In my head, in clarion surround sound, I hear the train-rumble of Herk’s voice urging me to say: I can get the Rat Burglar, boss. I can bring him down. And I’ll use a gun.

But I can’t say it. I can’t kill anyone. I can’t even utter the syllables.

“Boss,” I say, “please just let me test. Not for solo. Just for floater. I need this. I’m desperate. And I promise I’ve still got it, boss. I can prove it with the comps. You’ve got to let me try.”

Po-Mo sighs with something like defeat, then waves his hands angrily in front of his face as if dispersing a cloud of pesky insects and says, “Just... go on, Starks. Get out of my office. Get out of my sight.”

When I turn and am at the door, with my hand on the knob, Po-Mo says, “Wait. Freeze. Don’t turn around. What anomalies are on my desk?”

I was hoping he might ask me this. It’s a test—a crude plastoperceptivity test—to determine the ability of a pulse to identify suspicious irregularities within a pattern that could indicate a foreign presence in a secure environment. It means he’s curious about my faculties.

“Your name plaque is askew. Under some papers is a book on bilberry extract as a vision enhancer. One of the bulbs in your lamp is out. The cap on your Orangina is loose and the sticky-looking smear on your blotter suggests you might spill it again if you don’t tighten it up. Your stapler has a torn-up staple in it; it’s probably jammed. There are a few multicolored jimmies—you know, shots, sprinkles, whatever—on the carpet by your trash can, from which I might infer that you’ve gone off the diet, sir, and that you tried unsuccessfully to dispose of the evidence. And there is an e-mail from the directors on your screen regarding the status of my employment—”

“What?” he says, alarmed, grabbing his monitor and looking at it hard, as if making sure it’s not transparent. “How did you see that?”

“The reflection off your glasses, boss. I hope you don’t play poker with those suckers on.” Now he takes off his bifocals and stares at them in his hand, almost in shock, as if he had pulled a living animal off of his face. “Anyway, you’ve got an e-mail from the directors on your screen. I can’t read everything, but I see my name in the subject line along with the words ‘termination protocol,’ but you haven’t responded to it. At least not yet. Which I like to think means that you still have enough confidence in me to—”

“That’ll be all, Starks. You can go. Make sure you submit your write-up on the retention failure before you go.”

“Does that mean I can test for the Nakamura job tomorrow, sir?”

“Can you give me one compelling reason why?”

I give him the only thing I can think of that he wants.

“Boss, if I don’t take the top score by fifty points”—I can’t suppress a gulp when I say this; I always take first but I’ve never taken it by such a huge margin—“I’ll save everyone the trouble and resign. I won’t make a fuss. I’ll just disappear. But please, you’ve got to give me a chance. All I’ve ever wanted to do is be a pulse. Ever since what happened to my family. Ever since that day in the planetarium. All those years in the colonies. You gave me a chance then; give me a chance now. Please, boss. I don’t have anything else.”