He uses one of the newspapers, rolled up, to scoot the pigeon onto the other one that he holds flat. Then he carefully maneuvers out of the crowd with it. By the trash bin off to the side of the flow he gives it a tiny burial, wrapping it firmly up in the newspaper, a small package he places softly into the bin, quietly saying a prayer over it, and gives a final plea for its little bird consciousness to have lived a good life expressive of platonic pigeon essence.

Subject line: Urgent! Missing brain

Subject body: Going over inventory after Day in the Lab we are short one of our example human brains. It was stored in ethyl alcohol. These are really difficult to get, guys. We need it returned promptly, so please check your cars, desks, and home for the brain.

Carmen clicks out of the email and at the same time gives a squeeze with her left hand to a tiny squishy foam brain. For stress. She looks over at Kierk, but he’s preoccupied reading papers at his desk. She approaches him and he takes out earbuds. In the relative silence of the lab, she can hear the tinny sound of classical music coming from them.

“What’s up?”

“Whatcha reading about?” She gestures to the screen.

“Oh, it’s just some technical stuff on causation. You’d think this would all be worked out, but actually no one has a damn idea what causation is or how it works.”

“So did you get the email about the talk on Saturday?”

“Is it required to attend?”

“No. But I think you’ll want to. Antonio Moretti is flying in to give a talk on his theory of consciousness.”

“So?”

“So you’re going to go see him, right? I mean, he must know you’re here. And you haven’t seen him since you left after telling him his theory was wrong and this talk means he’s still going around peddling his theory, so what—”

“I never thought he would stop.”

“Well do you want to come with me because—”

“Alright. That’s fine.”

Carmen is put off by Kierk’s curtness. She says, hesitantly—“Maybe we could do something afterward?”

A very long pause. “Yeah, we’ll see what happens.”

“Is everything okay?” she leans down to whisper to him.

“Oh, it’s fine. I’m just concentrating on this. Sorry.”

“Okay,” she says, straightening. “Just checking.” He doesn’t look at her as she makes her way back to her desk.

Sitting, still thinking about Kierk’s distance, another email arrives. It takes Carmen a moment to absorb what she is casually reading:

Subject line: something you should know . . .

Subject body: his real name isn’t Greg Monroe. It’s Greg Alpern. And he’s a liar.