Neo couldn't believe he was thinking this, but this whole road trip was starting to get…kind of fun.

Maybe he had already gone through the five stages of grief over traveling with Zeke and landed on acceptance, or maybe something had been up with the terrible hostel coffee this morning. In any case, he was enjoying himself. The soundtrack wasn't half bad, and Zeke wasn't half bad either. For the moment, anyway. It probably helped that they were the only company each of them was likely to find anytime soon, although goodness knew that hadn't meant anything in the past. They had gotten stuck alone together before after all, at the studio or backstage or even at hotels, not that it had ever helped before. When they hadn't ended up squabbling like usual, they had mostly ignored each other, each doing his own thing while waiting for one of the others to come back.

The day progressed. The landscape changed at length, growing less flat and more woody, the highway sloping steadily up. Neo rolled down the window and took a deep breath. It didn't smell much like home, but at least it did smell like pine needles and gasoline instead of wet earth and gasoline, which was a welcome enough change already. All the distances on this accursed continent were obnoxiously, unreasonably huge, but even they could be crossed in due time. Even if it took a lot of time, patience, and potential speeding tickets.

Beside him, Zeke gazed ahead, drumming patterns on the dashboard, off-tune humming along to the music from the tinny speakers. Neo wouldn't say he was at peace, but he was suspiciously close to it given the circumstances, and that was somehow off-putting. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong this past day and a half had gone wrong, and he didn't see a reason for it to suddenly stop. If he was this comfortable, something had to be wrong. He just knew it.

Best to go through the list of things to worry about. The car, as far as he could tell, was still running and in one piece. They weren't running low on gas either. Zeke was still beside him, safe and sound, and as far as he remembered, they hadn't forgotten any of their luggage either. Not that they'd brought much in the first place, aside from the conspicuous suitcase under the backseat. Which was also still there, for better or worse. They hadn't encountered any traffic either, so they couldn't be running late. But if all of that was fine…then what the hell was wrong? Nothing? That sounded too good to be true; there had to be something.

Neo's sign fell on the GPS screen. It was still not working right, which was certainly something wrong, although he didn't think it counted. However…

"Zeke," he said, motioning to the phone, "where are we?"

Zeke opened the navigation app. "Uh," he said, "somewhere in Colorado…I think. Almost, anyway."

Furrowing his brow, Neo racked his brain for whatever shoddy knowledge he had of American geography to determine if that was good or bad. "How far is that?"

Zeke did the math. "About half the way?"

"Good enough," said Neo and sped up. At the same time, his suspicion intensified. If they were both in the car, and they had all their belongings, and they weren't running late or lost or about to hit traffic—where the hell was the catch?

"Do we still have everything?" he asked at length, glancing over his shoulder. "We haven't forgotten any of our bags?"

Zeke turned around in his seat. "Nope," he said. "Everything there. Why are you—"

"And your phone battery?"

"It's there," said Zeke. "How else would my phone be running, duh?"

"What percent, idiot."

Zeke checked the screen. "Fifty-nine," he said. "But I can charge it again over lunch if you're that paranoid."

"I'm not paranoid," Neo shot back. "Do you hear the car making any noises?"

Zeke blinked back at him, wide-eyed. "You mean the engine?"

"Anything that's not the engine," Neo snapped. "Anything suspicious."

"You are paranoid."

"Just answer the question!"

"No suspicious noises." Zeke made a face. "Everything's fine. Except for me in here, I know, but I can't help you with that either."

Neo scoffed. "Whatever," he muttered, turning his focus back on the road. He'd take it for now, but that didn't mean he was any less suspicious.

For some time the road went on. It was climbing higher and higher up wooded slopes, growing narrower as it went, but Neo didn't think much of that; roads tended to do that sometimes, especially in less densely populated areas. Not that large parts of the country seemed any more populated, but then again he was starting to suspect that ninety percent of the Earth's livable surface consisted of nothing but empty landscape anyway.

But then the road did something highways didn't generally tend to do.

Namely, it came to an end.

Neo slowed down, then stopped the car. Turning left and right, he scanned the area, half expecting the road to continue behind some hidden corner or particularly large tree; but there was nothing here except for a parking lot and a sign at a gate announcing a national park entrance. Behind the gate, a small block cabin was staring back at him, along with a slightly faded sign listing the entrance fees.

"National park!" Zeke exclaimed, almost jumping out of his seat. "Now we're talking!"

"A dead end!" Neo shouted at almost the same time. "What the hell is this place?"

Zeke blinked owlishly, the realization only just seeming to hit him. "Uh," he said, glancing down at his phone, then back up at the sign, then back at his phone. "Let's see…oh yeah." He cracked a sheepish smile. "Oops."

"'Oops', what?"

"We took the wrong exit." Zeke motioned to the screen, then held it out for Neo to see. "Or more like, we accidentally took an exit where we should've followed the road."

Neo stared.

"I think it was around the time we were blasting Simple Plan," Zeke added unhelpfully.

"Which I still don't like!" Neo snapped. "This is stupid."

"Why don't you like them?"

"They're too pop! What kind of poser listens to that mainstream shit?"

"The lyrics are emo enough!"

"The lyrics are not the problem!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, are their songs too fun for you? Not depressing enough for the edgy drama queen?"

Neo flipped him off. "Whatever."

"You know," Zeke went on regardless, "for somebody who doesn't like them, you sure seemed to like them a lot earlier."

"I didn't."

"You knew all the lyrics."

"Everyone knows them." Neo waved a dismissive hand, then switched the gears to reverse. "Whatever. How do we get away from here again?"

"Same road we came from, I guess," Zeke said distantly. "Can't we have a look around first before we leave? Look at all that nature!"

Neo followed his gaze. It sure was a lot of nature, he thought. He had never been a fan of nature.

"No time," he said, still searching for the best way to pull out of the parking lot. "We need to go back."

"Just to that cabin over there!" Grabbing his arm, Zeke pulled his hand away from the gear shift, and Neo was so startled by the sudden touch that he didn't even fight back. "I think they've got souvenirs there, don't you want some souvenirs?"

"No."

"I do." Undoing his seat belt, Zeke opened the door and leaped out of the car without warning. "Catch me if you can!"

Letting out a curse, Neo parked the car and followed him, sprinting to catch up. For someone who had the disadvantage of shorter legs, Zeke was surprisingly fast. He was already at the cabin by the time Neo caught up with him, making cheerful conversation with the elderly woman behind the counter.

"They do have souvenirs!" he shouted back over his shoulder. "And now I'm not getting you any!"

"I don't want a stupid souvenir!" Neo snapped, feeling his face heat up. "What are you doing, let's go—"

"Look, they have snowglobes!"

Neo's brain came to a screeching, stumbling halt and just sat there, staring and waiting for further input.

"Here," said Zeke, holding a snowglobe in Neo's direction. "Do you know what that means?"

Neo shrugged. "I don't care—"

"We could get one for Teddy."

It took a moment for the meaning to sink in, then a devilish grin spread all over Neo's face. Teddy had a very vocal dislike for any and all tacky souvenirs, but there was nothing he hated as much as snowglobes. If they got him one of these, he would absolutely despise it.

Returning the expression, Zeke set the snowglobe back on the counter. "We could tell him we got him something from Colorado," he said conspiratorially.

Neo's grin widened. "He would be so pissed."

"I know, right? His face would be priceless."

There was a beat of silence. Neo could almost feel their brains syncing.

"We'll have one of these," he told the old vendor.

"The biggest you have," Zeke added.

"And the ugliest."

"And can you gift-wrap it too?"

The old lady snorted. "I don't have any gift wrap, we're not a real souvenir shop," she said. "You'll have to do it yourself."

"Bummer," said Zeke. "Oh well, this works too—oh hey, this is actually kind of pretty."

Neo peeked over his shoulder. Weirdly enough, Zeke was right; it only had a photo of a lake with mountains, but it was a beautiful picture nonetheless, almost as beautiful as the same landscape in real life. Suddenly even he couldn't shake the irrational urge to go and explore the nature here, just for a bit.

"What," he said, "want to keep it yourself?"

Zeke held it closer. "Maybe," he said. "What about it? It looks nice."

"Then what about pissing off Teddy?"

"Hmm." Zeke stared into the snowglobe like a wizard pondering his crystal ball. "That is indeed a dilemma."

Neo didn't say anything; he just waited for Zeke to make the next leap in logic, whatever that would be. With a man like Zeke Carraway, you truly did need a crystal ball to be able to predict it.

"Unless," Zeke said at length, his eyes glinting with mischief, "we can get a second one somewhere." He smirked. "An uglier one."

The more rational, logical part of Neo's brain whispered that this was an awful, terrible, no-good idea. The larger part of his brain, meanwhile, was sensing a challenge.

"Find more ugly souvenirs?" he said.

"Sounds like a plan," said Zeke. "Whoever finds the ugliest one wins."

Taking the snowglobe from Zeke's hand, Neo smirked and turned back to the car.

"It's on."