When Kris had said he was going to ring Thant, Kai had not expected him to find a payphone to do so.  It made him feel very conspicuous as he loitered, since Kris had asked him more or less to keep watch.  Kai reckoned he was being a bit paranoid, since there hadn’t been anybody suspicious around ever since they’d stopped in Paris, but he supposed that shutting oneself in a glass cubicle barely bigger than your own body did sort of leave you a bit on the trapped and vulnerable side.

It still didn’t stop him looking like a teenage delinquent as he tried to camouflage himself against a tree in his dark blue hoodie and jeans and pretend he didn’t exist.  The street was a sleepy one, but there were still a few people out and about who eyed him warily as they edged passed, and he’d scuffed his toe against the paving so much already that he was a bit worried the toe of his brand new sneakers was going to wear through.

He wondered idly what Gina was up to.  She’d probably like Paris – the French version of the city, that was.  She’d mentioned wanting to go there several times.  As the daughter of a mob boss who also had once had a respectable side in society that covered for the rot underneath, she actually had a passport.  Going to Paris for real wasn’t something Kai could even have contemplated, as an orphaned street vagrant.  Not until Myungsoo and Thant had picked him up.  He actually had a passport now.  Official government documentation.  If he wanted to go to Paris, he could.  Just not with Gina.  She probably wouldn’t particularly want to go with him, anyway.

She’d said that when he turned sixteen, they should spend a weekend together in New York.  Kai hadn’t been that taken by the idea, since he’d been to New York a few times on jobs and hadn’t found it as amazing as Gina seemed to think it was (possibly because he spent a fair amount of the time keeping out of the way of police), but he’d nodded along and put up with the suggestion because it was Gina and because she was so animated when she talked about it.  Hair tumbling in waves over her shoulder, she described the view from the Empire State Building, which she’d been up once when she was very small, and painted an idyllic picture of walking through Central Park, and then gushed about shopping, her hands gesturing wildly as she described the malls she remembered and all the money they’d be able to spent.  (Kai had to agree with her on the money.  They had a lot of cash they could blow.)

“All right, kiddo, we need to scramble if we’re going to reach Davenport by nine for this drop.”

Kai jumped, unaware that Kris had finished his call and snuck up on him.  He hastily straightened up and brushed some imaginary dirt off the thighs of his jeans.  Kris looked him up and down.

“Would you even have noticed if there was somebody on the other side about?” he demanded.

Kai didn’t bother answering, in part because he knew the answer was no (he’d been daydreaming too much) and in part because he knew Kris wouldn’t believe him if he lied.  He trailed him meekly back to the car.

“What did Thant say?” he asked when they were both belted up and Kris was pulling back out onto the road.  Kris subjected him to a long glance sideways as they almost immediately pulled up at a red light, but after what looked like an internal battle with himself, he decided that Kai might as well know.

“They’re going to make the drop as quick as possible,” he said, “in part because we’re hoping speed will mean the wrong people don’t catch up on it in time to stop us, which is why we’re not even going to attempt it in Chicago.  We’re getting a new car and thirty thousand bucks or so because Thant says they still have no leads on the weeding process and so we could have to fend for ourselves for a couple of weeks before the bureau’s actually able to help us.  That’s all they can do at short notice.”

It sounded pretty decent to Kai, and so he settled back in his seat for the journey.

They were a while along the I-57 before Kris began to make conversation.

“So, kiddo,” he said, shifting awkwardly in his seat and sounding just as awkward as the sudden silence that filled the car between them was.  “Tell me about yourself.”

Kai stared at him for several long moments, wondering if he’d lost his head.

“I thought you got given my file,” he said after a moment or two.

“Well, yeah,” admitted Kris, “but we’re going to be stuck together for a while whether we like it or not, so we should probably get to know each other a bit better.”

Kai concluded that Kris was not very good at the whole interaction thing.

“I like dumplings and random facts,” he said.  Kris nodded, humming as though Kai had told him something absolutely fascinating.

“And why’s that?” he asked with a little bit too much curiosity injected into his voice.

Kai eyed him for a few seconds.  “Dumplings taste good and I had fact wars with Myungsoo.  They were always fun.”

Kris’s eyebrow twitched as if he wasn’t totally sure how anybody could find random facts fun, but he nodded again.

“How do you like your dumplings?” he asked.

“Cooked.”

There was a pause as Kris’s lips twitched, and then he let out a single snort of laughter.

“Any random facts about dumplings?” he asked.

Myungsoo was the expert on that one, but Kai offered up a piece of knowledge he figured Kris probably wouldn’t know.

“In India, there’s a sweet type of dumpling called a modak which looks kind of like a Hershey’s kiss,” he said.  “I’ve never tried one, but Myungsoo says they’re good.”

Kris nodded yet again.  It was weird that he was being amenable about anything, and Kai found himself fiddling with the safety catch of the gun, for lack of something to do.

“Now you owe me a fact,” he blurted out, unable to help himself.  “That’s the way the fact wars work.”

Kris contemplated for a moment or two.  “I was born on the kitchen floor because my mum was home alone and couldn’t get to hospital on time.”

Power to your mum, Kai thought.  “It has to be a general fact,” he told Kris bossily.  “And you can’t say one I’ve said or that you’ve already said, and if you say one I already know, you have to say another one and I get a point.”

“Abraham Lincoln founded the security service the day he was assassinated,” Kris said after a moment or two.

“Already knew that.  They were originally there to help fraud prevention and prevent counterfeiting.”

Kris frowned.  “Siri will tell you a story if you ask it to.”

Kai blinked, taken aback.  “What, seriously?”

“I would say try on my iPhone, but I need to keep it off so I won’t be tracked.”  Kris paused, as if hesitant to divulge the next piece of information.  “Siri will also beatbox if you ask, but be warned: it is horrible.”

“Amazing,” breathed Kai, making a mental note to try both as soon as it was safe to do so.

The next couple of hours passed easily enough.  Talking to Kris didn’t get any less awkward or weird, and he wasn’t as good at Myungsoo was at the fun facts, but it was a much better way to pass the time than in silence while Kai struggled to read a road map, and he did have one or two good facts up his sleeve, even if he was still adapting to the (very simple) rules of the game.  He wasn’t very good at keeping them going strictly in turns, Kai soon discovered, preferring instead to give Kai a barrage of them all at once, particularly if he led off with one Kai already knew.

At some point, Kai drifted off to sleep, only to wake up to streetlights since they’d hit a built-up area.  The windscreen wipers were going and Kris was looking rather annoyed at the weather.

“When we cross the Mississippi River,” he said, “we turn right, and we are looking for a hotel on the waterfront.  We stay long enough for me to go into the hotel bar, swap car keys with the contact and grab the money, and then we leave in the new car.  It’s best for you to unpack our stuff from this car while I’m inside so we can move the bags over quickly, okay?”

Kai wasn’t completely okay with it, but he figured he didn’t particularly have a choice, and so he agreed.  Still, even if it was only for a short time, he didn’t particularly look forward to being out in the dark and wet.

They followed a particularly slow run of traffic onto a bridge and over the river, the windscreen wipers now working in double time to fend off the rain, and turned right