TNT or maybe a darker Touched by an Angel. He said first off definitely not like Grace -- that's a procedural show and Miracle Man won't be like that at all. As far as a darker Touched by an Angel, he kind of waffled then said no, it's actually more like a masculine version of Wonderfalls. And not darker all all, there will be a lot of humor in it. Personally, that makes me look forward to it even more!

Someone also asked him what his favorite episode is of the ones he's written. He talked about X-Files, Lois and Clark and then how the whole season of Wonderfalls was great but ended up saying it was "Out of Gas" (Firefly), he was extremely proud of that episode. What a guy!

So later this past evening, we found out that the AMPTP has agreed to come back to the negotiating table on the 26th. Two Whedonesque members posted about it on the board. So what? Right? Well, according to Whedonesque policy, the later of the two threads will be deleted no matter what is contained therein, and a few of us took advantage of the fact that the thread was ephemeral and were making jokes on it. I'm ashamed to admit I started with the writing of the limericks (though it was QG who gave me the idea! BLAME HER! ). So to save these from the Whedonesque chopping block, here are our posts in more or less correct order:

Me:
There once was a writer named Tim
A man of some vigor and vim
Who reported each day
To the pickets of WGA
In his Mercedes, wearing a silly grin.

So Nebula1400 suggested a 'complete the limerick' game:

Nebula 1400:
There once was a man named Joss Whedon

Me:
Who often attempted to read on

QG:
Subjects painful and dire

kishi:
Like who died in a fire

deanna b:
In his natty attire

Lady Brick:
It was silly, yet sappy, yet wrong

Lady Brick's original line was actually rhymed with the Tim limerick so I said:

Me:
(Wrong limerick, Lady!

But could never get past all that bleedin'.


When she fixed hers, Lady Brick wrote:
ETA: How about haiku?

Picket signs flutter
Car horns rage like dying geese
Fans4Writers feed

Then because I pointed out her limerick error:

Lady Brick:
Limericks are weak
Haikus can kick their asses
Kickass ninja verse

Then Me:
With the falling leaves
Picket signs point heavenward
Seeking resolution.

QG chimed in:
Studio execs
Huddled together for warmth
New breeze a chill wind.

And Me Again:
On Alameda
Strut red-breasted quill-bearers
Eager for more dough.

Isn't it amazing the kinds of things that get posted in the wee wee hours of the morning! Here's the completed limerick. Sorry, Lady and deanna, I decided to keep the theme going -- plus mine scans better!

There once was a man named Joss Whedon
Who often attempted to read on
Subjects painful and dire
Like who died in a fire
But could never get past all that bleedin'.


ETA: Oh, and in case you're really confused, BOTH of the original threads got deleted. So if I missed anyone in the haiku wars, I apologize.

Project: Runway is back and damn is it good!

I've been waiting for this show for over a year now. Seriously, the S3 finale was in October 2006! A year is way too long between seasons. And tell that to the BSG and Lost people too!

Here are the three designers who had the most impact this week:

Christian: I really like Christian, not so much because of the outfit -- that was very accomplished but a touch too "fashionable" for me -- but because of the attitude and the humor. Every designer has the attitude, but he was so darned cute with it.

Rami: His dress was extremely well done, although I agreed on the flower. I thought what he really needed was a touch of Santino: a little knot of twisted silk rope at the shoulder would've finished that dress off perfectly. Let's hope we don't see the same dress every week, good draping is the sign of a good designer but repetition is the sign of a bore. Oh, and when he did his intro at the beginning of the show, I remembered that Alba dress and not in a good way. The color was perfect to set off her golden brown-ness, but I thought the dress was too matronly for a girl her age and a little on the busy side. It could just be me, though, because I've always wanted to be a shirtdress kind of girl but didn't have the body for it and now I'm a leetle bit spiteful about it.

Elisa: I fell in love with Elisa's dress the first time we saw it on the model from the front -- and then she turned around and BLEGGCHH! It looked like someone got sick all over it. I didn't realize until someone mentioned, though, that the dress was made with just one seam. Now that is an accomplished pattern-maker and sewer -- I certainly couldn't do that for a Barbie doll, much less a real person. Also, I think if Tim hadn't said anything about the finish, she might've "adjusted" the train. As it is, I think his comment made her a bit defensive about it and prevented her from doing what she knew was the right thing. Or she could just be a total wack job.

Can't wait until next week! Oh, except I could wait another year if it meant no Santino commercials.

I'm going to cut off my foot to spite my face!* Wait, something just doesn't sound right...

I have a problem. Part of it is that things are gettin' a little short here in Michiland. This is both my fault (I just cannot resist dropping in to the boards when I'm at work ) and my employer's fault. Stupid Michiland recession.

Besides the shortness of Michiland, part of my problem is Comcast, because apparently comcrap has decided that unless you pay for the ultra-high-speed bells-and-whistles internet and cable packages, you don't deserve to get the regular high speed which you've paid for. I've been having issues for weeks with sites loading. Or rather, not loading. *kicks comcrap* However, the whys don't really matter since the result is that I'm canceling my home internet.

I'll still be able to come online here at work, but of course I have to work, too, hopefully more than I'm working right now, so I must be strong and resist the siren song of Fun and Real World Discussion. It'll be really easy to resist the siren song of my LJ and Flickr because work blocks them both along with myspace (which is a given nowadays), blogger, and various other blog sites (but not blogspot yet).

What does this mean? It means I'll be doing more blogging here during my work week and then uploading to my LJ when I have access. On my weekends I can get wireless at school or at the local cafes and sometimes even use Gorramsister's computer for bigger projects if she deigns to let me. So I'll still be around the board, I'll just be blogging a bit more that I have been lately. Aren't you glad?

Come the new year, I'm planning on trying Verizon Broadband out again, since I'm pretty sure I know what was wrong last time I tried it. Operator error, of course!

*Yes, yes, I know what the real saying is!

Oh dear. That window looked gorram small and wasn't getting much bigger as I approached. I could conceivably slow down to a more seemly pace and abandon the boy to his hidey-hole but down deep in my heart I knew his ma was in trouble and he would end up dead -- or worse -- on his own. Luckily for him, a million years of evolution caught up with me at that precise moment and awoke my previously dormant maternal instincts. I took a deep breath, tucked my shoulder in, and dove through the window.

I screamed as quietly as I could when an unseen glass shard tore open both my shirt sleeve and my arm, then I lost all my spare breath when I landed with an OOF on something that thankfully gave an inch or two beneath me. I laid there for a minute, trying to catch my breath without filling my lungs with dust. My eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness but I still jumped a foot when someone touched my shoulder.

"We got to get!" Charlie hissed. "This is Walleye's territory and he's fierce about protecting it. I know a safe way through if you can make it to the back of the building."

I grunted and slowly climbed to my feet. The material beneath me had been a pile of clothing -- shirts, trousers, jackets, you name it, they had it. All filthy as sin, of course. I held up a finger to Charlie then rummaged through the top layer. My fingers touched something silky and I pulled out an old petticoat, stained and mildewed but with occasional patches of white. There was no time to rip it apart now; I bundled it around my arm and could only hope there was a relatively clean patch over the wound.

Charlie was waiting impatiently at the doorway, jiggling from foot to foot. I cautiously crossed the room and peeped out over his head. Here was a hallway, dark and debris-filled, running the length of the building. Most of the doorways were doorless so there was some light making it's way inside but not a whole lot. I felt a tug and looked down; Charlie put his finger over his lips; I nodded my understanding and he grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hallway, unerringly avoiding the piles of trash and cast-offs.

The hall ended in a blank wall, but there was a doorway to the right that looked onto a loading dock with a large corrugated tin door, the kind that rolls down and which currently prevented us from leaving the building. As we examined the dock in the light of a single lantern hanging from above, I heard voices. I looked down at Charlie and saw my dismay reflected in his eyes. He pulled me away from the door; we ducked into the room just across the hall and crouched down into the corner made by the hallway wall and the back wall. Charlie kept fidgeting so I slapped him lightly and hissed "No moving!"

The voices drew near, then passed us and faded a bit as the men moved into the dock room. Somebody was givin' a gorram lecture in there -- it was a good 15 minutes before we heard the tin door roll up and then back down. Silence spread throughout the basement and I was just stirring to move out when I heard someone clear his throat.

I froze. It was as clear as if he were standing right next to us. My eyes did their damnedest to penetrate the gloom of the room; as far as I could tell we were alone. I glanced down at Charlie and nudged him, but he shook his head in bafflement. I pushed down on his shoulder to make him stay, then eased myself along the wall to the doorway, keeping my eyes glued to the lighter gray rectangle that was all I could see of the hall. Inches from the doorway, I froze again at the sound of a cough. This time I heard the rustling of cloth. Perhaps the man was rummaging through his pockets for a hanky, because he then proceeded to hack up half his lungs and three-quarters of his sinuses. If I hadn't been so gorram scared, I would've puked right then and there.

I took advantage of the coughing fit and peeked into the hallway just long enough to see the man doubled over on a chair just inside the dock's doorway. Luckily he was facing the other way. I pulled my head back and allowed myself a gasp of relief before I returned to Charlie's side.

"It's a guard," I hissed nearly silently. He looked bewildered and shrugged his shoulders; apparently this wasn't Walleye's standard operating procedure. We waited through a period of calm, then when the man started coughing again, I asked Charlie if any of these rooms had good hiding places. He thought for a bit and then nodded reluctantly. Apparently I wasn't going to like this.

We inched our way down to our doorway during another calm spell. When the next coughing fit began, I poked my head out to check that the guard was still facing the other way -- which he was -- and then that the other direction was clear -- which it was. I pushed Charlie out and followed him down the hall, expecting at any moment to hear the guard hail us. Charlie paused at a doorway, then shook his head and took off down the hall. I nearly tripped over debris trying to keep up, but then he vanished in a room halfway down the hall.

I could hear the coughing fit die away behind me so I hurried up and barreled into the room at top speed. Stupid mistake, of course. Only Charlie's quick grab prevented me from falling through the hole in the floor. I was beginning to think a million years of evolution was just plain wrong.

I can't believe I'm sitting here at work crying.

As most of you know, Joss Whedon recently posted an essay about the death of Dua Khalil, a young woman who was stoned to death in an "honor killing". I can't really discuss that here because I'm at work and I'm supposed to be working, not crying, but this subject has touched off an intense debate at Whedonesque and elsewhere about the role of women in society, the role of violence in different cultures, and the pro's and con's of standing up for what you believe in.

Reading the 400 comments on that thread makes me proud, makes me disgusted, makes me hurt, makes me weep:

• Pride for all the Whedon fans -- and hopefully the "normal" people who come across this essay -- who have decided to do something about it.
• Disgust for those who find a way to excuse the violence, however they may wrap it up in twisty words espousing religious freedom and a "can't we all just get along?" attitude.
• Pain for those who have used this debate to come forward and say that they too have been the subjects of violence.
• Tears for all the people all over the world who have no one to stand up for them.

I personally can't do much for a variety of reasons -- money, time, lack of knowledge. I will, however, make sure I scrape together enough to buy myself and my sister's family some tee shirts. Why tee shirts? Take a look:



If you click on that picture, it will take you to lexigeek's Black Market Beagles store. These tee shirts are being sold at cost + $5, with the $5 to go to Equality Now, a charity that works to erase violence against women and girls. If you can't afford the t-shirt, lexi is also offering a downloadable version of the logo that you can use to make your own tee. He only asks that you let him know your name so he can add it to the list of Dua Khalil's (if you can, naturally, we understand that some don't like their names posted on the web) and that you donate the $5 to EN.

EN is Joss's own preferred charity, so much so that for the 2nd year in a row, Browncoats worldwide are putting on screenings of Joss's Serenity movie with the proceedings to go to Equality Now. Last year we made over $65,000 for EN, and we're hoping this year to top $100,000!

So on June 23rd, I plan on showing up at the theatre in Toronto wearing a tee shirt that says "I Am Dua Khalil". Hopefully so will my sister, her husband (this one could be difficult ), and his daughter. Whichever screening you're attending, won't you join us?

For those wanting more information on Dua Khalil and what's being done in her name, see QuoterGal's blog I Am Dua Khalil.

[This was cross-posted from my LJ.]

The crew stood around bickering about who'd get which band member into their beds. I got tired of standing staring at the locked ship. What good's a ship you can't get into? And I wasn't at all interested in the band, except as entertainment. It may have been 2 years since I last saw my Will but it was still worth it to stay true. And hopefully he felt the same way; otherwise, he was going to be missing a very important piece of his anatomy.

I wandered down the lane, checking out route boards, watching the jugglers and singers and various instrument players. One flute player was playing a song with chords on his instrument -- I didn't know it was even possible! He managed to coax one of the few coins out of my pocket and into his hat.

While I was watching him, I got distracted by a little pickpocket working the crowd. He was good but not perfect, leaving a little ripple of "Wha'?" and "Hey!" behind him. It wouldn't be long before someone else put 2 and 2 together, so I decided to make it add up to 5.

"Charlie! You blasted brat!"

I grabbed his arm and pulled him to the back of the crowd. He tried to get away, of course, but I'm wiry and stronger than I look and I wasn't aimin' on lettin' go.

"I told you a million times to stay off the docks," I yelled. "Mam is gonna be so mad at you for slippin' away. She told you to go straight to Badger's, no stoppin' on the way!"

The boy stilled when I mentioned Badger and the crowd immediately lost interest in him. Badger was a magic name here on the docks and I had no hesitation in using it, even though I've never actually met the gentleman. I dragged the boy a few more yards away and ducked behind a convenient route board.

"Lemme go!" the boy hissed.

"You're a moron!" I hissed back. "Didn't you hear the people catchin' on that they was robbed? You were about to be nabbed, you little guttersnipe!"

He looked at me with disdain. "I don't get caught! Me ma watches out for me and she's probably headed here right now to bust your head in."

I peaked around the edge of the route board to see if that was so. The flute player was packing up his instrument and the crowd had dispersed except for a small group of four gentleman talking excitedly about something. They looked an awful lot like pickpocket victims. I scanned the rest of the view but saw no sign of an angry momma headed our way.

"Are you sure she's there? I don't see anyone out there."

"Lemma see!" He shoved me aside and took his time examining the scene.

After a few minutes I saw his shoulders droop and knew that he'd been as unsuccessful as I. "Hey, boy, maybe she got held up and is on her way. Or maybe she saw someone she didn't want to see and is holed up somewhere. Once they're gone" -- I nodded towards the pickpocket victim support group -- "you can head on out and find her on your own. I just hated to see you get caught ... you remind me of me at your age." I grinned at him but he was staring steadily down at the ground so I crouched to get a better look, only to find him in tears. "Hey, boy, she'll be here soon!"

He shook his head. "We were workin' the crowd this morning and doin' fine at it but someone raised a stink and called the feds. She told me to run and she'd meet me here at dusk but it's almost full dark now and she's still not here!" A sob escaped him, then a sad little hiccup.

I suppressed a smile, afraid he'd take it the wrong way. "Did y'all have a backup plan?"

He nodded, peeked around the route board once more to find the way clear, and beckoned me forward with him. We took the back alleys, of course, although a person not used to the docks might call them sewers and garbage dumps instead. Dock denizens aren't known for their cleanliness. Constantly ducking tent poles and ropes and edging past the worst of the sewage might seem like a poor exchange for the crowds of the lanes, but we skinned a good 20 minutes off our travel time.

When we emerged from the dim twilight of the alley, we found ourselves right on the verge of respectability. This was the dock's border and it was as clear a border as if someone had sliced it with a giant sword. On one side of the lane were the docks, this portion made up of tents and tin shacks that were perhaps better constructed than those near our new ship but clearly not one of the better parts of town. Across the lane were tenements built of a dark gray stone, each building a good eight stories high and standing shoulder to shoulder with its neighbors. They were not particularly inviting -- half the windows were broken and trash littered the sidewalk and stoops -- but they were clearly a class above the docks.

My new friend carefully examined the people crowding this lane, drew back quickly at the sight of two feds lazily patrolling the lane, then popped back out after they passed. Finally satisfied that no dangers were lying in wait for him, he jerked his chin towards a building down the lane and took off so quickly he caught me out. I hustled to catch up but it was a good thing I had kept my eyes on him: he stopped at the corner of one of the buildings, cast one last glance up and down the lane, then ducked and rolled right through a glass-less cellar window and vanished into the darkness.