Sinjin raised his eyes studiously and declined to rise to the bait. “So the airing of the video was delayed, and delayed again, as he pondered his next move. ENSU happened and seemed to take the wind out of his sails. He wasn’t expecting that.”

“It did a lot of his work for him,” Corvallis said, nodding. “Made the same point.”

“Inasmuch as ENSU succeeded, it made Moab seem unnecessary. Cack-handed. Inasmuch as ENSU failed, it made him wonder whether there was any real future in his own visions for a secure Internet.”

“When you say ENSU failed, you’re referring to the fact that—”

“That billions of people went on believing everything they saw on the Internet in spite of it.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Corvallis said.

“Then you must feel a little of what Elmo Shepherd felt,” Sinjin said.

“Why fight it?”

Sinjin nodded. “What’s the point? The mass of people are so stupid, so gullible, because they want to be misled. There’s no way to make them not want it. You have to work with the human race as it exists, with all of its flaws. Getting them to see reason is a fool’s errand.”

“Seems kind of bleak. There are things you could do in the way of education—”

“Not if your primary focus is on preparing for the next world.”

“You mean, what happens after death.”

Sinjin nodded.

“I’ve seen El on social media, suggesting that Moab actually was nuked. Like, openly pandering to the people who still believe that,” Corvallis said. “I don’t see how that helps. That’s crazy.”

“Exactly!” Sinjin said, brightening. “This brings us back to the main thread of this conversation.”

“Which is?” Corvallis asked, throwing up his hands in bewilderment.

“El’s going crazy.”

Corvallis turned to look Sinjin in the eye. Sinjin wasn’t joking.

“Elmo Shepherd suffers—has always suffered—from an incurable genetic disorder. I’ll tell you the medical name later and you can Google it if you want to know the gory details. It runs in his family. He’s been aware of it since he was in college. One of its inevitable results is a degeneration of the brain that typically begins when the sufferer is in his forties or fifties. Mr. Shepherd is fifty-two.”

“Okay,” Corvallis said, after a pause to consider this news. “I see what you mean about the main line of the conversation. Everything he’s done with Ephrata Life Sciences, the preservation and scanning of brains—it all relates to this.”

“We are all mortal,” Sinjin said grandly, “and we differ only in the extent to which we ignore that fact. Mr. Shepherd was never granted the luxury of being able to ignore it and so he has prepared for it with greater forethought than most.”

“How does Moab fit in?”