I hand her the gun. She hands it to Mr. U., who orders the White Cap Consortium, Lauren, Craig, and the Singers to the floor. Soon everyone but Company is down there with the fallen portly men and the two I killed, who are posed, now, in death, in attitudes of wild dancing: the yellow-sneakered girl seems to be tossing the notebook across to the leader, who seems about to catch it.

Mr. U. swoops over, plucks up the notebook, tucks it into the pocket of his Performance blazer.

And a great tragedy is thereby averted.

But I must admit I feel rather low after.

The police take Craig, Lauren, the Singers, and the intruders away. Company, having been questioned, drifts out of Listening Room, speaking spiritedly of their satisfaction that justice has prevailed, of the rank hubris of the intruders, of my courage, my admirable presence of mind.

“Yeah, you did good, pard,” Jed says as, still shaky, he re-Pinions me at floor height, takes out my RoamStar, resettles my head back into my Fahey Cup. “Those dirtbags were animals.”

“As for those two,” Jean says, glancing over at the two empty Fahey Cups, into which the heads of Craig and Lauren formerly nestled, “they’ll be fine. They’ll honestly never know what hit them.”

Jed and Jean go out. I am left alone.

Gosh, I think, bursting into tears, I never wished to kill anyone and, on the contrary, wished to never even hurt anyone. And now look: I have killed two people. Also on my mind: Craig and Lauren, whose crestfallen looks of betrayal, directed at me as, struggling, they were roughly dragged away, I will not soon forget.

Night falls.

A silent man and woman come with a mop and a cart, to clean up the blood and take away the two I killed.

Thank goodness.

I did it for love, I whisper to myself again and again, as the rising moon makes a light-square around the edges of the boarded-up window, while, on the floor, an associated light-parallelogram moves slowly toward Podium and then, fractured, climbs up it.

Around midnight Mr. U. comes in.

“Can’t sleep either, eh?” he says.

I raise my hand.

“Go,” he says.

“What will happen to Craig and Lauren?” I say.

“They’re getting some help,” he says. “At a hospital. Of sorts. Having some work done, to help them forget this whole stupid thing. Well, forget everything, actually. Get them back to square one. So they can begin Speaking again. Here, or elsewhere. I haven’t decided.”

“Oh,” I say.

I hear Mrs. U. out there, moving around Main Living Area.

Mr. U. watches me listening.