“Your access has been granted. Come with me.” Felix spun around and started down the hallway, his duck feet flapping uselessly in front of his wheels.

The hallway went on for much longer than any real hallway could. I felt feelings I hadn’t known in eons, making it hard to come up with the right words. Excitement, anticipation. The first feelings to die with mortality.

“So, you’re looking for someone?” Felix asked. He was leading the way ahead of us, but somehow I knew he was still watching.

“A real asshole,” Cal said.

“I don’t have one of those!”

“Another joke?” I asked.

“A fact,” he responded. “But it results in a humor response in sixty-four percent of our visitors.”

“So you declare that detail to all the girls? Here I was feeling special.”

“Don’t flirt with the Psycho Sonic,” I whispered. “His head might explode.”

“Sonic was a hedgehog,” Felix said, his wheels whirring through the slaps. “I’m a more general animal.” He stopped abruptly, and even though I didn’t touch him, I came close enough to make me wipe my hand on my shirt.

“Here we are.”

The door was simple white, like all the others, save for the nameplate printed in gold.

The Looking Glass.

—

BEFORE WE GO ANY further, I’ve been keeping something from you. You know about the concept of a Complete Set; we’ve gone over that. And you know the purpose of the Looking Glass. You even know my last name. But I have yet to tell you what came from that night with Slips in our bunk, the information that drove me from the Second Floor to the Fifth. That drove me all the way here, to stand in front of this door.

I’m talking about the loophole.

Let me remind you once more: this is Hell. It is supposed to punish the bad. But it was a failed experiment from the start, wasn’t it? If a place is built for bad people—as in truly bad, rotten-cored people, the kind of bad that just spills off the skin like scent—bad people will make it their home. It’s the great irony of the whole thing. Hell, like all other prisons, may start out as punishment. But if you survive long enough, it becomes a training ground. A place to cut your teeth on your badness, to make it work for you. In which the punishment of anyone but you becomes its own reward.

So, here’s the big agency secret. Ready?

If you get a full set of deals from your own heirs, you get a redo on Earth.