A bell chimed softly and a small gate in the wall lifted. Rakkim pulled a tray out of the auto-waiter, set it on the table in the compartment. Lunch was beef bourguignonne, sourdough rolls, and green salad. Full-size, heavy silverware. English china plates. Linen napkins monogrammed with the crest of the Canadian Rail System. He had ordered a vanilla milk shake in a cold-pak for Leo, in case he woke up later, and another strawberry malt for himself.

He lifted the silver lid off the plate, inhaled the fragrant steam.

Leo sat up. Yawned. “That smells good.” He rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”

Rakkim put his fork down. “Canada. Just past Calgary. Are you…really awake?”

“What are we doing in Canada?”

Rakkim waited for him to lie back down and drift off again.

“What do you keep looking at me for?” Leo slid the plate of beef bourguignonne closer, picked up Rakkim’s fork. “Did you already tell me why we’re in Canada?”

“We’re going home.”

Leo stuck a chunk of beef into his mouth. “What if I don’t want to go home?”

Rakkim put a hand on Leo’s arm, stopped the fork halfway. “Leo, do you have any idea what’s happened?”

Leo shook his head. “All I know is I’m on a train in Canada and I’m really, really hungry.”

Rakkim let Leo eat, the kid gobbling down the beef stew until it was all gone, sopping up the remains with the sourdough rolls. He left the wine and the salad untouched.

“I’m smarter too.” Leo removed the vanilla milk shake from the cold-pak, flipped up the straw. “Smarter than anybody’s ever been, I bet.”

“You’ve been asleep for the last three days,” said Rakkim.

Leo gave up on the straw, spooned up the milk shake. “Processing. Not sleeping, processing. Big difference.” He chased down some errant crumbs with his pinkie, plopped them in his mouth. “Where’s the hafnium isotope?”

“The canister? It’s gone.”

“Not the canister, the isotope.” Leo looked back at the auto-waiter. “Can you order me some more food?”

“It’s all gone. The canister and everything in it.”

Leo knocked over the glass of wine. Didn’t seem to notice. “That’s bad.”

Rakkim tossed a napkin on the spilled wine. “I know.”

“You don’t know.” Leo blinked rapidly. “Without…without the hafnium isotope, all…all…all the information from the computer cores is useless. It would take years to refine more-”

“It’s worse than that. Baby and Gravenholtz took the canister. Probably sold it to the Chinese. They have everything-”

“They don’t have everything.” Leo stood up. Ran a hand through his wild hair. “I have to pee.”

Just as Rakkim was about to knock on the door, see if Leo was okay, the kid came out. He walked over to the auto-waiter, scrolled through the menu.

“What did you mean, Baby and Gravenholtz didn’t have everything?”

“Have you had the fried chicken? I kind of got hooked on that stuff-Hey! Lay off.”

“I asked you a question,” said Rakkim.

Leo rubbed his arm. “You should learn to appreciate me.” He punched in his food order. The computer beeped: sorry, unavailable. Leo snorted, accessed the main control panel as his fingers flew over the touchscreen: order received. He turned to Rakkim. “I think a little respect is in order, that’s all. I mean, I did my job.”

“I said Baby and Gravenholtz had the canister.” Rakkim picked up the fork, spun it around two fingers. “You said they didn’t have everything.” He pressed his fingers together, bent the fork in half. “So, Leo…this is the time for you to use that big brain of yours, look into my eyes, and tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Sure.” Leo nodded. “No need to get all macho opera about…okay, okay. Gravenholtz and Baby have the isotope, which is a huge loss for us, granted, but without the data on the cores, they can’t make a hafnium bomb. The isotope might as well be cat litter.”

“I told you, they have the cores.”

Leo handed Rakkim the fork. “Could you straighten this out for me, please?” Leo waited. “They’ve got the cores, but they don’t have the data on the cores.” He beamed. “I changed all the critical formulations while I downloaded them. The data is so tangled up they’ll never be able to untie it.”

The auto-waiter chimed.

Leo jumped up, retrieved his double order of fried chicken.

“You…encrypted the data while you were downloading it?” said Rakkim.

“Not exactly encrypted it, quite a bit more secure than that actually, but in your terms…yes.” Leo crunched into a fried chicken leg. “I’m good. I’m even better than my dad thought.”

“You’ve been in a coma for the last three days. That’s how good you are.”

Leo wiped grease off his chin. “I’m not perfect. Yet.”

Rakkim watched him eat. “So, it’s a draw. We can’t use the information in your head without the isotope, and the isotope is useless without your information.”

“That’s what I said.”

“So, it’s a stalemate?”

Leo gnawed at a thigh, the fried skin crackling off in chunks. “I despise a stalemate. That’s for gutless grand masters afraid to lose. It’s an insult to the game. I really wish you had been able to hang on to the isotope. No offense.”

Rakkim glanced at his watch. He’d have to message Sarah at their next stop so she could update the president with the good news.

“What about Mr. Moseby?” said Leo.

“He had a rough time, but he’s going to be okay-”

“I don’t mean that. I mean what did he think of me? Was he impressed?” He licked his fingers. A bit of chicken was stuck to the corner of his mouth. “I intend to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, so I hope I made a good impression.”

“Oh, yeah. He was…just totally…overwhelmed.”

Leo grinned, head bobbing. “I get that a lot.”

Rakkim watched him. “Leo…are you really okay?”

“I’m way beyond okay.” Leo belched. Reached for a chicken wing. “I heard these two guys talking back at the Colonel’s camp…they said the best aphrodisiac in the world is where you beat a raw egg into a lukewarm Coca-Cola.” He gestured with the chicken wing. “Got to be a fertile egg and a lukewarm Coke. Then you eat a raw oyster and wash it down with the egg’n’Coke and wango. They didn’t say aphrodisiac, of course. They said ‘blue-steel hard-on,’ but-”

“Kid, the last thing you need is an aphrodisiac.”

“I wasn’t talking about me.” Leo slid his teeth over the wing, stripped the meat away in one smooth movement. “I meant you. I’m not even at my sexual peak yet, but you, I mean you got to be over thirty years old.” He chewed with his mouth open. “Fedayeen, big deal, you’re still on the downward slope.”

Rakkim smiled at him. “Just one raw egg in the Coke?”

“That’s all it takes. According to these two guys.” Leo peered out the window, watched the barren landscape whip past. “I’ve been thinking about Baby. She…she was really something, wasn’t she?”

Rakkim remembered the last time he had seen her, Baby pulling Gravenholtz into the chopper, her face lit up, triumphant.

“I think she liked you,” said Leo. “I think maybe you kind of liked her too.” He drew an intricate geometric figure on the glass with his fingertip. “I notice things, Rikki. People think I don’t see what’s going on, but I do.”

“Baby’s beautiful. So is a cobra. I wouldn’t want to take either of them to bed.”

Leo shook his head, continued with his drawing, one of those multi-sided shapes that Leanne had made out of paper. “The problem isn’t that I noticed, Rikki. That problem is that she noticed too.”

Rakkim stayed silent for a few miles, listening to the whoosh of air as the train raced on. “Leo?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What happens when the Chinese realize the data cores are useless?”

“It might take them a while,” said Leo, making minute additions to the geometric figure he had drawn on the window.

“But when they do?”

Leo looked over at Rakkim. “Well…they’ll probably be annoyed at Baby and Mr. Gravenholtz.”