"A couple years ago?" Nothing came to mind; I do pay attention to these things, out of habit, mostly.
     "Actually four months ago now, the plane went down outside New Haven?"
     "Yes, that was tragic." Nearly everyone on board had died. I felt a sudden chill; they couldn't have. Could they?
     "That was my flight. Hey, I'm hoping it doesn't happen again, 'cause you know that whole third time's a charm thing, but... what is this about?" he asked at last, getting a little more serious.
     The robot resurfaced. "We're investigating a crime."
     "I figured that."
     "The nature of which is rather complex, and you're probably safer not knowing."
     "SysGen," he said suddenly, after another quiet, slightly awkward moment.
     "Pardon?"
     "The company."
     "Oh." I knew I should ask more questions, but my mind was reeling. Of all the possibilities I had considered to explain his sudden appearance, I had not imagined that he could be both involved in the situation, yet innocent of it. "Thank you. You've been very helpful. May I call you if I have other questions?"
     "I have a lot of other questions! Where's—what happened? Where is she, is she OK?"
     "We're trying to find that out," I told him firmly. "Trust me, this is very important to me. We'll let you know how things turn out."
     "Yes, OK, I hope—you're really from the...? I gotta believe it, 'cause you've got the robot here...."
     "Yes."
     "Well, nice... meeting you." He still had that faintly puzzled look, but seemed willing to accept no explanation—at least for the moment.
     "Nice meeting you too," Scott said brightly.
     "Thank you. Have a good day."
     I swear, I don't know which direction I turned after leaving the building, didn't have any idea if Scott was still with me. I've put a bit more of it together since then, but—it's like my mind had locked up, overwhelmed by the discontinuity between truth and memory, by the stress of pretending the latter didn't exist. It would have been the perfect moment for the Three to try again, but apparently they're not watching that closely.
    

[Switch perspective: Bad Guys]

     Eventually it occurred to me that it was nearly time for our regular meeting with Winters, so I headed back, glad to have an excuse to leave the issue of Travis behind, at least for a little while. It was mid afternoon then. Winters was her usual severe self and didn't have much new to report; neither did any of us. She did tell us that, as she had suspected, it looked as if the Chinatown tongs were moving to take control in the place of the power vacuum the Mafia had left; the arson was part of their show of strength as they moved in. The flier Hans had seen was one of at least three, all wearing the same operatic makeup; there were an uncertain number of variants involved in the power grab. Lucky and I offered to check it out; she still owes me dinner, and we might be able to do some looking around in a somewhat less conspicuous way while we were taking care of that.
     I'm starting to think this dinner is cursed; every time one of us mentions it, something violent happens to distract us. Today would be no exception.
     Lesobeck's killer had the same blood work-up as the first. We had to assume they had other people on their list, and would have to move quickly, not only to prevent further murders but to keep the mental patients who had been used as tools in the plot from being charged with the killings. We've been looking through all the possible connections, but there's just too many of them, as Scott told her. They've both been active so long there are a lot of potential links.
     She asked Hans about the white clay; he's on that one. There's also been a disturbing rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes, which he's also following up on. Then there's Holly Shapiro. I watched the whole first show for principle's sake, not that I enjoyed it. Mr. Mort was her guest for the evening; he was understandably upset with us and didn't give a glowing report of our competence.Those butterflies are probably in Argentina by now.
     She also mentioned that Chandler hadn't shown up for their meeting earlier that day. After we wrapped up, Hans headed for Brookline to investigate the beatings Winters had reported, Lucky went prowling Chinatown, and Scott patrolled the city in cloud form. I went to Chandler's to check on him, since it didn't seem like him to miss a meeting.

[Switch perspective: Promethean]

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