He reaches the other end of the platform, which totals by his estimation maybe three or four hundred feet in length. But the entire thing is very narrow. If Atif had been standing not with his back up against the wall, and someone had come up behind, there was very little room . . . Kierk shakes his head, looking around. Immediately past the turnstiles on this side of the platform a wall ends the pedestrian section, but the platform ledge actually continues, cut to only a minimal span of less than a foot. The man with the red baseball cap is hunched against this nearby wall, not looking up at Kierk. Around some wooden benches Kierk sees dozens of scattered purple pamphlets. He picks one up, reading the blocky yellow letters on its cover, THE THREAT OF SCIENCE, which continue haphazardly on the inner folds: SCIENTISTS SAY THEY WANT TO REDUCE HUMANKIND TO BIOLOGY. BUT EVOLUTION IS UNSUPPORTED BY THE FACTS! SCIENTISTS WANT TO SAY THAT FAITH IS JUST A CHEMICAL REACTION IN YOUR BRAIN. BUT THE HUMAN SOUL CANNOT BE REDUCED TO THE BRAIN!

Holding the pamphlet, Kierk turns to the man with the red baseball cap, who has stood and begun to shuffle toward the end of the platform.

“Hey! Did you see who left these here?” Kierk shouts over the rumble of the train passing on the far side. The hunched figure speeds up, and, as Kierk watches, vanishes out onto the thin continuance of the platform edge and into the catenary mouth of the tunnel. It is as if the man just pierced some veil of dark and disappeared.

“Hey!”