There is no further need to see April; his experiment with nonsense is over. He writes his report; unambiguous. The girl is a religious fanatic, and she is, indeed, insane. At least her incarceration will be gentle, he thinks. Being housed among lunatics is surely better than living with murderers. If the judge directs the jury to trust his testimony, she will be getting away very lightly. And if a law follows as predicted, the world will be a safer place. He is doing good. Overly passionate religious orators, who could never be arrested, will instead be sectioned, as can anyone they infect with their my God is better than your God shenanigans. How many humans have died in these fights over who has the best imaginary friend? And to think grief almost sucked him into the same insanity. He signs the report in three places, files it, and feels a sudden blankness that can only be what used to be emotion. The Anesthine, still policing him like a rogue state.

He is glad of the drug’s protection. Sometimes he tests it in the quiet of his study: says Flora, and the name bounces back to him like a squash ball off a wall, with a surge of nothing. He knows the emotion is there because of the blankness. He says, My daughter is dead, and such a whoosh of it responds that he forgets a few minutes at once, and finds himself emerging out of a frozen position like a brought-to-life statue. He has no wish to return to imbalance. Has not yet dared ask his doctor about the safety of long-term – or permanent – use. If my father could have had it, he thinks, none of that need have happened. His mother’s one staring eye frightening her little boy under the bed. The following morning, the first of many mornings where there was no porridge on the stove and he had to fetch his own cold cereal. What kind of Logan would have grown out of a boy whose father was peaceful; whose mother had stayed? Logan unpeels the pithy skin of this question curiously, but only with his intellect.

What he needs to do – what feels pressing, even without emotion – is to report Gabrielle Salmon. To whom, he is not sure, but he feels certain some Government department should know what the country’s scientists are up to. And though he wishes her no personal ill will, he feels a civic duty has fallen upon him to prevent her recruiting further guinea pigs into her experiments. If religious observance drops off in subjects who have undergone her process, it is not because they are cured of religious belief, but because they now believe they are God. Naturally Gods have no need to go to a church or a synagogue to worship themselves. They will not be found on their knees, praying.