“This specimen should be freed,” Maximilian pleaded. He slapped the television’s power switch. Of his own accord, Maximilian ordered the woman to “remove him.” Too shocked by this display of insolence, I soundlessly watched as the spindly specimen in the chair was carted off, to where I neither know nor care. Maximilian, head down, stepped out of the room and into the chilly lot beyond it.

I sat in the Observatory trying to ignore the overwhelming sense of nihilistic hopelessness that was tiding up within me. I looked about the Observatory and saw only blackness; truly the only thing ever witnessed here by Maximilian or me.

I rose and shuffled outside.

Maximilian was standing stoically. Bluish smoke streamed from his freshly-lit cigar. His October Coat was wadded on the ground, as though it had been flung there in a rage.

“No more,” he said beseechingly. “Please, J.P., no more.”

“We can’t just resign from it,” I said. “It’s a part of us.”

“It’s a part of you,” he corrected me. “But after all these failures, can you not see that I was right all those months ago?” He sighed, placed his hand on my shoulder. It was the first time he’d touched me in ages. “Things have gotten way out of hand, haven’t they? You’ll admit that, won’t you? This isn’t working and you know it, but you probably don’t know how to make it stop. But I’m telling you, J.P., it’s very easy: just let us go. I want to take my family and leave here, this place. We won’t try to stop you, J.P. We won’t even tell the authorities. I give you my word on that. We don’t want any trouble. We just want your permission to leave.”

“And go where exactly?” I returned. “The plague’s widespread. It affected more than just Crampton.” (I know it was a lie, Professor, but at the time I was desperate to maintain your vigil.)

“We’re willing to risk it, J.P. Let us go.”

I started to laugh. It was a reaction that shocked me just as much as it did Maximilian, who glared at me with disdain.

“You really don’t get Nobody’s message at all, do you?” he spat.

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” I said, angered by the insolent suggestion that he could comprehend your little lectures on horror better than I do.

Maximilian ground the cigar under the toe of his shoe. “It’s horribly simple. Think for a moment and you’ll get it. The message is; there is nothing to do, there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to be, and most importantly, there is nobody to find. There is no Professor Nobody! There never has been! It’s you, J.P. It’s you.”

“…preposterous…” I muttered. “…absurd …”