"Doubtless he was," Bob said. "They killed him pretty good. A bunch of times. He'd shown up again after the Wardens had killed him early in the nineteenth century, so they were real careful the second time. And good riddance to the psychotic bastard."

I blinked. "You knew him?"

"Didn't I ever tell you?" Bob asked. "He was my owner for about forty years."

I stared. "You worked with this monster?"

"I do what I do," Bob said proudly.

"How did Justin get you, then?"

"Justin DuMorne was a Warden, Harry, back at Kemmler's last stand. He pulled me out of the smoldering ruins of Kemmler's lab. Sort of like when you pulled me out of the smoldering ruins of Justin's lab when you killed him. Circle of life, like that Elton John song."

I felt more than a little tiny bit cold. I chewed on my lip and laid my pencil down. I had the feeling the rest of this conversation was not going to be something I wanted to create a written record of. "So what is the Word of Kemmler, Bob?"

"Not a clue," Bob said.

I glowered. "What do you mean, not a clue? I thought you were his skull Friday."

"Well, yeah," Bob said. His eyelights nickered suddenly, a nervous little dance. "I don't remember very much of it."

I snorted out a laugh. "Bob. You never forget anything."

"No," Bob said. His voice shrank into something very small. "Unless I want to, Harry."

I frowned and took a deep breath. "You're saying that you chose to forget things about Kemmler."

"Or was compelled to," Bob said. "Um. Harry, can I come out? Just inside the lab? You know, while we talk."

I blinked a couple of times. Bob was full of mischief on the best of days. I didn't let him out except on specific intelligence-gathering missions anymore. And while he often pestered me to let him out on one of his perverted minirampages, he had never asked permission to leave his skull for the duration of a chat. "Sure," I told him. "Stay inside the lab and be back in the skull at the end of this conversation."

"Right," Bob said. A small cloud of glowing motes of light the size of campfire sparks came sailing out of the skull's eyes and darted to the far corner of the lab. "So anyway, when are we going to work on the new blasting rod?"

"Bob," I said. "We're talking about The Word of Kemmler."

The lights shot restlessly over to the other side of the lab, swirling through the steps on my stair ladder in a glowing helix. " You’re talking about The Word of Kemmler," Bob said. The glowing cloud stretched, motes now spiraling up and down the stairs simultaneously. " I’m working on my Vegas act. Lookit, I'm DNA."

"Would you stop goofing around? Can you remember anything at all about Kemmler?"