He began to hum. The same low growling hum he’d been making behind the couch. I looked over my shoulder. The dock was getting further and further away.

“Should we turn around, Carl?” The humming just grew louder. “I want to go back. Please. Can we go back?”

But Carl did not stop his mechanical rowing. On and on he went until finally he lifted one of the oars and put it across his lap, his bandaged fingers wrapped around the shaft.

“Carl?”

His left hand slid up to his beard, tugged. Most of the hair along a section of his chin had been yanked out.

“I need to ask you some questions, Magic Boy.”

“Sure,” I said. The night was warm, but shivers moved up through my back. “You could’ve asked me back inside. At your cottage.”

“No. It’s contaminated. Urh. Workers implanted beams on the roof. No one can hear us out here, you know. No one can hear anything.”

“O-okay.” I swallowed, but my mouth was dry.

Carl turned and watched me through a single inky eye. “You better tell me what you’re doing.”

“Doing?”

“Stealing from me. Hooked into my currents. Drawing out my intelligence.”

“I’m not, Carl. I swear.” My teeth started to chatter.

“Yes, you are. It all makes sense now. Stan explained it to me. I should have listened to him when I found you.” He shuddered. “Hiding in the woods that night. Showing up after the rain. Thinking you were just a little boy.”

“I’m thirteen.”

“You could be two hundred. Couldn’t you? You could be a thousand.”

“But I’m not. No one can be a thousand.”

“Liar!” he yelled. “You know what they do in those rooms. The Workers drag you there. Two of them arrived on my doorstep. So friendly. They had a, a, a, urh, book.”

“Maybe they were door-to-door people, Carl. Trying to sell you something.”

“No. No. They wanted to manage my circuits. Everything is electric. Lightning in the sky.” Girl pressed her wet nose into my hand, and Carl yanked her back by the rope collar around her neck. The boat shuddered. “But you know that, know that already, don’t you. You know all about the rooms.”

“I don’t. I promise. I really don’t. I don’t know anything about any rooms.”

“You were sent. I know now, urh, what you’re trying to do.”

My heart was pumping fast. I watched his fingers pinch at the metal pieces in his beard.