Jagjeet and I devise a system. He walks ahead of me through the eerily immaculate, Bauhaus hallways, dart guns raised and ready, as I use my senses to detect signs of trouble. I smell, I listen, I hawkeye for shadows. I remove my shoes and, barefoot, feel for vibrations. It works, and after a few undeadly intersections, my Charlie curiosity gets the better of me.

“Charlie didn’t break her nose by falling off her bike. How did she do it?”

“No talking,” says Kong’s voice in my ear. “Keep it quiet.”

Jagjeet shrugs. “I did it. Two years ago. During training. It was an accident.”

“What sort of training?”

“You know, her training to be muscle. We were sparring. She always has a hard time staying loose. So I was using potato chips and she choked on one and sort of moved into the punch—”

“Potato chips?”

“Talking, people,” says Kong.

“Oh. In fighting, speed is power. Not muscle. If you’re nervous you hunch up, you try to muscle it. It makes you slow. And weak. Like a lot of fighters, Charlie carries her tension in her jaw. If I can get her to relax her jaw she will relax her shoulders, relax her legs. So I make her hold potato chips in her mouth when she trains. If they break then she’s not relaxed enough, not fast enough. She has to try again. It’s just a training tool.”

“The chips in her kitchen...” For some reason this feels like a tremendous relief: Charlie was not hiding a secret delectation for potato chips; they were merely a part of her life as talent, as wanna-be muscle. She had to keep them secret.

“Right,” says Jagjeet.

“Talking!” screams Kong in my ear.

“Did, um, Charlie ever talk much about me?” I can’t help asking. “I mean, did she ever say anything about, I don’t know, marrying me or anything?”

“Hey, amateur hour!” Kong shrieks at me. “Shut your fucking mouth!”

“Kong, it’s dead quiet. I don’t think anyone’s here.”

“Maybe Azar has people out looking for you,” Jagjeet offers.

At max volume Kong informs me that in the circumstance in which I currently find myself, I have no entitlement to any thought whatsoever and that to submit an opinion on anything is foolhardy in the extreme. He also exhorts me to commit an act of self-sodomy.

Two intersections later I aggrieve Kong even worse. He instructs us to go right, but my body pulls inexorably left.

“Sure it isn’t left?”

“Go right, douchebag.”

“What makes you think left?” Jagjeet asks. “Do you hear something?”

“No.”

“Smell something?”

“Go right, now,” Kong says.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“Then what is it?” Jagjeet says.

“This hallway hurts.”

Kong screeches. “It what?”

“Kong knows this facility better than anyone,” Jagjeet says reasonably.

“He’s wrong.”

“Are you sure?”