Underneath it all—underneath the inexplicable fear, the weirdness, the simple guilt of selling the project out first to Meadows then to Sony—Tate was just a teenager good at physics. He hadn’t developed past a hip haircut and the idea that his talent gave him some sort of edge in the world, if only he would always be forgiven by adults. Now his wife had disabused him of that. Worse, perhaps, physics itself had come looking for him in some unfathomable way he couldn’t live with. Kearney felt sorry for him, but he only said carefully:

“The cat’s here, Brian. She’s on your shoulder now.”

Tate glanced at Kearney, then at his own shoulder. He didn’t seem to see the white cat perched there, purring and kneading the material of his coat. He shook his head.

“No,” he said abjectly. “She’s gone now.”

Anna stared at Tate, then the cat, then Tate again.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “I’ll call a taxi, if no one minds.”

“You can’t call from in here,” Tate told her, as if he was talking to a child. “It’s a cage.” Then he whispered, “I had no idea Beth felt so badly about things.”

Kearney touched his arm.

“Why do you need the cage, Brian? What really happened?”

Tate began to cry. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Why do you need the cage?” Kearney persisted. He made Tate face him. “Are you afraid something will get in?”

Tate wiped at his eyes. “No, I’m frightened it will get out,” he said. He shivered and made a curious half-turn away from Kearney, raising his hand to zip the neck of the parka; this brought him face to face with Anna. He jerked in a startled way, as if he had forgotten she was there. “I’m cold,” he whispered. He felt around behind him with one hand, pulled the chair out from behind the table and sat down heavily. All the time the white cat rode on his shoulder, shifting its balance fluently, purring. Tate looked up at Kearney from the chair and said:

“I’m always cold.”

He was silent for a moment, then he said: “I’m not really here. None of us are.”

Tears rolled down the dark grooves around his mouth.

“Michael, we’re none of us here at all.”