'Call me Tom,' he said.

Think clear. Think straight.

He had already decided he was suffering some kind of dissociative stress response. The wan feeling of dislocation. The sense of self-estrangement, as though he shammed every smile, every word, every breath. Classic characteristics of the 'crisis phase' of critical incident stress.

Thomas Bible's world had been turned upside down. Like Gyges's staff, it had become unrecognizable.

'Recognition,' he said abruptly, suddenly seeing the answer to Sam's earlier question.

'Go slow, Tom. It's been a long day.'

He looked at Sam and smiled. 'I'll be okay. My brain is more plastic than most.'

'Like my shoes,' Sam replied.

The click of Sam's heels possessed an oily echo as they hustled across the Federal Building's basement parking garage. 'Neil's saying something about recognition,' he explained. 'He's saying recognition—self or other—is simply a matter of wiring.'

Sam frowned in the exhaust-stained gloom. 'I don't get it.'

'Think. Without recognition, there's nobody, just like Gyges said. There are no people, only buzzing brains bumping into buzzing brains.'

Sam pondered this over the course of several more clicks. 'So what would Powski be?' she asked as they approached the elevator. 'That pleasure is simply a matter of wiring?'

'Why not?'

Sam scowled, as though struck by something she should have thought of earlier. 'It almost seems as though he's arguing with you. You in particular, not the world.'

Thomas felt his stomach clench.

'Why do you say that?'

Her look was penetrating, almost manic in its intensity. 'Because you're the only person who could possibly decipher his message. Without you, he'd be talking over everyone's head, don't you think?'

Why had Neil come over last night? Why the confession? He had banged Nora shortly before—her bullshit trip to San Francisco made that clear enough. So what? He screws Nora, then drops by unannounced to drink and break bread with his old buddy, Goodbook? On his way between murders, no less. And on the night before the FBI is sure to start hunting down his old contacts.

Neil Cassidy was probably the most brilliant, most premeditated man Thomas had ever known. Sam was right. Neil was playing a game only Thomas knew, which meant he simply had to be playing with him. But why? Did he simply need him to teach his real opponents, the FBI, how to play? To bring them up to speed? Or was he doing all of this for Thomas's benefit?

Does he hate me that much?

A pang stuck him in the chest. For a moment, he felt like a schoolboy, all alone, abandoned by his only friend. He's been screwing Nora all this time… And smiling, clapping him on the back afterward. Didn't that speak of a fixation of some kind, of a pathological hatred?