399 landed the flycycle on the small causeway over the riverwater. It had already started it's late-afternoon glow, showing it's potent poisonness. Pelza was staggering when he helped her off the cycle. He left the lights on the bike glowing. The lights had mostly failed when that explosion they heard rumble through the ground shook the building. Pelza wrinkled her nose in disgust, "God! What a smell! Makes my lungs hurt. Is that the river?" 399 nodded. "Yes. The river is poisonous from noon to midnight. You know, 'from twelve to twelve, it's a breath of hell' and of course,'River show green, it's killer mean'. All those old adages....?" Pelza shook her head. "Never heard them in the Dome. Dome 231, at least. That's over in the foothills of the Rimmer Highlands, at the edge of the plateau." 399 looked surprised. "That's over by Kruag's Scav-kingdom at Shalmiraine, isn't it?" He was very curious about that area. She looked woozy and irritable and spat out, "We have NO truck with highlanders! All that scum can burn! They leave us alone, but I've heard stories of they deprivations and perversions!" "Shut up and save your breath, you dizzy girl! You don't have any good sense!" Jin laid on the cool stone next to the river, and her head was killing her from the carbon-dioxide build-up. She didn't want this stupid girl shouting, too. Pelza snarled, "I should put you out of your misery, plague-carrier! We don't need a red-howler popping up here." 399 snarled at Pelza and growled in a low voice, "You need to cool down. She is the one-eyed wanderer! Like out of the Holy Book. She's had the Blight for a decade! A decade! No one else has ever lasted a year. You either die in a week or two tops, go 'Red-howler' or get over it ten percent of the time. This woman is a fighter. Don't you touch her." She looked surprised. "Such passion from a Scav! Why?" "I respect strength of will like that. Everyone speaks of the 'strength of the damned' when they talk of the Blight. If she has that, it is balanced by the 'might of angels' in her will." He sounded sincere. Jin had to laugh, in spite of herself. "I'm a devil. I deserve my fate. Don't admire the walking damned! You don't know me. You don't. My girl's been gone a long time. So's your friend, 5---something or the other. Maybe they ran off together?" She tried to make a joke out it and failed. Her head hurt so much. "518! He wouldn't abandon us. Period! I'm going to use the flycycle's radio to try to contact help, if I can. We're under a lot of stone here." 399 was angry at the weakness of the humans with him and worried about his friend. 518 would never abandon him. IF he was still alive. Pelza waved a hand and sank against the wall and slid to the floor. "Do what you want, you Scav. I don't care. Leave us here to die. That'd be best. To die and not feel again." Tears ran down her face in hopeless despair. She lost her husband, and now soon her life. It was just, she thought. "YOU NEVER GIVE UP! Ever! Never give out, never give in, never give up!" Jin shouted at the surprised girl. Pelza gasped and stared at Jin with new eyes. Pelza remarked with a tremor in her voice, "You--you sounded just like my mother then!" Jin frowned and laid back down. "It's called a 'deja vu'. It's a common phrase. Now... save your breath." Jin turned away from the girl and prayed under her breath that Toxic was safe. Media is Vue 5 easel and Poser 6