Trigo pushed his head out of the bag. “Wala.”

“What? I’m trying to sleep. I need to sleep. I need to be rested.”

“You are asleep,” the dog said. “Something’s not right. Getting in here was too easy, don’t you think?”

“Now that you mention it,” I said. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that in the Apology Socrates’s irony is actually ironic. And I mean that sincerely.”

“What?”

“We’ve been betrayed.”

“We have?”

“Remember that pickle?”

“Yes. Why are we talking about that pickle?”

“That was a good pickle. I really liked that pickle. That pickle gave me terrible gas. I have felt bad all day. I wouldn’t stick my face in this bag if I were you.”

I stared at him.

“The pickle talk is metaphor. Get it?”

“Was it a metaphor the first time you said it?” I asked.

“Who knows. A madman doesn’t speak in his own voice, you know. So it’s anyone’s guess what your dreaming is all about. There is some, let’s call it interstitial, space between madness and nonsense that you and I have yet to map out. But know this, things are headed south.”

3

I was lying awake now, imagining our sneaking into the telescope room, where I would peer through the eyepiece and see the stream of nothing coming from deep space and render it something with observational pressure. The tricky part was that one had to know that one was observing nothing for the pressure to have effect and realize at the same time that there was nothing to observe in the first place. I heard the movement of furniture below us on the library floor. I sat up to peek over the half wall.

Applause. Clapping from about twenty men in suits, among them John Sill and Gloria. Seated was a plastic-haired man whom I recognized to be the vice president, an extremely unpigmented, dead-eyed follower named Neal Shilling.

“Well done,” Sill said, clapping his last couple of claps. “Nicely done. You got in. I wouldn’t say undetected, but here you are. I’m impressed. You have to be careful who you trust. My spies are everywhere.”

I looked at Eigen. She was awake and standing beside me, but one look at her face told me she was terrified and surprised. I turned to Karras.

The priest shrugged. “What can I fucking say?”

Eigen looked at Karras with contempt, but I felt shame that I actually imagined I had been betrayed by Eigen.

“Come on down,” Sill said. “Join us for a short briefing before we move to the observatory.”

I led the way down the curved stairs, Eigen right behind me, Karras lagging several steps behind.

“Thank you, Damien,” Sill said, then he nodded to Gloria. “Gloria?”

Gloria raised a pistol and fired one shot. The boom filled the library. Several of the suited men jumped, as did I. Eigen latched on to my back and stayed there as I turned to see Karras flat against the stairs, his chest a wide-open red mess. Eigen screamed. The world came slowly back into focus. “What the fuck” were the last words Father Damien Karras uttered.