"But I'm conditioned for tight security, you see, and Acton could see right inside. All the things I did…before. He could see it, there wasn't—"

Acton could see— "Ken. We've never been able to tune you in. You know that."

He nods, rubbing his hands together. In the dim blue light Clarke can see sweat beading on his forehead.

"We get this training," he says, his voice barely a whisper. "Ganzfeld interrogation's a standard tool in corporate and national arsenals, you've got to be able to— to block the signals. I could, mostly, with you people. Or I'd just stay away so it wouldn't be a problem."

What is he saying, Lenie Clarke asks herself, already knowing. What is he saying?

"But Karl, he just— he dropped his inhibitors way too— I couldn't keep him out."

He rubs his face. Clarke has never seen him so fidgety.

"You know that feeling you get," Lubin says, "when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar? Or in bed with someone else's lover? There's a formula for it. Some special combination of neurotransmitters. When you feel, you know, you've been--found out."

Oh my God.

"I've got a— sort of a conditioned reflex," he tells her. "It kicks in whenever those chemicals build up. I don't really have control over it. And when I feel, down in my gut, that I've been discovered, I just..."

Five percent, Acton told her, long ago. Maybe ten. If you keep it that low you'll be okay.

"I don't really have a choice..." Lubin says.

Five or ten percent. No more.

"I thought— I thought he was just worried about calcium depletion," Clarke whispers.

"I'm sorry." Lubin doesn't move at all, now. "I thought, coming down here—I thought it'd be safest for everyone, you know? It would have been, if Karl hadn't…"

She looks at him, numbed and distant. "How can you tell me this, Ken? Doesn't this, this confession of yours constitute a security breach?"

He stands up, suddenly. For a moment she thinks he's going to kill her.

"No," he says.

"Because your gut tells you I'm as good as dead anyway," she says. "Whatever happens. So no harm done."

He turns away. "I'm sorry," he says again, starting down the ladder.

Her own body seems very far away. But a small, hot coal is growing in all that dead space.

"What if I changed my mind, Ken?" she calls after him, rising. "What if I decided to leave with the rest of you? That'd get the old killer reflex going, wouldn't it?"

He stops on the ladder. "Yes," he says at last. "But you won't."

She stands completely still, watching him. He doesn't even look back.

* * *

She's outside. This isn't part of the plan. The plan is to stay inside, like they told her to. The plan is to sit there, just asking for it.