“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.