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Christie, Lewis Carroll, or Harriet Tubman. I will never again mention Joan of Arc, Vincent van Gogh, Sir Isaac Newton, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, or the great Paganini. Done. Finished. My lips are zipped.” The old man looks really pleased with himself and then gestures with his walking stick. “Proceed. Lead on.”
    I go, “I thought
you
knew the way.”
    He shrugs. “This is your mission. Have you a plan?”
    â€œYou know I don’t.”
    â€œAh,” he says. “Then may I suggest we travel by the Pipe?”
    Like I mentioned before, the Pipe runs out to the edge of the known world, and keeps on going. They say it runs all the way into the Badlands, where the radiation will rot your bones. But what I didn’t know until Ryter tells me is that parts of the Pipe branch off and run between the latches.
    â€œAll part of the greatest water supply system ever devised,” he says, leading us under the ruins of the giant pipe, which is supported by crumbling concrete pylons. “A masterpiece of hydraulic engineering,” he says. “It would still be functional, except the main source of water dried up after the Big Shake. They tried various other solutions for a century or so, at enormous expense, but nothing worked out, and in the long run it fell into disrepair.”
    He loves to rattle on with all his backtimer talk, and I’m willing to listen if he can really help me find Bean. And he’s right about the Pipe. I have to help him climb up the side of the pylon because the old iron stairs are partly rusted away, and when we get to the Pipe itself, you can see where one of the access panels has been unbolted.
    â€œThere,” says Ryter. “Whew! I was a much younger man the last time I climbed this high. Go on, check it out.”
    I slip through the opening. There’s plenty of room to stand up inside, if you don’t mind being ankle deep in smelly old rainwater. Shafts of light come through where bolts have rusted out, and it makes the whole Pipe look shot full of bullet holes. “Hey!” I shout, and my voice sounds like it echoes all the way to the next latch.
    Ryter crawls into the Pipe and sits panting, out of breath.
    â€œYou’ll never make it,” I tell him. “We’ve got miles and miles to go.”
    â€œI’ll make it,” he gasps. “I’ve got a book to finish.”
    I stare at him huddled there, his frayed leggings soaking up the puddle of rainwater. “No one cares about your old book!” I tell him. “Let’s go.”
    â€œRight,” he says, using his walking stick to get himself standing.
    â€œReady?” I say, feeling bad for yelling at the old gummy.
    â€œReady as I’ll ever be.” He looks around and seems to like what he sees. “By the Edge we travel, son. By the Edge we live or die.”
    He makes everything sound so noble and grand, but the truth is we’re a couple of nobodies hiding inside a rusty old water pipe. Just us and the pale rats that scurry ahead. We slop along in the dead water for a while and then we come to a part that’s dry underfoot, which is easier going. Ryter is breathing better now and he looks stronger than I would have thought possible.
    Maybe he’ll make it after all.
    â€œSeven miles, more or less,” he says, keeping up with me. “That’ll bring us to the next latch.”
    â€œYou’ve done this before?” I ask.
    â€œOh yes,” he says. “Years ago. Certain people took a dislike to me and I thought it best to move along. Many refugees used the Pipe in those days, to move around the city. Now it seems to have been forgotten, like so many other things.”
    We plod on. There’s nowhere to go but straight ahead. Small red eyes watch us, keeping their distance. I’m not afraid of rats, not while I’m awake. Sleeping, that’s different. They say a rat will eat your