He looked to the dust-free square where his brass desk-lamp had once stood. He could almost see Neil bending over it as he scrawled 'www.semanticapocalypse.com' across the green glass. He could almost see the dress-dropping smile, crooked with wicked delight. Neil reveled in knowing things others should know, be they facts of character, profession, or women. Nothing tickled him more than irony. In college, he had made an art of stringing along those duped by their own words. Thomas had played as well—but only reluctantly. To witness self-deception was to know someone better than they knew themselves. And even though Thomas had, in a sense, made a profession of the game, he found it far more uncomfortable than comforting. To toy with irony was to toy with the vulnerabilities of others. Since everyone, including Neil, was as much other as self, toying with others' vulnerabilities meant toying with one's own vulnerabilities as well. And that was the point. Neil played these games, Thomas had realized, in order to cultivate a sense of invulnerability.

The greatest self-deception of all.

Thomas had tried to tell him this once, but it was part of Neil's peculiar blindness to think he saw everything. He never stopped playing his games, never stopped smirking at the obliviousness of others, at the truth hidden right there where anyone could see it—in a wife's flirtatious smile, in a friend's embarrassed silence…

Thomas shivered. He turned to his left, to his beaten poster of a world equally hard done by. A landscape of dimples and refracted light obscured the dark, satellite landmasses. He glimpsed a felt-tip 'x' in a finger-shaped gleam. How?

Oh my God…

'Ripley?'

'Yeah, Dad?'

'Get your things together, honey.'

Thomas hustled Ripley across the lawn. They trotted up Mia's porch steps, and Thomas rapped hard on the screen door. 'Mia!' he called. Ripley was frightened. 'What's wrong, Daddy?' Thomas pulled on his black-and-green blazer, which he had grabbed on his way out the door. The air had a dry, pre-autumn chill, it seemed.

'When we get inside, Rip, I need you to go out back and watch TV, okay?'

'But nuthin's on.'

'Play with their Gamesphere, then. Or watch a movie. Order any movie you want.'

She squinted up at him, looking so adorable he felt Control momentarily waver. 'Any movie?'

'Any movie. So long as it's not—'

'Ello-ello,' Mia said, little more than an apparition behind the screen. He pushed the door open, and Ripley bolted past him.

'Please come in!' Mia called after her. He turned back to Thomas, perplexed and perhaps a little annoyed.

'I know this is short notice, Mia, but I need you to look after her for a bit.'

'Sure-sure. What's going on?'

'I've been an idiot. A total fucking idiot.'

Mia regarded him apprehensively. He glanced out across the street. 'C'mon in.'