Perhaps the most distressing thing about flying Frank Airlines, apart from the sound of screws and rivets falling out of the wings during takeoff, is the paper-thin depth of all the walls, so that when Tiger George puts on his charm and invites a couple stewardesses into the athroom for a footwashing/suckling session, the resulting sounds echo throughout the plane, and Tiger is kinda a loud guy, and it certainly isn't doing mych for the disposition od Dbauler, achingly hung over, desperately waiting for the non-existant drink cart (he'll later have to go up to the cockpit and buy shots off the pilot in order to heal his aching brain), and actively fending off Yara and Gerald's questions about what Tiger knows, why they need to find Qu'ael, what's the deal with the machine, until Dbauler begins screaming, inhuman screaming, and does not stop until even the sound of toesucking from the bathroom is silenced.

"Listen. I will tell you, but you have to understand this is making my brain break into pieces in order to explain. Qu'ael has the rest of Seven Dogeater's memories. This is important, because Seven Dogeater is dead. He has beed dead for five years. We have continued to use his name, continued to take his role as necessary, because he had connections to things we coudl never reach otherwise. He was given a narrative disease after someone he cared about was attacked. and he tried to fix it and couldn't, and he tried to fix himself and couldn't, and so he blew his head off. This is apoc. I know of all this because I have a secret name, and that name is Asrael."

twice-held, coverover, culmination of spiritus. i can see. there are patterns emerging from null spirit. strange constellations in strange skies. i was once in the sky, but i do not remember now because they have done something to me or i have done something to me i do not know. climb up. let out of my brand new skin. there in the sky. there is a place for me to return where all is well. she is there now. she is moving from the trees. i cannot explain. i have lost my way.

"We are re-remembering things in order to appease the dead. As has been necessary, we have moved certain things into motion in order to fit with these creations, but we are discovering what Seven knew even then, that there is no such thing. there is a core beneath these things, and we play as children in thinking we can change patterns, wipe away what we find wrong. I do not remember, I remember nothing, but Qu'ael remembers. He remembers how he and the others used the names of the dead on board free station julia in order to...we, we were using them as they used us, I can't, I..."

In the woods, people walk from the trees, soft-lit, moving as though being pulled from the shoulders, their toes dragging through branches and leaves. One can taste water in the air. Qu'ael is shaking, shivering, like a dying child, like bone-broken agony. There is blood in the corners of his eyes. at the apex of the ossuary, light enters through a hole, a fontanel, and the motion of full-belly clouds sends shadows over Qu'ael and his prayers. Celestial machinery fills the area, and processes these dreams, these visions. there should be movement here. there should be the parting of bone, wherein claire enters the ossuary, and she presses onto the sides of Qu'ael's skull. One should be able to hear a slight crack. There is a seeping as certain angelic spirits enter into Qu'ael, and the movement of his body sends arcs of light outward, slipping through the fingers of Claire's hands. The forrest should be filled with the ghosts of dead priests, medics, patients. There should be a slow, low hum which rushes through the trees, which sinks into the earth. There should be a stiffness to the moving of Qu'ael's head, left, off-center, at which point there should be a dispersal, information runs off his skin, out and away. There are signals which should be sent upward, in teh direction of strange stars. Qu'ael should feel himself empty, his body go light. Claire's feet should then lift up off the ground, and carry Qu'ael upward, through the hole in the ossuary, the bones of which begin to pull apart and spill up into the sky. There should be a birthing of pure clarity as the ghosts begin to faint and fade and lift, and the sky should be filled with this light, until the Real parts and opens, and the convergence of this truth upon the earth should flood us, the final code now completed, and all shoudl enter and thus become one with this light, this finality, this end of time.

This is what should happen.

"We knew, we knew about Harvey, about the alien intelligences, about everything. We were all sent to Richter-Goldberg, where we were tested by the Doctors, over and over, they recorded our voices and played them back distorted, saying what we never said. They drugged us, they made us do, do horrible things. And before we finally left, before I was dismissed from service and the others went up into the satellite, we all kept using Seven's name, collecting his memories, because..."

"What? What is it?"

"Yara...I'm not sure this is my real body."

But that is not what happens.

"FREEZE! FEDERAL AGENT! DO NOT MOVE A FUCKING MUSCLE!"

There is a gun pressed against the side of Qu'ael's head. The forrest is filled with the squalk of walkie-talkies and the shush-shush of nylon jackets and slacks. Qu'ael holds up his hands, covered in blood, and asks, in a near-silent voice, for a little more time, there is almost a connection made. The officer pushes Qu'ale to the ground and cracks him in the back of the skull with the butt of the gun, but this barely even fazes Qu'ael, who begins to scream, finally realizing what is taking place. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The officer hits him again, and Qu'ael begins to cry some, and his screaming chokes on his sobs. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The officer handcuffs Qu'ael and pulls him backwards, out of the ossuary, while Qu'ael kicks at his hands, and at the bones, which splinter off and away, until finally the ossuary begins to tilt, left, right, and descends upon the two of them. Qu'ael pulls up and back and leaps like a diver up through bone, out towards the grass, where he tries to run and is tackled by two other officers, one of whom puts a taser in his mouth. Qu'ael screams. He screams and scream and screams.

"I'm...I'm not understanding what it is you're saying..." says Gerald, but Dbauler has lost himself and fallen into a fitful sleep, and for now, there is no waking him.