'God has imbued each man with a free soul,' Halasz was saying, 'and it's that free soul that makes each man—excuse me, Felice, I meant to say, person—it's that free soul that makes each person responsible for their fortune good or bad, and more importantly, responsible for their crimes'

'But surely—' a female voice began, but was cut off. The fishbowl scene froze. A heartbeat passed and the window went black.

'I saw that interview,' Heaney said, holding his hand over his palmtop. 'It's from this spring, I think, when Halasz was campaigning against neurological courtroom pleas.'

'He taped it,' Thomas said, thinking of Cynthia Powski. 'It's part… part of his argument.'

Why did that word 'his' feel so wrong?

Suddenly the window brightened, and they saw Halasz again, this time crouching on the floor of what looked like a cage, his head wrapped in bandages. He held a little girl with matted blond hair cradled in his arms. He seemed to be wearing a disheveled version of the same suit he'd worn in the interview. The little girl wore a plaid skirt with white stockings—some kind of school uniform. She wasn't much younger than Ripley. They both stared at the camera in abject terror.

'Is Lamar getting this?' Atta barked to Gerard.

'Loud and clear,' Gerard said, his palmtop to his ear. 'He's running biometrics on the girl right now.'

'This is an outrage!' Halasz snarled at the camera. 'An outrage?

The girl starting cooing—a sound that made Thomas tingle with horror. It was like watching a psychotic nightmare through a pipe. Suddenly Thomas wanted to run, to be anywhere-but-here.

'Roberta Sawyer,' Gerard said, repeating an inaudible voice. 'Goes by "Bobbie". Reported missing last week in West Virginia.'

'Our boy gets around,' Atta muttered.

'Shush,' Halasz was saying to the girl. 'Shhhh…' He pressed his cheek against her matted locks. Low-res tears spilled from his eyes when he closed them. They popped open, seemed to search the blackness somewhere off behind the camera. 'Hush,' he whispered.

Then he bit into her cheek as though she were an apple.

Her shriek was inhuman.

'There re boundaries?' Halasz wailed. 'Limits?'

The girl flopped like a deep-sea fish in his arms. People fought, Thomas numbly realized, as frantic and as vicious as any wild animal.

'NO, CONGRESSMAN,' Ocean Voice said. 'ONLY CIRCUITS AND BEHAVIORAL OUTPUTS. WHAT DOES IT MATTER WHETHER THE INPUTS COME FROM ME OR FROM THE WORLD?'

Halasz shook his head, like a dog rending tendon from bone.

'God's circuits!' he cried, spitting blood like spittle. 'Your perversion!' he sobbed, leaning back to the twitching girl. 'This isn't me! God made me!'

'BUT YOU FEEL IT. YOU CHOOSE.'

Drenched in hot blood, Halasz laid the girl on the cement floor before him, weeping.