Round of 16 at the WhataBurger: barely dispatched by Dymphna

pivotal · late Nov YG

• When: late Nov, Year of Glad — a year past the main YDAU action; the latest chronological point in Kahn's story.
• What: In the novel's chronologically final frame, Kahn is still competing at the top junior level. Sizing up the blind prodigy Dymphna — "Tonight's winner is almost sure to be Dymphna" — as his own likely semifinal opponent, Hal notes: "I watched him barely dispatch Petropolis Kahn in the Round of 16, and I know he is mine." Kahn's last attested act in the book is thus a near-upset: pushing Dymphna to the edge in a Round-of-16 match at the tournament the scene itself names in passing — Hal thinks of "John N. R. Wayne, who would have won this year's WhataBurger" — a year and change after the dawn-drills retch-bucket.