Amanda didn't get to meet Billy for another two weeks. We never went to The Other alone again, and twice we went to the arena to look for them, but we never found our new gang. Of course,that's exactly when you won't find them, it turns out. We had given up, and gone to the arena merely to shop when the girl with the stringy hair found us, her gun in Amanda's back.

"Let's go," she said, and we walked to the back of the arena. Amanda started to protest, but stopped when she saw my face. She already knew there was no point.

We saw the others, and Billy was in the back of the group. He looked at me, nodded slightly,and turned and left. Two other boys, one the size of a heavyweight wrestler, followed him away.

"What's with you guys?" Amanda demanded.

"Aw, sit down, stop making such a big deal," a girl with blindingly white hair said to her, and we sat.

"Hungry?" a skinny boy of maybe eleven years old asked us.

"No," Amanda said to him, sharply, "We'd like some answers."

"I'm assuming you've joined us too, otherwise you wouldn't be here," said the stringy-haired girl.

"She has," I quickly answered for her. "Though we would like to know more about your gang,what you stand for."

"We're not a gang!" the girl spat, stomping away into the main part of the arena.

Everyone watched her go. "She's moody like that, blow her off," suggested the skinny boy,so we did.

"What did you wanna know about us?" the girl with the white hair asked. That's all we needed to hear. Sometimes gangs want you to know as little as possible. They may act and look like a gang in a lot of ways, but in a way they seem more like a group of friends. Except for Billy. He was a gang.

The white-haired girl's name was Bridget. The skinny boy was Henry, and he was only twelve. I thought about how I could have become part of this at twelve, and it made my skin crawl.

"Billy found me two years ago, near downtown," Briget explained. "I had never been there,of course, and I'd always wondered about it. Then there was only Billy, Steve, and Nigel."

We didn't ask who they were. It didn't seem as important as the information she was providing.

"He said the same to me as he said to you. That I could join him or die." She laughed. "Joining him sounded like the best option. He has taught me everything I know about this time, as well as real time, though I haven't been to real time in months."

"Explain that to me," I jumped in, "Why do you people refer to this as time?'"

"Oh Billy knows more about that than anyone. He says that this is just the real world, sped up. Like see that kid over there?" She pointed to a child suspended in the act of picking his nose. "He's on the same thing as us, but his time is going much slower. We're moving around so fast that no one in real time can see us. Billy says that if you wait about six months, you could watch that kid blink. I've been here nearly that long this time, and that kid hasn't moved. I'm kinda attached to him. I stare at him for hours sometimes. Once I put a plate of baked beans on his head and watched him all night. Kit saw and laughed her ass off. That's Kit, the one with the mood." She pointed off in the direction the stringy-haired girl had gone.

"So you don't go home? What about your parents, your friends?" Amanda asked.

"See, that's just it," she smiled. "According to everyone else, I'm in bed asleep. I've been gone from my bed for almost as much time as it takes to blink. My parents will be asleep for another eight hours, real time, so I could grow old and die in here and they would never know the difference."

"But don't you miss them?" I asked her, "Don't you miss the other world?"

"Yeah," she said, very quietly. "But it hurt so bad the last time I was there, I don't think I could go back. Billy says it could kill me."

Amanda looked at me, and I knew what she was thinking. The headaches. Hers had gotten really bad lately, and mine had just begun. I thought that we would eventually get trapped here, just like Briget.

"Who else can't go back?" I asked her in a quiet tone. "Who else can't leave this place?"

"Well, so far it's only Nigel, Billy and me," she said.

"I bet I only have two or three more times to go back," Henry piped in, startling Amanda and I. "My head hurts really bad when I go back, but I think I can handle it for awhile. You just have to pick the best times, come in on a really good day so you can really enjoy it, keep going back. Right now my dad and I are in line to ride a roller coaster at the fair by the North Base. I'm only wearing a Protector vest, cause the security's so tight there. It's a really good time. I came back in a few day sago cause I couldn't stand the pain anymore. I think I'll wait another couple of weeks, then go back for as long as I can. I guess I'll just keep flipping back and forth until I can't do it anymore."

My shocked glance went from Henry's face to Amanda's. I couldn't believe he could be so matter-of-fact about it. I felt like going over to him and hugging him.

Amanda turned to Bridget. "Why is Billy in charge? Why is anyone in charge at all, for that matter?"

"It's bad here, you don't even know," she said. "If it wasn't for Billy and all his paranoia, I'd be dead right now. We all would. There's a guy out there. He calls himself The Man. I've never seen him, only Billy and Nigel have, but they describe him to us sometimes to put the fear back in us when we get too comfortable. Billy used to be friends with him. They came to this time about seven years ago, and met in here. Billy says he's crazy, that he wants to use this side to train people, kids, to kill others on the outside. What's funny is, neither Billy or The Man can ever leave again. Billy says to call him Stan, cause that's his name, but we still call him The Man. Steve started calling him that. The Man will kill us if he ever finds us, because we won't go along with him. Because we're with Billy."

She paused. "Steve's dead, by the way."

The tone of her voice told us it would be better not to ask about Steve.

"And if you told him you would go along with him," I mused, "You could go back, but then never return here. And if you stayed there, the headaches would at least ruin your life, if not kill you."

"Exactly," Bridget said.

"But why train people here? Why not just do it out there?" Amanda asked.

"Because in here there's no police, no parents, no Classes, no worries about time or what your enemies are doing. In here you can train people to go back right in the middle of your enemy's territory, right downtown if you wanted to. The Man sends kids back to die, but he trains them to take as many rivals with them as they can."

"God, this used to be such a perfect place," I muttered.

"You sound like my father," Bridget said with a sigh.

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