Arlo’s train layout was still running. I watched the remaining passenger train wend its way through town, past the miniature city hall, the department store, the candy shop, the church, the police station, the school…

The school. It was wood, not brick, but just like the real elementary school at Orchard and Masonic, it had an attached playground: a fenced-in lot, packed with tiny figures.

I got back on the headset: “True, forget about the airport. I know where he’s going…True?…True?”

I ran outside. The taxi had taken off, and when I looked up at the second floor of the hotel, Annie was gone from the window. I kept trying the headset, getting back mostly static; but in between the stretches of white noise I caught snippets of other transmissions, enough to figure out that I wasn’t the only one having communication problems.

The school was only seven blocks away, and Arlo had enough of a head start that he might already be there. I had to hope that, knowing we were looking for him, he’d opt for a slow and stealthy approach.

I took off running. Four blocks later, as I rounded the corner onto Masonic, I saw an off-duty cab stopped for a red light just ahead. “Hey!” I shouted, and started towards it.

The world changed color. Like the firing of an NC gun, the explosion of the Mandrill bomb was silent: a bright noiseless flash of orange and yellow with a translucent cab-shape at its center. I felt something pass through me—the shockwave, I guess, though it was more like a jolt from a power outlet—and then I was flat on my back.

I sat up slowly. Steam was rising from my arms, and my face felt hot. I got to my feet—we’re talking at least another minute, here—and went to check on the taxi.

The vehicle itself had suffered remarkably little damage. The windows and mirrors had all shattered and fallen out, but the chassis seemed untouched, not even lightly scorched. The driver was a different story. It was like he’d spontaneously combusted: all that was left of him was a pile of smoldering clothes. I leaned in for a closer look, caught a whiff of something awful, and pulled back gagging. That’s when I noticed the pedestrians: three separate pairs of shoes in the crosswalk in front of the taxi, each with its own accompanying clothes-pile.

I gagged again, and my knees buckled. It was OK: I needed to check beneath the taxi anyway. Sure enough, in the shadow of the undercarriage I saw the remains of a burst soccer ball.

I got back on my feet. In the distance I could hear the school bell ringing: recess. I tried to hurry, but the best I could manage was a drunken stagger.

By the time I reached Orchard Street, the school playground was already full of kids. Arlo Dexter stood just outside the fence, slipping another soccer ball from a canvas bag. I pulled my gun and tried to draw a bead on him, but my arm wouldn’t steady.

I needed to get closer, like point-blank range. I stepped off the curb and immediately stepped back as a car swerved to avoid me. Arlo heard the horn blare and looked over his shoulder. We locked eyes. He smiled and stuck his tongue out, then raised the ball above his head and cocked his arms to throw.

A shopping bag full of soup cans caught him square in the face. He went down hard, dropping the ball, which only bounced once before Annie swooped in and grabbed it. She did a neat half-pirouette and relayed the ball down the block to another cab driver, who dropped it into an open manhole at his feet.

“Are you all right, miss?” someone asked. It was just some guy walking by; he’d missed the show across the street, but noticed me. “You should be careful waving that around,” he said, pointing to my NC gun. “The cops, especially these days, they might not realize it’s a toy until it’s too late.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Thanks for the tip.”

I swayed a little on my feet, and he reached out to steady me. “You sure you’re OK? You’re not on anything, are you?”

“Not yet,” I told him, “but I hope to be, soon.” I started laughing.

Then I looked across the street, and my laughter died. Arlo had gotten back up and had his hands around Annie’s throat; she was smacking him in the head to try to get him to let go. As they grappled, they were edging towards the curb.

“Annie!” I shouted. I raised my gun again, but this was an even more impossible shot. All I could do was watch as their fight carried them out into traffic.

This time, the delivery truck didn’t even try to stop. Arlo went down and got swept under the wheels, but Annie was knocked up and away. She flew diagonally across the intersection and crash-landed on the hood of a parked car.

She was still conscious when I got to her. I pushed my way through the crowd that was already gathering around her, and immediately launched into a line of bullshit about how she’d be OK if she could just hang on. She shut me up with a glance.

I’d like to tell you that she died at peace, relieved at the thought of being reunited with her son. But this was no Hallmark ending. She was in a lot of pain, and she was scared. Maybe just scared of dying, but maybe—I think this is it—scared that saving that playground full of kids hadn’t been enough, and where she was going now, she wouldn’t see Billy again, even looking both ways.

Right before she went out, she grabbed my wrist and said, “Pay attention,” one more time. Then she muttered something, which, as usual, I couldn’t quite make out. But I was in tune with her now, and so I knew it had to do with the truck that had hit her.

I looked up, and the crowd parted, and I saw it: a black-paneled truck, idling in the distance. The driver was leaning out the cab window, watching Annie’s death scene through a pair of binoculars. Watching me. When he saw that I saw him, he pulled his head back inside the truck cab. The truck’s taillights flashed, drawing my attention to the mandrill painted on the back door.

“Hey!” The crowd had closed up again; I started pushing people aside, flailing my arms. “Hey! Stop that truck! Stop that truck!”

But no one would listen to me, and by the time I fought my way clear, it was already too late—the truck had turned a corner, and like a model train going into a tunnel, it vanished.

white room (iv)

ONE OF THE FLOOR TILES HAS TURNED black. She’s prodding it with her foot as the doctor comes in.

“Maintenance had to replace it,” he explains. “One of the other inmates was feeling claustrophobic. She tried to dig her way out.”

“What did she use, a chair leg?”

“A ballpoint pen. My colleague Dr. Chiang got called away in the middle of a session, and he made the mistake of leaving his belongings on the table.”

“Your colleague. So you weren’t there when it happened.”

“No, it was on one of my days off. You doubt the story?”

She shrugs. “Nice job of color-matching.”

“If you’d like, I could call maintenance back in and have it pried up.”

“Don’t bother. Even if the organization put something under there, all you’d find is an ordinary patch of floor.”

“What would they put there, though? Some sort of microphone?”

She shakes her head. “The spy gear won’t be in the floor.”

“Meaning it is here somewhere?”

She glances at the smiling politician on the wall. “Eyes Only,” she says.

“You’ll have to decode that for me, Jane.”

“I told you about Panopticon, right?”

“‘The Department of Ubiquitous Intermittent Surveillance?’”

“That’s the one. Eyes Only is one of their intel-gathering programs. It uses these miniature sensor devices that are kind of like contact lenses, only smaller and thinner—so much so that they’re undetectable without special equipment. Now in theory you could plant these things anywhere, but in practice Panopticon only puts them on eyes. Representations of eyes, that is: photographs, paintings, drawings, sculpture…Any time you see an eyeball that’s not in an actual person’s head, there’s a chance it’s monitoring you.”