'Difficult to express, aren't they? They require rehearsal, training. All those cheesy, pragmatic redefinitions of freedom. All those fuzzy, quasi-quantum speculations on brain function. Blah-fucking-blah-blah. On the one hand, you have flattering hope and the "redefinition of traditional categories in the light of scientific knowledge"—never mind that anything can be redefined—and on the other you have Neil's claim which, despite running counter to our most cherished intuitions, is clear, direct, and forceful: consciousness is deceptive to the point of rendering all our concepts suspect, if not bankrupt. The apologists come and go while the unbearable conclusion remains. I'm not a betting man, agent, but—'

Atta had started waving her hands. 'Okay, okay, look,' she said. 'You need to—'

'You people make me sick,' Gerard snapped at Thomas.

'Danny…' Atta said.

'What kind of people might those be, Ger?'

'Smart-ass, know-it-all, arrogant pricks, with their terrorist sympathies, their hobosexual neighbors—'

'Hobosexual?'

'Bum fuckers! Fags!'

'Are you for fucking real?'

'We're the only real thing on this sick planet! Things are going to be all washed away, real soon, trust me. Things are going to be sorted!'

'Danny!'

'Sorted,' Thomas laughed. 'And let me guess which pile you think you're going to end up on.' A derisive snort. 'I feel sorry for you, Ger.' He glanced at Sam, whose look said, Just leave it alone.

'Sorry?' Agent Gerard said in a mocking falsetto. 'For me? That's rich.'

Thomas shrugged. 'You know how many religions we humans have cooked up over the ages? Thousands… Thousands! Doesn't that worry you? Embarrass you? Think of that feeling you have, that sense of self-righteous indignation that you're struggling to hold onto right now, that you're using to squash the fact of your confusion and fear. I hate to break this to you, buddy, but it's as cheap as fucking dirt. Everybody uses it. Everybody thinks the great captain in the sky has picked them for the winning team, and why not? In the absence of evidence, all we have is our psychology, our needs, to anchor our beliefs. To feel safe. To feel special. You can stomp your foot all you want, wave your hands, pray and pray and pray, but in the end, you're just one more fucking Christian-Muslim-Hindu-Buddhist-Jew, just another hapless, dim-witted human, crying out, "Me-fucking-me-me! I'm the special one!"'

All three FBI agents stared at him.

Gerard didn't seem either convinced or outraged, just… calm. 'And what makes you any different?'

'I know that I don't know shit.'

'But you think Cassidy's right.'