But Friday was right. In a little over four minutes, the Manchild appeared again, but this time he had brought a chair and sat patiently still so we could get a good look at him. He was indeed a manchild—the left side of him was a boy of no more than ten, while the right side of him was a man approaching middle age. The two flowed into each other like hot wax, and his features were stretched sideways across his face, with one shoulder considerably lower than the other. To enable him to walk, his younger leg had an extension on the base of his shoe, which gave him a lilting gait.

“I was working here before we shut down the engines,” he explained in a voice that sounded like a speed-faulty tape player, “as part of SO-12’s legal team. I was down here to view the new C-90 engines when I tore my suit and suffered what’s termed a Progressive Negative Bilateral Aggregation. I was going to have a hard time explaining this, even with a new career history, so I decided to stay.”

“Will you be all right once the left side catches up?” asked Friday.

“You’re going to have to speak quicker,” he said. “I can’t understand you.”

So Friday repeated himself as fast as he could, and the Manchild gave an odd sideways smile and chuckled.

“No,” he said, touching the child side of his head with his older hand. “This side is getting younger. The left side of my mind is gradually reverting to that of a child.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He shrugged. “Accidents happen. I’m just glad I didn’t have to undergo what happened to Sarah Wade—and besides, being able to laugh in an uninhibited manner about poo and wee is really very liberating.”

“You sound vaguely normal,” said Friday, again as fast as he could, “yet we’re running four times slower than you.”

“I’m speaking very slowly for your benefit,” he said with a faint smile. “I don’t get many visitors. What do you think of our little enterprise?” He made a jerky gesture in the direction of the hundreds of pieces of furniture.