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I protested: "Orson, the kids--we don’t even know if they’re alive!"

"They’re alive," Roosevelt said

"We don’t know"

"We know"

I turned to Sasha for support "Are you as crazy as the rest of the, but the pity in her eyes was so terrible that I had to look away froht as friends can get, that ere brothers in all but blood, as close as identical twins She knew that a part ofan emptiness even she would never fill She saw , anything, if she could have saved Bobby, but she could do nothing In her helplessness, I saw my own helplessness, which I couldn’t bear to conteaze to the cat For an instant I wanted to stoojerrie, crush the life out of hi here I had asked Sasha if she was as crazy as the rest of the out, shattered by even the prospect of losing Bobby

With a lurch, the elevator started down

Bobby groaned

I said, "Please, Bobby"

"Kahuna," he reminded me

"You’re not Kahuna, you kak"

His voice was thin, shaky: "Pia thinks I a airhead"

"Don’t dis my woman, bro"

We stopped on the seventh and final level

The doors opened on darkness But it wasn’t that view of starry space, ht, I led the others out of the elevator, into a cold, dank vestibule

Down here, the oscillating electronic hum was muffled, almost inaudible

We put Bobby on his back, to the left of the elevator doors We laid him on my jacket and Sasha’s, to insulate him from the concrete asand temporarily disabled the elevator, so it would be here e returned Of course, if ti the elevator with it, we’d have to climb

Bobby couldn’t climb And we could never carry him up a service ladder, not in his condition

Don’t think about it Ghosts can’t hurt you if you don’t fear thes won’t happen if you don’t think theie emptied stuff out of the backpack With Roosevelt’s help, he folded the e his lower body at least slightly, though not enough

When I put the flashlight at Bobby’s side, he said, "I’ll probably be way safer in the dark, bro Light "

"You switch it off before you leave," he said "I can’t"

When I took his hand, I was shocked at the weakness of his grip He literally didn’t have the strength to handle the flashlight

There was no point leaving hiun for self-defense

I didn’t knohat to say to him I had never been seriously speechless with Bobby before I see inht "Infrared goggles Israeli ht"

"What for?"

"So they won’t see us coot the kids and Orson"

I stared at Doogie Sass from Mars

Bobby’s teeth chattered when he said, "The dude’s a ballrooht train passing overhead, and the floor shook under us Gradually, the sound dio," Sasha said

She, Doogie, and Roosevelt earing goggles, with the lenses against their foreheads rather than over their eyes

Bobby had closed his eyes

Frightened, I said, "Hey"

"Hey," he replied, looking at ain

"Listen, if you die onof the asoles"

He smiled "Don’t worry Wouldn’t want to take the title away from you, bro"