"I couldn't leave my last town, either," Kieren says, glad that he's not in his Give Back bib, because the orange of that would've been entirely too demeaning and demoralizing to really bear with a new person here with him. "That was on account of hateful politicians, though," he says.

"This place seems a touch more mad science," he says, even if panic is rising. "What about supplies? Can you get things from home?"