Finch tried to imagine the rows and rows of living receivers underground, miles of them if rumor held true. Trying to process trillions of images from all over the city. How could they possibly keep up? The hope of every citizen.

“Do you know the … source?” Finch asked. Didn’t know if he understood what Heretic was telling him.

“There is no trace of it now. The apartment is cold. There are just these bodies.”

“How does that help me?” he wanted to say.

Finch usually dealt with theft, domestic abuse, illegal gatherings. Flirted with investigating rebel activity, but turned that over to the Partials if necessary. Tried to make sure it wasn’t necessary. For everyone’s sake.

Murder only if it was the usual. Crimes of passion. Revenge. This didn’t look like either. If it was murder.

“Anyone live in the apartments next door?”

“Not anymore,” the Partial replied. “They all left, oddly enough, soon after these two … arrived.”

“Which means they made a sound.” Or sounds.

“I’ll interrogate anyone left in the building after we finish here,” the Partial said.

What a pleasure that’ll be for them.

Still, Finch didn’t volunteer to do it. Not yet. Maybe after. Not much worse than door-to-door interviews in unfriendly places. Many didn’t believe his job should exist.

“What do you think, Finch?” Heretic asked. Just a hint of mischief in that voice. Laced with it. Just enough to catch the nuance.

I think I just walked in the door a few minutes ago.

The bodies lay next to each other, beside the sofa.

Finch frowned. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

The man lay on his side, left hand stretched out toward the gray cap’s hand. The gray cap lay facedown, arms flopped out at right angles.

“Might be a foreigner. From the clothes.”

The man could’ve been forty-five or fifty, with dark brown hair, dark eyebrows, and a beard that appeared to be made from tendrils of fungus. That wasn’t unusual. But his clothes were. He wore a blue shirt long out of fashion. Strange, tight-fitting long pants. Dirty black boots.

“He’s not from the city,” Heretic said. Again, an inflection that bothered Finch. A statement or a question?

What’s on his mind?

Finch squatted beside the bodies. Took out his useless pen and his useless pad of paper. Above him, the Partial leaned over to take a picture.

The dead gray cap looked like every other gray cap. Except for the one glaring lack.

“I don’t know what caused the injury to the other one, sir.”

I don’t know what caused the leg situation.

“When we find out,” Heretic said, “we will be just as understated.”

The exposed cross section, cut almost precisely at the waist, fascinated Finch. He almost forgot himself, poked at the tissue with his pen.