Þ   briarpig  » fiction  » part1

     The story below is a work in progress, designed to grow without end by appending new scenes as I craft them. My working title is Briar Pig. I may later break it into chapters shown on separate pages.

     Z walked into Wil's place without knocking, heading for the living room where the PS2 was setup with Jak 3. As expected, Wil was writing in his faux cube, which really freaked out Ulf when he first saw it. Why would anyone come home from working in a cube farm, then go directly to another cube in his living room?

     Z thought it was pretty funny. He and Wil had similar senses of humor. Now if only Wil would start calling him Z instead of Zé. But old habits are hard to lose, and Wil learned to say Zé or Zeta too often when they roomed years ago. Z was on a progressive abbreviation kick, but Wil didn't care beyond joking whitespace would be even shorter. Z called himself Z mainly in internal dialog. Maybe it was the same as 'I'. But cooler.

     "Elvis has entered the building," Z said falling into the couch, because Wil hadn't looked up.

     Wil clicked his tongue once in response. This was geek humor meaning a single bit of one. Wil did it sometimes to say "of course", or "duh", or "tell me something I didn't know" depending on context. When paired with a goofy look and a three stooges posture it meant soitenly. Wil had trouble engaging verbal circuits when writing or coding, apparently because he used the speaking part of his brain for something else when working.

     Z loaded a game in hero mode then settled into killing marauders in the desert before starting hang time jumps off the dunes. Ulf and Eli weren't due for a while yet. Z wondered how different father and son could look from each other. Martin Sheen's sons Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez hardly looked like brothers at all, but of course they had different mothers. "Somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy," Z said to himself.

     Wil snorted quietly.

     As his vehicle slid out of control in the sand after a bad landing, Z imagined a new mission for Jak in the desert, involving an arabian princess and opulent tent furnishings. Except his sidekick—a talking camel with a witty tongue—just wouldn't shut up. The princess kept laughing, though. "You're the sidekick, Wil," Z said.

     "No, you're the sidekick," Wil shot back. Apparently his speech center wasn't that busy after all—or this reply was pure reflex by now.

repo man «

     Eli didn't look much like his father, but their voices were alike, so he couldn't be a changeling Zé concluded. He was also far more polite than Ulf, and only stared a bit too long when they met. "Portugese-Irish-Brazilian," Zé had finally answered Eli's unasked question.

     "When's Koi giving a green light?" Ulf asked.

     Zé shrugged. "Ask him yourself. If you want him to go faster, write some fiction. Give Koi more to go on."

     Eli hadn't said much so far, but slowly his initial tense awareness of scrutiny faded away, as he casually examined junk around Wil's place. He seemed like a bright kid about 20 years old, with quite a long attention span. A twinkle appeared in Eli's eye every time Zé gave Ulf a little grief. Now a playful smile appeared.

     "Yeah, dad," Eli jibed, "Get off your butt and write some fiction. And get a haircut while you're at it."

     "Oh, I don't know," Ulf whined, "Maybe I'll apply myself after I take time off." This definitely had an edge, likely related to Ulf's complaint Eli left school recently to consider other options. Sounded like a stale fight.

     No one said anything for a moment; the sound of Wil typing dominated the room. After initial introductions and chatting, Wil had asked if he could finish a few paragraphs before stopping. How could they say no? Zé decided to show them something funny to break the tension. So he cleared his throat and pitched his voice in imitation of someone else.

     "Ever been to Utah?" Zé asked. Eli hesitated, and Wil broke in first, but continued typing.

     "Ra-di-a-tion," Wil said carefully. "Yes, indeed."

     "You hear the most outrageous lies about it," Zé prompted as if he really meant it. Ulf's eyebrows went up because this looked like a performance. Wil kept writing and never slackened typing.

     "Pernicious nonsense," Wil continued. "Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year."

     Eli laughed, interrupting to add: "They ought to have them, too." Zé smiled hugely when Eli recognized this bit, but Ulf was completely lost.

     Eli put on a face and started to get into character. His idea of mad scientist was a bit campy. "When they canceled the project it almost did me in," Eli emoted.

     Wil spun around in his aeron chair after saving a document with theatrical flourish. He looked happy, and the smile looked oddly out of place. Wil's normal look in his living room cube was gloomy.

     "I forget the next part, though," Eli pleaded.

     "'One day my mind was full to bursting'," lead Wil.

     "The next day—nothing," Eli remembered. "Swept away." But he hammed his acting.

     "What the hell is this?" demanded Ulf.

     "It's Repo Man, dad," explained Eli.

     "Didn't that come out before you were born?" wondered Ulf, feeling off balance.

     "Duh, free movie channel," Eli zinged.

     "'The more you drive, the less intelligent you are'," Ulf tried. "That one?"

     "'Yeah," confirmed Zé. "At Youtube you can see the scene we just quoted about a minute into a clip."

     "Who's the old guy in the Chevy Malibu again?" asked Eli. "Father of the neutron bomb?"

     "J. Frank Parnell," Zé answered. "Otto finally catches his car after a great guitar lick by Iggy Pop in the sound track." Zé added, "You look a bit like Emilio Estevez."

     Eli shook his head no, and Wil squinted. "Only slightly," Wil decided. "We all look geekier than film stars."

     Interestingly, Eli started to look bored, apparently because adults had once again fallen into the habit of discussing appearance. Good for you, Wil thought. Best to ignore anything that smacks of flattery.

     "Put it on a plate son, you'll enjoy it more," Wil suggested. This was a stupid remark by a parent in Repo Man when Otto ate directly from a can marked "Food" with a generic label. Wil wondered if Eli could relate.

     Eli smiled grimly and his eyes flicked to Ulf.

     "You look smarter than your pa, kid," Zé told Eli. "Is he slow at home too?"

     "Hey, I'm standing right here," objected Ulf.

     "What's his IQ?" Zé asked Wil, then grinned at Ulf.

     Wil stood up and squared his feet to address Eli, who looked nervous. Wil pooched out his belly, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and spoke in a pompous rural drawl like a hill-billy sheriff. "Boy," Wil demanded, "What do you know about history?" Each vowel was a dipthong.

     As luck had it, Eli was playing with a Sharpie pen before this started. Raising it now, he waggled it like a cigar and got a zany look in his eye, while bending slightly at the knees to get a limber stance. This gave him a couple seconds more to decide what to say, Wil could see.

     "Well," Eli said from the side of his mouth, "my roomie in college was poly sci, and he taught me Karl Marx was the funniest of the Marx Brothers."

     "About one fifty," Wil said turning to Zé.

     "You're kidding," Ulf bleated.

     "Your dad has no sense of humor at all, does he?" Zé asked Eli wonderingly.

     "Not as far as I can tell," Eli admitted.

grinder «

     "How's the literate programming coming, Wil?" Zé asked with a wry and knowing smile. Apparently he thought hard work was funny—maybe one reason his temperament suited coding.

     "Uh," Wil started slowly, not quite free from a line of thought. "Yeah, it's coming along great. Still in the iovec demo, but much closer to completion now."

     "I read your last draft," Ulf interrupted with a puzzled look. "It doesn't look as trivial as you made it sound earlier. Are you sure this is necessary? Why not just go on to the toy language stuff? That sounds like more fun."

     "I write servers," Wil explained slowly. "And I need efficient i/o, even when I write a server in a toy language. The toy language has to do what appears in the iovec demo, among other things, or it's not going to be any use to me."

     Ulf screwed up his face and asked, "How is low level bit twiddling stuff in C and C++ going to play a central role in a high level dynamic language? Even a toy language?"

     Wil spoke even slower, as if Ulf was a child. "Touching data—reading, writing, hashing, comparing, etc—is the expensive part of systems and should occur in good C++ so performance is high. Decision making, on the other hand—control flow like async events and continuations—has very little impact, in contrast. It can and should be done in high level languages. But high level decisions must work with low level code on its own terms."

     "I wouldn't do it that way," Ulf dismissed. "It looks too hard."

     "But," Zé broke in finally, "Wil is a smarter than you, Ulf, and it's not a problem for him. Me either, for that matter, but I'm obsessed with other things."

     "You genius posers make me tired," Ulf sneered. "Always acting like stuff is easy. If it's so easy, why is Wil spending so much time on it? And why isn't the iovec demo done?"

     "Not that it's any of your business," Wil soothed, "but I've been reconstructing a complex test that will appear in another demo, and it uses a lot of little supporting pieces. More than anything else I want folks to understand what the tests mean."

     "But why?" Ulf asked, then looked at Zé. "Do you get this part?"

     "Wil wants folks to grasp why the code works," Zé explained. "Getting code to work is easy. Getting other folks to work with it is hard, and they might not. Usually they just revolt."

     Suddenly Wil giggled and dry washed his hands like a mad scientist. "Peasants swarm the castle with torches and pitchforks," Wil complained. "Nobody appreciates a good reanimation."

     Ulf rolled his eyes and turned to Zé. "Change of subject," Ulf said briskly. "What's up with Koi?"

     "Green light if we take Finch," Zé replied shortly.

     "No, no, no!" Ulf croaked while making fists, raising them to his temples. "That crazy bitch! Drives me nuts!"

     "Maybe that's what Koi wants," Zé laughed.

     "Ooh, poor choice of words," Wil noticed at once. "Know what she'll do if she gets that off tapes? Can you get her a copy, Zé?"

     "No," Ulf warned Zé sternly. "We're a team. Stick together?"

     "Well," Wil mused, "we actually like her. And you're a jerk."

     Ulf looked glum—but being odd man out was old news.

     "It's my project," Zé reminded them. "I'm going to say yes. Ulf, no moaning! But don't forget the most important thing."

     "Which is?" asked Ulf. He must have forgotten already.

     "Don't look into her eyes," Wil coached. Zé was nodding.

lacuna «

     "Hey Wil," Dex sidled up for a chat. "Did you know you can increase your site's credibility by such tactics as listing credentials and making it easy to contact you?"

     "Didn't I already tell you where to stick credibility?" Wil asked. "Short attention span freak." At least Wil smiled.

     "Can't you express yourself more professionally?" Dex wondered.

     "Sure, is that what you want?" Wil asked. "Okay, here's my normal office style vocabulary. Let me get in character."

     Wil went through a ritual of shaking his hands and loosening his neck, like he was about to lift a barbell off the ground.

     "Hey Dex," Wil said pleasantly. "I can see why more credibility would make a site better—those are helpful ideas, thanks. But you know, if my credibility increased, I'm worried more folks might take an interest in what I'm doing, and then they'd—I don't know—write me or something. You know how people are."

     Wil held up a hand politely to say he wasn't done. "At this time, since I'm not ready to accomodate friendly interest, it would be awkward to get inquiries I really couldn't satisfy. What code do I have to show folks? There isn't much to offer here now, right? I'm just a nobody doing my thing, scratching an itch or two, not bothering anybody. What use would credibility be?"

     Wil smiled warmly, paused and waited pleasantly, encouraging a reply. Wil tacked on a gentle go-ahead gesture.

     "Credibility is good for your reputation," Dex started, then worked up some steam. "Once you're known, you can ramp up the hype a little, reach out and make more friends, work up friendly interest slowly until it reaches a boil. Always taking care," Dex raised a finger, "to avoid showing any sign you aren't all the way there. You know, fake it until you make it: the America Way."

     "There's no place for candor in there?" Wil asked.

     "No, not really," Dex admitted.

     "That's what I thought," Wil sighed and waited.

     "You have a geat opportunity here," Dex suggested. "You can get folks worked up pretty easily, because let's face it, people don't think very critically and you can benefit from natural enthusiasm: you could win big with almost nothing—everyone else does."

     "In short, you advocate dishonesty?" Wil asked.

     "It's not dishonest if everyone believes it," Dex countered.

     "I have enjoyed this chat," Wil broke graciously. "But I must be going—I hope you don't mind?"

     "No problem," Dex smiled. "And, uh, drop the pussy act: it's not working. Just be yourself, it works better."

     "I can go back to saying 'bugger off' now?" Wil asked.

     "I'll take a rain check," Dex declined. Then puzzled: "You never said that before, though."

     "I can make an exception for you," Wil said.

     "I'm not leaving until I get the last word," Dex said.

nickname «

     "Is Zé really your name?" Ulf asked Zé.

     Zé looked up at Ulf, squinting in speculation. "You're about to tread on dangerous ground," he said. "You can call me Z, Zé, or Zeta—even Mr. Thorn, though that sounds like my father."

     "But what is your name actually?" Ulf persisted.

     "I know I seem like an affable person," Zé smiled with a hint of whimsy. "It might give you an idea it's okay to play power games, starting with my name. But on this project you work for me, remember?"

     "Isn't Zé short for something else?" Ulf asked. "Do other folks from Brazil have that name, too?"

     Zé stopped smiling. "In a book of names, you may see Zé listed: a Portugese nickname for José. But if you call me José, you're fired."

     Ulf swallowed but tried to look unruffled.

     "Furthermore," Zé smiled again now, "if I hear you ask someone else about my 'real' name, you're fired. In fact, if I ever hear you allude to a possibility my name might be José, to anyone, you're fired. Is this injunction sufficiently all inclusive to clarify things for you?"

     "Yes," Ulf looked chastened.

     "If you want to get stuffy, I can call you Varg while you call me Thorn," Zé said. "But don't mess with me."

     "No, no, I was out of line," Ulf nodded.

     "I don't look like a guy named José," Zé insisted. "I look more like a McFly, don't you think? Except for skin tone I mean. Tall, skinny, and dark."

     "Your obsession with American popular culture is striking," Ulf noted. "I mean, er, United States."

faint praise «

     Wil locked his apartment door and headed down the hallway before he even noticed the odd pair cautiously climbing the stairs, both staring his way with deep interest. Suddenly they looked to Wil like Brian Dennehy and Bryan Brown—two main characters from an old 1986 movie named F/X—both dressed like parodies of New York police detectives.

     It was only funny for a split second, then Wil stopped in his tracks and thought, oh shit.

     "Wil Munny?" said the one who looked like Dennehy while pulling a flip ID with a badge. "I'm Marco and this is Tyler ... we're both with the FPP and we need to talk."

     Tyler gave Wil a nod but kept his hand hitched up on the butt of a service revolver, suggesting he meant to draw if necessary, spooking Wil considerably more than before.

     Feeling slightly weak in the knees, Wil managed to ask, "What's it about? Who's the FPP?"

     Marco closed the distance with eyes casting about for observers, speaking in a friendly and confident tone. He even sounded a little like Brian Dennehy. "Faint Praise Police," Marco replied. "I'm afraid we need to take you downtown for some questions. Just follow Tyler here."

     At that moment, before either Tyler or Marco fully turned back the other way, Finch slipped smoothly out of a side hallway with both arms raised in a double-handed grip on an eerie hand weapon resembling a tiny Flash Gordon blaster with a curvy style and blue ultraviolet glow from a bell near the business end. Tiny running glints of light writhing along its frame suggested a ready charge was held in check. "Freeze," Finch said clearly but with surprising understatement.

     "Crap," Tyler chirped without emotion. He eased his hands very gently into neutral positions.

     Finch's attitude reminded Wil so much of Angelina Jolie, that's probably who they'd have play Finch in a movie, even though Jolie didn't resemble Finch much beyond general shape and color. Finch's dark hair was always gathered in something Wil thought of as a snood, but probably wasn't, and wrap-around glasses forever hid her eyes behind reflection and translucent semi-darkness, barely showing whites of her eyes.

     "Finch," Marco pitched his voice to convey calm elan, but not quite disguising his surprise. "I didn't know you were working this neighborhood. Packing future weapons? What's Wil going to say to his friends?"

     "Wil's not going to remember," Finch tossed off with a crook of smile and a tiny shrug in Wil's direction. "Don't," she said to Marco when he moved a little.

     "She's good with that thing," Tyler said quietly.

     "What's the plan?" Marco asked like he had no cares. "You want Wil to come along, too?"

     "No, Wil you go back in your apartment," Finch instructed. "I'll talk to you when I get back." Then she backed up slowly, giving a come-along twitch of her weapon's muzzle. "You two know the drill. Stay easy, stay safe."

     Tyler managed to catch Wil's gaze as he started moving. "You ever seen her eyes yet?" he asked.

     Wil shook his head no.

     "Not as far as you can recall?" Marco chuckled.

monkey patching «

     (An excerpt from imm.)

     "Yeah," Wil agreed. "It'll just be part of the runtime contract. But you'll need a virtual machine instance."

     "Hmmm," Stu pulled his lip. "What about monkey-patching? What effect will that have?"

     Wil glanced at Zé then back at Stu. "That's a slight change in topic," Wil noted. "What did you have in mind?"

     "I was thinking about folks screwing with the classes for standard builtin objects," Stu said. "It makes me worried. It seemed slightly related."

     "Okay," Wil spread his hands. "I was thinking each virtual machine might get a copy-on-write reference to standard builtin classes—maybe edited if sandboxing is in effect."

     "So if any VM edits standard classes," Zé anticipated, "it would only affect the local copy? Like that?"

     "Something along those lines," Wil nodded, "so you'd only be able to screw up the world for yourself."

     Stu pointed a finger: "That sounds like a later feature," Stu said. "Not a day one, first release feature, right?"

     "I dunno," Wil admitted. "You're probably right. But it's square in my path. It fits the whole idea of having module systems with facile symbol scope control."

     "Did you ever read a famous 1958 short story by Alfred Bester named The Men Who Murdered Mohammed?" Zé asked. "It was one of my favorites."

     "I don't know why we're talking about science fiction," Wil sounded annoyed. "If it's one of your favorites, it must involve time travel. Am I right?"

     "Guy catches his wife cheating on him," Zé said, "So he builds a time machine and goes back in time to whack her parents, so she'd never be born."

     "Ah, the indirect approach," Wil smiled. "I take it he was a physics professor or something?"

     "Did I forget to mention that?" Zé agonized. "Anyway, it doesn't work: his wife is still there afterward. So he goes and whacks her grandparents too."

     "This has a creepy tone to it," Wil objected.

     "Nothing works," Zé continued. "So he keeps traveling in time, whacking famous people to see if that makes any difference. When he comes back, people have trouble seeing him."

     "Uh, oh," Wil saw where this was going. "I take it he was whacking his own sandbox in time?"

     Zé nodded. "Basically, yeah," he said. "After that he can only communicate with other time travelers who also whacked their own time continuums the same way."

     "If I say I get the analogy," Wil pleaded, "will you stop telling me about 50 year old science fiction?"

being there «

     (An excerpt from box.)

     "Shove off, you little twit," Dex sneered.

     "Okay, that's it," Zé advanced. "Pull my finger."

     "I'm gonna kick your freaky ass," Dex warned.

     "For someone who wants to kick my freaky ass," Zé said, "you do a lot of talking."

     "Don't let him touch you," Wil warned Dex perfunctorily, causing Dex to back away slowly.

     Zé caught Dex's wrist when he darted around a table.

     Now Dex and Zé stood at the side of a remote crossroads, in the middle of nowhere with dusty, dry, plowed crop fields on either side of a road receding into the distance. Both wore nice period suits. Dex’s eyes bulged like he swallowed a bug.

     “That’s funny,” Zé stared into the distance.

     “What?” Dex choked, still trying to get his bearings.

     “That plane’s dusting crops where there ain’t no crops,” Zé replied smoothly, still playing the script.

     “Where the hell are we?” Dex managed finally.

     “That’s not your line,” Zé tsked. “Indiana, 1958. And that’s my bus coming now, right on time. I should get on and let you practice dodging bullets by yourself.”

     “Uh,” Dex searched for words as Zé waved off the antique bus that was stopping. “Is this where Wil grew up?”

     “Close,” Zé replied. “Iowa does look like this. Ironically, that’s actually where Cary Grant is from, too. Wil’s Dad looks a bit like him. Better keep your eye on that crop duster.”

     The sound of the biplane grew ominously as it zoomed straight for the two of them.

     “Ahhh!” screamed Dex, throwing himself to the ground as the plane passed overhead. Hot dust rose up and got in his mouth, tasting terrible, almost distracting him from the sound of ricocheting bullets.

     Zé picked himself up first, like this was all normal. “You know, it’s funny your character is named Thornhill,” Zé marveled. “Wow, I never noticed that before.”

     “Whatever lesson you wanted me to learn,” Dex sold with a note of near hysteria, “I think I got it now.”

     “Look out, he’s coming back,” Zé started to run.

become «

     (An excerpt from design.)

     "Smalltalk's a bigger language that Scheme," Wil warned. "So minimalism in Lathe will pare much more from Smalltalk. Maybe I should call the subset Gab, like I planned."

     "If it was me, I'd link fictitious citations to a Gab subset dating back to the 80's," Zé smiled. "Would that be bad?"

     "Whoa," Wil laughed. "It'd be funny, but a lot of folks don't have any sense of humor about history."

     "Fiddlesticks," Zé said. "Past and future don't exist anyway. Time is just the rate of change in the now. Timelines are just models we use for simulations in our minds."

     "Your perspective is, uh, very strange," Wil said quietly. "I wouldn't say that in front of normal people. What an odd view for someone who loves time travel stories."

     "Why do you think I find them so amusing?" Zé smiled. "The whole idea of the past as a place you can go is comical."

     "You must not be a big calendar fan," Wil said. "How do you think about schedules? Oh, I guess that rate of change thing works. Do me a favor: don't mention it again."

girlfriend 2.0 «

     Z (as Zé styled himself) had the top of Meg's scalp open to overhaul her language module, dangling a fine cascade of tangled wires down her neck where they were easier to reach. Maybe he could get Meg up and running again before Finch brought Eli back from her regular poker game, where she earned a steady income. Z enjoyed Finch's reaction to Meg quite a bit, though it always led to Finch offering to set up another blind date with one of her marriage-seeky clients drawn from a halo of match-making activities: a weirder chapter of Finch's paying avocations. Z's last date with one of Finch's girls was a lulu and made him swear off for a while.

     Wil slumped with his neck over the back of his chair, arms dangling over the sides—recharging or thinking about some idea, ignoring Ulf's steady self-absorbed rant in the background. Z's view changed channels briefly into comic book mode, making Wil's eyes acquire pronounced X's crossed over eye sockets to say he was offline. Suddenly Z recalled a Life In Hell cartoon drawn by Matt Groening in the 80's of one-eared rabbit Binky lying on his back with X's over his eyes, holding a drill in one hand, next to a wall filled with dozens of randomly placed drill holes; the caption read: don't drink and drill.

     Z only had to make sympathetic noises while Ulf delivered an epic harangue while stalking about the room. Apparently Ulf didn't need Zé to actually say anything. Z had a third eye on a clock, counting consecutive minutes in Ulf's monolog. The title of Ulf's piece today was Screwed by Reverse Splits.

     Meg's arm jerked spastically with twitching fingers when Z connected a lead, reminding him of android Ash in Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien, and making Ulf flinch sharply.

     "Jesus, Zé!" Ulf shouted, "Do you have to work on that cast iron bitch in here?"

     "Hush," Zé soothed, "You'll hurt her feelings. And frankly, your language offends me. Isn't that right sweetie?" Zé gave Meg a peremptory rap with his knuckles, about the same way he might when saying knock on wood.

     "Meg hit me this morning," Ulf complained. "Why didn't you and Kip build Asimov's three laws into her, like all the other self respecting roboticists do?"

     Wil's eyes were open, twinkling with mirth. "Maybe you should be more careful the next time she asks, 'Does this algorithm make me look fat?'"

     "I didn't think Zé had the software working so realistically now," Ulf excused. "Can't you change the pseudo random number seed, or something? Just skip that one."

     "I get a kick out of watching guys parse her questions," Wil smiled broadly. "I especially enjoy, 'How much money do you have?' The looks are priceless."

     "You enjoy all the howlers," Ulf accused. "Especially the lines Max comes up with. Where is Max anyway?"

     Max was Kip's simulacrum running his latest CEO simulation, Maximus Assimus, with a one-track, self-serving mind. Zé helped Kip write some of the basic mental infrastructure, while Kip did all the work on Max's beowulf cluster of iPods.

     "Kip has Max out at a fund raiser Koi put together," Wil said. "The other VCs fork over money when they're in stitches. Question is, why does Koi spread the load?"

     "Did you ever notice how Max says the weirdest things when you first turn him on?" Ulf asked.

     "Oh!" Wil recalled. "Yesterday Max said, 'What are you slaves doing in here? Get back to work.' That just killed me."

     "My favorite I weighted to come up a third of the time when he meets a new group of geeks," Zé bragged. "He says, 'You guys look smart. Can I have all your stuff?' "

     "I have an idea," Wil said mischeviously. "Can we pull up a remote web admin UI on Max from here?"

     "Oh, you wouldn't," Zé lauded Wil's audacity.

training «

     Eli found a post-it note stuck in the middle of his LCD monitor after letting himself into Wil's apartment where the crew had temporarily set up shop. Wil and Zé said it was Finch's idea—she claimed sightlines were good from the bay windows where Finch liked to sit and write, drinking espresso and watching folks at a café across the street named Vintage Season. She had a little table and chair arranged at the window identical to tables and chairs at Vintage Season whose proprietor—Oliver ("call me 'Ollie'")—had twice hand delivered Finch's order, polishing her table like a favorite customer's.

     At first Eli had a crush on Finch, for all of ten minutes (her skin was the most perfect he had ever seen) before he started feeling her amusement—and it really grated when coupled with a clinical distance making Eli feel like a subject in a psychology experiment. Those cool looking sunglasses got slightly spooky after a while. She never took them off, except to sport another pair—the retro 50's beatnik look was Eli's favorite because it lent her an air of dry humor.

     No sign of Finch today. She must be out ... uh, what did she do anyway? Eli imagined Finch touring all the cafés in town, keeping her finger on the pulse of bohemian life, pulling her intelligence agency routine whenever she got bored.

     No one else was around either. Where was Zé? It was Eli's second full day, and Zé promised a bigger taste of the project.

     Peeling the post-it note off the screen, Eli realized it was two notes stacked one atop the other. The first was in Wil's precise block hand: "Report to Zé for training. Take red pill twice daily. No, it's not going to be Jujitsu."

     A second note was in Zé's erratic hand: "Directions to rabbit hole ..." followed by an odd set of instructions.

     Entering the weirdly sterile, round white room once again, Zé eased himself into the chair and keyed in his usual queries (displayed as always in this incredibly archaic green text on black—good for a chuckle) but Mother answered the same as always: “Investigate lifeform. blah, blah, blah ... crew expendable.” Zé sighed softly and rubbed his eyes.

     “You don’t improvise much, do you Mother?” Zé tsked and then tried to access his email again to check past exchanges with Koi about his project. Amusingly the Nostromo turned out to have an internet connection here, giving Zé a shiver of anachronistic thrill before he pulled up a folder of correspondence leading up to Koi’s investment. Why had Flywheel done a sudden about face? It seemed related to Koi’s changed tone over fiction topics. What did it mean?

     “Zé!” Eli yelled outside, then started hammering on the door, before screaming more loudly, “Zé! Are you there?” Eli almost fell forward when Zé opened without warning.

     Eli’s eyes were wild and he breathed heavily. Zé smiled as Eli looked over his shoulder and saw the familar looking room. “That’s, that’s,” Eli tried to articulate. “No.”

     “Yes,” Zé countered. “Have trouble finding the way?”

     “Ha, ha,” Eli laughed like that was the least of his worries. “Is this, uh, are we on the ... Nostromo?”

     Zé nodded. “Commerial towing vessel on return trip to Earth,” he agreed. “Carrying seven crew members in stasis. Or carried. The rest are all dead. Just us two now.”

     “But, but,” Eli waved a hand and hit the door jamb. “It’s so real. Look,” he flapped his arms. “And what’s that smell?”

     Zé wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “Metal, oil, something horrible burning. Dunno. You know you’re in deep shit when it smells real, right? It feels real too—sorry. How’s your pain threshold? Not so good, huh?”

     “Is that thing still on the ship?” Eli demanded.

     “Of course,” Zé said nonchalantly. “It stalks us after we leave here. Or if we don’t go, it comes here.”

     It looked like Eli’s mind was threatening to freeze up, so he moved sideways. “I saw Ash’s remains on the way here,” Eli said. “Ghoulish. Why not have Meg here to help?”

     “What, you think Meg would help?” Zé boggled. “Uh, no. We can add her later when you’re ready for a harder level.”

     “Harder level,” Eli repeated blankly.

     “Oh, yeah,” Zé arched an eyebrow. “Wait til Meg follows you around with a kitchen knife saying, ‘I’m not going to be ignored here.’ That’s just for starters.”

     “We have to get off the ship,” Eli suggested urgently.

     “Good plan,” Zé encouraged. “We need more oxygen for the life raft. Want to get it?”

     Eli clenched his teeth, then relaxed enough to ask, “What aren’t you telling me?”

     “At most one of us escapes alive,” Zé replied. “This is a sole survivor scenario. Extra oxygen was a wee joke.”

     Eli’s eyebrows shot up. “No way,” he denied.

     “Way,” Zé contradicted. “And if we both screw up we’ll both feed the alien. We have a few minutes left,” He said glancing at his watch. Then he made a speed-it-up gesture.

     “Anybody ever survive this the first time through?” Eli asked without much enthusiasm.

     “No one so far,” Zé informed gently. “Not even Finch. The second time though—whew!—hell on wheels. She’s really interesting when she gets worked up.”

     “Weapons!” Eli shouted. “I need guns, lots of guns.”

     “This isn’t the Matrix,” Zé chided. “But you can have anything you want within reason. It has to be something hand held—no super powers here, just tech stuff.”

     “What do I do?” Eli begged.

     “Look out behind you!” Zé warned in shock, leaping aside as Eli screamed. But there was nothing there.

     Eli looked daggers at Zé, who chortled.

     “Your father tried to improve his odds once by taking out other crew members,” Zé recalled. “But it’s a very bad idea: awful karma. Don’t want to go there.”

     “I know what I want,” Eli said, getting panicky. “Where do I get my weapon?”

     “Get the image and idea clear in your mind,” Zé instructed, “then reach in one of those lockers there.”

     Eli whipped open a door and drew out a large, odd looking weapon. “Yes!” Eli crowed.

     “What is it?” Zé asked as Eli pointed down the hallway and started charging it up. The muzzle grew a glowing ball.

     “Peacemaker from Jak 3,” Eli said and fired, sending the ball of light off to a small explosion. “I like it!”

     When Eli looked back Zé was pulling something fluid and intricate from another locker, held in one hand by a pommel sprouting a flexing, elastic, folding, glimmering blade.

     “God damn,” Eli said.

     Zé whipped it through a thick metal fixture which parted like tinsel, the blade reaching out and snapping back with a sound like snicker snack. “I love this thing,” Zé said.

     “That hardly seems fair,” Eli objected.

     “Guess what happens when you lop limbs off the alien?” Zé retorted, spreading hands in emphasis.

     “Acid for blood,” Eli recalled. “That sucks.”

implicit deals «

     "Hey, Wil," Eli began with a hesitant frown. "I read that thing you wrote about morality, and there seems to be a lot of subtle things wrong with it. I hope you don't mind me saying, but it feels a bit cockeyed."

     "Yes, I know," Wil rubbed his eyes. "It happens when making strong statements for sake of clarity without necessary provisos refining details. I hope you're not going to make me keep talking about it; it's on the boring side, even though I wrote it as a rant."

     "You know, research shows folks use differing standards in social and commercial contexts," Eli said carefully. "When you mix them by talking about normal social agreement as contracts... it's a little weird. My dad would have no trouble casting you as a nutball."

     "I know, don't worry about my feelings," Wil assured with a grin. "Think of everything I said as a kind of model that's hard to reach in practice, if for no other reason than most understandings are implicit, and little objective evidence says whether folks' ideas are in sync."

     Eli relaxed slightly. "Well, contracts are explicit and commercial," he essayed. "So isn't that the wrong word to use? I tried to think of another word, like deal, but all of them smack of commercial undertones."

     Wil shrugged. "It's not my fault we don't have the perfect word for everything we want to say. Let's say deal when we mean understanding between parties, even when implicit, social, fuzzy, and non-commercial. I'm sure sociologists have a better term."

     "Then what was the point of your rant?" Eli asked.

     "Okay," Wil raised his hands with fingers spread as if grasping a loose pile of something. "We all have a theory about what others are thinking—call it theory of mind. Part of this theory includes a grasp of errors we see in what others think, according to our theory."

     "This is going to get complex really fast, isn't it?" Eli said miserably. "Can I take a rain check?"

     "I'll speed it up," Wil promised. "To simplify, let's use POV to mean point of view—it's a theory about perspective held by one person. I can talk about my POV and your POV without getting totally snarled in as-far-as-I-know qualifications, which are understood."

     "So your model of my POV is understood to be rough and we don't need to keep saying that over and over," Eli granted. "Okay. But you want to talk about errors in my POV? Where you see I'm missing something?"

     "Exactly," Wil said. "In my ethics, honesty requires I fix your POV as gently as I can when we have some kind of deal—usually implicit of course—where you're going to lose because of your mistake. Even if, especially if, I would benefit by a mistake."

     "How do you know I'm mistaken?" Eli probed.

     "That's complex," Wil sighed. "Let me answer by asking a question: Have you ever noticed someone else has the wrong idea about something?"

     "Of course!" Eli laughed. "Okay, I get your point. I grant you often see my wrong ideas. Everyone does."

     "Yes, in varying degree," Wil confirmed. "How good you are at grasping someone's thought process depends on many variables which I won't enumerate."

     "Thank god," Eli rolled his eyes.

     "But some folks are very good at it," Wil said slowly. "Much better than you or I. And they aren't always honest in the sense I mentioned. So what do you think happens to you when you make deals with them?"

     "Depends on whether they want to screw me," Eli said slowly. "But how bad could it get?"

     "Suppose they explore a deal space, searching for a spot where your mistake and therefore your loss is maximized?" Wil asked with raised eyebrows.

     "Ouch!" Eli's eyes glazed over in thought. "But does that ever happen in practice?"

     "You are so naive," Wil sighed. "Yes, but you can learn to recognize a set of behaviors that correlate with someone looking for you to give yourself a raw deal."

     "You mean they have a playbook?" Eli asked mockingly with an arched eyebrow.

     "More or less," Wil agreed easily. "But it's a big playbook and folks specialize in different variations, like chess masters in styles of opening games."

     Eli stared blankly for a moment.

     "You're thinking I'm paranoid," Wil observed, then smiled at Eli's surprised expression.

     "I must be easy to read," Eli chuckled nervously. "Maybe I should give it consideration. What should I do?"

     "Think about it, for starters," Wil suggested. "Then start imagining what a bad hat might do if they can guess what you want, since it predicts part of your negotiation. Try to avoid being herded."

     Eli covered his eyes. "This is going to make me paranoid," he mumbled. "What's the first sign I should worry about? Any common tricks to notice?"

     "Yes, one is quite common," Wil said. "It's hard to recognize what it means, because it's an absence of something, and negatives are hard to interpret. When the other person seems to have a poker face, that's not a good sign. Or similarly, when very little info is offered, this is easy to confuse with no info present, which is why curiously blank starting positions are offered to you."

     "How do I lose that way?" Eli wondered.

     "If you reveal where you're coming from first," Wil began, "it tells a lot about deal structure you expect, letting others cater to your confirmation bias, letting you see what you want. You might read noise as agreement."

     "This is way creepy," Eli said.

     "Yes, it is," Wil agreed. "Had enough for today?"

     "I want to renegotiate the deal," Eli joked. "Tell me when I'm not going to like something first, okay?"

raggedy man «

     Eli quietly turned his key in the lock of Wil's apartment, easing the door open silently to avoid disturbing anyone inside. As far as he knew, no one else planned to work at Wil's place this afternoon. This might be a good time to sift through notes Zé wrote in the wiki about project charter, which Eli didn't grasp clearly. Why did Koi decide to fund this project? Even angel investors as eccentric as Flywheel needed reasons to write checks. How did writing fiction relate to investments?

     Eli felt sheepish about sneaking, even though Wil bid them all come and go as they please, making themselves at home. Having a secret purpose made Eli feel conspicuously furtive.

     Slipping into the living room, Eli asked himself: How can I explain tiptoeing this way? He could say he wasn't. Yeah, that's it.

     Wil's desk was unoccupied. No one was home. Out the bay windows, the view of Vintage Season across the street was tranquil. Eli headed for his spot, then froze in his tracks, heart surging with a bit of adrenaline.

     Finch laid flat on the sofa, maybe napping.

     Pulse racing, Eli stared to see if Finch stirred. She still wore those damned wrap-around sunglasses. Did she ever take them off?

     Finch never moved; Eli's entrance must have been quiet enough. But what was he going to do now? Calming slowly, he considered inflating a paper bag then popping it loudly over her. That'd be funny, but she scared him already without inciting her ire.

     Suddenly Eli had a vision of Finch as Agent Dana Scully from the X-Files sleeping on Wil's sofa. Somber clothing was a match, since Finch usually wore black; but instead of Scully's red hair, Finch's dark brown hair was gathered one of those snoods she wore. And let's face it: those sunglasses were creepy. What if sudden waking made the shades fall off, revealing a glow of red camera lenses instead of eyes like the cyborg villain in Terminator? Eli shuddered. Sometimes his vivid imagination seemed a curse.

     Without thinking, Eli moved gently until he stood over Finch, staring into the translucent lenses. As usual, he half perceived contours of her eyes. They were now closed, but he could see lashes. What would her eyes look like without those glasses? That question drove him mad with curiosity in odd moments—so now reality could not possibly live up to fantasy he held.

     He had to know; Eli's hand reached slowly for Finch's sunglasses, moving very gently.

     This is not a good idea, Eli said to himself. What do I say if she wakes? But he couldn't stop.

     Finch grabbed his wrist, and Eli screamed. Too late he saw her eyes were open and she smiled.

     "Bust a deal, face the wheel," Finch sang after Eli's shriek. She swung her legs to the floor while gripping his wrist tight enough to hurt.

     Eli croaked, heart hammering in terror.

     "Sit," Finch commanded, jerking Eli onto the couch next to her without pausing. "Curiosity killed the cat. I take you missed Beyond Thunderdome?"

     "Ouch," Eli eyed her grip tenderly. "Thunderdome? Bad post apocalyptic movie?"

     "The remake was a lot better," Finch corrected. "Big budget, great special effects." She released his wrist with a casual toss.

     "Remake?" Eli asked blankly, totally puzzled but thankful it seemed Finch might forgive him.

     "Oh, that's right," Finch laughed musically. "Silly me. Yeah, the first version wasn't even campy enough to be fun. They should try again."

     "You weren't sleeping," Eli accused.

     "As far as you know," Finch arched an eyebrow above her shades. Sunglasses made every other part of her expressions pop a little more.

     "What if I had a heart attack?" Eli wondered.

     "You're like, twenty?" Finch countered.

     Eli leaned forward like he planned to stand up. Finch hit him in the shoulder, sitting him back down. She gestured with fingertips: come on, out with it.

     "I, uh, owe you an apology?" Eli guessed and Finch nodded. "Okay, I'm sorry I crept up on you while you pretended to sleep, so you could scare the living shit out of me. I'll have nightmares."

     Finch touched her glasses. "Hands off," she said. Eli nodded vigorously, looking miserable.

     She jumped up from the couch, pointing at Eli. In a kinder tone of voice she added, "Green."

     "Green what?" Eli asked but already knew.

     "My eyes," she replied. "Plus a few exotic bits. Like my irises spin, grabbing your mind in a blink. Odd flecks of color too. Heart breaking, really."

     "Okay," Eli grinned haplessly. "Sure. If my penance is over, can I get some work done?"

     "Why did you sneak in here so quietly?" Finch asked carefully, looking hard at Eli's eyes.

     "Uh," Eli considered. "I wasn't that quiet."

     Finch nodded like Eli spilled his guts. "Which parts of our records did you mean to search?"

soylent green «

     "Ugh, what the hell is this?" Ulf talked around green crumbs, several falling from his mouth. "Health food? Try donuts next time, please."

     "Are you talking to me?" Finch said with a hint of Robert DeNiro from Taxi Driver, like she couldn't resist.

     "Yeah, hey," Ulf put on a solicitous face. "I wanted to get a word with you before Zé and Wil get here. Just the two of us. My son Eli said you gave him a scare this afternoon. Made it sound like a prank, no big deal."

     Finch turned back from her arc into the living room, face moving fluidly through several interesting expressions before settling on dry amusement and a growing smile. She drew up in front of Ulf and stopped just a little too close. Ulf could see his reflection in Finch's sunglasses, and the outline of her eyes somewhere beyond.

     "Really, no, is he really your son?" Finch put her hand up to her mouth in mock concern. "It must have slipped my mind. Thanks for reminding me. So what's on your mind? Hoping to run his life for him?"

     Ulf had trouble deciding what to do with his hands. Somehow this wasn't going the way he imagined. He should have taken off this suit jacket, Ulf realized. He felt warm and overdressed for Wil's apartment.

     "The two of you were alone here this afternoon?" Ulf asked, swirling an index finger pointed down to take in the apartment. "Something happened to his wrist—it's not clear to me—then you lined him up to date one of those girls you represent. Her name's what, Ann?"

     "Is that the way Eli tells it?" Finch asked. "He's a big boy and Ann's a paying customer. What's not to like? Did you hope her name was something like April or Bambi? You look like the Betsy type to me. What was your ex's name?"

     Ulf's face turned slightly red but he kept his cool, because he liked to think of himself as a cool customer. "I think it's best if you kept my son out of your match making business," Ulf said. "He's still a kid and working here is all the real world experience he needs right now."

     "I get your point of view," Finch conceded. "But it's wrong in the sense Eli is old enough to fight for himself, and he knows what he's doing. In fact, he's smarter than you, so you're butting in. Besides I like him, so I'm not going to get him screwed. At least not in that sense," she laughed.

     "What's your interest in him?" Ulf pressed.

     "Whoa," Finch held up a hand. "He's way too young for me. Ann's a sweet, smart, blond girl his age—totally harmless. Just meet her and don't freak out. I'll save scary, wild older women for you. Interested?"

     "Divorced," Ulf acted like he was stuffed with food and just got offered another heaping pile of meatloaf. "Maybe I'll take a raincheck. There's something else I wanted to talk about, if you don't mind."

     "Sure," Finch sighed. "I can always bill you or take it out of your hide."

     "Can we sit down?" Ulf begged. "This facing off thing is wearing my feet out."

     "No, let's go here in the kitchen for better privacy," Finch countered, "even though no one else is here. I might want to knock you out with my cosh or something."

     Ulf snorted and followed, checking her ass before resuming a professional demeanor when she turned and cornered him near the dishwasher.

     "Get an eyeful?" Finch asked casually without amity. "Okay, shoot. It's about Flywheel?"

     "How'd you know?" Ulf wondered. "Yeah, why did Koi take me along with Zé and Wil? I know Zé put me on the roster, but you didn't like me on sight. I figured out I'm no one important, so what am I doing here?"

     "Wow, an honest question without spin," Finch said. "That must have hurt. Hmm, I could tell you, but then ..."

     "Then you'd have to kill me, I know," Ulf finished.

     "I wouldn't have to," Finch smiled widely. "I can just erase your memory. Not as messy."

     Ulf rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said. "It's been puzzling me. How am I useful to Flywheel?"

     "Ever see Three Days of the Condor or read the book?" Finch asked. "Good flick from 1975. Spy thriller."

     "I don't get it," Ulf was dumbfounded. "Are you answering my question?"

     "Actually, yes, I am," Finch replied cheerfully. "You should check it out. Robert Redford plays this bookish CIA agent named Turner in New York who reads instead of doing field work. Reads lots of spy thrillers."

     "He's like a paper spook?" Ulf asked.

     "Yeah," Finch nodded. "He reads thrillers and other trash looking for hidden messages and new ideas. So Turner's a research wonk for the CIA."

     "You want me to be a research spook?" Ulf puzzled.

     "No, you'd be more like other folks in his office," Finch countered. "This secret office is staffed by six other CIA geeks who read and do research. Turner likes to sneak out the back way to get lunch."

     "I can make popcorn," Ulf looked at kitchen cupboards. "Don't stop, this is great."

     "So Turner sneaks out the back way," Finch described dramatically. "Then an assassin shows up; his plan was to hit the CIA in a lightweight kind of way, to send a message."

     "Not a very hidden message," Ulf noticed.

     "The assassin, played by Max von Sydow, shoots everyone in the office," Finch continued. "Only Turner gets away. His codename is Condor, thus the movie's name."

     "Oh dear," Ulf considered. "And the other six bookish geeks in the office?"

     "All dead," Finch shook her head sadly.

     "Disposable," Ulf muttered. "Like red shirts in Star Trek. So you want me to be a red shirt?"

     "An apt analogy," Finch commended. "But it isn't necessary to get shot. Just provide distraction and be disposable. By acting like a pompous bigshot, you attract more attention: you were made for the role."

     "But, uh, who would come and, you know—" Ulf struggled, "—attack our office ... like that?"

     "Bad people," Finch said. "People from where I come from, looking for us."

     "I really have to go," Ulf tried inching by her.

     "But we're not done," Finch shook her head.

     "Which one is your Turner?" Ulf asked. "Zé or Wil?"

     "That would be telling," Finch laughed.

     "I won't tell anyone," Ulf begged. "I promise."

     "I know," Finch agreed and took off her sunglasses.

     Ulf stared into Finch's eyes with a growing look of astonishment. "Oh my dear god," he said slowly, unable to tear away his gaze.

scarlet pimpernel «

     Zé had the top of Meg's head open again to apply his latest insights to her software and hardware integration glitches; fine bundled wires draped this way and that. As Zé moved wires around to reach his next objective, he supposed it looked to others like he styled Meg's hair instead of doing surgery on her mind. Even though she held very still, Meg's eyes disconcertingly followed Zé closely, or stared at Eli and Wil at their respective desks—a bit like one of those paintings with eyes following you everywhere, but much worse because Meg's eyes did follow you. Lately when Zé turned motor control off, her eyes kept going.

     Why am I working on Meg? Zé asked himself. I should be writing some fiction instead of wasting my time on a deadend robot hack. Every time he gave her a test run, something completely unexpected happened, so it was hard to see this as productive. But pranks made it worth it.

     Ulf still sprawled zonked out on Wil's couch, napping with fitful twitches and starts as if he had been out running before collapsing to rest. Except he was still dressed for his day job's office, and he rarely took naps.

     "Hey Zé," Wil called. "As long as Meg acts so creepy, can you add a quick language hack? When Ulf wakes up, it'd be cool if she moans, 'Brains...' like a zombie."

     Zé snickered. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

     "Sweet," Eli turned to chime. "You can try a gamut of Halloween shticks for motion activated devices. But no nagging, please. I left home for a reason."

     "Hey, remember the Star Trek episode where Harry Mudd has a robot copy of his harpy wife?" Wil asked.

     Zé put on a shrew's voice and recited, "Harcourt Fenton Mudd! You good for nothing ... thing ... thing ... thing—" Zé ended with a laugh. "I loved that episode."

     Wil wheeled his eyes over to Eli. "Your mom ever sound like that, Eli?"

     "Nooo ... not quite," Eli replied. "You know what you guys sound like? Isn't that episode a little misogynistic?"

     "Nope," Zé chirped. "It characterizes Mudd. To make omelette characters you must break eggs."

     Wil looked serious. "It's a warning against marriage from the 60's," he explained. "First you lose freedom, then peace of mind as your partner slowly turns into a soul sucking clone of her psychopathic, overweight, scaly mother who joyfully flays the skin from your body with knives."

     Eli pointed at Wil. "You're way out of line, mister," he said, then shot a worried glance at Ulf on the sofa. "Do you think I'll turn into my father?"

     "Perhaps after enough electroshock," Wil said, still pretending to be serious. "If you run through enough current, your brain reverts to original settings."

     "I've seen it happen," Zé threw in his support.

     "Yeah," Eli agreed facetiously. "During your psych ward residency, right after your stint in astronaut training."

     "Lots of astronauts become shrinks," Zé defended.

     "Gaah!" Ulf jolted out of sleep.

     "Sleep panic disorder," Zé smiled quickly.

     "Oh jesus, what a dream," Ulf rubbed his face.

     "Finish that language mod?" Wil asked Zé.

     Zé shook his head. "Working on it."

     "Can you guys save it?" Ulf begged, slightly groggy. "I'm wrung out. Coffee."

     Wil laughed, then stopped at Ulf's baleful look. "Sorry," Wil said. "I just recalled a story my last girlfriend told me about going to the coffee shop early."

     "The one you didn't marry," Eli pointed out.

     "Exactly," Wil agreed. "She goes in a shop and orders, 'Coffee.' The coffee barista taunts her by prompting, 'Coffee, what?' aiming for please, so she barks, 'Coffee now!' "

     "I've heard that one," Zé pretended to complain.

     Ulf swung his feet to the floor and put his face in his hands. "I dreamed I walked trough a dark hallway toward the a stairwell," Ulf began, pointing toward Wil's door. "The one out there. Finch stood in the darkness saying, 'Ulf, come here. I need to talk to you.' She was waiting for me."

     "Not the kind of dream I have about Finch," Eli said.

     Ulf looked up with furrowed brows. "And the scary part was I knew she took her sunglasses off. She hid in the dark and called me to come talk to her, and her eyes ... I had to get away before before I could see."

     Wil glanced at Zé. "That's interesting," he said.

     Eli stared, chewing over an idea, but said nothing.

     "Finch used to take off her sunglasses in the coffee shop where I first met her," Zé announced. "Place off Ocean Beach in the city where she wrote and held court."

     "Really?" Eli prompted eagerly.

     "Yeah, but not where I ever saw myself," Zé said. "She always looked the other way—often at some asshole she was brushing off in a dramatic gesture. Other folks could see, though. No one went off screaming."

     "Where is Finch, anyway?" Wil asked Ulf.

     Ulf looked blank. "She had to go," he said.

     Zé barked out a short laugh. "Sorry," Zé said. "I just recalled a great line from an X-Files episode. People had to do what this guy said. When asked why they let him free, some people said, 'He had to go.' Because he said so."

     "The Pusher," Wil recognized.

     "That's the one," Zé nodded. "Popped into my mind."

     "What about the assholes in the coffee shop?" Eli asked. "What made them assholes?"

     "Hitting on her, you know," Zé said. "Hey babe, where you been all my life, mostly in body language and modern pickup lines. We used to watch her shoot them down for sport. Some guys didn't like being told no."

     "I don't see what's so wrong about a guy making a little conversation," Eli objected.

     Zé stared into space, almost said something, twiddling his fingers to and fro as if putting something in place. "Huh, that's interesting," Zé said finally.

     "I'm going for coffee," Ulf stood up, pressing his temples. "Don't try to stop me."

     "What?" Eli prompted Zé.

     "Some of the assholes came back from the restroom with wet hair—really wet hair," Zé said slowly, checking his memory.

     "Wow!" Wil's eyebrows went up high. Then he started nodding before suggesting, "Swirlie."

     "Oh my god," Zé marveled. "Go soak your head?"

     "Yeah," Wil kept thinking. "Then he's like, where master? So she points to the can saying, 'Toilet.' And he's off."

     "You guys are crazy," Eli shook his head.

     "What are you looking at, sugar?" Ulf asked Meg. "Want me to get you some coffee?"

     "Braaiinss," Meg moaned in perfect zombie style.

     "Jesus," Ulf backed away.

     "What do you think, Zé?" Wil asked. "I'm just making this up as I go along."

     "It's possible," Zé rubbed his chin. "Makes a good story. Maybe I should write it up."

     "Why not ask Finch to write it up?" Eli suggested. "Maybe she'll give something away."

     Zé shook his head. "She'd just go with it. We wouldn't find out a thing. Hey, Eli, just remember something?"

     "Yeah," Eli looked far away. "She took me to this poker game and she goes up to a bouncer. I see she tips her glasses to peek over them at the guy and says, 'He's with me.' And he lets us both enter."

     "That doesn't prove anything," Ulf dismissed.

the shine «

     Eli suppressed a shiver, pulling his heavy parka in closer. The snow cat's heater did little to keep out the cold of the blizzard. Watching Zé drive the cat was boring, mainly because it was clear he had done this many times before. A slightly manic look on Zé's face didn't help Eli's anxiety at all; it made Eli think about what might happen once they finally reached the Overlook.

     “How far is it from Sidewinder to the hotel again?” Eli asked, peering fearfully through the windshield at drifts of snow dimly revealed by headlights.

     “Twenty five miles,” Zé shot a look at Eli before putting eyes forward again. “Give you a chance to think about how you’ll find Danny if we have to search.”

     “Don’t you worry about Jack Nicholson—uh, Jack Torrance—burying a fire axe in your chest once we go in the hotel?” Eli asked, looking down at his own chest.

     Zé shook his head. “That doesn’t always happen,” he assured. “That was just Kubrik’s interpretation. Now in the novel the big problem is topiary animals attacking. That almost always happens. Different every time.”

     “I feel so much better,” Eli rolled his eyes.

     “Oh cheer up,” Zé snapped. “You could be stuck watching re-runs of Seinfeld or something.”

     Eli tried to banish a disturbing image of Jerry Seinfeld at the Overlook doing standup for Mr. Torrance.

     “Mashups give you vertigo,” Zé warned. “Comedy won’t work—don’t pin your fate on false hope.”

     “Have you taken Flywheel up to the Overlook?” Eli asked. “Koi might enjoy this.”

     “Are you kidding?” Zé recoiled. “This one’s far too disturbing—” Eli flinched “—Koi’s speed is more playing golf with Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack.”

     “Golf sounds okay right now,” Eli rubbed an eye.

     “Wimp,” Zé accused. “Younger folks always try to skip virtual slaughter in the flesh.”

     “Uh,” Eli blinked eyes rapidly. “I’m having trouble with your use of virtual and flesh together.”

     Zé laughed and pointed. “I see what you mean,” he granted. “Anyway, I think Flywheel prefers science fiction. He wants to sample my time travel.”

     “Really?” Eli asked. “Why do you think?”

     The arctic cat slewed sideways, making Eli grab the Jesus strap on his side. “Damn, Zé.”

     “I have a theory about that,” Zé smiled and ignored criticism of his driving. “When I first sent Flywheel my proposal and asked for angel funding, I also told him a fun idea I had to include him in my stories.”

     “Yeah, what?” Eli asked without interest.

     “I researched his sudden appearance as a rich celebrity,” Zé explained. “Everyone thinks he made his score in the dotcom boom. But I couldn’t find any evidence he existed before 2001. None at all. He just appeared from nowhere with money up the whazoo.”

     Eli turned fully to look carefully at Zé. “Where are you going with this?” Eli asked slowly.

     “I told him I could make a great case for him being a rich time traveller from the future—slumming here in the past—” Zé laughed while watching wiper blades clear snow from the windshield. “It would explain a lot of things, including the Groucho Marx routine.”

     “How do you figure?” Eli asked nervously.

     “Well, it’s hard to reveal anachronistic speech, behavior, and ideas when everything about you already labors under a layer of 1930’s comedy panache,” Zé observed triumphantly with a finger pointing upward.

     “Heh,” Eli smiled appreciatively. “So what did he say? Did he want to be included in stories you publish? Featuring him as a time traveller from the future?”

     “He picked up on it surprisingly fast,” Zé recalled. “Koi went right into character—asked me how many other people I’d told about this already, like a villain in an old movie when he gets blackmailed.”

     Eli chuckled. “You know, if he were really a time traveller and you came to to him with that proposal, he’d consider having you whacked,” Eli noted. “Did that occur to you at all? Just out of curiousity.”

     “You know, that’s funny,” Zé pointed at Eli again, making Eli wish Zé would keep his eyes on the trail. “That’s what Flywheel said, but he was laughing.”

     “Zé, please drive carefully,” Eli begged.

     “I assured him lots of people had heard the time traveller idea already,” Zé recounted. “Which wasn’t quite true then—but good form in noir conversation requires an archly clever paranoid stance.”

     “You’re still here,” Eli noted. “Must have worked.”

     “Koi seemed unhappy about it at first,” Zé chewed his lip. “Which doesn’t make sense for just an act. He asked me what I thought would happen if people from the future showed up here once my story exposed his trail.”

     “I bet you said you didn’t have that part of the plot worked out yet,” Eli guessed. “Time travel stories require an unusual twist somewhere, don’t they?”

     Zé made an eloquent shrug that said of course.

     “How does Finch fit in this picture?” Eli asked.

     “Oh, yeah,” Zé found his place. “So, Flywheel had a brainstorm and said he wanted me to meet someone, because he had an idea. If he was going to back my project, he wanted an agent he could trust on hand.”

     “Finch?” Eli puzzled. “I thought you met her years ago? A regular at your coffee shop?”

     “Yeah,” Zé nodded. “Flywheel was floored when he found out we knew each other already. Friends actually. And Finch hardly likes anyone, not at first.”

     “Coincidence or setup?” Eli mused. “What if he was hoping Finch would do his dirty work? Maybe Finch is his personal hit woman. Ever think of that?”

     “You have a creepy imagination,” Zé marveled.

     “Me?” Eli objected. “I have a creepy imagination? Why are we going up to get killed at the Overlook again?”

     “That’s not guaranteed,” Zé corrected. “With two of us, it’s better than a coin toss we both make it, provided you keep a positive outlook, and focus. You’re the one who was bored, saying Wil’s place was cramped.”

     “I was thinking of a speed boat chase in the canals of Venice, or something,” Eli justified. “Something out of a Bond movie, not a macabre tryst with evil up in a snow locked haunted hotel. I’m just saying.”

     “Ooh,” Zé praised. “I’m going to name my first movie Tryst with Evil. Is that taken yet?”

     Eli pulled his hair to wake himself up. “You’re the one who received Danny’s call,” Eli rationalized. “It’s your job—why drag me into this?”

     “You signed up,” Zé reminded. “Now when the lion attacks, your best defense is gasoline and matches—as shrubbery, it burns great, but don’t get any on you. No matter how unreal it looks, keep defending yourself; it mauls like a real lion.”

     “Why didn’t we pack flamethrowers?” Eli asked.

     “That, uh,” Zé floundered, “... would be cheating?”

     “You like having the crap scared out of you,” Eli said. “I’d rather have an edge. You’ve got the shine. What do I get? Can I use super powers? Throw me a bone.”

     Zé smiled. “You’ll find out,” he promised. “Just keep trying things—it might work.”

     Eli crossed his arms and looked petulantly out the window on his side of the snow cat. In his mind’s eye, Eli saw Finch slipping under Jack’s axe swing, then kicking the stuffing out of him without breaking a sweat. What would Eli do? It’d have to be cinematically showy to avoid anti climax in an axe attack. Presumably funky psi powers would be legal—if it looked interesting.

     Eventually Eli looked back at Zé, who was still smiling slightly while guiding the cat up into the night.

     “Zé, I have a question,” Eli began. “If you were going to travel back in time with lots of gold or diamonds, whatever you could use when you arrived—and you had access to high technology—what would you take?”

     “Depends,” Zé considered, then smiled with a glance at Eli. “Am I guessing what Flywheel brought along? Do I assume he came alone? Or brought help?”

     “Say it’s so far in the future that people—some of them anyway—evolved new abilities,” Eli mused. “In fiction you’d assume some really interesting ones, even if they weren’t plausible, right? Okay, say you can choose between an upscale combat android or a virtuoso human mutant—what do you pick? Which one is better?”

     “I can make good cases for either,” Zé warned. “In fact, for dramatic tension I might not like knowing for sure, to nurture one more problem needing solution.”

     “You’re not helping,” Eli complained.

     “Yes, I am,” Zé countered. “You know you aren’t doing your odds at Overlook any good thinking about time travel. Why don’t you focus on what’s in front of you?”

     “Just bear with me a second,” Eli pleaded. “The big question would be: what do you do in the past? Are you just a tourist, or a dangerous meddler?”

     “Meddling would explain why you wouldn’t want to be found,” Zé guessed. “Assuming time paradox is possible, no one upstream would be in favor, right? You’d need some H. Beam Piper style time police on the job.”

     “I need to talk to Flywheel,” Eli blurted.

     “When I told him Wil was on my project,” Zé recounted, “Flywheel gaped and asked, ‘Wil Munny?’ When I said yes, he looked surprised and said, ‘That means ... you’re that Zé?’ as if my name was commonplace, or that anyone had ever heard of me before.”

     “Maybe you’re famous in the future,” Eli sniggered.

     “Oops,” Zé said in a curiously flat voice.

     “What,” Eli replied, beginning to worry after seeing Zé stare grimly out into the snow.

     “Welcoming committee,” Zé pointed out the windshield, where the limit of the snow cat’s headlights now revealed several large animate bushes stalking them with frighteningly graceful motion.

     “You expected this, right?” Eli said hopefully.

ask miss morlock «

     "You seem well adapted to our environment," Wil said to Finch out of nowhere. Wil laced fingers over his belly and put one foot on a coffee table next to his desk. This sneaker was blue; his other sneaker was red—similar except in color. Wil liked to buy mismatched shoes in pairs. (But it was getting hard to find red and blue sneakers these days, and those worked best.)

     Finch paused minutely in her typing, tossing a glance in Wil's direction before finishing a train of thought. An empty espresso cup shared a small café table—borrowed from Vintage Season—with her laptop. Light from the bay window next to Finch's chair back-lit one side of her face in a way showing one eye behind those sunglasses more clearly than Wil had ever seen before. But at a dozen feet, Wil still couldn't see the color.

     Finch ended her paragraph, then sat back and re-seated her sunglasses with one fingertip. Something about the mannerism reminded Wil of one character from Heroes, a television series he caught a couple times.

     "That's a curiously broad remark," Finch noted. "What part of the environment do you mean? Garage fiction startup? Dirty living room? Geek central? Early 21st century wifi and coffee?" The last part was delivered with a lopsided half smile of surprisingly good nature.

     "I was going to order in coffee from the 22nd century, but this was all Ollie said he could get," Wil joked. Oliver was proprietor of Vintage Season across the street, barely visible now over Finch's laptop, if Wil sat up straight. The cup next to Finch had been hand delivered by Ollie half an hour ago, with a flourish and table wipe.

     Finch wagged an index finger at Wil, as if this joke were risqué, which seemed slightly odd.

     "I'm writing my column," Finch finally answered the question Wil never asked. "Zé did ask me to write a piece of fiction, but I haven't started. He wants a short story entitled When Finch Met Flywheel." Finch raised her hands and made scare quotes around the word "met" to imply the word was used advisedly.

     Wil wrinkled his brow. "Why the air quotes around 'met'?" he asked. "Is there any doubt?"

     "Apparently Zé is skeptical," Finch said. "Zé does that every time he talks about me 'meeting'—" here Finch made air quotes again "—Flywheel at the coffee shop off Ocean Beach. But Zé was there—saw it himself—I don't know why Zé thinks I knew Flywheel earlier."

     "Zé often has pretty strange ideas," Wil noted, and Finch chuckled. "Did you know he ran a background check on Flywheel before he submitted his application?"

     "I heard something like that," Finch picked a nail.

     "If this were a poker game, would that be a tell?" Wil teased. Finch just smiled. Wil reached back a few seconds, remarking, "I don't remember the name of your column—what did you say it was?"

     "Actually, I never said," Finch shook her head.

     "What publication?" Wil asked. "Have I seen your column before? I never noticed a byline for a Finch."

     "Pseudonym," Finch replied, slowly smiling more. "You might've seen it. Folks clip and post favorites."

     "You're kidding," Wil took his foot from the coffee table and sat up. "You write popular stuff? I thought your poker and match making were weird." Wil shook his head. "Why would you spend time doing that?"

     "It's fun," Finch admitted, doodling on a pad of paper with a pen. "But sometimes I get carried away."

     "I confess, I didn't really see why Flywheel wanted you on our project," Wil smiled broadly. "I thought maybe it was a kind of publicity stunt—Agent Finch, last seen at A-list parties with Koi Flywheel, joins writing startup with bunch of dweebs who can't get past a velvet rope. But you're a real writer—that's awesome."

     Finch smiled appreciatively, but fought back some reaction she wasn't ready to share, suddenly crossing her legs in a way striking Wil as odd: Finch's thigh muscles ... looked like a kickboxing champion's. Leg crossing didn't belong in her repertoire.

     "So, who do you write as?" Wil asked hopefully.

     "I hate to say," Finch said tentatively.

     The door to Wil's apartment opened, and Zé and Eli entered with the nervous energy of game freaks coming down from a marathon session.

     Eli flopped on Wil's couch, announcing, "Zé got me killed at the Overlook. Twice." Eli covered his face. "The second time was worse. Jack Nicholson is the scariest man on the face of the earth."

     Wil made a face. "I hate that place," he said.

     Zé carried a can of Coca Cola from the kitchen—posed briefly for a mini cam, smilingly with a big cheesy grin as if for an ad on The Truman Show—then took a swig while nudging Eli's shoe with his toe tip.

     "I told you not to get cocky, kid," Zé reprimanded.

     Eli moaned and dropped his hands limply.

     Zé turned to Wil. "He deflected an axe swing with a bunch of fancy air-bending telekinesis," he explained. "Then he proceeded to toss Mr. Torrance around with more of the same—the whole time winding up the Overlook with high grade psychic energy, until it went full poltergeist on him with Torrance stalking him down again while delivering an ad libbed, brilliant epic monologue."

     "Oh, and I missed it!" Wil snapped his fingers.

     "I just want to forget," Eli prayed.

     "What's that on your t-shirt, Eli?" Finch asked.

     Eli sat up straight, then pulled the red t-shirt out flat for visibility. "SAVE THE ELOI," read the words. Under that was a familiar picture: a blond-haired Eloi voodoo doll with several straight pins stuck into it. The doll had X's instead of eyes. Wil tried to place the image from memory.

     "Where'd you get that?" Finch asked after stifling a laugh, clearly very entertained.

     "Student Union," Eli said. "There's a fake protest about Miss Morlock's persecution of Eloi. Check out the back."

     Eli turned around to show the t-shirt's back: a big circle with a slash through it, over a large scale version of Miss Morlock's face from her newspaper column—dark hair up in a scarf, beatnik style horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a campy signature snarl of playful disdain, aimed ostensibly at clueless yuppies, but also partly at her readers in general. Morlock was a writer who became more popular the more she dished out biting personal and social advice. Ask Miss Morlock pretended to be an advice column, but actually ran funny mocking diatribes against correspondents in particular and square conformist lemmings in general.

     Morlock's face was rendered in pencil using a pointilist style reminding Wil of Wall Street Journal portraits: interesting but not photo realistic. The pin-stuck Eloi voodoo doll was another image from Morlock's column, but rendered in an energetic ink style suggesting virulence. Ostensibly it showed Morlock's bile toward mindless consumers and transparent social climbers: the Eloi.

     "I hadn't seen that one yet," Finch told Eli.

     "I can get you one if you want," Eli offered.

     Finch snorted. "That's okay. Thanks anyway."

     Eli went to look out the window, standing next to Finch. Both Zé and Wil stared at Morlock's image, which was bigger than life-size and coincidentally near Finch for easy direct comparison. Zé cleared his throat.

     "I think I remember those sunglasses now," Zé said. "The white parts and the rhinestones—it matches a pair you wore at the coffee shop a few times."

     Wil looked back and forth between Finch and Zé a couple times. His expession said: what the hell?

     "That's right," Finch said. "I had a pair just like Morlock's. She started writing her column in that coffee shop you and I used to frequent. You must have seen her there: she was writing all the time. Funny but bitchy."

     Eli turned to look at Finch in awe. "You mean, you met Miss Morlock?" Eli gaped. "Actually saw her?"

     "Yeah, we go way back," Finch downplayed. "We used to swap clothes and pull pranks on people. That bitch never gave me back my favorite blouse!"

     Zé kept shaking his head gently, with a congratulatory grin acknowledging a hack of great cleverness that finally could not stand scrutiny any longer.

     "Oh, my dear god," Wil said flatly, finally getting it. "No way. No freaking way."

     "I would have noticed her, Finch," Zé explained. "I was looking. I just didn't have my eyes open."

     "What are you guys talking about?" Eli puzzled.

     "How did you get your column, anyway?" Zé asked Finch. "The editor must have seen something in you right away. Or did you twist his arm somehow?"

     Eli's eyes started tracking around, back and forth, like he was watching table tennis, still a little lost.

     "I just went in and told him I wanted it," Finch said. "I can be very persuasive. Just ask Flywheel."

     "Oh, I'm sure," Zé granted.

     "Yow," Wil summarized.

     Eli stared. Finch shrugged nonchalantly, then finally stuck out a hand, saying, "Pleased to meet you."

three card monte «

     "Do not tell Ulf," Finch insisted with a serious glare. "Under any circumstances, am I understood?"

     "Because he's an ass?" Zé asked with an apologetic look at Eli. "Maybe he can turn off marketroid mode."

     Finch managed to convey a rolling, doubtful expression through head motion alone, more than making up for the way wrap-around sunglasses obscured her eyes.

     "You're right," Eli granted. "Okay, my dad's a chronic angle seeker. But does that mean we can't talk about Morlock's columns? I want to hear about the time Morlock published winning lottery numbers in advance as part of blowing off some random rude letter she got."

     Finch help up a hand. "Besides the fact Ulf won't stop asking me to whore out Morlock's support for this project, I need to keep this tight," she closed a fist. "Stuff is going to start happening soon, and Ulf has no need to know. Frankly, he seems like a security risk."

     Wil had a sudden strange vision of a long sinewy arm holding an odd looking weapon up to Ulf's temple, his eyes wide with terror and face sweating profusely, as a deep voice warned him, "I'm only going to ask one time." Then just as quickly, the flash vision was gone again.

     Finch swiveled abruptly to peer at Wil like he'd said something she didn't quite catch.

     "What stuff?" Eli asked with a glance at Zé to see if he knew what Finch meant.

     Wil's apartment door opened and Ulf entered briskly, toting his laptop in an expensive leather computer case that practically begged, "Steal me! I'm valuable!" Ulf hadn't learned anything the last time his PC took a walk.

     Everyone shifted positions to adopt slightly less engaged manners. Finch pointed silently at Zé and Eli while Ulf's gaze was turned aside. Zé held up his hands as if to say, don't shoot, I didn't do anything.

     "The sudden silence when I enter never sounds suspicious," Ulf assured them warmly. "My timing always coincides with a natural lull in conversations."

     "Finch was just telling us about, um," Wil started to fill the void. "This one, uh," he continued, uncharacteristically at a loss for filling in blanks.

     "A trick," Finch completed for Wil, "that I was going to demonstrate. But I need several volunteers. Preferrably all of you, actually. It's a good trick."

     "Uh, I already lost a roll playing three card monte," Ulf wagged a finger. "I hope no cash is involved."

     "No," Finch assured with a smile. "But some trust is involved. Otherwise you might think this is a setup. Do you trust your son Eli?"

     "Should I trust you right now?" Ulf asked Eli.

     "Sure," Eli nodded. "I have no idea what this is."

     "Go for it," Ulf waved. "Amaze me. If you can." Ulf clearly didn't think she could.

     "Okay," Finch began. "You can have Eli ask two questions or answer two questions," she instructed Ulf.

     "Eli will ask," Ulf decided. "And let's have Wil and Zé answer—their expressions look puzzled."

     "Okay, your part is done," Finch told Ulf while tearing a sheet of paper in two. "But don't go away."

     "Can you speed this up? I have a short attention span," Ulf laughed at his own joke.

     "Don't think of your questions yet," Finch instructed Eli. "Now everyone be quiet a second."

     Wil looked a question at Zé, who shrugged. Finch stared to one side, then started writing with one hand carefully cupped very close—first one piece of paper, than another—then neatly folded each without showing a thing.

     Finch wrote "Zé" on the outside of one piece of paper and handed it to Eli. Then she wrote "Wil" on the other, but Ulf reached to take it before Eli could.

     "I'll take that one, if you don't mind," Ulf said.

     "Suit yourself," Finch replied. "No one open your folded slip yet. Okay Eli, think of some random question. Weird is good: something no one would expect."

     "No one expects the Spanish Inquistion," Wil said.

     "Ignore that," Finch told Eli after flicking a dark look at Wil. "And tell us who answers the question."

     "Let's see," Eli concentrated. "Uh, Okay. This is for Zé. Which has lower gravity: the moon, or Mars?"

     Finch pointed at Zé and said, "Go."

     "The moon is smaller than Mars," Zé said.

     "You were supposed to pick one," Eli complained.

     "Too late," Finch chirped. Then stopping Eli she said, "Don't open the slip for Zé yet. Okay, now think of a question for Wil."

     Ulf cleared his throat. "I've got Wil's slip," he said. "So I should ask the question."

     Finch turned to Eli and shrugged: whatever.

     "I've got one," Ulf said. "Okay. Wil, what's your favorite dessert? And don't say Gobi or Sahara—dessert is the one with two esses because you want more."

     "Aww," Wil whined, "Strawberry shortcake."

     Finch raised both hands, intoning, "Time to unveil."

     Wil saw something strange happen, very fast—it was over in a blink. It was like watching a movie DVD skip at high speed, many frames a second. After it ended, Wil wasn't sure it happened. "Criminy," Wil muttered.

     "Did you see that?" Finch asked Wil in a surprised tone, coupled with a sharp look.

     "See what?" Eli asked, and Zé just shrugged.

     "I'm not sure what I saw," Wil said hestitantly.

     "Okay, I can work with that," Finch said. "We'll check you out more later. Ulf, what's yours say?"

     Ulf prepared to open his folded slip with a flourish, but first he said, "I bet it's blank." Then he opened the slip wide, but he was too surprised to speak.

     Zé leaned over Ulf's arm and read the slip aloud, "Aww, strawberry shortcake." It was Finch's handwriting. Zé took it from Ulf's hand and turned it to show everyone.

     "Goosebumps," Eli said, then slowly opened his own folded slip. Reading aloud he said, "The moon is smaller than Mars." He turned his around to show, too.

     Ulf was turning red, like somehow Finch had made a fool of him. Finch pressed fingers to her temples and said, "I now predict you'll demand, 'How did you do that!' " Which effectively silenced Ulf a little longer.

     Zé turned to Wil, pointing around the room. "Kip has mini cams there, there, and there. If there's anything to see, we can slow step through frames."

     Wil studied the arrangement. "I don't think any one of those had a clear shot at what Finch was writing. She was pretty careful to keep one hand in the way."

     "I need some coffee," Ulf signaled defeat.

     "You're just in way over your head," Eli sniped. "But I understand. I just tell myself to stay loose."

     "Wanna try three card monte now?" Finch asked.

     (continued in part2)