Pietr and Jay finally settle back on their cots, Pietr listening to the breathing of the others before he finally falls asleep.

Jay is the first one awake the next morning but Billy sits up before his alarm would have went off, walking over to the pitcher and bowl, pouring water to wash his face and hands.

Looking at the others sleeping, he heads across the bridge of boards, deciding which would be easier to carry to the recycling center. Paper is taking up the most space, but it would get him the least money. Paper and metal it is, flattened he can get a lot of cans in a bag.

An hours worth of work has two stuffed bags he lowers by rope onto the floor of the subway tunnel before walking back over to the 'living' area. Grabbing a washcloth and bar of soap from the sink, he pours water into the bowl and pulls a curtain around a corner. Movements seen
through the curtain tells Jay he's washing up, the curtain in pulled five minutes later and Billy walks back out. The dirty water is poured into a pail, Billy lowers it to the tunnel, he'll take it to the 'garden' later for watering the plants.

"Billy, where are you going?"

"There's a junk dealer that buys scrap metal and other recyclables from people, he in turn sells it to the big recyclers. It opens in about an hour, if I leave now I can be there when he opens."

"How are you planning on going?" Pietr asks.

"I'll catch a local bus until I can get a train." Billy says. "I'll take some today and some tomorrow unless the aliens start declaring martial law."

"Wouldn't it be easier to drive?" Jay asks.

"I don't think they'd believe I'm old enough to
drive if I got pulled over." Billy says with a small chuckle.

"You do have access to a vehicle then?" Pieter asks.

"Yes, an old clunker of a truck. It's older than I am, but it runs good."

"Where is it?" Jay asks.

"In one of the abandoned buildings over us, I brought most of them from the city for back taxes using a second identity. The identity is supposed to be a recluse, I'm a 'neighborhood kid' who runs 'errands' for him." Billy holds his fingers up in midair, making quotation
marks around neighborhood kid and errands.

"Could you be able to get all your scrap to the dealer if one of us drove you?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't get as good a price for it if I did that." Billy says. Jay shakes his head, Billy's too young to have to think of things like this.

Billy checks his clothes one last time, walking over to the table with his school books and slides a folder into his messenger bag before dropping over the side of the platform onto the tunnel floor. "I'll try to pick up a couple of papers on the way back." he calls behind him as he heads for the stairs he, Rick, and Kara had used the previous night.

Ducking out into the predawn light, he heads for the bus stop a few blocks away. The driver nods at the monthly rail pass he shows him and he settles in a seat. It's too early for the usual morning rush so he's the only one on the bus for most of the ride.

The train arrives a couple minutes after he gets off the bus and he heads into the city, finally seeing the signs of alien presence in checkpoints at major intersections as the train goes by. When he gets off the train, he has to pass through a checkpoint and his bags inspected before he's allowed to leave the station and get on another bus.

The junk dealer is open when he arrives and they start haggling over the price of Billy's scrap. They soon come to an equitable bargain, Billy taking the bags and folding them into the messenger bag on his shoulder before accepting them money and hopping on the bus again.

He stops at the school, running in and dropping off his assignments. picking up his graded work and taking a couple of tests while the teacher comes up with new assignments for him. Three long hours later, he finally heads down the stairs to the station. Everybody sighs in relief when they see him enter, they'd been worried.

"How is it out there?" Jay asks as Pietr pushes a plate of food in Billy's direction. He hadn't eaten breakfast before he'd left and it was after lunch now.

"The aliens have checkpoints set up at major intersections going into and out of the city." Billy says, the others look shocked. "There's one at the train station, probably one at the airport as well." Billy waves at his bag. "There's a couple of papers in there." he eats quickly and walks over to his cot, dropping onto it and quickly falling asleep.

Pietr pulls a blanket up over him, fingers lingering quickly on his neck as he covers him. Jay pulls the newspapers out of the bag, handing over Billy's folder from school that the other man puts on the table and the folded bags that Courtney runs across to the other platform. The handful of money is left in the bag as it's put on the table, the others taking pieces of the papers to read as Billy sleeps.