"Think nothing of it," he assured me.
    "And to do myself the embarrassment of requesting a favor."
    "A favor? What would you require?"
    "Are you familiar with a company called SysGen?"
    He thought for a moment. "Yes, yes. They were working on a synthetic memory project, were they not?"
    "That's correct."
    "Interesting field of research, but we abandoned it because it was entirely too risky."
    Oh had they now? I found myself thinking. "SysGen didn't." The front door opened; Scott's employees had returned. "We have their company records, and I was wondering if you would mind taking a look through them for us. If you know anything pertinent about any of the people involved..."
    "You have reason to believe they're involved in some sort of criminal activity?"
    "Very good reason."
    "Hm. Of course, I'd be glad to be of assistance. When can you get them out to me?"
    "It'll take me five minutes to copy them and I'll put them in a FedEx envelope for you."
    "Then I'll look at it tomorrow morning. As a favor from one team to another, I'll make it my top morning priority."
    "Let us know what we can do to return it."
    "Not to worry, I'm sure that at some point in the future I'll be forced to call on you for assistance. You certainly have the most experience that I know of dealing with 2113s."
    I laughed. "Two in a week, that was pretty good." Then I hesitated, decided why not? "Oh, and sometime I think maybe you and I could get together. We might have some things to discuss." I didn't want to bring Shannon up just at this point, but it would be good to keep the connection open, and I wanted to see if he would give me any hints.
    His gently teasing tone gave me no clues whatsoever. "Why, Ms. Needle, is this a date?"
    "No." A little too sharply; I recovered. "Maybe lunch, one of these days."
    "I'll look forward to it."
    "Thank you very much."
    "I hope everything works out for you there, let the team know that I'm rooting for them."
    "Thanks. I think that will help their spirits."
    I signed off, puzzled. As usual. I made the copies and sent the documents out, then looked over Albert's shoulder as he worked through the stack of documents which constituted my so-called life.
    "Finding anything interesting?"
    "But of course. Fascinating set of circumstances."
    "How so?"
    "It's so obvious." He gave me that startled look. "Here I was interested in the structure and use of synthetic memory, and then I discover that you are a prime repository. I have to admit, it is most fortunate. Tell me about your mother."
    "Albert," I said gently, "let's not try to find out which one of us can kill the other one first, hm?" Just because I've spent the past twenty-four hours too blisteringly angry for my usual moodiness doesn't mean I have any to talk about fictitious people or my feelings regarding them. His affronted glance suggested that the answer would be obvious to any rational person, and returned to his work on the computer. "Have fun."
    I paced.

[Perspective switch: Scott, then the bad guys]

    Fretting gets boring after a while when there's nothing you can do. I called the Lancaster College main number and got Jennifer Dutton's extension.
    "Yes?"
    "Ms. Dutton? Hi, this is Needle calling from Boston."
    "Oh, hi, how are you?"
    "Much better, thank you. I was the short, unconscious one?"
    "I remember you."
    "I had a question. First, I wanted to thank you. Second, while you were doing whatever it was that you were doing...."
    "Just locking some boxes down."
    "Okay. Did you... all of this happened because I got sprayed with more..." I couldn't figure out how to ask what I needed to know, but she seemed to guess where I was headed.
    "I found him, he was corrupted, falling apart already."
    "What happened to that?"
    "It fell apart on its own, it was very unstable, and it just... memories have a tendency to be very gossamer," she explained, sounding far more confident than I would expect from a seventeen-year-old psychic. "And if you hit them with a particularly strong wind they'll just fall apart, especially if they haven't had a chance to crystallize. Did that make any sense?"
    "Somewhat. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't still in there somewhere."
    "No, he's gone," she assured me.
    "That was originally all of him?"
    "No, just a... I don't think it was a whole person."
    "I just wanted to see if I could tell what he was trying to do," I explained.
    "There wasn't much left by the time I saw, it was probably just a whole bunch of violent urges put together."
    "Oh.
    "If you want my honest opinion, he probably would have taken you over, tried to kill everybody in the room, and then have you let him out. Just a guess."
    "That's probably a pretty good guess." I've never had an occasion to be thankful for my peculiar mental setup before, but I was very glad it had proven vulnerable this time. One way or another, I doubt I would have survived that scenario. As it was, the call was a lot closer than I like them. "I'll trust that."
    "Take it for what it's worth—I'm coming," she hissed at someone else in the room.
    "Sorry, didn't mean to keep you."
    "Oh, that's all right. I've got this thing I've gotta do with this guy."
    "Thank you again, and thanks for the information."
    "Have fun," she signed off.
    A doubtful prospect.

[Perspective switch: Lucky, then Promethean]

    My phone rang.
    "Hans is in trouble, meet me at his house," Lucky said tersely.
    "On my way."

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