The Vanguard

by SJ Griffin

Chapter Fifteen

  We took a car from a street near the hotel and drove to an old station that would give us access to the tunnels into the city. Streets within a two mile radius of the parliament building were subject to road blocks and checks and we weren’t in any position to withstand that kind of scrutiny. Roach had Vermina’s gun tucked in his waistband and Minos had the full cartridge in his pocket, we decided to only use it in an emergency. We clattered down the paralysed escalator into the underground station, disturbing huddled groups of people who we appeared to ignore but paid close attention to, just as they did to us. We all pretended there was nothing to see, just people standing around and people passing by, the same as it ever was.

  ‘I feel like I spend my whole life walking down corridors or passageways,’ Minos said, lighting our way with a flame that he made dance around his feet, just like his figurine. ‘Sometimes they’re dark, sometimes there are despotic psychopaths at the end of them, but they are all ultimately corridors.’

  ‘Life is a corridor,’ Casino said.

  ‘Between the twin waiting rooms of birth and death,’ Roach said.

  ‘Can anyone here see in the dark?’ Minos put his flame out. ‘No? Well, best be humouring me then.’

  ‘Corridors it is,’ Casino said. ‘And what was the other thing?’

  ‘Passageways,’ Minos said.

  We walked along the tunnels, stepping through the odd abandoned train carriage, careful to avoid eye contact with anyone living there. Round there, so close to the surface, problems were rare but there was an air of anxiety everywhere that promised the unpredictable. We reached the interchange station and the tunnels changed. There was some exceptional graffiti on the walls but it was darker, damper. The occasional breeze sent shivers down my spine and not just because of the chill in the air.

  ‘There it is,’ Lola said. ‘The entrance to Mole Town.’

  ‘It’s been nice knowing you all,’ Casino said. ‘Please don’t leave my body to medical science.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Minos said. ‘I doubt there’ll be anything left.’

  Our laughter came back off the walls with a very hollow echo. We passed small bivouacs made with anything that would offer some privacy. The streets were lit by large free-standing lanterns that ran on some oil pressed from vegetables, I could smell carrots, then onions. They were pretty resourceful, just not that bothered about luxury or comfort. There were no people about. In the distance we could hear rumbling and the crack of sporadic gun fire. The path through the makeshifts homes got narrower and narrower until we walked in single file, Minos leading the way, Roach at the back. A break in the houses revealed a mural on the tunnel wall, painted to let everyone know that they were passing out of the Dragoons territory and into that of the Green Fusiliers. They were divided along gang lines, former regiments turned loose. The Death Watch ruled Mole Town, one of the few groups that had changed their name to better reflect their new, humbler circumstances and change in priorities.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ Minos said.

  ‘Do you suppose they’ve gone over to their side?’ Lola said. ‘Like Enforce.’

  ‘That kind of talk is not going to get you into my good books,’ a man stepped into our path. He was dressed in a dirty but well pressed uniform, with a chest full of medals. At once he was flanked by lower ranking Green Fusiliers with not a medal between them. There were seven of them, all in the way. ‘And you don’t want to be in my bad books. Now, who is in charge?’ he said.

  ‘It depends of what,’ I said under the inevitable gaze of the other four.

  ‘Of what?’ the man said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Minos said. ‘I’m in charge of hardware. Casino here is in charge of reconnaissance, Roach is in charge of security, Lola is in charge of communications and Sorcha, she’s in charge of...’

  I glared at him.

  ‘She provides...’ he tried.

  ‘Leadership?’ the man suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ Minos said. ‘That’s it, she provides leadership.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you then, shall I?’

  ‘If you like,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to talk about technology, reconnaissance, security or communications. Then you’d be better off speaking to one of my colleagues.’

  There was a murmuring from the back of the group.

  ‘Reeves,’ shouted the man, deafening everyone in the tunnels for miles around. ‘Stop your wittering.’

  ‘Sorry, Colonel,’ Reeves said.

  A Colonel. That didn’t bode well. High ranking officers were drafted into Enforce positions where they could be of service to the state, or they were allowed to set up private security firms like the one Roach pretended to work for. It was unusual for Mole Town to have anyone above Major. If he was a Colonel, and he had enough medals to be, he was too psychotic to be put to use anywhere.

  ‘What brings you to Mole Town?’ he said.

  ‘Your excellent cuisine?’ I said.

  ‘Try again.’

  Reeves and the soldier next to him were chattering again, a third man had turned round to look at something.

  ‘Well, it’s a very long story,’ I said.

  ‘Reeves, will you pipe down,’ the Colonel said.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Reeves said, moving to the front of the group. ‘It’s just that, well, look.’ He held a small plastic model of Lola.

  ‘It’s a toy, man, a child’s toy,’ the Colonel said.

  ‘No, sir,’ Reeves said. ‘With all due respect.’

  ‘No?’ the Colonel said. ‘No?’

  ‘No, it’s her,’ Reeves pointed at Lola.

  ‘And this one,’ another soldier said, pointing at Casino. ‘Is that one there.’

  ‘And this big guy with the book, is that one there,’ another soldier said. They’d all got a figure in their hands.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ the Colonel said. ‘They don’t look anything like these toys.’

  ‘They’re not toys, sir,’ Reeves said. ‘They’re action figures.’

  The Colonel was looking very confused.

  ‘Do you have one of me?’ Minos said.

  There was some rummaging around in pockets and much shaking of heads.

  ‘No,’ Reeves said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Minos stood in a pool of flame that waltzed around his feet.

  There was a gasp of utter awe which gave way to delirious applause, the soldier with the mini Minos received everyone’s congratulations.

  ‘Ten-shun,’ shouted the Colonel and everyone fell into line in an instant. Even Casino. ‘Right, someone explain to me what is going on.’

  ‘It’s them,’ a small soldier said. ‘The Vanguard.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Reeves said, pointing at me. ‘But who are you?’

  Typical.

  The shale and gravel rose and flew outwards in a growing circle across the ground, like the shockwave from a small atomic bomb that had gone off under my feet. It was a very pleasing effect, very dramatic. The wave of stones fell like hail against the walls of the tunnel, the soldiers looked at me and then took a step backwards, a couple even took their caps off. They were stunned into silence.

  ‘Show off,’ Casino said.

  ‘Why have they recognised us?’ I said in Roach’s ear, so they couldn’t hear me.

  ‘Maybe it’s about time somebody did,’ he said.

  Mole Town was nothing like the Mole Town I’d heard about. It was a little top heavy on disturbed and violent men marching about and shouting but it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, nor as isolated as we’d been led to believe. We were big in Mole Town. Cramp, Reeves’s sidekick, was the biggest fan, he had all the figures and all the comics. He had even done some of his own drawings which were a little graphic and violent for my taste. The Colonel, or Steve, was still very confused but a pint or three of lethal homebrew soon focused his mind and Cramp filled him in on all our imaginary exploits. We did a few party tricks until Lola said she felt thought-
sick, which was like being seasick but you couldn’t get medication for it. Half an hour later, word had spread and almost the whole of Mole Town had crammed itself into the tunnel outside the Green Fusiliers Mess Hall and we soon found ourselves paraded down to the Death Watch encampment to meet the Mayor of Mole Town. Steve came with us to handle the introductions and Cramp came too. I’m not sure what he was supposed to handle but as long as it wasn’t me I decided to stay relaxed about our new friends.

  ‘Are they up to anything I wouldn’t like?’ I said to Lola. She’d given her red band to a soldier called Trigger, who was of the demographic Marshall had mentioned. She assured us that she didn’t need it anymore. She was in better control. We were all in better control, more adept somehow, except Minos and me and our temper problems.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They seem genuine enough. Although I wouldn’t spend more than a minute alone with any of them, if you know what I mean. Nor Casino.’

  The Mayor of Mole Town was taller than Roach. Roach had never met anyone taller than him and looked up at the Mayor in a mixture of amazement and gratitude as we stood outside the Mayor’s official tented residence before the rank and file.

  ‘I love you guys,’ the Mayor said at typical Mole Town volume, deafening us. ‘Your latest cartoon is awesome. You give them golden-haired freaks a sound pasting and I salute you all for that.’

  ‘That is community-sourced content,’ Casino said. ‘Our official content is specifically non-political.’

  ‘Are you on a mission right now?’ the Mayor said to me, despite being rather reluctant to adhere to the hierarchy.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Can you tell us about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a little clue?’

  There was a great deal of murmuring from the crowd and I felt encouraged to give them a clue. It wasn’t intimidating, not quite, but I didn’t want us on the wrong side of the massed ranks of Mole Town.

  ‘We’re going to the old parliament building, to paste some more golden-haired freaks,’ I said in the end.

  A cheer went up.

  ‘Step into my office,’ the Mayor said. ‘We may be of some use.’

  We stepped inside. The tent smelt of old socks and sweat. Casino was about to sit down in a folding chair but then thought better of it. We all stood to attention.

  ‘What are they doing at the House?’ the Mayor said. He was not forthcoming about his actual name. ‘They have no business in our great democratic seat. They are not worthy.’

  ‘Who is?’ I said.

  ‘True,’ he said. ‘But you have more right to be there than them. Hell, I have more right to be there than them.’

  ‘True,’ Roach said.

  ‘You need any help, soldier?’ the Mayor said to Roach. ‘I’ve got ten thousand men down here, just waiting to do some quality pasting.’

  Roach looked at me. I was tempted to leave him to it, a little relieved the Mayor had reverted to type. He was one of those men who still, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary, couldn’t imagine that speaking to a woman would ever be productive.

  ‘No, we’re fine,’ I said.

  ‘Let me show you something,’ the Mayor said.

  He led us through a flap in the back of the tent and down a dark tunnel which ended in a dead end. Everyone was tense, not bothering to act cool any more, we were watching Lola’s face for a hint.

  ‘A door?’ she said. ‘Where?’

  The Mayor got a torch out of one of his many pockets and shone its beam on a rusty metal door handle that had been hidden in the shadows. ‘Leads to our stores,’ he said.

  He unlocked the door and pulled on a long chain. Lights flickered on and we were standing at one end of an enormous store room, you could have kept the huge New Europan aeroplane in there. We followed the Mayor down through the main aisle, passed food, clothes, everything you could need and plenty of it.

  ‘We’ve got suppliers up top,’ the Mayor said. ‘We’ve got everything you’ve got. Even this.’

  We were at the other end of the room now before another door. Lola, who was getting a thought-preview of everything, looked most surprised. The Mayor unlocked the door and inside were about twenty narrow beds with a couple of bedrolls laid on the floor. They were all hooked up to a games server. It was a crude set up but a quick inspection revealed that it was functional and gave them access to an illegal gaming house run by one of Massey’s rivals. I looked around at the men lying on the beds and on the floors, they twitched once in a while but otherwise looked lifeless.

  ‘I don’t suppose they’re playing the Vanguard,’ I said.

  ‘They are,’ the Mayor said.

  ‘Is there a child link?’ Minos said.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A child link.’

  ‘Let me get Archie,’ the Mayor said. ‘He’s in charge of the stores.’

  Archie looked like a small teenager, he had a fuzzy top lip that I suspected he was very proud of and a spotty forehead that I bet he wasn’t so keen on. He almost threw himself to his knees when he recognised us. He couldn’t keep his eyes still, they would slide over to Lola then he would blush and look somewhere else, then they slid back again. It was only a matter of time before they dropped out of his head all together, too exhausted to carry on. He was much younger than the flood. Some of the others, now that I thought about it, were younger than me too. They must have joined up in Mole Town. I couldn’t imagine that, signing up to live underground in the dark. It was obvious it was tough down there. They might have done a good job of showing off for us but there were darker alleys that smelt like graves. There were still those stories that I couldn’t stand to hear all the way through. I shuddered at the thought of what he must have run away from for that to be an improvement. And things were about to get worse if Rowling and her masters had their way.

  ‘Child link, Archie, is there one?’ the Mayor said.

  ‘No, sir,’ Archie said.

  ‘Don’t tell me, man, these people want to know. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Tell them,’ Lola said, pointing to me and Minos.

  Archie looked relieved. He was too sweet and too young to be starting on Lola. She’d chew him up and spit him before her first course. He wouldn’t even be the starter.

  ‘There was a child link but I broke it,’ Archie said. ‘It only let me because I use Handmade’s server as a proxy, otherwise it was pretty robust.’

  ‘Handmade?’ Roach said.

  ‘Massey’s nemesis,’ I said.

  ‘We’re too far from Massey,’ said Archie. ‘I’m sorry. I tried, I really did. He’s awesome.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Handmade pinched Massey’s girlfriend, her business dealings are another matter.’

  ‘This child link,’ Minos said. ‘What did it do exactly?’

  ‘Well, it fed information into the game but it used the gamers interface to do it. I didn’t like that, it was telling the boys what to do, so I disabled it.’

  ‘Did you really get rid of it?’ Minos said. ‘All of it?’

  ‘I deleted it completely, Sir,’ Archie said. ‘It’s no longer in Handmade’s system at all.’

  ‘Nice work,’ I said. Handmade’s system was one of the biggest illegal ones and, unlike Massey, she had enough technical knowledge to supply other houses. The child link had been taken out of the chain and Imagination Industries, or whoever it was, wouldn’t be able to feed those gamers. They might still get the data out but there was nothing we could do about that, it was the point of the games and the whole system was built on that premise. But now the game and all its players were free from any unwanted input. The vast majority of the underclass gamers were operating outside of the system, they were left to their own collective devices. It was very nice work.

  ‘I thought to myself, what would the Vanguard think about that and what would they do,’ Archie said. ‘And I did it.’

  ‘Like I t
old you,’ the Mayor said. ‘I have ten thousand men here who will follow you. Isn’t that right, Archie?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. To the death.’

  ‘Because of the game?’ Casino said.

  ‘No, because of them up there and their administration and their golden-haired freaks. Games and toys got nothing to do with it. It’s the idea of it, it’s not right and we’ve taken too much,’ said Archie. ‘Sorry, Sir. I interrupted.’

  ‘Well, we’re in no position to ask people to follow us,’ I said with as much finality as I could manage. It wasn’t up for discussion. ‘We don’t have a plan beyond getting to the building and stopping this ceremony. Not for getting out, not for what we do next. I wouldn’t follow us.’

  ‘It’s not up to you,’ the Mayor said. ‘It’s up to them.’

  ‘I get people killed,’ I said.

  ‘In my experience, people get themselves killed,’ the Mayor said. ‘And I bet I’ve got more experience than a slip of lassie like you.’

  An alarm went off and we located Minos as the source.

  ‘We need to get moving,’ he said, consulting the old wrist watch. ‘We’re on a tight schedule here.’

  ‘You need supplies,’ the Mayor said. ‘You’ll be going underwater and I don’t see any scuba gear.’

  ‘Scuba gear,’ Casino slapped his forehead. ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’

  ‘You have it?’ the Mayor said. ‘Is he being sarcastic?’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ I said. ‘And no, we don’t.’

  ‘That’s OK. You had to come through here and we’ve got it,’ the Mayor said.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ I said to Archie who’d opened his mouth.

  ‘Say what?’ Roach said.

  ‘That it’s like a game,’ I said. ‘That we’re passing through the levels.’

  ‘I thought you were the mind reader,’ the Mayor said to Lola.

  We hurried around the storeroom getting kitted out. We accepted scuba gear but declined camouflage face paint, much to Casino’s disappointment.

  ‘That will only work in the jungle,’ Minos said. ‘Not in an ancient seat of parliament.’

  ‘We’ll take you to Fawkes Gate,’ the Mayor said. ‘It will be an honour.’

  ‘You leave us there though,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Waistband,’ Lola said.

  I felt for his gun and thought-slipped it out of his trousers and into my hand before he could move. I thought-rattled the knife in his boot and gave him a friendly smile. ‘I would decide now, if I were you.’

  The Mayor grinned. ‘All right. You can handle it. But we’ll be waiting for word from you, for as long as we need to.’

  We marched down the tunnels with about fifty soldiers of fortune. Well, they marched and we kind of half jogged in among them. They could get up to quite impressive speeds, they must have been drafting like I did on the bike. It wasn’t long until we found the edge of the water. By the time we reached the Gate it was knee high. Every so often I could feel something brush against my ankles, but I decided it would be better not to think about it too much. Archie got everyone’s autographs on the way and we were saluted with great ceremony a few metres from the gate.

  ‘We’ll have to blow it open, it’s rusted shut,’ said Cramp, after an awkward moment where a few soldiers hovered around us not sure how to ask us to move us out of the way of all the plastic explosives.

  The heavy latch on the door complained as it opened itself, sliding back with a shower of rust.

  ‘Or you could just use your super telekinesis and open it that way,’ Cramp led the cheers.

  ‘We’ll be seeing you, I’m sure,’ the Colonel said as we stepped into the blackness beyond the gate. It slammed shut behind us and we stood, for a moment in utter darkness.

  We checked our maps, once Minos had lit the torches Mole Town supplied, and figured we had about half a mile to go until we reached the cellars. It was difficult to work out just where we’d hit the deep water. I wasn’t looking forward to being in a narrow tunnel filled with water despite assurances from various soldiers in Mole Town about how it would all be fine.

  ‘What is that smell?’ Roach said.

  ‘It’s the stink of years of corruption soaked into the brick and mortar,’ Casino grinned.

  ‘It’s this water,’ Minos said. ‘I’m sure things keep nibbling at me.’

  ‘It burns a little, don’t you find?’ Lola said.

  The passageway we were following went down in a slight decline until we were waist deep in water with our bags on our heads. It was around then the complaining started.

  ‘So, let me get this straight. You are saying that we should have stolen an Enforce helicopter and landed it on the roof?’ Minos said.

  ‘Yes,’ Casino said.

  ‘And, ignoring for a moment the obviousness of our arrival, you can fly a helicopter?’

  ‘No, but Sorcha could make it move, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘There, why didn’t we do that?’ Casino said.

  ‘Because it’s entirely outside our comfort zone,’ Lola said. ‘Flying about in helicopters powered by thought alone. We’re more the creeping around in dark, submerged tunnels types.’

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ Casino said. ‘I have sensitive skin.’

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Roach said.

  We all listened with our heads tilted to one side, as though that helped. I could hear voices and the occasional fuzzy crackle of a radio receiver.

  ‘Enforce,’ Minos said. ‘There’s an opening up ahead, they must be standing guard in there.’

  ‘Can we go round them?’ Lola said.

  ‘No,’ Minos showed her the map. ‘We have to go through them.’

  I experimented with a small wave of water, pushing it down the passageway the way we’d come. Once I’d established that I could make a wall of water from floor to ceiling the plan fell into place.

  ‘Could you do that all the way there?’ Minos said. ‘Then we wouldn’t need to put all this gear on, or nearly drown.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, not even convincing myself. ‘But where would the water end up?’

  Casino disappeared and followed the wall of dark water as it moved toward the Enforce unit, with us at a safer distance behind. The wave crashed into the room soaking everyone. As we arrived they were sprawled on the floor spluttering, up to their necks in water. The water began to separate like it was in rewind. It moved back to the water behind us, leaving the room dry. Our clothes dried as droplets were sucked back to the passageway to fall like rain. The water stood in a wall in the doorway. A pale fish swam up the edge and stared out as though it were in a tank before swimming away. An invisible Casino pulled up an assault rifle from the hand of one of them as they tried to scramble to their feet. He swung it into the face of the baffled officer who went down again, out cold. A small, fair-haired officer who was a little sharper than the others went for his gun, it lay near him on the sandy floor. I expected it to fail after its dunking but Roach had the sense to push me out of the way and a bullet hit the wall. A handful of the dry sand from the floor flew into the officer’s eyes and he staggered into the path of Roach’s martial arts kick.

  ‘Who’s next?’ Minos said, holding a small ball of flames in his hand.

  The three officers dropped to their knees and put their hands on their heads.

  ‘As if we’re going to fall for that,’ Lola said. ‘Left inside pocket, Casino.’

  The first officer looked on in dumb shock as his jacket opened and a hand gun slipped out of his pocket of its own accord.

  ‘Waistband and inside his right boot,’ Lola said.

  Again the man was relieved of his weapons. By the time we got to the third one he had a wild look in his eyes and a long knife in his hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t do anything stupid if I were you,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll kill all of you,�
�� he said.

  His jacket pulled itself up over his head and down over his face, twisting itself into a knot around his neck. Roach knocked him out with another kick to the side of his head. Casino reappeared.

  ‘Right, you two. You’ve got two choices,’ Minos rolled the ball of flames around the front and the back of his hand in a merry dance. ‘You can get up and run down that passage where you’ll get a bit wet and bump into the Black Watch. Or you can stay here with us.’

  I stepped aside to clear the path to the passageway and they fought each other for the right to get out of the door first and fastest.

  ‘How did they make it do that?’ Lola said. She pushed a finger into the wall of water and pulled it out again. The water stayed where it was. It looked as though a sheet of glass or plastic were holding it back but there was nothing there, just obedient water.

  ‘Magic,’ Minos said. ‘Do we dump the scuba gear?’

  We ended up having to vote but we elected to leave it. We tied the three unconscious officers to each other with their belts, Minos melting the buckles with a precise heat so they couldn’t free themselves without a lengthy struggle. We threw all the weapons into the water, having removed all the ammunition. The radio unit suggested there were other similar units dotted around but not many and none on our route. We soon found out why.

  The Galearii was sitting on the stone steps that lead up to the cellars and into the House proper. We’d sent Casino ahead on reconnaissance and he took Lola as close as he could so she could see what the angel was thinking.

  ‘It’s not thinking anything,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing?’ Roach said.

  ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘So maybe they don’t think,’ Casino said.

  ‘Well, that’s no good is it?’ Lola said. ‘What use am I?’

  We made supportive noises. ‘It can’t see the invisible, can it?’ Minos said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Casino said.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘Well, it might be pretending,’ Casino said.

  ‘We could just hit it over the head,’ Roach said.

  ‘Shall I creep up on it and hit it over the head then?’ Casino said. ‘There are bits of wood and stuff in there. I could easily find something to bash it with.’

  ‘Yes, why don’t you do that,’ I said. ‘Hit it really hard though.’

  We moved toward the room and its meditative Galearii. Casino disappeared and we watched footprints appearing in the sand as he walked away.

  ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ Roach said, pointing at them.

  ‘A little help here,’ Casino’s voice rose above a lot of crashing and banging that didn’t sound very encouraging.

  We ran to his assistance. He was nowhere to be seen but the Galearii was clinging onto something for dear life - Casino’s waist, it looked like. Minos threw a fireball at the Galearii’s head and its hair caught fire for a moment, long enough for it to let go of Casino. The angel stood up and straightened its suit jacket and checked the knot of its tie. It bowed a little, from the waist, to Roach and then approached. Roach dodged its first kick but his block to the Galearii’s right hand as it flew toward him allowed the Galearii to pull him off balance. It was fast. Roach fell to the floor and Minos threw another fireball, it hit the Galearii in the temple then fell to the ground in a shower of ash. Minos tried again and again but the angel seemed unperturbed. It burnt but it didn’t seem to hurt it. The Galearii pulled its knife from a scabbard inside its jacket, just under its arm. It slashed at the air with it and shouted something.

  ‘Never,’ Roach said, but then the angel had him around the throat and Roach’s face was soon swollen with the effort to breath.

  A short plank of dry, splintered wood hit the Galearii around the head, it shattered into shards of sawdust and Casino appeared as the angel reached up from where it knelt on the ground and slashed Casino in the side. Casino disappeared as he crumpled. The Galearii’s expensive silk tie began to twist towards the ceiling, up and up it snaked, dragging the angel up after it. The tie knotted itself around a pipe running from the top of one wall to the opposite wall and the Galearii hung there, choking.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. I had no desire to stay there while it either freed itself or died. I couldn’t decide which would be worse.