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"Yeah, I got myself an IQ of 155 Did you know that, Fry? A'course not--hoould you know?" Then he hesitates "It went down a few points, though, on account the accident I was on ot hit by some damfoo' in a Mercedes" He points to a scar on the side of his head "What a mess Splattered--y'knoas nearly roadkill It turned ht temporal lobe into Jell-O" He shivers as he thinks about it, then shrugs "But brain dae ain't a problem like it used to be They just replace the brain tissue and you're good as new My dads even paid off the surgeon so I'd get an entire te a buncha brain bits, like people are supposed to get"
Lev knows about that His sister Cara has epilepsy, so they replaced a small part of her brain with a hundred tiny brain bits It took care of the problem, and she didn't seem any worse for it It had never occurred to Lev where those tiny pieces of brain tissue ht have come from
"See, brain bits work okay, but they don't work great," CyFi explains "It's like puttin' spackle over a hole in a wall No ood So le donor But that kid wasn't as smart as me He wasn't no dummy, but he didn't have the I 55 The last brain scan put me at 130 That's in the top 5 percent of the population, and still considered genius Just not with a capital G What's your IQ?" he asks Lev "Are you a dihs "I don't know My parents don't believe in intelligence scans It's kind of a religious thing Everyone's equal in Cod's eyes and all that"
"Oh--you coood look at hi you?"
Although Lev doesn't want to get into it, he figures CyFi is the only friend he's got Might as well tell him the truth "I'm a tithe"
CyFi looks at him with eyes all wide, like Lev just told him he was God himself
"Damn! So you all holy and stuff?"
"Not any nothing for a while They walk along the tracks The railroad ties change froravel on the side of the tracks now seems better maintained
"We just crossed the state line," CyFi says
Lev would ask him which state they've crossed into, but he doesn't want to sound stupid
Any spot where e, there's a little two-story shack standing there like a displaced lighthouse A railroad switch house There are plenty of the this stretch of the line, and these are the places Lev and CyFi find shelter each night
"Aren't you afraid someone from the railroads'll find us here?" Lev asks as they approach one of the sorry-looking structures
"Nah--they ain't used anymore," CyFi tells him "The whole system's automated--been that way for years, but it costs too ure nature will eventually tear them down for free"
The switch house is padlocked, but a padlock is only as strong as the door it's on--and this door had been routed by-terle kick rips the padlock hasp from the wood, and the door flies inward to a shower of dust and dead spiders
Upstairs is an eight-by-eight roo CyFi has an expensive-looking winter coat that keeps hiht Lev only has a puffy fiberfill jacket that he stole from a chair at the mall the other day
CyFi had turned his nose up when he saw Lev take that jacket, just before they left the ot class, you don't steal what you need, you get other people to give it to you of their own free will-- just like I did back at that Chinese place It's all about being s smooth You'll learn"
Lev's stolen jacket is white, and he hates it All his life he'd hite--a pristine absence of color that defined hi it
They eat well that night--thanks to Lev, who finally had his own survivalist brainstor trains
"I ain't eatin' no track-kill!" CyFi insisted when Lev had suggested it "Those things coulda been rottin' out here for weeks, for all we know"
"No," Lev told him "Here's e do: We walk a feweach dead critter with a stick Then, when the next train co we find that's notidea on the surface, but it was really no different froine
They build a small fire beside the switch house and dine on roast rabbit and arht it would In the end, meat is meat, and barbecue does for aras-bash!!" CyFi decides to call this hunting method as they eat "That's what I call creative probleenius after all, Fry"
It feels good to have Cy's approval
"Hey, is today Thursday?" says Lev, just realizing "I think it's Thanksgiving!"
"Well, Fry, we're alive That's plenty to be thankful for"
That night, up in the s question "Why'd your parents tithe you, Fry?"
One of the good things about being with CyFi is that he talks about hi to think about his own life Except, of course, when Cy asks Lev answers hi to be asleep--and if there's one thing he knows CyFi can't stand, it's silence, so he fills it himself
"Were you a storked baby? Is that it? They didn't want you in the first place, and couldn't wait to get rid of you?"