Dark Genesis Mass market paperback - 1998

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Excerpt

Alice Kimbrell pushed back from the screen angrily.

"Ridiculous!" she snapped, to no one.

It was a word she would repeat, often. A word that would haunt her when
the killing began.

She went to the kitchen to make coffee, which she always needed
midafternoon. She stopped, reaching for a cup. There sat Albert's old mug,
asking to be filled.

Ridiculous. She should throw it away.

The coffee steaming, she stepped out to her balcony and tried to take a
moment to contemplate the sea. But the paper's title glowed in her mind,
and all the coffee did was brighten the glare.

Investigations into Biochemical Sensory Transmission by Duffy and
Philen, June 2115.

Ridiculous.

She stared hard at the lavender sea, as if concentrating could make her
appreciate it. "I love this view. It reminds me of Denmark," Albert had
once remarked. It had seemed a soulful thing to say at the time. As if
Albert had more than the parody of a soul.

She wished she had an office. People who had offices could escape their
homes.

She stalked back to her workstation and looked at the abstract again. It
hadn't changed.




A sample population of 1,000 volunteers was screened for metasensory
abilities using standard set Zener cards, Black Box Randomizer, and blind
curtain tests. Two individuals demonstrated consistently accurate results
for each test, and ten demonstrated statistically improbable accuracy. HCI
and Dao imaging demonstrated collateral brain cortex activity between
senders and receivers in accurate tests. The sample population was
increased to 5,000 individuals. Two members of the larger sample
conclusively demonstrated metasensory abilities, with thirteen sets of
statistically improbable results. Cortex imaging was consistent with the
findings of the preliminary study.




Okay, she thought. Prove it to me.

Unfortunately, they did. She read it again, summoning even more skepticism.

Of course, data could be faked, but as per usual, they had included a
complete data set with verifying codes. Most damning of all, there was the
cover letter signed by Drs. Jacqueline Wilson and John Yazhi. The authors
might be graduate students, but two of the most prestigious
neuropsychologists at the Harvard School of Medicine backed them up. That
was probably what got the paper past her screeners to start with.

Worse and worse. As editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine, she could think of no good reason not to publish. Which
was a shame, because then her career would join her personal life on the
slag heap.

She reached for the phone. By God, she would find a reason not to
publish it.






"It's not a joke," Dr. Yazhi said, swaying his long physique up from
behind his desk to shake her hand.

"Dr. Yazhi, you must understand--"

"Look, it started out that way. Ms. Duffy and Mr. Philen were writing a
paper for the New Drinkland Journal of Medicine. You know it? It's
a sort of hazing ritual. The first year students are required to write at
least two hundred pages of garbage on some nontopic, but they have to
research it, give it all the good form of a journal article. It's a
student competition to see who can treat the most absurd subject in the
most clinical fashion, using the most jargon and academic doublespeak.
It's a bonus if they can make it recognizably similar to something that
has actually been published.

"Philen and Duffy chose to research telepathy. They set up a study
and--and, well, they began to get results. When they were sure they
brought it to me, and I came on board as their adviser."

"Yes, but Zener card readings--"

"Can be faked, yes. But we went on from there. In the end--you read the
paper, I assume? In the end we did simultaneous pattern scans on the
brains of the subjects, first with an HCI and then a Dao imager. The
results were what you saw in your data sets. Spontaneous--and I might add,
impossible--cortex pattern similarities at the moment of 'transmission.'"

He paused, stroking his lean, dark face. "I've read your work, Dr.
Kimbrell, and I think you've been a credit to the journal since you began
editing it. I understand your reluctance, but I think the data behind this
paper is quite solid. I'm certainly willing to say so."

"It's just that--" She paused, marshaling arguments. "All through the
twentieth century they did these same tests, and nothing. Why?"

He shrugged. "Maybe when they got results they didn't like, they ignored
them--that was pretty common in the nineteens. They didn't have HCIs then,
just EEGs and the like, nothing that could holistically image microneural
activity. That's what convinced us, of course." He pursed his lips. "Just
ask yourself--if this paper were on any accepted subject, or even a
marginal one, would you publish it? Is it well written? Is it evidenced?
Is the data set verifiable? Are the experiments replicable?"

She met his eyes, wanting to challenge him further, finding she could not.
She sighed. "Thank you, Doctor."

"My pleasure."






She put it off. Albert called and she hung up on him. Her father called,
and she pretended not to be home. Her stockbroker called, wanting to buy a
thousand shares of something-or-other and she told him to buy Antarctica
if he wanted, but to leave her alone.

She went to a salon, had her hair cut into a short, blond bob. She picked
away at her own research, wrote letters to some colleagues, went running
and swimming, lost three pounds. In the end she returned, saw the
submissions piling up, and sighed.

She remembered how proud she had been--the youngest editor in chief of the
oldest continuously published medical journal in history. Quite the coup.
As she sat down at her workstation, she wondered if she would be able to
get a teaching position somewhere, perhaps at a community college. In the
Yukon maybe. At least it would be easier to dodge Albert there.






Senator Lee Crawford sighed as he strode into the sunlight and saw the
reporter. Was that all he rated these days, a single reporter from a minor
newspaper? It seemed so.

He put on his most genial smile.

"Senator Crawford," the young woman began--in a rush, as if she feared he
might brush past her--"I'm with the Union Discoverer--"

He shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked his head slightly.
"Couldn't find anyone more important to talk to, Ms. Hoijer?" He said it
without accusation--just a gentle self-deprecation. He let a little drawl
through. They liked that.

It got her. The Discoverer was far from the most prestigious reporting
syndicate around, and she must have had her own share of snubs. And he had
remembered her name from, what, three months ago. Her eyes softened a bit.
She was a pretty thing, dark skin, green eyes, slim, perhaps thirty.

"I ..." She paused and cleared her throat, and he revised her age downward
to twenty-five. "Would you care to comment on the defeat of your latest
bill?"

"Only that it's a shame, a shortsighted shame," he said, without heat. "In
time, people'll come to see that." He relaxed his shoulders. "Tell me,
what do you think?"

"Excuse me?"

"You asked what I think. What do you think?"

"Senator, that's my job, asking you what you think."

He shrugged. "And what's mine? I represent people, Ms. Hoijer. Aren't you
a person?"

"But I am not American, Senator--I don't vote for you."

"Details. C'mon, what do you think? Phrase it as a question, if you must,
but tell me."

If you insist," she said, "I have to say I agree with your opponents. Our
taxes have funded the DeepProbe project for twenty years, with no results.
I don't see why we should fund yet another--and more expensive--search for
extraterrestrial life."

"Intelligence," he corrected gently. "Life we have found, and yet at one
point it was far from clear that we would. And you answer your own
question. The DeepProbe project uses technology twenty years out of date.
It's time to upgrade."

"But why? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence began more than a
hundred years ago. Don't you think that if there were anything to find, we
would have found it by now?"

He chuckled his patented chuckle and nodded as if in agreement. "Do you
know why the people at home voted for me? Do you know why I ran?"

"You ran on a Globalist platform. And you were the hero of Grissom
colony--"

"There's that--that's how I got on the ticket, not why I ran, not why
people voted for me. For almost two hundred years, change in science and
technology has been the most important fact of life on this planet, and
for two hundred years politicians have lagged so far behind the leading
edge--well, it would be funny if it were a joke. People who don't
understand the first law of motion make decisions regardin' the funding
and disposition of space platforms. Doesn't that strike you as even
faintly ridiculous? I ran because I think at least one politician should
have some conception of more than how to schmooze.

"And to answer your question directly, no. With the technology available
in the last hundred years, we couldn't even find one of our own space
probes without knowing exactly where it is, much less intelligent life
among a trillion trillion worlds."

"Be that as it may, Senator, the polls would seem to indicate an erosion
of your popular support. How do you respond to that?"

He shrugged. "My opponents are very good at politics--I've never denied
that. But politics--as you must know, being a reporter--is a world unto
itself, and unfortunately has little to do with the world we live on. It's
too bad my opponents are more concerned with that than the welfare of our
race. I trust the voters, Ms. Hoijer. They have common sense. Never tell
me what the polls say."

"You accuse your opponents of playing politics, and yet there are some who
charge that your entire posture on extraterrestrial intelligence was a
calculated response to the panic of '10. That you latched onto a popular
sentiment, which has now begun to flag."

He chuckled again. "Well, I can hardly blame you for saying that--after
all, who can trust a politician to be sincere about anything? But the
people who voted for me know better. I'm dead serious. Look at history.
Robert Goddard invented the liquid-fueled rocket in North America, and yet
there was no funding for rocket research there until after Nazi V1s and
V2s had shown their usefulness by blowin' things up. Underfunding the
near-Earth asteroid search nearly got us all dinosaured in 2011--it was a
miracle that got us through that, pure and simple. The political machine
registers nothin' till it's already too late.

"I'm still determined to change that, uphill battle though it may be. And,
frankly, I hope to do it before it is too late. There's more than enough
hints that there's somebody out there. They might be angels; they might be
devils. Frankly, I think they'll be most dangerous if they're just folks
like us. But this I know--we'll be a lot better off all around if we
notice them before they notice us."

"Then you will continue to bring your bill before the Senate?"

"Damn right. And you can quote me on that."

"Even without the support of your party?"

"Ms. Hoijer, I'm only doing what I promised. That might be a shock to my
colleagues--it might even be a shock to my party--but it's no shock to the
voters. You'll see that come the election. Now it's been a real pleasure,
and I thank you for your time, but I have an engagement across town."






He found Tom Nguyen waiting for him in his office.

"The party has withdrawn their support," Tom said, youthful face twitching
with agitation.

Reaching for the bottle of oude jenever, Lee froze momentarily. Then he
finished his motion. "Why, thanks, Tom, I'm doin' fine. Nice day to you,
too. How about a drink?"

"No, no, Lord, that would kill my stomach right now."

"You have t' build up an immunity," Lee said, pouring the shot and resting
a bit of the potent stuff on his tongue. "They really did it, huh?"

"Lee, you had to know it was coming. That bill was dead when you wrote it.
Face it. The science thing got you elected, but people have forgotten it
now. In their eyes, Senator Tokash made you look foolish. U.S. voters
don't like the U.S. to look foolish, and the party doesn't like its golden
boy to look foolish."

"Pinheads. People are such idiots."

"That may well be, but they pay your salary. Lee, this is serious."

"No shit." He downed the shot. "Anything else?"

"I think we should discuss strategy. You were offered the chair of the
Committee on Technology and Privacy--"

"It's just a bone they're throwin' me, Tom. A tired old bone. Pity won't
get me any votes. I can just see Hirosho's campaign ads now. Me, on the
do-nothing committee, with my head down and great big Zs comin' up. What
happened? Last year we were on top of the world!"

"Well, that was last year. Forty is too young to be living in the past,
Lee."

"Thirty-nine, damn your eyes." He leaned back in his chair and blew out,
found a grin. "Just hang in there, Tom, and let me know if you have any
ideas. We aren't licked yet. Now, go on, I want to look at my news."

"Ignoring it won't make it go away."

"I'm not ignoring it. Take the day off. Go see your kids."

Tom hesitated. "You're okay?" he asked.

"Watch it, Tom, you're lettin' that all-business face slip off again. You
might learn something from me yet, and that'd be a shame. Sure you won't
have that drink?"

Tom managed a little smile. "Maybe just one," he said.

He talked Tom into two, before it was over, and told a few jokes that even
got him to laugh.

When the door was closed, he went to the window and looked out at the city
of Geneva. The smile fell away, and he felt that old familiar hole opening
under his feet. "You've bitten off more than you can chew, this time,
haven't you, Lee?" He grunted. He could see his reflection against the
glass. Close-cropped brown hair, fast going grey, the angular face that
had been likened variously to Andrew Jackson, David Bowie, and Luis
Espinosa. "Enough," he said, this time to the universe at large. "I'll
beat you, you bastard."

He went to his desk, sat down, and tapped his terminal on.

"Index," he said. "Journal abstracts."

He began a slow scroll though the lists his computer had assembled. Four
new planets that might be Earth-like, some interesting speculations about
the self-replicating goo beneath Europa's icy crust, a better fusion
reactor, a new theory of language origins. All interesting, but useless.

But then, toward the end, he came to the New England Journal of Medicine.
A headline caught his eye, so he scanned the story. He stopped, read it
again. And again. He printed the whole article and read that, too.

"Nguyen, Tom," he said, keying the phone link on the terminal.

After a pause, the screen flickered and his aide appeared, leaning into
his car. Behind him, the snowcapped Alps were etched against a very blue
sky.

"Lee?"

"Sorry, Tom, I know I gave you the day off, but I need you on something
right away. I've highlighted a journal article for you. I want to know who
else in the Senate has read it, and I want to know who has it selected to
read. Their aides, too."

"Lee, I'm not sure if the disclosure rule covers--"

"Then be discreet. But find out. I want to know in an hour. Just do it
there and drop it back here. And Tom--I want on the Technology and Privacy
Committee after all. Posthaste."

He returned to his terminal, looking for other things, smiling grimly as
they accumulated. Forty-five minutes later, the transfax beeped for his
attention, and he stopped to watch a list of names appear. There were only
five, and it took just an instant to choose.




Lee found Senator Ledepa Koya standing outside of the Senate chamber,
conferring with a handful of aides in rapid-fire Indonesian. When he
noticed Lee, he waved them off and approached.

"Senator Crawford," Koya said.

"Ledepa. How are you today?"

"Very well, thanks. I'd like to congratulate you."

"On the failure of my bill?"

"No, no. And I really hope you understand my position in that matter. I,
personally, think you are right, but what am I to do?"

"It's the name of the game, Ledepa. We all have to respond to our
constituency. Now what can I do for you?"

"I understand you've just been appointed head of the Committee on
Technology and Privacy."

"News travels fast."

"I have a particular interest in that committee. I would like to be on it."

"It's goin' to be a yawner, Ledepa. I can't think of any issue that hasn't
been addressed to death. It's just nit-picking now."

"Maybe not."

"What do you mean?"

Koya lowered his voice. "Have you seen the New England Journal of
Medicine?"

"As a matter of fact, I have. Some mumbo jumbo about telepathy."

"I don't think it's mumbo jumbo. Some in my government have had suspicions
about this for years. And the study looks very solid to those whose
opinions I trust."

"I'd like to see it replicated," Lee replied, allowing curiosity to creep
into his voice. "But I'm starting to see your interest in this. You think
this will be a privacy and technology issue?"

"Yes, of course. Haven't you gotten any letters?"

"Since yesterday? I haven't had time to check."

"I have received many. The news of this is already spreading."

"Really? Surprising. A journal article." But inwardly he smiled. He had
spent all night anonymously bringing the article to the attention of
various Indonesians. Companies with much to hide. Reactionary but popular
religious leaders. Anyone from whom he thought he could elicit a panicked
response.

He pretended to consider. "Okay, Ledepa, you're on the committee. I need
some opposition members anyway, and it seems like we're of a mind about
this--even if I'm a little slow on the uptake, today. The first order of
business is to get copies--"

His pocket tel-phone burred. "Wups. If you'll excuse me, Ledepa?"

He pulled the featherlight tel-phone from his jacket and thumbed the
channel open, then said, "Lee Crawford here."

He listened for a moment, nodded. "That sounds great. We'll see you
there." He closed the link and turned to Koya. "Well, I'm a popular man
today," he said. "That was Ramira Alejandro's assistant. She wants me and
someone from my committee to come on her show to discuss the telepath
article." He shook his head. "Let's you and I meet for lunch, see if we
can come to some agreement about what we'll say."

Koya nodded enthusiastically.




"It's nonsense," Crispin Dover said, "pure and simple. I find it
unbelievable that Ms. Kimbrell published this tripe." Dover looked, Lee
thought, like a bulldog, but somehow his clipped, educated British
enunciation worked against that to lend him a sort of credibility.

"And yet, our oldest legends speak of these powers," commented Ramira
Alejandro, a striking woman in late middle age, with classical Brahman
features and a streak of pure silver through her otherwise midnight hair.
She radiated a quiet smugness born of knowing she had a guaranteed
audience of upward of two billion people.

"Yes, well, our oldest legends also speak of magical beanstalks, talking
bears, and the birth of various gods from the armpits of other gods, and I
quite agree, it's among such peers that these so-called extrasensory
powers belong. In the past two centuries, the scientific method has been
repeatedly brought to bear on the myth of telepathy--and shown it to be
just that. A myth. I don't think I go too far in suggesting that Ms.
Kimbrell should consider editing another journal altogether."

Kimbrell, a professional-looking woman with closely cropped blond hair,
pursed her lips angrily.

"What about it, Dr. Ortiz?" Ramira asked. "We've heard what a neurochemist
has to say about it, but what does psychology have to offer as an opinion
on this matter?"

Ortiz clasped his seamed fingers together. At eighty, his skin rather
resembled leather. Lee found himself a bit impressed, despite himself.
Ortiz had been a prominent vid commentator since before he was born, a
real celebrity.

"Well, Ms. Alejandro, I have read the paper, which I can't tell for
certain that our friend Dr. Dover has--"

Dover sputtered, "I read the abstract. That was quite enough. I--"

Ramira silenced him with a small, cool smile. "You'll have another say,
Dr. Dover."

"Nevertheless," Ortiz went on, "I must to some extent agree with him. The
methodology looks fine, and the results seem conclusive. And yet, how do
we explain the lack of similar results in every prior study--some of
which, I might add, used the same methodology? And so I must doubt these
conclusions as some kind of statistical fluke, until we see them
replicated."

"What do you think, Mr. Philen? Will they be replicated?"

Philen, a pale, nervous fellow who couldn't be more than twenty-four,
raised his hands defensively. "Look, we didn't expect these results. It
started out as a lark, a joke really--"

"And yet you published it."

"Well--yes, because the hypothesis was supported. Look, I was there, I saw
it. It was uncanny. I have the greatest respect for Dr. Ortiz, of course.
Who wouldn't? But this was no statistical fluke. There were people in our
test groups who were telepaths. No doubt about that at all."

There certainly wasn't any doubt in his young, earnest, and distinctly
untrained voice. In contrast, Dover suddenly sounded like what he was--a
pompous ass. "Well, then, you would seem to have been duped by a stage
magician. Why not have one of these subjects come on this show, under
controlled conditions, so that we can see this ability demonstrated?"

"I--of course I can't disclose their names," Philen said.

"Of course," Dover replied sarcastically.

Ramira turned her attention to the editor. "Ms. Kimbrell, you've borne the
brunt of much criticism for publishing this article."

Kimbrell frowned thoughtfully. "It's right to be skeptical. It should be
hard to prove something new--it should require rigor. I checked the facts
and sources very carefully before publishing. Dr. Ortiz may be right--this
may represent some impossible statistical fluke. But the research is not
fraudulent, and it is not sloppy, as Dr. Dover implies. I am perfectly
aware that I have staked my reputation on this, and I feel secure doing
so."

Funny, Lee thought. You don't look secure.

"Well," Ramira continued, turning toward the camera, "we also have with us
Senator Lee B. Crawford of the United States, and Senator Ledepa Koya of
the Indonesian Consortium. Senator Crawford is well known as the hero of
Grissom, and as an advocate for good science in government--that was your
campaign slogan, I believe?"

"I'm guilty of that one," Lee drawled. "My campaign manager wanted 'no new
taxes,' but I overrode him."

Ramira smiled. "Senator Crawford also comes to us with a degree in
astrophysics. Senator Koya has a master's degree in sociosemiotics. Both
of these gentleman serve on the Committee on Technology and Privacy. Tell
me, gentlemen. Let us assume for a moment that this report is true--that
there are among us those who can 'read minds.' What are the social--and
political--implications of this? Senator Crawford?"

"I'm still digesting this a bit, Ramira. And although I'm now the head of
the committee, Dr. Koya has seniority in the Senate. My daddy always told
me to let my elders speak first anyhow." He sent Koya a conspiratorial
wink.

Ramira turned toward Koya. "Senator?"

Koya cleared his throat. "Well, obviously, if this study is valid, it
reveals a serious situation. Our daily lives, our respective cultures, our
political systems, our legal systems--all are intrinsically dependent on
privacy to ensure their very existence. The Earth Alliance mandates rights
of privacy at the level of the nation-state, and at the individual level.
This has been worked out in great detail, over the years, particularly as
technology has made intrusions into privacy potentially deeper and easier.

"I'm afraid if there are, in fact, telepaths, that we're right back to
square one. What technology can protect us against them? How can we detect
them? How can we stop them? For that matter, how long have they been
around? Imagine, each of you, the damage to your private lives if someone
were to read your every thought, wish, notion. Now imagine governments and
corporations hiring telepaths as spies. Or criminals who can easily stay
one step ahead of the authorities. It could undermine the entire fabric of
our global society. Yes, I think the Senate has many important questions
to ask, if these findings are true."

"Senator Crawford? Comment? Or are you still digesting?"

Lee scratched his chin. "Tryin' to avoid heartburn. I think my colleague
is being a bit alarmist. Ledepa, it almost sounds like you're suggestin'
witch-hunts." From the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of betrayal
on Koya's face.

"First of all," he continued, "their special abilities aside, telepaths
are just going to be people. Your schoolteacher, your boss, your
mother"--he smiled--"maybe even your senator. Just people like you and me.
Not monsters. And they have the same rights and freedoms as everybody
else. That said, they don't have special rights either--like the right to
poke around in our heads. Still, let's all just take a deep breath. I
intend to start hearings on this as early as next week, beginning with a
select panel of scientists whom we will recruit to see if these results
can be replicated. I would be honored if Dr. Dover and Dr. Ortiz would
agree to be a part of that panel, and to act as advisers to this
committee, along with Mr. Philen and his research associate, Ms. Duffy,
who could not be with us today."




Lee loosened his collar and sprawled his lanky frame on the couch. Tom
Nguyen took a seat, and they both watched the vidscreen as it ran through
channels, following the search menu.

"How did you know he would fall that way? Koya?" Tom asked.

"Simple. We all know Indonesia has a lot to hide after the transcom
affair. Some don't think they should be allowed membership in the
Alliance, and it wouldn't take much to get them out. So as a nation, they
can't like the idea of telepaths who might ferret out where the bodies are
buried. But it's more basic than that--I checked Koya out. He's a
believer."

"Believer?"

"Yup. Ever read much anthropology? As late as the twenty-first century,
people were still massacred over witchcraft scares. At one time or the
other, belief in malicious sorcery existed among every people on Earth.
There've been lots of studies of it--anthropological, psychological--but
in the end, it all boils down to one thing. People don't like to think bad
things happen to them for no reason. Somebody has to be responsible. God.
The devil. A witch. Hell, in my home state, Mississippi, there was still
talk about juju and such in some places.

"I checked out Ledepa's hometown--only ten years ago, somebody was
arrested for beatin' up a man he thought had hexed him. So I figured the
belief is still hangin' around there, and that Ledepa might have grown up
with it. It's hard for the intellect to entirely reject something it
learned when it was young." He poured a tumbler of scotch. "That, and I
played him. Made it seem I felt the same way, and would back him up all
the way."

He lifted his drink as the screen settled on a scene.

"It's startin'," Lee said. He turned up the sound.

" ... shot in Jakarta today. The suspect claimed that the victim was a
telepath who had cheated him at poker. Several unsubstantiated reports of
similar attacks have surfaced in the last hour."

The view switched. He recognized a street in Paris.

" ... only hours after a vidcast on the new report in the New England
Journal of Medicine. He claimed his lover was a telepath who drove him
insane ..."

And from a town in Mexico:

" ... apparently in response to the alarmist reaction of Senator Ledepa
Koya to a recent journal article alleging proof of extrasensory
perception. No deaths are reported, though one man was critically wounded
..."

The screen began splitting, then recording what it couldn't show. The
reports increased, ten, thirty--in less than an hour it was over a hundred.

"Oh, my God," Tom whispered.

"Yep. Now people have a whole new thing to blame their problems on,
something real, something tangible."

"But you--"

"Me? Listen to the 'casts. It's Koya that's gettin' the credit for this.
This is going to get worse, and he's gonna be the guy who started it.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, the little two-faced sumovabitch.
One of Tokash's toadies." He smiled. "So Koya gets credit for starting the
killings, and the worse stuff that'll come later. Me--people will remember
I was cautious, tried to talk sense. They'll see me as the one to pick up
the pieces, and the guy who'll protect them from the big bad telepaths,
all at the same time."

"But Lee, those people are dying."

"Tom, this was going to break, and they were going to die. That's life.
Hell, this is nothin'. These are the lunatics, the ones who were already
closest to the edge. Most of these murders and what have you would have
happened anyway, but under a variety of justifications. The real mess is
coming if the results are replicated and even the skeptics give the whole
thing the nod. When the sane people believe it, the implications will
really sink in. It's our job to handle the damage, and we've got a jump on
it. We can make it better. Now, are you gonna mope, or are we gonna get to
work?"

Tom nodded, though his face was still troubled. "Work," he said.