Neil raised the book, shook it so that it wobbled in his hand. 'It just couldn't be. And yet, there it was…'

Thomas stared at him skeptically, even as he marveled at how good it felt to be hanging out and debating again. 'Am I actually allowed to talk now?' he said smiling. 'Are you ready to yield the podium?'

Neil shot him one of his famous squinting scowls. 'By all means.'

A sudden itch afflicted Thomas's nose, reminding him of the restraints. But he knew the routine with Neil and his gags: so long as you ignored whatever it was, Neil would eventually relent out of boredom. That was why asking for a beer had been a mistake. 'So you're saying,' he began slowly, 'that all this craziness, the abductions and the mutilations and the recordings, is about my book,'

'The Argument is yours, Goodbook. You always were better at the theory.'

'And you're just a practical man, right?'

Neil shrugged. 'I prefer working with my hands.'

Thomas laughed, though the shaking jarred his skull. 'So riddle me this: how could you be interested in my argument, any argument, if you think reasons are illusory?'

Neil grinned and shook his head. 'You can do better than that. Reasons may be deceptions, the result of a brain stuck at the tail end of its own problem-solving, but they're still functional— as you might expect, given that they're a product of the real deal. While you and I argue, experience the world of meaning and justification, our brains are simply producing and responding to various auditory inputs and outputs, literally rewiring themselves in response to each other and their environments. That's where the real action is. The projector, as opposed to the screen. That's why we stare at an interpretative abyss whenever we try to use reasons to get behind reasons, while we find it quite simple to dismantle the machinery that makes it possible. That's why philosophy is bullshit, while science has transformed the world.'

Thomas chuckled. Were it not for the restraints, he would have held his hands out in surrender; instead he simply said, 'Ouch.' Neil had simply paraphrased his own response in Through the Brain Darkly. 'What page is that from again?'

'Three eighty-two, actually.'

'You memorized the fucking thing?'

Inexplicably, Neil frowned and reached into his pocket, withdrew a small black remote. Click.

Suddenly all was misery and agony, as if each of Thomas's innumerable pores gave birth to white-hot pins. Something mewled and screamed, bucked against iron restraints. Somewhere, something defecated.

Click. Then he was happy again.

Neil smiled. 'Try to avoid changing the topic,' he said.

Through a fog of good humor, Thomas could feel his body shivering, as though he had frozen bones. 'Sure thing… Where were we?'