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Alvin stared straight at the sky above for a moment before sitting up. Within two seconds, Alvin glanced into the eyes of each of them and decided it was enough. “You guys gotta get out of here. Really. You guys all gotta go! Drive! Go, Go, GO!”

Everybody scrambled for the Thumper without ceremony, kicking sand and heavy metallic dust behind them as they ran. The goodbye was over and it was time to go. Casper looked back once before he pulled himself into the Thumper's hatch. Alvin looked hazy and a little blurred, but Casper saw he was smiling. He tried to smile too as Caine pushed him into the hatch and kept him from falling back out, when the Thumper began to climb the dune and accelerate.

Alvin thought, I feel good for the first time in a long time. Too bad it won't last... Alvin was pretty sure they could hold off the explosion for another couple of minutes, but he was glad he hadn't wasted their precious escape time on the goodbyes he hated. He was glad Casper saw him smiling before he left, though.

Alvin heard spitting to his left. When he looked, he saw the chromium-sand-covered face of Padre Pedro fifteen feet away, down the side of the dune. They'd left him in their rush to escape, and Alvin thought that was pretty damn funny, since he was the one who'd rushed them off. The Padre rose to his knees. His hands were bound but he could still walk. He stood and began to stumble up the dune towards Alvin. He had murder in his eyes. Alvin sat in the sand next to the shiny metal bomb, tethered by the five-foot-long data-cable ponytail that ran off the back of the neural-interface cap. When Padre Pedro approached him, Alvin forgot about the interface and stood up to run. He felt a tug on the skullcap from the cable. Realizing he must be at the edge of the ponytail's reach, he tried to stop moving and grab it with his short arms, but the skullcap slid off the back of his head before he could stop it.

It fell to the ground.

The first thing Alvin noticed was that a whole second had passed and the bomb hadn't detonated.

The second thing he noticed was that Padre Pedro was kicking him.

Padre Pedro's first kick knocked him a few feet. Alvin felt a jab in his side like a cracked rib must have broken, and the broken rib was stabbing something. The pain brought him to the ground when he ran, and from his hands and knees he turned to see Pedro almost upon him again. This should do it, Alvin thought.

Then he was distracted by a sound he'd heard earlier in Hi-5's limo.

It was a snarling, guttural growl that came from deep down inside something very unhealthy, vicious, and most of all, hungry. Red eyes and mange and foaming jaws with blackened teeth all hurled themselves through the air as the fastest Dune Dog in its pack hit Padre Pedro in the side of his chest with all its weight. The two of them tumbled down the dune. Alvin watched Pedro, his wrists still bound behind him, being torn by snapping jaws as he and the hell hound rolled down the dune together. At the bottom of the dune was a whole pack. They ripped at the screaming Padre Pedro's flesh, and they barked and tore at each other as they fought for the still shrieking meal.

Alvin didn't watch any longer. He ignored the pain and ran. He didn't know why the Big Baby Bomb hadn't gone off yet, but he was still alive, and for the first time in a long time he wanted to stay that way. When he ran over the top of the dune and suddenly fell and rolled down the other side, he was amazed that it was faster than running. He could still hear the dogs as the world spun around in circles framed by a piece of orange bedsheet that still smelled like girl.