“Phone,” he managed to say. “Clear my calendar and turn on my autoresponder. I’m sick.”

The phone beeped in the affirmative.

“Car,” he choked out the words. “Drive to the park.”

“Which park would you like as your destination?” the car asked in its silky feminine voice.

“Any,” he said. “Any of them will do.”

“I have twenty-seven parks within…” the car began.

“Aaah!” Holtzmann slammed his cane against the car’s dash in frustration and the car went silent.

His breath was coming fast. He was panting in anger.

Stupid man, he told himself. Yelling at a car.

He let his breath calm. A memory came to him. A happy day, with Anne. Fine.

“Montrose Park,” he told the car. “Montrose Park.”

“Yes, sir,” the car answered, more deferentially, some affective computing algorithm now modulating its interactions with him.

Holtzmann barely noticed. He leaned his seat back, brought up the neuromodulation interface app in his mind, the panel of dials and switches with neat labels and dry academic names. Then he dialed up a large opiate release, hit the button, and felt it course through his brain. It was sickly sweet, not glorious and ecstatic as it had been once, but even so the opiates pushed the fear and unmooring back away from him, pushed the anxiety and panic into the background, until he just didn’t care about the President or his predicament or anything else.

The car drove him to Montrose Park in a languid dream. Trees and buildings moved by in a blurring, surreal molasses. His pulse thrummed slow and low through his veins. Haltingly he told the car to park and to darken the windows. Somewhere in the Caribbean, the radio told him, a tropical storm called Zoe had thrashed Cuba, leaving buildings destroyed, fields flooded, and hundreds dead. Here, in the park beyond his car windows, it was a gorgeous hot sunny day. Thought and memory returned as the opiate surge faded. He and Anne had come here, when they were younger. They’d brought the boys here to splash around in the pool. He had hazy, happy memories of it. Heat and crowds of parents and children. Cool water on a hot day. Hot dogs bought from the snack bar.

From the parking lot he could see that pool, where he and Anne had brought the boys. Mothers and toddlers and a few young people splashed about there now. Inside his car, Holtzmann was in his own private cocoon.