As she leaves Kierk quickly scans the room, looking at the other workstations, some of which are occupied by the stooped forms of graduate students. Then he’s striding through the lab surreptitiously snatching up printed-out documents from the various unoccupied desks, keeping an eye on the door and the seated lab members, a few of whom glance at him, and he seriously nods back at them, and in a minute he has a stack about the same size of that in the box. He replaces one for the other, and with Atif’s documents under his arm he walks out with purpose. He passes two people in the hallway. One is pointing the other toward the lab—“Atif’s workstation was down there”—and Kierk, not looking up, hurries out into the stairwell.

He goes up a few flights. Pausing, he thumbs through the documents, which from a brief perusal are mostly just science papers but contain, to Kierk’s surprise, all of his papers as well, which Kierk raises his eyebrows at and smiles, pride mixed with melancholy.

Eventually he goes back to his lab, walking past rows of heads whose names he’s never learned.

Carmen, seeing him coming, turns in her chair and looks expectantly up at him, waiting for him to speak.

“So I’ve been thinking, and listen, I’m not saying you were right, but I am saying that it’s not so far out there it shouldn’t be considered.”

“You’re apologizing for yelling at me?” she asks, with some coyness.

“I am. I was wrong.”

“Okay, good.”

“Melissa said you read through his notes and papers.”

Carmen holds up her phone—“I tried to take some photos. Didn’t get everything though.”

Kierk pats the sheaf of documents he’s holding. “I grabbed everything.”

“What?”

“I stole them. Purloined. Pilfered. Absconded. Shanghaied.”

“Jesus. Okay, but smart.”

“He has everything I’ve ever published. Some of which is not exactly easy to find. There were philosophy papers too. He was more knowledgeable than I thought . . . I should have discussed more with him. Point is that I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say my priors were significantly updated.”

Carmen kind of just pats his leg. “Great. Have you thought about where our, um, investigation should focus first?”

“I figured I’d let you do the honors.”

“Well, a certain acronym comes to mind.”

“Atif did work in Melissa’s lab.”

“And I heard that last week they staged some kind of an ‘occupation.’ They disrupted a neuroscience class. And they do have meetings.”

“Are they open to the public?”

“It’s every Wednesday.”

“I’m in.”

“Okay, do you need any help getting ready?”

“I’ll pick something up tomorrow.”

“I already have my disguise, the origins of which will remain unspoken. Let’s just say there was a phase.”