Memory holes and Wyte and Heretic and wanting to scream, to just start shooting.

“Maybe I’ll even spend the night. If I can,” she said. A curious look on her face, like she was testing him. She held her hands behind her back, one leg slightly bent, her body bronzed and perfect to him. “What do you think of that?”

Must have been obvious what he thought, because she couldn’t take the weight of his gaze. Looked away. Leaned down to pick up her knapsack, retrieve her clothes.

Not that he doubted she felt the same. He knew why she kept her distance. The same reason he did.

Except, it’s not working for me.

A long kiss. A final hug.

And she was gone.

All he could feel was the ache in his thighs. The damp spot on the front of his underwear, colder now than before.

Just once, Sintra left something behind. Finch keeps it hidden in a desk drawer. No reason for him to keep it. But no reason to get rid of it.

Written in longhand, Sintra’s concise notes are about mushrooms, which no longer come with any field guide. Ignorance can lead to death, even though since the Rising the gray caps have kept the streets clear. Personal curiosity? Something to do with the black market? Has she helped someone she shouldn’t help? Given aid to some group the gray caps are hunting down?

Does it make her a spy to have this information, or just pragmatic? Does it make him complicit to keep it, or just sentimental?

This incomplete list doesn’t include fungal weapons. These mushrooms all perform certain tasks or “work” within the city. If any have a secondary or tertiary purpose it is unknown at this time.

(1) Tiny white mushrooms almost like star-shaped flowers—found most often around surfaces where dead bodies have recently lain or where some conflict has occurred. Like the chalk outlines used by detectives pre-Rising to mark bodies? Warnings, or…?

(2) Green “spear” mushrooms with sharp, narrow hoods and long, slender stems—four or five will be found around a building targeted for transformation. Three days after the appearance of these green spear mushrooms, the building in question will begin to look moist or spongy, due to infiltration from below. By the fourth or fifth day, it will begin to crumble. By the sixth day, the building has blown away in the wind. On the seventh day, a new structure has usually blossomed, overnight. This new structure may take any of a number of forms, all fungal-based.

(3) Red “tree” mushrooms with huge caps and strong, thick “trunks” or stems—these can grow up to eighty feet high and are much more resistant to storms and high winds than other kinds of mushrooms. They appear to have a filtration system that gives them stability by letting air pass through millions of “pores.” In a sense, they float. An examination of distribution patterns from any height reveals that they have been “planted” in regular patterns forming rough “spokes” radiating out from the bay, interrupted only by the HFZ and the Religious Quarter. They regularly expel from their gills a smaller, purple mushroom with a strong euphoric effect and high levels of digestible protein.