Wyte got Otto out of his head. Eventually. Most of Otto. But not the fungus. That became worse. The gray caps couldn’t or wouldn’t help. Maybe they saw it as some kind of perverse improvement.

No one had ever found out who had lured Wyte there. Or why.

Finch knew they never would.

They split up. Wyte headed back to the station. Finch decided to return to the apartment on Manzikert. He’d have more than his fill of the station later.

“Do I mention Bliss?”

“If it comes up, no. His file’s already being pulled. That’s enough for now.”

“He made us look like fools.”

“We made ourselves look like fools.”

Black trees. Odd fruit. Pissed-off cat. Hallways that still squeaked from wax. The stairwell still collected darkness. But a silence had crept in, too. An emptiness that hadn’t been there before. No sounds of a mother and child. No smells of cooking.

On a hunch, Finch stopped at the fourth floor again. Knocked on the door of the man who had dressed up for Finch’s mild interrogation. Held his badge up to the peephole.

The door creaked open. A Partial stood there. Stockier than the one who had cataloged the crime scene. His face even paler. Red teeth. As if he’d been eating raw meat sloppily. Dressed in black dyed leather, but wore beige boots. Like he’d been caught trying on someone else’s clothes. In the belt around his gut, two holstered guns and a hammer, of all things.

Finch held the badge in front of him.

“I’m the detective on the case in apartment 525,” he said. “Where’s the old man who lives here?”

The Partial considered him for a moment. The glittering black eye was flickering madly. But the rest of him was like a chilled tortoise. Arms at his sides. Almost paralyzed.

“Gone,” he said slowly. Making the syllable linger.

“Gone where?” Finch asked.

“Gone somewhere else,” the Partial said with an effort.

Like you, my friend. Wondered if the flickering eye meant his attention was elsewhere. Reviewing not recording.

A new thought, horrifying him. “Are they all gone?”

The eye stopped flickering. Blinked twice. In a more normal voice the Partial said, “The building has been cleared.”

Cleared how? Escorted out and rehoused? Sent to the camps? Liquidated?

But he didn’t ask, just nodded. Smiled. Stepped back.

The Partial parroted the nod and receded from him into darkness. Shut the door.

Finch stood there a moment. This place was now a Partial stronghold. No witnesses.

He took the stairs to the fifth floor in leaps. As if running fast might prevent the crime that had brought him here. Bring back the old man in the too-tight suit.

The door. The gray cap symbol, glistening and obscene. The hallway. The bedroom, empty. The living room; no sign of the Partial.

The bodies.

Correction. Body.

The gray cap’s body had disappeared.