Humiliated by his nieces, Mr. Love left the station and wandered for weeks, stripped naked to abase himself beneath the elements and the judgement of whatever gods might be. At last he came upon the Sphinx, just moments after the Well-Dressed Albatross had shuffled painfully on.

But the Well-Dressed Albatross was different since the loss of his last leg. No longer able to fly, he moved slowly from one cantina to the next. Often, in hallucinations brought on by the medication, he would encounter the Sphinx and her enigma.

In fact Ukifune had done a fine job with the stump and the Well-Dressed Albatross had resumed his normal activities almost unimpeded.

It was in Clive’s nature to explore incongruities within a system. Wandering the campus grounds at 4:00 am, Clive noted a single lit window: the residence of Brad and Ukifune, returned from treating the WDA’s lost appendage.

Mr. Love found Meg and Peg at the surveillance equipment. As they so often were. Meg and Peg really liked surveillance.

It was daybreak when Mr. Love reached the disused power station that was his base of operations. The ferry had been awful.

Fed up with waiting for his nieces to track down the Well-Dressed Albatross, Mr. Love checked out of the motel, got in his Buick, and drove through the night to the doll factory to find out what exactly Meg and Peg had been doing with his money.

The Well-Dressed Albatross had failed spectacularly at removing his own brain, and in the process had severed his one remaining leg. (On the up side, this would prevent him from ever again having a transponder affixed to his ankle.)

Ukifune and Brad had just returned from Shadowlands where they’d seen a double bill of For Whom The Bell Tolls and Through a Glass Darkly, when Ukifune’s phone rang.

Minutes later Pim and Bim happened by the Motel. Peering through the window of Unit 8 they saw that the Well-Dressed Albatross was in a sorry state indeed.