"You're not taking anything!" Ritchie said. "This ends right here, right now."

"Why?" Julia asked.

All turned to her, equally shocked and stunned.

"What do you mean why?!" Ritchie demanded.

29. Behind the Curtain "Life is but a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream."

-- Mark Twain

"Does that mean you're on our side?" the Director asked with uncertainty.

Uncle Justin, with a stunned expression, asked: "What are you saying, Julia?"

"Is that what all this has been leading up to?" she asked. "The coincidences? The odd connections? Six people running across each other in order to quash some silly, escapist conspiracy?"

"It's not silly!" the Director objected.

"It is escapist," the Lab Coat Man admitted.

"What brought us here?" Julia asked. "To this lobby, at this time, facing off over something that seems like a weird dream?"

"Oh cripes," Denny said. "Don't get metaphysical on us."

"Mathematical innovations always seemed unreal at first --" Uncle Justin began.

"The math doesn't matter. It never did," Julia said flatly. "It was all part of the same thing."

Justin's jaw opened and closed silently several times as he grasped a bench to keep himself vertical.

"What the heck is she getting at?" Ritchie asked Betty.

"I think you're over-thinking it, dear," Betty said to Julia.

Tom and Alona exchanged confused looks. Kurt scratched an itch that had appeared on his hand.

"Why this conspiracy?" Julia demanded of the Director, (who had seemed to suddenly age five years).

"To take this town to a better place," he said, attempting to remain calm.

"Why not just go there, then?"

"We, uh, as I said, we wanted to take the town with us."

"What for?! What would you need to take with you if it's already a 'better world'? Wouldn't you make that better world worse just by taking the town with you?"

The remains of the conspiracy looked at each other.

"I don't know, I just joined up," Kurt said.

"I wasn't privy to those early meetings, remember?" the Lab Coat Man said. "I joined after Frank left."

"I thought it was your idea," Denny said to the Director.

"I thought it was... group consensus," he replied vaguely.

"So instead of just taking off for your new world, you do the one thing that would eventually expose your plans to the rest of us?"

The Director looked to his co-conspirators for answers, but they were looking back at him. He finally turned to Julia and shrugged.

"So where does that leave us?" Julia asked, turning on her companions.

"Do we defeat this conspiracy, save the town, and live happily ever after? Is that what we're supposed to do?"

"Don't be silly!" Ritchie said. "They have to be stopped!"

"Why?! Because they kidnapped Kurt? Well, he's happy to be with them, so that can't be the issue. They've harmed you? If they leave for their New World with this theater, what do we lose? We can rent videos, you know! Why exactly are you doing this?"

"They're evil!" Tom exclaimed.

"Oh, please! Where did you get that word from? From the films you run here that you hate so much?"

"Look!" Ritchie bellowed. "You just get out of the way unless you want to be considered one of them!"

"How did we all come together at just the right moment?" Julia demanded. "All finding out the right information on the right day, appearing in the same alleyway at the same time, divided conveniently into two sides just to fight out... what? Some badly written melodrama, where we're the cavalry and they're the Three Stooges?"

Denny had had enough. He leaped for Julia. Luckily, she had turned just enough to see him in her peripheral vision, and she threw herself to the floor. Denny flew straight over her and into Ritchie. Betty screamed and began hitting Denny (and every so often her husband), while Tom tried to try to pull them off each other. Kurt tossed his clipboard aside and jumped on Tom. A magnificent brawl had begun in the theater lobby.

"Stop! Stop!" Julia yelled, as she pulled herself up. "This isn't worth it!" But every time one of them tried to stop fighting, someone from the other side would clout them over the head, a.s.sault their shin with a shoe, or engage in some other act of miscellaneous violence.

Denny finally managed to crawl away from the mob and stood up. He held his side and smiled grimly: "Let's face it... Any coincidence between this conspiracy and a real conspiracy is entirely accidental." At least, that was what he meant to say, and would have, had not Tom tackled him just after the word "is". The phrase stuck in Julia's mind, reduced to essentials and repeating: "Any coincidence is... Any coincidence is..."

"Is what?" Julia asked, as she crawled to the corner to get away from the escalating melee. "Knowing that would solve everything."

She stood, watching Uncle Justin, one of the kindest men she had ever known in her life, shove Kurt into a plastic, potted plant. In a moment, Tom was on top of his cousin, swinging wildly. Denny took a swing at Justin and missed, but he didn't see Alona, who came up behind him and kicked the back of his knee. Denny went down, where Betty was trying to revive Ritchie. She rubbed his face and his hands as he sat dazed against the opposite wall. The Director stood against the concession counter, trying to concentrate in order to send everyone home, but unable to stay calm long enough to do any good.

Julia looked around for the other one, the nerdy looking guy in the lab coat, but was distracted by something coming up behind her. Julia turned to see the Lab Coat Man holding a two-by-four in both hands.

"I don't want to hurt you. Just don't move! You can't stop us now!"

"What do you mean?!"

"Who'd want to live in this world a moment longer than we have to?! I can't take it here any more! We need to go! Please, let us go!"

"I'm not stopping you!" she yelled, moving slowly along the wall toward the ticket counter. The Lab Coat Man followed her.

"You'll stop us! I know you will!" Julia could see that he was being overcome with fear and anxiety. She watched as he began to raise the beam higher. She involuntarily closed her eyes only to hear the man scream. When she looked, she saw him stagger back and drop the board, his face red with claw marks. She looked down in time to see Cecil jump into her arms.

"Cecil?" she asked.