"Sure," he agrees. "I found him, ah, a bit past the end of that alley where you met us. I was going to get him onto the green where there would be people around to help," he says.

She nods, and makes a note. "And how did he seem when you found him?" she asks.

"He was incoherent — didn't remember what he'd been doing, although he still remembered planning, uh, something. He was having trouble following my finger, but he could still walk a bit, just a little wobbly."

She nods. "And did you see what hit him?"

Mike may be rattled, but he's been playing this game too long to fall for that one.

"No, like I said, I just found him."

"Alright, thank you," Kyaris says. "I've forwarded that description to the doctors; maybe it will help."

The train pulls to a halt gently but insistently, and the whole side pops open to reveal a triage room.

"Just step through here," Kyaris tells him. "You can stay with him, but you need to check bags there in case they take him in for an MRI."

Mike looks back and forth between Timmy getting rolled off the train, and the helpful ... police officer? She isn't exactly acting like one, but she isn't exactly not acting like one either.

"Uh, right."

He puts his backpack in a locker and slips the key around his neck before hurrying after Timmy.

Kyaris falls in beside him, apparently completely uninterested in his bag.

"So did you hear about what started all this?" she asks.

Some doctors test Timmy's response to light. Kyaris positions him nearby where Timmy can see him, but where Mike won't get in the way. 

"No, I didn't. What happened?" he replies. He thinks it's the safest thing to say.

"Apparently there were three of these guys," she says, gesturing toward Timmy. "They came into the bank a few blocks over from where we met and threatened to shoot people. It's by far the strangest thing I've responded to this year. What do you think they were trying to get out of it?"

Mike shrugs. "I mean — I'd have guessed they were trying to rob the place, right?" he asks.

"Well, that's what I don't get," Kyaris replies. "What has a bank got to steal? I guess they've got phrasebook paper, for forgeries, but it's not like they make that on site, you know?"

Mike silently stares at her in confusion, or maybe disbelief.

He laughs. "Ha! Yeah, of course. What has a bank got to steal indeed."

"Hmm."

The doctors prescribe Timmy a post-concussion drug, and say he should stay upstairs for observation for a while.

"His irises aren't in the database, though," a medical technician tells Kyaris. "So you're probably going to need to do a bit of research to figure out what insurance to bill."

"Alright, thanks for letting me know. Bill it to the city for now, and I'll put in a memo for reimbursement once we complete the identification," she responds.

She and Mike follow Timmy up to his room, where he is transferred to a bed and has some monitoring equipment attached. The nurse dims the lights as he leaves.

Kyaris is silent for a minute or two.

"What do you think is going to happen to him now?" she asks.

"Well, I, uh, I expect they'd send someone to arrest him," he replies. "Put him on trial, probably send him to jail."

He doesn't know why she's still here — or he hopes he doesn't know. They can't just have a cop babysit him the entire time he's recovering from a concussion, right?

"Is that how they do it in America?" she asks. "Because that's not really how it works, here. Bringing someone in for trial, yes. But ... there's got to be a lot wrong, in someone's life or maybe in their head, for walking into a bank and waving a gun around to seem like a good idea. It's got to be bad incentives, right?"

Mike sits down in one of the visitor chairs and crosses his arms.

"I don't know what you mean about bad incentives, but there's plenty of reasons a man might do something like that. If he can't get any work another way, or he's got bills to pay."

He looks at Timmy. "Or he just can't stand living life like he is, and figures it's worth a long shot."

She nods and sits down next to him.

"Say, it just occurred to me — if they do things differently in America, you might not recognize the uniform," she remarks. "Do you know what I am?"

He hesitates. He isn't sure whether refusing to answer or saying he knows she's a cop is the choice that gets him arrested.

"Well, in America you'd be a cop," is what he settles on.

She smiles.

"No, I'm not a cop. Me, I'm a community mediator. It's a lot of odd jobs — I get called out to settle neighborhood complaints, or get people away from a domestic situation. I do a lot of investigating, fraud mostly, but I also just walk the streets so that people know they have someone to talk to if they need something done officially."

She looks him in the eye.

"Stuff like what happened today? It's rare. But — you're right. There's a lot of reasons someone might do something like that. So it's work, right, to make sure it stays rare. Here in Central River City, we make sure it stays rare by making sure people have better options."

He says nothing.