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looking at us as if we were wild animals. The woman cried out, fell. From nowhere
rushed two guards with blankets. They covered up the couple and dragged them away.
    “We’re open to everyone,” said the young man.
    He pushed his respirator to the side, wiped his mouth, then carefully fit it back on. With a handheld mirror he checked the straps that cut across his cheeks.
    “I know,” I said, even though I didn’t. “But Murphy thought my research might benefit, or that, what I mean is, people here might benefit from the work I’m doing.”
    The man returned the sort of smile professionals are trained to give no matter what you’ve said. I could have threatened his life, my own. I could have asked for the bathroom. I’d get the same lunatic smile.
    He leaned in close, placed his finger over my mouth.
    He wanted me silent. I supposed I understood, so I didn’t reply, only nodded, looked away.
    From a box he retrieved a white choke collar, mimed for me to put it on. It was smeared in what smelled like Murphy’s grease, cold on my neck. My face relaxed when I fastened it on.
    He said Murphy’s name aloud, as if that might jar his memory. Finally he said, “I’m sorry. I’m not very good with names.”
    I wanted to say: Red hair, large face. Excels at ambush. Perhaps immune to the problem we’re all here to solve. Not who he seems to be? That Murphy?
    I couldn’t say LeBov. It’s LeBov I’m looking for, because I have reason to believe that he’s still alive, operating under a different name. Murphy. But you probably know all of that, don’t you?
    “Is there someone else I could talk to?” I asked.
    And say what? And do what?
    “I’m afraid the time for that is over.”
    Literal language was useless for what I’d come to do. This man was refusing to read between the lines, acknowledge any subtext, and thus we were locked in a prison of exact meaning, impossible to shed.
    It would turn out that LeBov’s language protocols, as practiced by his staff, prohibited nuance, inference. They were nearly moot now anyway.
    He stood up, gathered some papers, among them what I took to be a copy of The Proofs.