She is sitting in a spot of shade, wiping at her face with a bandana. Her cardboard sign reads: KICKED OUT OF HOUSE NEED $$$ FOR ME AND ALSO DOG FOOD THNX. Kierk watches her dog struggle to breathe in the heat, a ragged wind ripping through each respiration.

Kierk approaches, kneeling down to hold out one hand to the dog, which sniffs at him tiredly. The girl is looking at him bored like she’s had this interaction a thousand times. From his kneeling position Kierk pulls out two cigarettes, lights both, hands one to her. A small hand with cracked nails takes it.

“Hey,” she says, her voice rusty. “Thanks, man.”

“What’s your name?”

“Glia. Nice to meet you.”

Kierk’s mouth hangs open. “Glia. Your name is ‘Glia’?”

“Yah.”

“. . .”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. That’s a really beautiful name.”

“Thanks.”

A student walks by, slipping a dollar into the cup next to the dog.

“It’s the dog,” Glia says.

“What?”

“See that, it’s the dog. Kids at NYU care more about an animal than me. If I died they wouldn’t blink an eye. But the dog . . . the NYU students . . . they’re getting to me, man. Just yuck. Apple this and Apple that. Skinny jeans and lattes. Rich bitches with parents paying their cell phones. Care about animals more than me.”

“Hey listen, I wanted to ask you something.”

She shrugs in the heat, wipes her face again with the bandana, takes a drag.

“Yesterday a man was outside that building.” Kierk points to the CNS, a hermetic tower rising over the other buildings, not even a full block away. “He was saying that people there were taking street people, the homeless, inside of it and doing things to them.”

“Why are you asking?” Glia says, suddenly attentive but also cautious.

“I’m just trying to figure out what happened. Seeing if there’s any truth to it. Do you know anything about it?”

Glia gestures. “There’s been lots of rumors about the park.”

“Rumors about what?”

“Just to avoid it. That it’s not safe. Especially at night.”

“Why isn’t it safe? What’s been happening?”

“I don’t know, just weird stuff.”

“Be specific.”

“People who sleep around here, total creeps lately. I did know one nice guy who used be around. Hung out with him. But he got weird. Like the area got to him or something. He just changed overnight. Started getting so angry. Didn’t really remember me. It was totally unreal. So I don’t sleep here in the park. Not anymore. I head to one of the eastside shelters.”

“So the people who normally sleep in the parks, or around here, they’re getting strange?”

“Uh-uh. Yeah. And also . . .”

“What?”

“A guy comes around here too. That’s the rumor. That he’s experimenting on people. You know. Messing with their brain.”

“What? Who is he?”