Eventually Kierk exits in hot breaths of steam up the steps to the surface of Union Square Park. It had turned dark while he was underground. Smoking a cigarette and feeling that bone-deep tiredness that comes from a day of travel, he realizes that the program starts tomorrow morning and he still needs to buy new clothes. He picks at his falling-apart jeans and fingers the rips in his T-shirt, knowing this had been poor planning. Standing he mutters aloud—“New life. Don’t fuck it up”—and then looks around the dark walkway to see if anyone heard. He’s been talking to himself too much lately.

Eventually he locates an upscale clothing store on Broadway that’s still open. Into the affair of wooden floors, brick walls, well-lit displays, and quiet indie music, slips a bearded and disheveled Kierk. A staff member spots him and comes up, looking wary with hands clasped.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re actually getting ready to close.”

Kierk can see a number of customers still browsing. There’s a two-second pause and then Kierk’s face transforms in emotive animation.

“Excuse me, but I’ve been backpacking around Europe and only just arrived at JFK and goddamn Air France lost all my bags, bags which contained not only irreplaceable souvenirs such as a Burgundy rosé I’d been anticipating for days but also my sartorial good side. La vie est une chienne, if you know what I mean. I simply look a mess but I have to breakfast with my fiancée’s family, the Forbes, on the Upper East Side first thing tomorrow, and I’m going to need your help.”

The program had set him up in NYU’s grad-student housing, in which he finds a spartan apartment where the lights flicker on in pulses. He notes that the windows are suicide-proof.

After setting down his backpack he strips and enters the bathroom to run a bath, rubbing at his beard. In the light the geometric designs tattooed across his pale white back form stark black lines, geometric wheels and circles that move as he moves. Across his inner left forearm there is tattooed writing spelling out three questions.