After practice, I had my Monday-night shift. The one where I did most of my dealing. But the second I was left alone in the store, I locked up and bailed, leaving a sign on the door that said “Closed for Religious Reasons.” Then before I drove off, I checked to see if, by chance, there was a holiday that day. Turns out that it was Yom Kippur—the Jewish day of atonement. The perfect day for my “special customers” to repent from their drug habit.

I had made plans to meet with the Edwards. My first official training session in the art of existential manipulation. They were ready for me—because in a corner that was once the Star Wars area of the old Toys “R” Us was a big white capsule that fit perfectly with the rest of the décor. It kind of looked like a pharaoh’s sarcophagus, if ancient Egyptians knew about plastic.

“Interdimensional transport device?” I asked, half joking, half terrified. “Bet you didn’t get that from Amazon.”

“There’s nothing interdimensional about it,” Ed said. “It’s a sensory deprivation tank.”

Edd popped open the lid.

“Get naked and get in.”

I had heard about these things. The water inside is body temperature, and loaded with about as much salt as the Dead Sea, so you float high. With no sound or light, there’s absolutely no stimulation but what comes loaded in your own mental software. I knew a kid who knew a kid whose hippy-dippy father got high, got in a tank, and became one with the universe. That is to say he had a coronary in there, and went belly-up. Literally.

So, needless to say, I was apprehensive.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Ed told me. “It’s just a good way to get you focused and visualizing.”

“Alpha state,” I said. “Isn’t that what they call it?”

“Call it whatever you like, as long as it gets you in there,” said Edd, losing patience. Ed raised a hand to quiet him. “There’s no lock on the lid, Ash. You can get out any time you like—but I think once you’re in there you won’t want to leave.”

And I could smell why. From the open lid of the tank a waft of sultry air carried the strong smell of mint. This tank wasn’t filled with ordinary salt water—this was the ultimate, fully saturated EMP bath.

So even though getting into a water coffin in a dead Toys “R” Us didn’t feel like a good idea in any universe, I agreed. I stripped down, stepped in, then lay faceup in the warm water. When they closed the lid, the darkness was absolute. So was the silence. In a few moments all I could hear was my own heartbeat. Not only that, but within seconds the headache that I always struggled to tune out was gone.