And you haven't heard of the troubles in Locke. They've been pretty serious for a while, actually. Bombings, earthquake, now the kaiju snake wrecking half the business district and people fighting it in giant robots, the FBI everywhere...

[Julien paces - struts, really, with those legs - in a wide circle around Splinter.]

I'm connected somehow to a guy from the future, who's either a ninja or a spy and happens to be part or all bird, and humans are dying out. I know a guy who could tell me about a very different future, where humans are doing just fine. Gotta wonder if this is like that.

[He stops and smiles wryly.] There was a point in my life when that idea would've sounded even more ridiculous, you know.