Hodges straightens up. He filled a prescription for painkillers on his way back from Stamos’s office—heavy-duty, but not as heavy as the stuff he may be taking soon—and he feels almost okay. There’s even a faint stirring of hunger in his belly, which is a welcome change. “They were probably destroyed. That’s what they do with unsold paperback books, I think.”

“That’s a lot of inventory to destroy,” she says, “considering the gadgets are loaded with games and still work. The top of the line, the Commanders, even came equipped with WiFi. Now tell me about your tests.”

Hodges manufactures a smile he hopes will look both modest and happy. “Good news, actually. It’s an ulcer, but just a little one. I’ll have to take a bunch of pills and be careful about my diet. Dr. Stamos says if I do that, it should heal on its own.”

She gives him a radiant smile that makes Hodges feel good about this outrageous lie. Of course, it also makes him feel like dogshit on an old shoe.

“Thank God! You’ll do what he says, won’t you?”

“You bet.” More dogshit; all the bland food in the world won’t cure what ails him. Hodges is not a giver-upper, and under other circumstances he would be in the office of gastroenterologist Henry Yip right now, no matter how bad the odds of beating pancreatic cancer. The message he received on the Blue Umbrella site has changed things, however.

“Well, that’s fine. Because I don’t know what I’d do without you, Bill. I just don’t.”

“Holly—”

“Actually, I do. I’d go back home. And that would be bad for me.”

No shit, Hodges thinks. The first time I met you, in town for your aunt Elizabeth’s funeral, your mom was practically leading you around like a mutt on a leash. Do this, Holly, do that, Holly, and for Christ’s sake don’t do anything embarrassing.

“Now tell me,” she says. “Tell me the something new. Tell me tell me tell me!”

“Give me fifteen minutes, then I’ll spill everything. In the meantime, see if you can find out what happened to all those Commander consoles. It’s probably not important, but it might be.”

“Okay. Wonderful news about your tests, Bill.”

“Yeah.”

He goes into his office. Holly swivels her chair to look after him for a moment, because he rarely closes the door when he’s in there. Still, it’s not unheard of. She returns to her computer.

2

“He’s not done with you yet.”

Holly repeats it in a soft voice. She puts her half-eaten veggie burger down on its paper plate. Hodges has already demolished his, talking between bites. He doesn’t mention waking with pain; in this version he discovered the message because he got up to net-surf when he couldn’t sleep.

“That’s what it said, all right.”