a 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 of a REM cycle, and it was the old dream, the dream of the
doctor's office and the older kids who could manage the trick of making a
picture into reality.

I went from that state to total wakefulness in an instant, and knew to a
certainty that I wouldn't be sleeping again any time soon. I paced my small
room, smelled the cheerful flowers my cousins brought last week when they
visited from Toronto, watched the horizon for signs of a breaking dawn. I wished
futilely for my comm and a nice private channel where I could sling some
bullshit and have some slung in my direction, just connect with another human
being at a nice, safe remove.

They chide me for arguing on the ward, call it bellig