• Trepan: > 50?
• Ballgravy: No
• Trepan: > 10?
• Ballgravy: Around 10
• Trepan: Where are you from?
• Ballgravy: Queens
• Trepan: Well, you're not going to believe this, but you're the tenth person from Queens I've met — and you're all morons who pick fights with strangers in chat-rooms
• Colonelonic: Queens==ass
• Trepan: Ass ass ass
• Ballgravy: Fuck you both
• ##Ballgravy has left channel #EST.chatter
• Colonelonic: Nicely done
• Colonelonic: He's been boring me stupid for the past hour, following me from channel to channel
• Colonelonic: What are you doing in London, anyway?
• Trepan: Like I said, waiting for the cops
• Colonelonic: But why are you there in the first place
• Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's a work thing. For EST.
• ##Colonelonic: (private) No shit?
• Trepan: /private Colonelonic Yeah. Can't really say much more, you understand
• ##Colonelonic: (private) Cool! Any more jobs? One more day at Merril-Lynch and I'm gonna kill someone
• Trepan: /private Colonelonic Sorry, no. There must be some perks though.
• ##Colonelonic: (private) I can pick fights with strangers in chat rooms! Also, I get to play with Lexus- Nexus all I want
• Trepan: /private Colonelonic That's pretty rad, anyway
• ##Ballgravy has joined channel #EST.chatter
• Ballgravy: Homos
• Trepan: Oh Christ, are you back again, Queens?
• Colonelonic: I've gotta go anyway
• Trepan: See ya
• ##Colonelonic has left channel #EST.chatter
• ##Trepan has left channel #EST.chatter
Art stood up and blinked. He approached the desk sergeant and asked if he thought it would be much longer. The sergeant fiddled with a comm for a moment, then said, 'Oh, we're quite done with you sir, thank you.' Art repressed a vituperative response, counted three, then thanked the cop.
He commed Linda.
'What's up?'
'They say we're free to go. I think they've been just keeping us here for shits and giggles. Can you believe that?'
'Whatever-I've been having a nice chat with Constable McGivens. Constable, is it all right if we go now?'
There was some distant, English rumbling, then Linda giggled. 'All right, then. Thank you so much, officer!
'Art? I'll meet you at the front doors, all right?'
'That's great,' Art said. He stretched. His ass was numb, his head throbbed, and he wanted to strangle Linda.
She emerged into the dawn blinking and grinning, and surprised him with a long, full-body hug. 'Sorry I was so snappish before,' she said. 'I was just scared. The cops say that you were quite brave. Thank you.'
Art's adrenals dry-fired as he tried to work up a good angry head of steam, then he gave up. 'It's all right.'
'Let's go get some breakfast, OK?'
10.
The parking-lot is aswarm with people, fire engines and ambulances. There's a siren going off somewhere down in the bowels of the sanatorium, and still I can't get anyone to look up at the goddamned roof.
I've tried hollering myself hoarse into the updrafts from the cheery blaze, but the wind's against me, my shouts rising up past my ears. I've tried dropping more pebbles, but the winds whip them away, and I've learned my lesson about half-bricks.
Weirdly, I'm not worried about getting into trouble. I've already been involuntarily committed by the Tribe's enemies, the massed and devious forces of the Pacific Daylight Tribe and the Greenwich Mean Tribe. I am officially Not Responsible. Confused and Prone to Wandering. Coo-Coo for Coco-Puffs. It's not like I hurt anyone, just decremented the number of roadworthy fartmobiles by one.
I got up this morning at four, awakened by the tiniest sound from the ward corridors, a wheel from a pharmaceuticals tray maybe. Three weeks on medically prescribed sleepytime drugs have barely scratched the surface of the damage wrought by years of circadian abuse. I'd been having a fragile shadow of a dream, the ghost
