Nabler had never been a student of chemistry, but he understood the principle of an activating agent. Something that when introduced into a situation exacted a change onto whatever it came into contact with. But chemistry was rooted in science, and Nabler considered his talents as more metaphysical, something beyond the realm of human understanding, given that he operated within the sliver. He wasn’t so much an activating agent, or a change agent, to use the more popular current terminology, but an agent of chaos.

He’d hardly be the first. Such agents were the stuff of myth and folklore, like the coyote-like trickster common to the cultures of many North American indigenous tribes, or the conniving Anansi spider from the African fable of the Ashanti people of Ghana, or even the mischievous gremlin believed to be behind aircraft malfunctions. They even appeared in the pages of comic books. What was Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, if not an agent of chaos? Nabler fancied himself much like them, except he presented himself to the masses in a ridiculous engineer’s cap and a stupid vest peppered with railway logos. He liked to be as original as the circumstances allowed.

There were plenty of others like him in the sliver, some with similar methods, others more fantastical. The work ethic they all stuck to was simple: insinuate yourself into a host, which could be an individual or a group setting, and ensure that bad things happened to good people. (It was acceptable if a bad thing happened to a bad person, too, of course, and Nabler was not unhappy with how things turned out for Delbert Dorfman.)

Nabler employed an iconic, much-loved toy to work his magic. Others made use of everyday appliances from toasters to televisions, the latter being especially useful for transmitting subliminal messages. Nabler knew of one in the sliver who used automobiles. That fellow who wrote about a homicidal Plymouth Fury with a girl’s name would be astounded to learn how close he’d come to the truth. Nabler heard tell of another colleague who did amazing things with Royal Doulton figurines. How many little old ladies had choked on their Jell-O while one of those porcelain doodads looked on from a nearby shelf?

Some even used common house pets, although adapting a living organism did present challenges. Nabler’s trains could affect pets, but that wasn’t the same as a cat or a dog or an adorable little bunny that was chock-full of mayhem from the get-go.

As for the more fantastical, well, Nabler was willing to admit he envied those who engineered the crashing of jumbo jets, the careening of overloaded buses off cliffs, the capsizing of ferry boats, the plunging of elevators.