He carefully laid the cigar on the edge of the table. Kept his other hand on the gun. Pulled something out of a pocket on the inside of his jacket. Put it down on the table. On Finch’s side.

A piece of metal, about ten inches long. Segmented, it looked like it folded out into something larger. Like one of the surveyor rulers his father had always carried with him. Except it was made of a strange alloy, the color deep blue, almost gray. With the rainbow hues when the light caught it that meant it was very old. Odd symbols had been etched into every inch of it. None of them familiar. They didn’t even look like what he’d seen of gray cap writing. The metal seemed heavy, substantial. But Bliss had lifted it from his pocket like it weighed nothing at all.

Finch said, “What is that? It doesn’t look like something made by us. Or by the gray caps.”

“It’s not.”

“Oh.” Again, the world opened up. Became larger, wider, deeper, than before.

Let it flow over and through you or you’ll be lost.

“Now give me the memory bulb the Photographer gave you,” Bliss said.

“Why?” Sarcastically: “How am I supposed to kill myself without it?”

“Just do it. Trust me.” In a pinched, irritable tone. Like Finch should know what was good for him.

Finch placed the pouch on the table.

From his pocket, Bliss took out a small glass vial with a blue crystal stopper. “Watch and learn,” he said, finishing his whiskey. Puffing furiously on his cigar.

He retrieved the memory bulb from the pouch. Broke it into pieces in his whiskey glass. Filling it to the top with a hill of colored dirt. Puffed on the cigar again. Blew away the ash column until there was just the blazing tapered tip.

“They call that a dog’s dick,” Bliss said, laughing.

“Here we call it the Kalif’s cock,” Finch said.

Bliss stopped laughing. Applied the tip to the memory bulb dust. “Yes, well, they call this … well, they don’t call this anything because your normal sort of person on the street never does this…”

The dust began to smoke, then liquefy. In a minute or so, the whiskey glass was filled with a pale blue liquid. Bliss carefully shepherded it into the vial. Stoppered it. Put it on Finch’s side of the table. Hard to think of backing out faced with something so specific. A procedure so matter-of-fact.

“In this form, it has a completely different effect,” Bliss said. “You’ll prop Shriek up when you get into the apartment and pour it down his throat, making sure he doesn’t choke. He won’t have a gag reflex, of course. It will complete the process of regeneration, taking maybe a minute.”