Vyvyan had been reluctant to be a burden to the Sandersons again, but with his bike shelter cover blown and another storm on the way, he had limited options. He offered to pay them with his reward money when it came through, but they wouldn't hear of it.

"You can do some jobs around the church if you want." Mrs Sanderson suggested. "You can help me make the soup for the soup kitchen on Sunday."

So Vyvyan helped her make soup. Which turned out to be a lot easier than he had thought. Perhaps he'd be able to make some to sell in his new van until ice cream season picked up again.

"Mario, how would you feel about me coming with you to pick out the van tomorrow?" Rev Sanderson suggested, on Sunday evening.

"Why?" Vyvyan asked.

"Car salesmen are notorious for taking advantage, and you may have to sign some paperwork." Rev Sanderson said.

"Oh. Yeah, good point. I mean, if you don't mind." Vyvyan said.

"Not at all."

So the next day, the preacher drove Vyvyan to a reputable car lot. And if they had been planning to cheat Vyvyan, perhaps it put them off.

"I really think you'd benefit from a bathroom, Mario." Rev Sanderson said, although he was trying not to interfere. "And a kitchen too. I mean, I know the hummer is cool, but practically."

"The motorhomes stand out though." Vyvyan said.

"How about this compact little fella?" Rev Sanderson asked. "It's black, and it looks pretty close to a regular van from the outside."

Vyvyan went inside the motorhome and had a look. It was a little bit like a hummer, except with all the useful bits in.

An hour later, he drove his new home off the lot, and parked it in the church car park to go back inside and get his things. The preacher had gone on ahead, and Vyvyan made his way round to the back door.

He was just passing the kitchen window, when something in the corner of his eye made him duck back against the wall. He teleported quickly onto the roof and peeped down through the skylight.

Mr Balowski had a gun pointed at the Rev Sanderson, who had his hands raised up in the air.

"Where is he?" Balowski said.

"Who?"

Balowski took a picture out of his pocket, not dropping the gun down for a moment, and handed it over.

"We're searching for Vyvyan Bastard, better known as Weapon V. He's a dangerous psychopath and a murderer. You and your wife are in grave danger if you're harbouring him."

Vyvyan felt his heart race. He could flee for the van now, but leaving the preacher to potentially be killed by Balowski seemed a terrible act of cowardice. Rev Sanderson stared at the picture hard.

"Sorry son, never seen him before." the preacher said.

"He's been here." Balowski said. "He has trackers on his face. At least six have been registered here. You see the little stars on his face?"

The preacher looked at it very closely.

"Now one of those I have seen."

Vyvyan felt his stomach drop. The preacher went over to a little pot on the sideboard, and pulled the stud out. "It arrived in a box of Holy Water."

"Holy Water?" Balowski asked.

"Yes. So your fugitive is probably where the water was sent from. Do you want this star?"

"No!" Balowski drew his hand back, quickly. "Can you tell me the address, please?"

"I will get it for you if you will put the gun down."

"Oh, yeah, sorry." Balowski lowered the gun. The preacher fetched the address, and Balowski left quickly.

As soon as he was about to step outside, Vyvyan teleported back into the kitchen. The preacher, who had been praying quietly, looked up, then quietly ushered Vyvyan away from the windows.

"I'm sorry, did he hurt you?" Vyvyan asked. "I didn't mean to bring danger to your door, really."

"No, he didn't. And you didn't." The preacher said. "But I saw you appear, just then, so I think it's time for some answers. Starting with who, and if you'll forgive me, what, you are."

Vyvyan hesitated.

"My name is Vyvyan Bastard. I was experimented on against my will by an organisation called CLIFF, and I now have powers I don't fully understand. I'm not a psychopath or a murderer, but when I heal myself with my powers, when I reset, I get less sane. I escaped my minder and now I'm pretty sure if they catch me, they'll kill me."

The preacher listened, paused, and held out the stud.

"And what are these?"

"Tracking chips. When I reset, they grow back somehow. I've been pulling them off and sending them around. Where did you find that one?"

"Believe it or not, it actually did arrive in the box of holy water." the preacher said. "Presumably you generated four more of them after the accident in the storm, and that's what this man tracked."

Vyvyan nodded.

"I think he could still be watching." the preacher said. "How would you feel about staying here another night until we're sure he's gone? And then you teleport into the van, and Mrs Sanderson drive it out of the car park so that he doesn't realise it's yours?"

"Why are you so kind to me?" Vyvyan asked.

"Why not be?" the preacher asked.

Good point. Vyvyan agreed to the plan, hoping that Balowski wouldn't come back in again. They locked the doors.

Before he made his escape the next morning, the preacher handed him a bottle of holy water.

"I'm not sure why, but Mr Balowski appears to be unkeen on this. Take a bottle, in case it's useful."

Vyvyan thanked him again and put it in his bag. They exchanged a brief, slightly awkward hug, before he teleported out to the motorhome to make his escape.

He ended up sleeping in some sort of bicycle rack, a metal box, in the park surrounding Lake Mead. He heated it up with the stove as best he could without getting carbon monoxide poisoning, then closed the door and settled in for a cold night.

It got colder and colder. His sleeping bag was good, but it was still cold. Just as he was beginning to think he couldn't bear it, and that he would have to reset and risk capture, there was a sudden stillness and silence and the wind stopped blowing through the cracks. He snuggled up and rested until morning.

When he tried to open the door, it was jammed. At that point, he realised that the reason it had got warmer was the bike shelter was completely buried in snow. In fact, if it stayed that way, it was almost a pleasant temperature. So although he could have pushed the snow away, he stayed in there for a bit and ate some of his supplies.

A couple of hours later, reading a comic, an odd noise made him stop. It sounded like a child crying. Why was a kid this far out in the snow? It was miles away from any shelter.

"Please, please let me go! I won't tell nobody, if they ask, I'll say I didn't see."

He pushed his way out of the shelter and blinked in the bright light of the snow. There were two men arguing, and a little girl of about six with no coat on. They all turned and looked at him in surprise. One of the men raised a gun, there was a bang, and Vyvyan felt a sharp pain in his arm.

"OI!" he made a jump towards the men, and to their surprise he was suddenly upon them, headbutting them in the face and grabbing the gun.

"Piss off!" he yelled at them. "She didn't see you, she's going home."

The men fled. Vyvyan looked down at his arm, which was bleeding, but a quick peep into his sleeve suggested that the bullet had just nicked his arm. It would heal next time he reset, which he didn't want to do right now with no van and nowhere else to shelter.

"Wow." the little girl said. "Are you a super hero?"

"No." Vyvyan took his coat off, and put it round the girl.

"This smells funny." the girl said.

"Do you want to be cold or not?" Vyvyan asked.

"Not." The girl decided.

"Come on then, let's go back to the road."

She didn't tell him what the men had done, and he didn't ask, not wanting to put her at any more risk. His mind was racing. He had to get this kid somewhere safe, but he couldn't use his powers, and people were bound to ask questions if he turned up with her. She'd obviously been kidnapped, and that would make him a suspect.

When they reached the road, he looked up and down for some signs of where to go.

"What about the call box?" the girl asked.

"Call box?"

"The one the men used."

"Which way?"

The girl pointed to the right, and they went further down the road. Vyvyan dug into his pocket and pulled out some loose change.

"You call your Mom, or someone, tell them where to pick you up. I don't want to be here if the cops turn up, but I'll stay nearby and I won't leave until someone collects you and you give me the thumbs up that it's not another kidnapper."

"Why don't you want to be here? Are you a criminal?"

"No." Vyvyan said. "Bad people want to hurt me too. That's why I'm homeless."

"You could come live in my closet?" the girl said.

"That's very sweet of you, but your Mom would soon smell me." Vyvyan said.

She made the call and came out to tell him that her Dad was on his way with the cops. He climbed up into a tree.

"Remember. Thumbs up to tell me it's a safe person." he said.

"Okay. Thanks Mr Cornetto."

About ten minutes later, a swarm of cop cars appeared in the road. He watched the little girl, who hugged a man in a plain jacket, and then she turned and gave him the thumbs up. He waved to her, jumped out of the tree and teleported as he dropped into a bush. By the time the cops came over to investigate, he was long gone.

Admittedly, Vyvyan had guessed that sitting outside in an ice cream van in a storm was probably a bad idea. But he now had a decent amount of stuff in there, and he didn't want it going missing.

What he hadn't realised was that American storms weren't like the ones you got in London (apart from the flood that reached the second floor of their house.) London storms were generally people whinging about a bit of wind and rain. This was a full on blizzard. Which aside from being uncomfortable, was also bad for selling ice cream.

He was just settling down for a long night when the street lamp came through the window. It happened so quickly, he didn't have time to stop it from clocking him straight in the face.

***

"IT'S A MIRACLE!"

Vyvyan opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of what looked like a church, and a very overexcitable preacher was staring down at him in wonder.

"Child, I dragged you from your truck, and when you came into the House of God, you were cured!" the preacher declared. "Praise the Lord!"

"OH FUCK!" Vyvyan yelled, sitting up.

"Language, my son!" the preacher chastised, gently. "It is a wonderful thing to be a miracle! We must tell everyone!"

"No!" Vyvyan grabbed him by the sleeve. "You mustn't tell anyone!"

"Why not?" the preacher asked.

"Because... because I sell ice cream to a lot of drug addicts." Vyvyan said. "You must have touched drugs on my van, and that's why you saw wounds."

The preacher looked slightly baffled by the explanation. Vyvyan continued.

"Look, I don't deal drugs, I just feed people, but I'll get in trouble if you start blabbing about it."

"You go out of your way to feed the needy, the outcasts of society?" the preacher asked.

Vyvyan looked him in the eye.

"I'm not a good man, vicar. I just sell ice cream and live in a van. Thank you for going out in the blizzard to rescue me, but I'll be fine."

He got up and walked towards the door of the church.

"You can't go out in this! You'll freeze to death!" the preacher insisted. "Please, stay and eat with my wife and I tonight. Spend the night here. We won't tell anyone you are here."

The blizzard raged for two more days. Vyvyan kept a close eye on the windows, checking his van was still there and that there were no signs of CLIFF tracking him down. As the snow died down, he thanked the Reverend Sanderson and tried to give him a handful of coins. But the preacher would not accept them, and clutched Vyvyan's hand as he gave them back.

"Mario, let us help you find somewhere proper to live." he urged. "The winter will only get harder."

"No." Vyvyan said. "I've told you, people want me dead."

"You'll be dead living in that van all winter."

"I'll drive somewhere warmer. It's a big country." Vyvyan said.

His van was half buried when he went out. He lifted it off the ground, as if it were light as a feather, and set it on top of the snow. He looked around, and saw a small child staring at him, dropping half of his snowman on the floor.

He pointed at the child.

"You didn't see nothing. You're on drugs. Drugs!" He got back in the van, which by a true miracle still started, and drove off.

It was only a matter of time before he would reset, that was inevitable. It would only take a lapse in concentration of a second, stepping through a door, maybe even around a corner. And then, Vyvyan was sure, the studs would be back and he would be trackable again.

Which presented three thoughts. Firstly, what was the range of the tracking? If it was satellite, CLIFF would get a hit as soon as he reset. If it was local and using a device carried by Mike, well, they would probably never find him.

Secondly, assuming they did track him, they would still have to catch up with him, so once he reset he would need to move fast. The limit of his teleportation was about a mile at most, less if it was a few days since he reset, and he needed to be able to visualise his destination. He may well be able to outrun them though. But if he needed to be on the move, there was no point in renting an apartment.

Thirdly, if they did catch him, they would kill him.

The obvious answer was a vehicle. So after spending the night in an actual hotel, he took what was left of his savings and shoebox money to the first car dealership he found. He'd had the foresight to get a fake driving licence anyway. Hard to go on the run if you can't drive.

How did the A-Team do it? Big black van that they exploded through things in and plenty of access to helicopters? Well, there was nothing that fancy in his price range, and besides, it was hardly undercover if you went around in a giant black van.

He looked at nondescript white vans. He could drive it, and sleep in it, and that would probably keep him safe.

But then he spotted the ice cream van. A van with a freezer might come in handy for storing food in. Or dead bodies. Hopefully it wouldn't come to dead bodies, though.

An hour later he drove off in the van, with Duster wheeling excitedly across the floor in the back.

A minute after that he remembered that they drive on the right in this country, and they got off to a better start.

He'd picked Las Vegas as his starting point because he'd heard the hotels were cheap. Other than that, he didn't really know where else to go. So the first thing he did was to get gas, a road map, and stock up his freezer with some food. He threw in an actual tub of ice cream and some cones for good measure, and because it was baking hot here. He parked the van and started looking at the map to decide where to go next. Money was going to run out soon, but there was bound to be cash in hand jobs along the way for a guy capable of pushing walls with his bare hands.

Tap tap tap

Vyvyan looks up. Someone is tapping on the window on the side of the van. He opens it. A small child looks up at him.

"What?" he asked.

"Ice cweem pweese!" the small child said, between sucking his thumb and hopping from one leg to the other.

Oh yeah. Crap. Vyvyan dug the tub of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer and the cones, and scooped a handful of the ice cream into the cone out of vision of the child. Should have bought spoons.

"Er... that's a dollar." he said, having no idea what the currency round here is worth. But the kid seemed happy with that, and handed him the grubby quarters, before going off happily licking his ice cream.

Vyvyan looked at the coins.

He drove to the next convenience store and spent the last of his money on five more tubs of ice cream and a spoon. And then he parked next to the playground.

Two hours later, he bought another ten tubs and some sprinkles and sauce.

At the end of the day, he stared at the money in one of the empty tubs. He hadn't counted it yet, but he knew it was about what he made in a week in his last job.

He made one more shopping trip to the shiny new 'Walmart' shop he'd passed nearby, to get a camp bed and a portable TV. He and Duster spent the evening sitting on the camp bed watching television.

This could work.

The town hall is crowded, and people give Vyvyan the usual evil glare as he walks through. It doesn't help that he's reset too recently, after Rick shoved him through a wall, meaning that he's got his usual ghastly odour. Bastard.

"Yes?" the woman behind the counter asks, glaring at him and getting out some air spray.

"I want a copy of my birth certificate please." Vyvyan says.

The woman makes him try and fill in a form, which he struggles with, and show his driving licence.

"Thank you. Four to six weeks." the woman says.

"What? That's no good, I need to know my date of birth." Vyvyan says.

"You don't know your date of birth?" the woman raises an eyebrow.

"I don't care about the day, I just want the year." Vyvyan says.

People behind him begin to snigger. He barely contains the urge to smash the place up. He knows what they're thinking. How can anyone not know their date of birth?

"It should be on your driving licence." the woman says, irritably.

Vyvyan looks at his licence.

"Well it isn't." He says, showing her. "Look. I need to know how old I am."

"You don't know how old you are?" she starts to laugh.

"Yes, what part of that don't you understand, you patronising middle-class shit?" Vyvyan yells.

They throw him out. Of course they throw him out.

He's never had a birthday party, so how is he meant to know when his birthday is? Okay, sure, every now and again as a kid he said it was his birthday, so that people wouldn't realise he didn't know. He knows Mum doesn't know, because he's asked her before. A wave of anger rushes over him. What kind of mother doesn't even know her own son's birthday.

He'd asked Neil and Rick what age they were. Rick had said that was 'a bit personal', which was stupid, and probably meant he didn't know either. Neil had said he was eighteen. Vyvyan knew that wasn't correct. They were at university at least three years before they all got kicked out, and Neil certainly wasn't fifteen when they started. That was how they started the argument that ended up with Rick shoving him through the wall. Great. No chance of getting their security deposit back now.

***

Back in his Milliways Man Cave, he turns on the video camera to update with his latest findings.

"I estimate our ages to be somewhere between twenty one and thirty. My mum is still aging. So are Neil's parents. Whatever this is, it keeps us young.

"Here's what I know so far.

"Something happened to us in our late teens before we turned eighteen. The last age I can remember being before I started university was about fifteen or sixteen. But, I didn't always get my birthday right, so it's possible I didn't lose a whole year. Maybe I just didn't realise I was seventeen.

"I don't remember applying to Scumbag College and the form you have to do it is too complicated for me to fill in. I don't have the qualifications for medical school. So someone got me in there. And someone let me stay.

"Mike keeps telling me to stop asking questions. I think he knows something I don't.

"My mum knows something but she won't say what. She quoted a Cliff Richard song, the Young Ones. Rick called us that once before, when I was about to crash the bus off the cliff..."

He pauses the camera for a moment. Then starts again.

"Something has always bothered me about that bus crash. When I looked up, and saw Cliff Richard on that poster at the side of the road, I couldn't stop. We all stared straight at it. We went straight through the middle, I didn't even brake. Why? Why didn't I brake?"

***

When he steps back into his own world, Neil is cleaning up some of the mess from the broken wall. Mike is home now, and Vyvyan goes up to him.

"Have you got a job yet?"

"Working on it." Mike says.

"Mike, how old are you?" Vyvyan asks. "What year were you born?"

"I'm the same age as you." Mike says. "Why?"

"I don't know how old I am." Vyvyan says. "I'm trying to work some stuff out."

Mike stares at him. Vyvyan goes to his own room, and sits on the horrible tatty bed. It's still better than sleeping on the floor as he was the best part of a year. After about fifteen minutes, he hears a banging noise, and then the record player being turned on.

It's the Young Ones, by Cliff Richard.

He gets up and goes back into the living room. The record player is playing, alone, and someone has hung a sheet on the wall on a washing line attached with two nails. And right in the middle is that same picture, stuck to the sheet with selotape.

Cliff.

A second later, there is a sharp pain in the back of his head, then sudden darkness.

Mike takes the silencer off his gun, and tucks the gun back in his pocket. He pulls the sheet off the wall, blood and all, then picks up Vyvyan, shuts his own eyes, and chucks him back through the doorway into the hallway.

Mike opens his eyes and looks at the unconscious Vyvyan. The bullet wound is already gone. Good. Killing him completely would be a pain, since he's the only one paying any rent at the moment and it takes him ages to get back to a useful state when he dies properly. He gives Vyvyan a prod with his foot.

"Wakey wakey."

Vyvyan opens his eyes and sits up. He's got a banging headache and the first thing he does is to vomit all over the floor.

"Oh nice one, Vyvyan, can't you hold your drink?" Mike asks, watching him carefully. "Neil's not going to thank you for making him clean that up."

Vyvyan takes a breath. What just happened? Is he hung over? He doesn't feel hung over. He feels like he did the time Wilford shot him at point blank range...

And suddenly, he's on his feet. He grabs Mike by the throat, and forces him into the wall.

"You shot me."

"What?"

"You shot me." Vyvyan says. "You tried to make me do a full reset. I was getting close, wasn't I? You know what happened to us."

"No, I don't..." Mike protests.

Vyvyan reaches into his pocket, pulls out the gun, and holds it to Mike's head. "I can do this as many times as it takes."

"All right!" Mike puts his hands up. "I don't know all of it, okay? But I'll tell you what I do know."

Vyvyan lets him go, but keeps the gun. Mike takes a deep breath.

"You're a test subject. We all are." he says. "For immortality. Scumbag College was observing us until the project ended. You're still being tracked but you're not being watched."

"Immortality?" Vyvyan asks.

"Yeah. We're involved with something called the CLinical Institute of Forever Fledglings. CLIFF." Mike says.

"How do you know about this?" Vyvyan asks.

"Because I signed up for it." Mike says. "I wanted to be young and handsome and get all the girls. You three didn't know."

Mike is quiet for a moment, then continues.

"They did me first. They weren't happy with the results, said I didn't have enough powers. They started looking for volunteers but they were struggling. Then Rick's parents approached them, said they'd give their permission if they could make Rick stay their little boy forever. They never told Rick."

"And Neil?" Vyvyan asks.

"His parents signed him up too, in the hope that immortality would keep him safe from himself." Mike says.

"What about me?" Vyvyan asks.

"You were in the gutter. They picked you because nobody would miss you, and then paid your mum off to keep quiet. You were the last one. They succeeded in giving you all the powers they meant to give the four of us, but they didn't bank on you going quite so insane. That's when they put the four of us together. They only agreed to let you loose if I carried the gun just in case."

Vyvyan glances at him. So he was picked because he was disposable. Nice.

"You need to stop asking questions now." Mike says. "You know all you need to."

"Or what?"

"Bloody hell, Vyvyan, they've tried to kill us at least three times." Mike says.

"You tried to kill me tonight." Vyvyan says.

"No I didn't." Mike says. "I'm about the only one who knows how, and I didn't, did I?"

"I'm keeping the gun." Vyvyan says.

"You're not. They find out I'm not capable of neutralising you any more, they'll put both of us down." Mike says. "Permanently. And probably Rick and Neil too."

Vyvyan looks him in the eye, then reluctantly hands over the gun.

"No more questions, right?" Mike says, pleading.

"No more. For now." Vyvyan says. "But if you ever shoot me again, I'll leave you so no girl will ever look at you again."

After talking to Jim, Vyvyan goes home, makes his way straight to his room, and shuts the door.

It's a horrible little room, barely the size of a large cupboard. With only one of them working, it was hard to find anything for four people. He could, of course, have ditched the other three, but something Mike had urged him before had made him decide against it.

They are, as far as they knew, the only four of their kind.

Mike had freaked out when Vyvyan had started trying not to scene change, trying not to reset back to his usual insane self. He'd said whatever was behind their resetting powers, it probably wasn't to be messed with. Vyvyan had been forced to admit that Mike might be right, and had allowed himself to scene change when his powers started to weaken, at very least every couple of weeks, though more often it happened because he forgot to concentrate.

Jim has just made him realise something else.

He was a kid once. Of course he was. They all were. But at some point, he must have stopped being a kid, and become a perpetually resetting young adult. Not only that, but all the super strength, and being basically invulnerable, he didn't have any of those as a child.

If you suddenly developed superpowers, wouldn't you remember it?

He goes to nick some paper from the room that Rick and Neil are sharing. As the only one paying the rent, he was adamant that he wasn't going to be the one that shared. But his writing isn't good enough to put down enough words of what he's thinking, so he goes downstairs to find Mike.

"Mike?"

"What?" Mike asks.

"Where did we meet?"

Mike stares at him. "What are you on about?"

"Where did we meet?" Vyvyan asks. "It's just... I don't remember us ever meeting. I remember us going to the first house together, but I don't remember us ever going 'Hello, my name is Vyvyan' and all that shit."

"We were probably drunk." Mike says.

Oh. Yeah. Actually that could be a point.

But that doesn't quite make sense either. Could he have been drunk enough to forget ever having even applied to university.

Mike is staring at him. "You ill or something? You look a bit queasy."

He does feel a bit queasy. Suddenly realising a chunk of your memory is missing will do that to a man.

He doesn't get any more sense out of Neil or Rick as to how they met. Rick just babbles on about being dropped off at the house by his parents with all his stuff and them kissing him goodbye and everything being one incredible party. Neil just tells him how much of a dark shadow was over his life back then and he can't specifically remember.

Half an hour later, Vyvyan heads back to the bar, and goes straight to his man cave. Fortunately, the video camera Teja gave him was not one of the things that got nicked when he was robbed, though that makes no sense to him.

He starts a new video and faces the camera.

He hesitates for a moment, then says.

"I need to record this. There is a gap in my memory.

"I grew up with my mum like a normal kid, with no super powers. Well, I say normal, we didn't really have anything and I was on my own a lot and... well, I remember just fine until I was about fifteen or sixteen, and then at some point, I got taken into care and..."

He pauses the video for a moment, thinking, then presses record again.

"I went into a couple of foster homes, not for very long, and then I ran away back to Mum's for a bit, and then they tried to take me into care again, and then there's this gap. I remember moving into the house with the others, but I don't remember applying to university... I mean, I can barely read and write, how did that even happen?"

He rubs his forehead, coming into contact with the studs in his forehead.

"I... I don't even remember getting these. How can you get a bunch of piercings and not remember?"

He pauses the camera again and just sits quietly thinking for a moment. Then he presses the button one more time.

"There's only three explanations I can think of. Either I can't remember because I'm mad, or I can't remember because I had an accident, or I can't remember because someone wiped my memory. But whatever it was it seems to have happened to all four of us, except for some reason I have more strength powers than the rest of them."

He turns the camera off. What's the use of this? Where can he even start to try and find out what happened?

It's all too much.

He gets the half bottle of vodka he's got tucked away in a corner and lies down on the blanket in the corner. This is still a better bed than he's got at home, and at least the little orange guys clean it for him if he takes it inside.

But it's of minimal comfort. He just doesn't know what to do.

It was almost liberating. For a whole week, he didn't change scene. Nobody bothered to visit. Nobody was watching. Perhaps, if he'd pushed himself, he could have forced a scene change, but why bother?

It meant the smell didn't come back when he bathed, after the first couple days. His hair unstiffened. His skin felt better. It was a surprise when, after four days, the studs fell out of his forehead, but he didn't care.

Alone, Vyvyan pondered his future. It was boring in the cell.

And then, it was all over. Released. Wilford is alive. He'd never been more relieved.

***

He has to muster every ounce of concentration not to change scene when he steps out the cell. If he's going to stay looking like this, he'll have to concentrate in every doorway, between every room. Sooner or later he will forget, he knows, but he's determined not to do it today.

He deposited a note at the bar.

'Wilf,
I know you came back, but I want to apple aplogy say sorry for causing your death. It was an accident, but I was careless, because I knew that you reset if you get hurt, and because I was bored and winding you up was funny.
I should have been more simplethetic, really. I know what it's like to reset every five minutes to look like a knobhead. We're probly the only two of our kind here, which doesn't mean we should be like poofs or anything, but perhaps if I hadn't been a bully we could have been mates or something.
Anyway, you're not dead, well done.
Vyvyan'

Now what? Young, clean, normal-looking, only slightly insane... where to go next?

He concentrates, heads outside, and lights a cigarette. Maybe he'll have to give these up if he's not going to reset. Probably worth it.