Rumy’s cell phone-- no, RIKK’s cell phone-- rang out.

   She picked it up. "Hai-- Hello?"

"Hey, babe," came Alisin’s brisk voice. The soundtrack to Honkytonk Bebop was playing behind her. "Just wanted t’remind y’t’pick up the jelly tonight. Not that I didn’ like last night’s little improv... I’m corruptin’ y’more an’ more by th’ day, you know that... but th’ novelty of jelly substitute’s worn off, right n..."

   "I may be a bit late getting home," Rumy improvised. "There’s a... Will’s having a gun-dart, dartgun fight over here, and I, it would not be cool to disappoint him. Uh... ciao!"

   She beeped off the receiver and looked at Rikk. "I’m sorry. I forgive you."

   Rikk’s smile spread easily across his borrowed face. "It’s cool." He grinned. "Word up."

   Rumy looked into the eyes... her eyes... and almost faltered. She’d never seen that forgiving smile on her own face, not after a lifetime of looking in the mirror... but why hadn’t she? Why had she always thought she’d needed to see that smile on someone else’s face, instead?

   I’m free, she thought again. Somewhere, in the furthest corner of her mind, there was a tiny responding thought that began with but. But Rumy did not examine it.

   "I need to go," she said suddenly, looking away, breaking contact. "Out. Walking. Outside."

   "It’s raining..." said Katherine.

   "Cool," said Rumy, walking swiftly... she had mastered the legs at last... up the basement steps. "Good. Beauty."

   She was almost out the door before Katherine had a chance to react. "Right," she said, unconsciously wiggling her ears as she tried to think faster. "I’m going after her. This is the kind of situation you called me in to handle. Will, stay here and make sure that ‘Turning Japanese’ here doesn’t fall into any cursed springs. Tim, get that contraption fixed yesterday."

   "Well, it was fixed yesterday..."

   Katherine was out the door, and into the physics lab. She passed some confused-looking OSHA inspectors who were bent over the gas nozzles, and headed to the outside campus.

   Outside, Rikk-- no no no, Rumy-- was skipping. Skipping and laughing. He (she, bless it, SHE) fell into a puddle of autumn leaves and laughed the louder, piling them onto her/his chest and making Rikk’s body a human wheelbarrow.

   Katherine weighed what she knew about Rumy...

   ...and came to the only sane conclusion.

   "She’s snapped."