Thomas shook his head. The tragedy wasn't that words had no bottom: that was just a way for English professors to flatter themselves into thinking the world was just more Shakespeare, something tailor-made for them and their skills. No. The tragedy was that the bottom was unspeakable.

Unlivable.

'We have clues,' he said, gesturing not so much to the rising city as to the knowledge propping it up. 'We just can't bear following them.'

Mia snorted. 'You're like Woody Allen without a punchline, you know that?'

Thomas pursed his lips. He was pressing Mia when he should be reassuring—he knew as much. But in the glamour cast by Neil's day-glo narcoleptic, this was simply a matter of course. Something relentless inhabited him, something see-it-through…

No matter what the end.

'You don't understand, Mia. We've come to the limit. We're standing at the brink. We really are. You know that feeling you have, that feeling of making things happen, of being responsible? That's just a product, something generated by your brain. It simply accompanies your actions, your decisions. Neil's shut it down. He hasn't made a decision or willed anything to happen in fucking years. He experiences decisions, just minus the sensation of willing them. They simply happen.'

'Yeah, well, small fucking wonder he's gone bonkers.'

'Has he? Has he gone bonkers? Or has he gone sane in a world of madmen? This isn't speculation, Mia. It's fact. The will is an illusion—fact. No different than the facts that make this car possible, or New York possible, or vaccinations or nose-jobs or polyester pants. We're the illusion! That's how fucking crazy the world has become. And Neil is the first man to see his way past it, to see his way—'

'Look, Tommy,' Mia interrupted, his eyes clicking between him and the freeway. 'You've been through a lot so I'm going to say this gently, okay? Three words… Shut. The-fuck-up. Cocksucker.'

Thomas looked back to the city piling black and gold on the horizon.

'Did you hear that, Tommy? Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'You know that virtual news anchor on MSNBC?' Thomas continued, 'Peter Farmer, the one they morphed using real-time brain imaging feedback to give him the most pleasing voice, the most pleasing appearance, and so—'

'Shut-the-fuck-up,' Mia sang. 'Shut-the-fuck-aaawwwp—'