'No. Look, Mia, fuck. Just listen. Our society is basically a giant version of Farmer: an immense flattery feedback mechanism, a machine tuned to cater to our wants, spiritual, social, material. Our wants, not our needs. So we run around, sticking our dicks into mouth after mouth, and whenever someone comes along wanting to talk, not suck, we say, "Excuse me, buddy, but I'm like, getting a blowjob over here." How can facts compete? We think we can believe whatever we fucking want, that reason and evidence are simply different sections of the grocery store, that we don't have to answer to those scratching their heads, let alone to the world. And because we can't see what we don't know, we all think that we more or less have it sewn up—never mind that in three thousand years, we'll sound every bit as ludicrous to our descendants as our ancestors sound to—'

Thomas stopped, shouted down by the roar of the Toyota wandering across the rumble-strips.

Mia jerked the SUV back into the center of the lane. 'It's not that I don't find this interesting, Tommy. Hell, I pretty much agree with you, word for fucking word. It's just that right now I really don't give a flying fuck.' He hit the blinker, slowed onto the exit ramp. 'We got bigger fish to fry, neighbor. And this illusion, for one, does not want to find his taut, athletic ass in prison.' A quick glance. 'We clear?'

Thomas blinked, surprised by the hot tears that dropped down his cheeks.

'Clear,' he said, looking to the road. The trash in the concrete sockets. The endless oil-stains, blurred into bands of smoke by the speed. The off ramp seemed to peel him away from something essential, like skin from the stalk.

That noise. He would do anything to stop hearing that noise. Even if it meant driving on the rumble-strips for the rest of his life.

No more screams, Frankie.

Daddy promises.

When they pulled up to the hospital, Thomas half-expected Mia to tell him to get out, then peel down the street. When he didn't, when he actually led the way toward the white, fishbowl world beyond the glass doors, Thomas could feel the ground wobble.

We're coming, son… Both of us.

'Lordy-lordy,' Mia murmured as they paused in the hospital's gothic shadow.

Their plan was simple, but it depended on who-knew-how-many-variables going their way.

'Ready?' Thomas said, biting his lip.

'Like spaghetti,' Mia replied.

The lobby was all but abandoned. He felt almost no apprehension approaching the metal-detector and its bored, sleep-deprived guard. Mia strode through briskly, with nary a second glance from the bull-chested man, who seemed more interested in the small backpack Thomas carried. Thomas swung it across the detector's threshold, dropped it into the guard's waiting hand, before stepping through himself. The guard had already peeled it open when the metal detector chirped in a polite yet insistent way.