Geometrically impossible was her living situation. The walls began to remodel, windows showing signs of wear one would assume had remained there ages ago. Sayuri felt no rush to find a safe bush, or hide underneath something bothersome. At the time, she was the sole owner of the place. The ark evacuated a fortnight ago, perhaps children and women first, perhaps the bribing had done their deeds.

She remained clean.

“So calm, you are.”

She made no motion to acknowledge the accusation.

“You have three hours,” he said. “It’s starting to download.”

Three hours.

He stood on top the remains of a postal office, permanently erasing its second letter. First of the six marks, touched by long, piano fingers. Hair, curly – destroyed.

Was it always like this? Sayuri thought. No, it couldn’t have been.

Tyki refused to admit she could instantly dismantle the contrapposto pose he was assuming. So he assumed it, of course.

“Are you going to say bye-bye?” he jeered.

She gave him a faint smile. “No,” she said, “I’m not.”

“Oh?”

The Noah inhaled, this time letting the ash sit in his mouth for longer than usual.

“Join me, then?”

More than the allowed number of meters separated them, through her eyes. It seemed for a moment her laziness would win over the actual distance; but then, the floor beneath her split in half, vaulting her toward the debris. She landed on the second letter hidden by Tyki’s foot. Must be bad luck. He smirked, lifting her chin with the tip of his shoe.

“How are the rest doing?” she managed to ask. It took months, no – years – before she perfected her recovery time. Years of association, much less than three hours.

“Fine, fine,” he laughed. “Road misses me, that bastard sister. I’ve written her twenty-some letters and she still demands extra correspondence. What is a brother to do?”

“Comply.”

He leapt down a level, to where she stood.

“And how would I do that?”

“Fold your letters in each other, one at a time.”

“Show me,” he demanded. He kept his voice soft.

Sayuri laughed.

“Paper?”

Tyki reached into his inner coat pocket and produced a thick deck of cards. He claimed a quarter, then threw the slice like an accordion into his other palm. The cards materialized as parchment while they were traveling.

“Enough?” he asked, extending the favor.

Sayuri reached, but found it suddenly jerked back.

“Just a second,” Tyki said, bitterly humorous. “I have to make you promise something first.”

As much as they tried, his eyes failed under her hold. She knew where he was going. The same long, piano fingers curled around a key in his other inner pocket. Maybe hair, curly – unprotective. He grabbed her neck.

“Tyki,” she insisted.

He slowly pushed the key into her mouth.

“Take the nearest exit,” he said.

Sayuri’s eyes widened. Tyki’s fingers were still over her lips. “Promise me, you’ll take the nearest exit.”

Would I dare do such a thing? she remembered asking herself.

“You’re thinking otherwise,” he said. “You’re thinking of breaking my heart.”

Sayuri closed herself.

“I know you are,” Tyki’s voice grew in anger. “You’re thinking of subversion!”

The girl took his hand away and removed the key from her mouth.

“You knew my decision even before you came.”

A terrible crunching noise echoed from the far horizon. Tyki checked his internal caliber; thirty-seven percent complete. Time remaining: two hours, twelve minutes, fifty-five seconds.

“If it’s truly subversion,” she said, “you are at fault, too.”

“You – “

“– Initiated the download yourself,” Sayuri stated.

“I was joking!”

“Then why is the perimeter virtually annihilated? Why does it continue to be eaten?”

Tyki resisted the urge to plunge a thousand butterflies into her chest.

“So you would rather prove me wrong,” he said, “than survive.”

“Absolutely.”

Tyki laughed derisively. “Say what you will.”

The wind picked up, flaring his coat. He turned around, preparing to leave her to crawl her way out. So what if she got cut a few times while walking? The door was easy to find. If she was smart, she would chose a more difficult path that enabled her to travel over the mess.

Sayuri glanced down. It was hard to examine the key in her hands. They were tiny, it was tiny – simultaneous tinyness deceived even the best. She set it on the rock, she herself bending down for a closer look. Something crunched in her pocket. Matches: a good dozen and half left, one of them now snapped. Birthday present last month, from Tyki. They’ll light without fire, he told her. Just be careful lighting them.

She trusted they lit without fire. The broken one will have to go first, no point in using the others when one was already gone. Just like this, Tyki had said when he traced her arm against air. The surface is not there, but it will light.

Sayuri flicked. It stung her twice as hard. Tyki was not supporting her hand this time – in fact, he didn’t support her at all, but she still held on tightly; any looser and she was in danger of dropping it on the wrong place. Sayuri knelt down again and set the key aflame.

Immediately, Tyki jumped.

“The key!” he yelled. “What are you doing with the key!”

“It’s melting,” she explained.

Tyki looked at her disbelievingly, as if his entire life had been an exercise in duplicity. He couldnt’ve left her alone for two seconds to come back to a key now curling obediently under violet. Two seconds!

He took his foot – yes, the same foot that hid the letter, kissed her chin – and stamped the key. The world smelled like burnt rubber.

“That won’t work,” Sayuri said calmly. “I placed the match on the ridges first. The most important part is deformed.”

“I can make another one.”

“I have seventeen matches left.”

“I can make more keys than you have matches.”

“Your matches regenerate.”

“I can disable them.”

“They’re mine now.”

“I can create time.”

“Only your sister can.”

“No,” said Tyki. “You’re right.”

He pulled her to the streets, near a curb marked red for no parking. A lamp was sputtering moths above them. Tyki snapped his fingers, and the glow immediately vanished.

“Sit down,” he patted the concrete next to him.

Sayuri sat.

“Let’s watch this,” he said. He opened his coat and threw out all his weapons: fresh lychee, to coax her – now just a refreshment; a plastic knife that resembled too much like a real, platinum one; several bowls of different sizes, all nested within one other.

“Do you remember the trick I showed you in cutting lychees?”

“Yes.”

Sayuri picked up the knife unquestioningly and trimmed, placing skin in one bowl and meat in another. She was an old hand, even to new utensils. Tyki watched, playfully malicious – but in a way – satisfied with her performance, attempting to flip over her hard work.

“I can smell that rubber a mile away,” she scolded.

“Here,” he said, taking the knife from her. “You start eating, I’ll do the boring shit.”

She held a bulb to the sun to sample the fishbowl effect. Another building exploded around the sliver of the fruit, then climax, then dust. Tyki reached over to eat the lychee she was holding.

“No fair,” she laughed.

“Yes fair,” Tyki said. He fed her one of his, which was always better-tasting.

For once, he did not play owner. This time, he was the one who made the extra effort to lean toward her, the extra effort to be closer, all his weight pinpointed into his right wrist, which remained dirty and refused to touch fruit. He propped his left foot up to convince himself even more that he should be out of character, because there was little time left to stay in.

Sayuri, on the other hand, maintained her distance, perhaps out of courtesy. Her words never sounded desperate; why would her actions? Life had treated her well during her days on Earth. It was a matter of taste, not decision, that governed the ark.

She looked at the bowl of lychee.

Tyki looked at her.

She didn’t notice.

She was not pretending, like she had often done on many dates before, pretending to not notice that she was being adored. No, she was watching the collisions plummet and recede, waves sometimes eating the beach and sometimes, deciding it was better off blowing up some other boba tea hut.

“Don’t make me work,” Tyki said, reminding her he existed.

Sayuri crawled closer obediently.

Now within arms reach, he draped his arm over her shoulders and remained there.

One hour, forty-five minutes.

Nine seconds.

“Eight,” murmured Sayuri.

“You’re half asleep,” Tyki whispered.

“Okay,” she agreed.

After a moment’s consideration, she asked, “Are you?”

“No.”

“What do you want to do for the rest of your life, Tyki?”

Tyki didn’t respond. He was busy not pretending, watching collisions clean the radius now twenty strides away from them. Was that a pizza parlor now just in flames? Must have been his favorite, because one of Road’s old mary-janes still stood in the way of a chair leg. And what is this? Kimiko’s Nail Salon? Lulubell’s hideout, more than once, of course. A manicure from Kimiko’s, Tyki remembered fondly, could dissuade the Earl from lashing out at his children. What a promiscuous bitch. But he loved them all nonetheless.

He looked down at Sayuri, now fully dreaming.

Who was she? Did he meet her yesterday? Last week? He couldn’t be sure. Was she human? Yes, she was human. When was she born? Yesterday? Last week? When did she die?

Another blast. The deletion was now licking its way through a cow field, full of not cows, but uneaten grass. He looked down at Sayuri again, her image slightly fuzzy. Maybe he should shake her?

No, he thought.

The ark began to settle, now moving into the eye of the hurricane. Road was at the balcony, or maybe indoors behind a tall oak window; who could tell. The Earl was wrapping up a classic again, this time Tolstoy’s Smert Ivana Ilyicha, feet warmed by the everblazing fireplace. Skin, he took to himself triple helpings of leftover ice cream, no doubt awaiting later a few kicks and screams from his sister.

A tree began to collapse, sinking to the ground. Tyki felt a pang of anger that he did not carve his initials there before it left. No protest. None at all. The entire ark was still on a pair of tracks.

Jasdevit, the twins… his mind wandered, still paying attention to the crumbling ark… Jasdevit was probably playing a game of chess against themselves… Devit letting Jasdero win to avoid hurting his feelings… Jasdero finding other reasons to throw a tantrum anyway. Lulu, getting a mammogram, hah; no, she was napping, curled at the feet of the Earl and tail wrapped around a pan of milk. And Tyki, himself.

He closed his eyes as well, merely listening now to buildings being reduced to dust.

By morning, he woke and stood up, brushing sawdust off his pants.

“The new ark is complete,” the Earl said, somehow magically in his bedroom.

“I am aware.”

Tyki walked past his master, changing from Noah to White through the doors.

Time was up.