He became aware of being looked at. A boy of perhaps twelve was walking up Cherry Street. He had recognized Richard and was approaching, to the mild consternation of his adult minder—presumably his father. On his left forearm he wore a newfangled plastic splint, the kind that made the wearer look like a bionic superwarrior instead of a damaged gimp. And indeed the music of Pompitus Bombasticus made his final approach to Richard seem like the triumphal entry of a hero into Valhalla. With his good hand the kid was fishing his phone out. He would want to take a selfie with Richard so that he could post it and achieve, at least for a few hours, the Miasma’s equivalent of Valhalla-like glory. Richard obligingly pulled the phones from his head and let them encircle his neck. He shook the boy’s hand—this was awkward because of the splint and the phone. Followed at a seemly interval by the adult, the two of them walked side by side for half a block. The boy was a heavy player of T’Rain. He was smart and appealing, with well-formed and completely reasonable ideas on how to make the game even better. They drew to a halt in front of the entrance to the clinic. The kid’s monologue continued, Richard paying attention and nodding, until the father, sensing the nature of Richard’s errand, intervened and directed the boy to wind it up. The boy had, while talking, got his phone configured to take a selfie, which he now did. He was narrating as he did so and Dodge understood that he was not taking a still photo but a snippet of video, more difficult to counterfeit and thus, when posted, more cred enhancing. He shook the kid’s hand and exchanged nods with the dad: Over to you. The kid had got a mildly stricken look on his face; it had occurred to him that Richard Forthrast might be sick.

That’s what medicine was to kids: an acute response to disease. When you got older you understood it was more like brushing your teeth: a system of highly evolved strategies for preempting bad things that could happen to you if you took no preventive measures. Part of him wanted to explain this to the kid, to assuage his little pang of anxiety, but the conversation had gone on long enough and was over now. He went into the building musing on the weird role that his society had picked out for him as a guy who had built, or caused to be built, an imaginary world.