“Oh, excuse me for asking. I just figured if there was something I could do, maybe you’d like to mention it.” This sounded like Sher being acerbic, which she did often. It also sounded like Sher being hurt. I looked up and met her eyes. Sher wasn’t the sort to avoid eye contact at a moment like that. But I was.

“It’s no big thing,” I said, changing the tape bias on one machine, then changing it back. “It’s taken care of.”

She brought up B deck: a series of shots of the head of a daisy, a chambered nautilus that came apart into animation. There were fractals right after that, I knew. I ought to cue up something trippy. “Sparrow,” she said, “if you really don’t want anybody to give a shit about you, say so, and we’ll just let you go to hell.”

I almost cracked wise. If it had been any conscious impulse that stopped me, I would have overridden it. “It’s important to me,” I said instead.

“Why? What’s so private that you have to make an enemy of the whole world to keep it that way?”

Just for that instant, I was tempted to tell her.

But Theo came in, a beer in each hand, and kicked the door shut behind him. “Who needs a fresh one?”

“You take it,” I said. “It’s my turn for a break.” Then I caught a look at the third monitor. The camera, which wasn’t feeding to either screen, was on the front door. I saw Robert leaning on the frame, a pack of nightbabies newly arrived and staring just in front of him, and behind them a head of pale curly hair, a big white smile, shades — no, not shades.

I grabbed the camera remote and zoomed in. Dana’s friends hadn’t found me. The other ones had. It was the man in the silvertones.

At the corner of my eye I saw the shift in room light that meant the picture had changed on the screens. “Sher, no!” I cried, but it was too late. The camera feed was up on the left screen. I panned the camera away so fast it must have made the drunks sick, and Sher hit the switcher, but it was too late. I’d seen him look at the screens. He knew somebody on the balcony was watching him.

Sher was chalky, and her eyes were big. “I’m sorry,” she said faintly. Theo stood as still as I’d ever seen him.

“I have to go,” I said. “I’ll use the back stairs.”

“And we’re gonna handle it?” Theo asked politely.

Sher looked at him. “Yeah,” she said. “We are.” She stood up and stretched, flexed her hands, glanced over the edge of the balcony at the dance floor.

“Then I guess we are.” Theo shrugged, picked up a heavy flat-bladed screwdriver from a box by the sound board, jammed the blade between the stairway door and the door frame, and pounded it in as far as it would go. “Door’s sticking again. Bummer.”