It was just like Giselle said. When he went downstairs, they were ready for him. A couple of DOPS flunkies measured him and a woman with a beak and spiny feathers down her back threw clothes at him from a rack until he found a combination that fit and didn’t look too much like he’d been bullied by a lady ostrich.

It took him a few minutes to find the employee lunchroom. Brushing feathers off his new clothes, Coop was happy to find he still had a fistful of Babylon’s money, so he ate a vending machine chicken salad sandwich, some chips, and a Coke. He would have preferred a real drink. And a real sandwich. Couldn’t do much about the latter, but maybe if he hadn’t pissed off Nelson so much, he would have shown him where he hid his bottle. Not much chance of that now. Still, he was a thief. If he could find Nelson’s desk, he could probably get into it. Coop found a clipboard someone had left in the lunchroom and began wandering the building. No one paid any attention to him in his company threads. He made it up and down three floors before people started giving him funny looks. At that point, he became extremely interested in the papers on his clipboard and calmly made his way back to the empty office.

The alien gibberish had stopped and the LCD screen on the wall was blank. He found a remote nearby and turned it on. After fiddling with the settings for a few minutes, he found he could get a television feed. He flipped between the news and game shows, not really watching, just appreciating the noise. This wasn’t exactly how he’d intended to spend time with Babylon’s money burning a big hole in his pocket. In fact, being locked in reminded him a little too much of prison. He wondered how Rodney was doing. And more important, how Rodney’s new roommate was dealing with the smell. Coop had asked for a gas mask a couple of times and almost gotten it once. Until the prison shrink took him aside and talked to him at great length about the psychological ramifications of “ostracizing other prisoners olfactorily.” Coop didn’t understand half of what the guy said, but he listened politely and invited the guy back to his cell to meet Rodney. He never got the mask, but at least he had the pleasure of seeing the shrink try not to faint when Rodney held out his moist mitt to shake. That’s how you get through prison, he remembered. It’s the little things. The tiny victories. Like copping an extra apple when the chow line guards weren’t looking or knowing you’d made your psychiatrist throw up on the way back to his office.