“Find out who is in that 9th spot and find out if black or white went first,” Agent 47 orders in his dream to Joey Avatar while hovering above it all. He doesn’t realize the impossibility until the next morning while eating his 9-sided Toasty O’s and remembering the game. But the tree is 9; the other vendor is 8. Time to head back to the plaza for some nitty gritty research. He takes a broom and knocks it against the ceiling, knowing Joey would understand. 3 times. 9 times. Magic Square.
He wakes up for real this time. He turns to Bart on the couch, cleaned up at last and looking like a little cartoon boy again, perhaps 9 himself. Saturn-9. But at what price? 1,000,000? Just then, Bart begins to glow as if radioactive. He’d been exposed, he knew — tricked even. He’d have to deactivate himself. Joey won this time. But there’s always regeneration.
He wakes up once more.
Sunklands 