"Oh!" Anna exclaimed. "MOVIE! TORONTO! Now THAT makes sense! But...still...how can I in good conscience let you cross the border?" Biebe, Bud, Cort, and Zack all flashed American law enforcement badges at her. "Oh, that will do FINE!" Anna grinned. "Where do I sit?"

***************

"NO!" Phyllis said firmly. "We don't have time to look at waterfalls today!" She shivered in the cool air, thinking of how cold Himself must feel in Toronto with just the one scorched cuff and the bit of collar left of Big Blue. He was never all that fond of chilly climes, not even when provided with outerwear.

Sounds of fisticuffs emanated from the cab. "OW!" Andy shouted. "Stop that! Let go of the wheel!" Anna Shadow, her eyes big and round with astounditudiness, sat scrunched between the young dishwasher and Wanda. Her eagerness to join the mysteriously miscast migrants was being somewhat lessened by the complete invisibility of the person with whom Andy wrestled as he drove the first couple of blocks onto Canadian soil...er... pavement.

The cattle truck veered wildly back and forth across the lanes of traffic, narrowly missing a large group of Latvian au pairs posing for photographs. If Charles had actually had teeth, one would have clearly been able to hear them gritting with determination. "Turn LEFT!" The steering wheel jerked sharply, sending the truck vrooming southward along River Road.

In the back, clutching his tricorn, Aubrey smiled apologetically at Phyllis. "Nash must need Charles," he explained. "I've seldom seen... er...well...been aware of...Charles so...so...agitated."

Phyllis narrowed her eyes at Jack. She was very, very fond of the Captain, but wished he had more control over Stephen's presence.

"Nash may need Charles," she responded, "but surely Himself and Jim need US more!"

Her words, though possibly prophetic, futuristically-speaking, were not quite so accurate as regards the present moment, alas. Nash had made his way alone down the Niagara Parkway, stuffing pigeons into his popcorn boxes as he went. A few hundred yards up the river, just across from the end of the Rapids View Parking Lot, he spied a particularly mathematically interesting-looking plump white pigeon with an apricot-colored heart marking on its back. It was perched atop the low railing that ran at the river's edge, the roiling rapids just beyond. Totally ignoring the rushing water, Nash climbed up on the railing and began to creep towards the bird, clutching an empty popcorn box between his teeth. Just...one...more...foot...and he would have it!

His fingers stretched out, straining towards the pigeon who kept backing away a few inches at a time. As his index finger made feather contact, the fowl in the 3 dozen popcorn boxes he'd stuffed down the front of his suit coat, chose that moment to shift their positions.

"Aieee!" he cried, flipping sideways over the railing and into the rapids just as the cattle truck swerved off the road and across the grass, crushing daffodils as it came.

Biebe ran downstream, clutching one of Buggie's baskets."Grab this!" he shouted at the floundering mathematician. Somehow Nash managed to flop himself into the large basket, bobbing rapidly along towards the brink of the Canadian Falls.

"Wicker?" said Steve, his eyes wide. "He's going over the falls in WICKER?" As he floated, Nash unbuttoned his jacket, setting the pigeons free. Crushing daffodils in an epi had been quite unPC enough. Sending innocent pigeons crashing down over the roaring waterfall onto the rocks below would have been waaaaay outta bounds. Nash...well...he was a character and hadda take his chances, now didn't he?

Mary looked hard at Joimus. "You wouldn't....would you?" she gasped.

"Me?" replied the perfectly innocent Joimus. "I'm just standing here amongst the crushed daffodils in my pale yellow gossamer gown. How could I be responsible for any of this?"

Terry and Colin were sprinting alongside the river, somehow outrunning the onrushingness of the basket. It was probably because of their being in an episode that they were able to accomplish this, such bendings of the laws of nature often serving as useful plot devices. Speaking of which, when the K&R agent arrived at the brink of the falls, he heaved his own device over the railing, totally astounding a tour group of French ballerinas who found themselves strangely unable to avert their eyes. He dipped its still-blunted tip into the icy waters, a great shiver shaking him head to toe.

The Niagara was a translucent pale aqua at the moment it cast itself over the sheer rock edge and the mist from below blew up and swirled around Terry as he locked his teeth and flared his nostrils with the effort of keeping his equipment steady against the frigid pounding of the waters.

Colin stood beside him, rapidly unfurling his sideburns. There had been some mention a few episodes back of the fact that he had forgotten to remove the beads Eryn had woven into them at their last unfurling, had there not? As the beads jogged harshly across the surface of his cerebral cortex, Colin's eyes began to cross and just a suggestion of steam puffed out his ears.

Terry, glancing briefly sideways, noticed the white splotches forming on Colins' cheekbones and the strangely squarish teardrops that made tracks across them, but there was nothing he could do for the moment.

At the typing of his movie title, Lachlan came dashing up. "Can I help?" he offered.

Terry was unable to unlock his teeth and Colin's dental surfaces were slightly melting together, so the young airman received no reply to his earnest query. As the now pigeonlessly- accompanied Nash bobbed ever closer to the ultimate form of the practice of brinksmanship, Lachlan took matters into his own strong, young hands. Well, actually, it was Colin's sideburns he took into his hands, stuffing their length through the curving metal upper portion of the wall and wrapping them twice so they would not completely detach from Colin's head in a way that would result in any flow of brain matter out his ear canals...or so one hoped.

Nash reached the brink, the basket disappearing into the mist as the mathematician's tummy impacted with Terry's ice-glazed equipment. Strangely, Nash seemed able to hold onto it.

Maximus, having arrived, peered down at the clinging West Virginian. "The frost...sometimes it makes the equipment...sticky," he said wisely, though one did wonder how he had come into the possession of such knowledge.

"Allow me," East said, taking the length of Colin's sideburns out of Lachlan's hands. "I have a bit more experience."

Lachlan stepped graciously back from the wall, not even asking how often East had actually used sideburns to rescue mathematicians dangling from K&R agent equipment at the brinks of large waterfalls. Narrowing his seagreen eyes in concentration, East looped up the sideburns, formed a lasso and with one perfect Australian horsetrainer's toss, had Nash safely ensnared.

Just in the nick of time it was, too, as Terry had squenched his eyes tightly closed, unable to endure the strain any longer. His equipment wobbled and dipped. Nash lost his grip, following the basket into the mist.

Colin was jerked forward, his face plastered against the metal railing. East, Lachlan, and Maximus grabbed the sideburns, hauling them in hand over hand until an icy form appeared just below the brink. Bud and Alex leaned out over the railing, grabbing Nash's arms and pulling him up and onto the paving.

Jeffrey bent over him, pouring warm soy sauce down his shivering throat. The insider looked up at the surrounding cast. "If only we had some sort of medical personnel in our midst," he said wishfully.

Who should have decided to spend the day at the postcard stand just a few yards back from the Canadian Falls but Florence Frankingale, RN. "Did I hear someone voice the need of medical personnel?" she asked, walking daintily over to the strange group.

"You did, indeed," Jeffrey said, motioning her to where Nash lay on his back, his suit encrusted in frozen particles of waterfall mist.

"Oh, MY!" she said, whipping out her battery-operated, pocket-sized, handy-dandy blowtorch and setting quickly to work thawing the man.

"This is MEDICAL?" asked Bud, frowning.

"He's cold," retorted Johnny. "It's not rocket surgery, you know."

Once she had him thawed, Florence Frankingale, RN, helped the somewhat dazed Nash into a sitting position. His buttons had melted, but other than that, he seemed unharmed. "You almost cooked your goose this time, Nash," Bud commented, shaking his head.

Jack laughed. "Goose! More like cooked his pigeons, I'd say!"

Nash's eyes widened. Quickly he patted himself for popcorn boxes. "Did you cook a pigeon?" he cried, clutching Florence Frankingale, RN's white skirt.

"P...pigeons?" she repeated, totally baffled.

"He was stuffing pigeons into popcorn boxes for mathematical study," Anna Shadow offered, "though I'm not sure he got them quite legally across the border."

"Someone help me!" Eryn cried. "Colin's eyeballs are twirling."

"Anybody got any extra blankets?" annsmac called out. "I can't seem to stop Terry's equipment from shivering."

Florence Frankingale, RN, stood, smiled, and adjusted her white cap and her blue cape. "I see I have arrived at an opportune moment," she stated. "You may call me Franki." Her eyes slowly roamed the large group of migrant grape pickers, studying particularly the one dressed in ancient Roman armor, the one in a Napoleonic Naval captain's uniform, the one covered in tattoos, and the one clutching a potted blue poppy. "I'm a psych nurse. I think you may have need of me."

Joimus stepped up to welcome the newest castmember. "We're on our way to Toronto to find the missing Himself and his lookalike who have been taken by a handsome computer program in an attempt to keep Cinderella Man from being filmed."

"I thought Cinderella was a girl?" Franki replied, surer than ever that she had found her calling.

The beefy one with the close-cropped hair growled, "She boxes in this one...but there are no glass slippers."

"Is there, perchance, a yellow brick road?" Franki asked.

"Been there...done that," Joimus stated, unable to resist a little hop-skippy-jump sorta thing. "But we DO have a poopy...er... poppy...and ARE off to see the evil Chipman of Toronto."

Franki approached the Pittsburgher, patting her arm and saying, "Tell me about your childhood, my dear. Were there many traumas?"

Joimus just grinned, knowing full well she would NEVER tell the psych nurse about the elves.

Charles helped Nash to his feet. "How DOES the man lean like that without falling over?" Franki wondered aloud.

"Oh, that's Charles helping him," the sea captain explained, adding thoughtfully, "though he doesn't play the cello yet. But he will. When he's Stephen."

"Charles is Stephen?" she asked.

Jack flashed a great smile. "They take turns. You'll get used to it."

"What about him?" she inquired further, indicating Maximus.

"No, he doesn't play the cello at all," Jack answered. "Not a bit."

"I meant, why the antique uniform?"

Jack threw back his head and laughed.

"NOW!" shouted Phyllis. "We must leave NOW!"

Joimus knew the Texan was right. "I'm sorry, Jack," she interrupted, "but we've got to get back in the cattle truck."

She looked at the nurse in the spotless white uniform she'd been assigned to wear in episodes. "I hope you don't mind a bit of manure."

After Nash and Colin were loaded into the back of the truck, Andy headed north then west on the QEW. Franki managed to stabilize Colin's twirling eyeballs with the judicious use of a few toothpicks, a task made somewhat more delicate after the loss of the right, rear wheel added considerably to the bounce-factor of the truck. Jack, impressed by her expertise, commented, "We could have used you on the Surprise that time Stephen was shot."

"Did Charles shoot him?" Franki asked, trying desperately to piece together the flapping ends of the tale.

The Captain smiled. "Charles IS Stephen."

"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten. How do you tell them apart?"

"Stephen is...well...visible...which helps considerably," Jack explained.

"Truly...it would," Franki replied, nodding her head in agreement. Then she bit down hard on her tongue, hoping the pain would halt her swift slide into that murky place where epilife began to sound... reasonable. All she had learned, all her many years tending the wounded in Crimea, cried out to her to leap off the truck and run for her life...her very sanity...but, instead, she found herself running her fingers through Nash's brown hair as he rested his head in her lap.

"Another one bites the dust," Joimus thought to herself. It was inevitable. Exposure to Rusty characters was usually permanently addictive.

"STOP!" hollered Wanda, pointing across Lake Ontario. "I see TORONTO!"

Everyone piled out of the truck, running down to the edge of the gently lapping waves. She was right! It WAS Toronto! It was about half an inch tall, sitting on the far horizon, grey and misty but with the CN Tower making its skyline unmistakable.

"How come it's sitting on the water like that?" asked Johnny, perplexed by the strange sight of the distant city. Truly, it did look quite like it was floating on the horizon of the lake.

"Do you think Sid did that?" asked Andy. "Made it float like that?"

BertiWise shook her head. "Not even Sid could make an entire city float, Andy," she said, trying to be patient. "It's just on the opposite shore of the lake and only LOOKS from here like its floating on the water."

"How do we GET to it?" asked Johnny, worried some crossing might be looming in his future.

"We drive around the end of the lake in our cattle truck," BertiWise began to explain, turning to indicate their vehicle just as it gave a large shudder and imploded completely, "or not."

Jack was already staring at 4 abandoned rowboats and counting on his fingers. "With Himself, Braddock, and Sid gone...that leaves ....um...45 of us, counting either Charles or Stephen."

"Do you think we would all fit?" asked Jeffrey worriedly.

"With a bit of stacking, I think we could manage," the Captain grinned, "though some of us might have to swim alongside." He bent, touching the lake surface with his fingers. "A degree or two above freezing," he said cheerily. "We had better swim fast."

General sounds of gulping were heard from the characters. "Um...how far...is it?" asked Zack, knowing full well he would be chosen as one of the swimmers, what with his proven ability to swim underwater great distances whilst bleeding profusely.

"Not more than 25 miles," Berti estimated, "maybe 30."

Zack staggered a bit and sat down hard in the sand.

"There's a stout lad now," Jack encouraged, "you can do it!" Jack, of course, was widely famed for his swimming prowess, once have circumswumigated Ireland just for the pleasure of it. The Captain then set about lashing the four old rowboats together with unraveled yarn from Arthur's cardigan.

Terry, the nosebubble champion, expected to swim, but Jack posted him instead straddling the two inner rowboats, his equipment hung with Maximus' cape as the main mast.

The cast divided themselves into the 4 boats, Jack and East swimming along the left side, Zack and Steve along the right, the mermaid hanging over the front as figurehead.

Juditha clutched the Captain's blue jacket and white poofie/puffy shirt in her arms, enjoying the way his blond hair floated out behind him like wet silk.

And, so, singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" slightly off-key due to chattering teeth, Maximus' rust-colored cape snapping in the Ontario breeze, the migrant grape pickers drew ever closer to Toronto. Sid knew they would come. He had no doubt of that at all. That was why he so carefully....