Caitlin’s mom beat her to the door. “Hello,” she said. “You must be Trevor.”

“Hello, Mrs. Decter, Dr. Decter.”

At first Caitlin thought he’d been correcting himself, but then she realized that her dad was standing there, too. Caitlin tried to suppress her smirk. He was tall in an imposing sort of way, and doubtless the fact that he wasn’t saying anything was unnerving poor Trevor. And if Trevor had extended his hand, her dad had probably just ignored it, which would have been even more disconcerting.

“Hi, Trevor,” Caitlin said.

“Hey—” He cut himself off before he called her “Yankee.” She was a bit disappointed; she liked that he had a special name for her.

“Now, remember,” her mom said, facing Caitlin, “be home by midnight.”

“‘Kay,” Caitlin said.

She and Trevor headed out, walking along, talking about—

And that was the part that made Caitlin sad. They really didn’t talk about much of anything. Oh, Trevor liked hockey, but he didn’t know the stats and couldn’t say anything meaningful about trends.

Still, it felt good to be taking a walk. She’d walked a lot in Austin, despite the heat and humidity. She’d known her old neighborhood intimately: every crack in the sidewalk, every overhanging tree that provided shade, how many seconds it took for each traffic light to change. And although she was now learning the topography of these sidewalks, feeling the joins between sections with the tip of her cane, she was afraid she’d be lost again when they were covered with a layer of snow.

They reached the school and made their way to the gymnasium, where the dance was already in progress. She had trouble hearing people talk: sounds echoed off the hard walls and floor, and the music was too loud for the speakers. It always amazed her that people were willing to put up with distortion for the sake of volume — but at least they played some Lee Amodeo along with all the Canadian bands she’d never heard of.

She wished Bashira had been able to come, so she’d have someone to talk to. The Hoser had left her alone at one point, saying he was going to the washroom — but he’d obviously snuck off to smoke. She wondered if sighted people really couldn’t smell very well. Didn’t they know how much they stank after doing that?

She’d been to dances at her old school, but those were different. For one, they always slow danced — which was kind of nice, actually, especially if it was with the right boy. But these kids usually danced by jumping around without being in physical contact with their partners. It was mostly like Trevor wasn’t even there.

But there were some slow dances. “Come on,” Trevor said, as one of them began, and his hand took hers; she’d left her cane by the door.

Caitlin felt a little rush. She was surprised at how far they walked before he finally drew her into his arms; maybe it had taken a while to find an empty spot.

They swayed along with the music. She liked the feeling of Trevor pressing against her and—

His hand on her ass. She reached down and moved it back up to the small of her back.

The music continued, but his hand slid down her back again, and this time she could feel his fingers trying to work their way into the top of her jeans.

“Stop that!” she said, hoping no one besides the Hoser could hear her.

“Hey,” he said. “Come on.” He pushed his fingers down more aggressively.

She tried to step backward, and suddenly realized that he’d maneuvered her very close to a wall. They were still in the gym — the sound made that clear — but must be in some dark or out-of-the-way corner of it. He moved forward, and she found herself trapped. She didn’t want to create a scene, but—

His lips on hers, that awful smell on his breath—

She pushed him away. “I said stop!” she snapped, and she imagined heads were turning to look at her.

“Hey,” Trevor said, like he was making a joke, like he was playing to an audience now, “you’re lucky I brought you here.”

“Why?” she shot back. “Because I’m blind?”

“Babe, you can’t see me, but I am—”

“You’re wrong,” she said, trying not to cry. “I can see right through you.”

The music stopped, and she stormed across the gym, bumping into other people as she went, trying, trying, trying to find the door.

“Caitlin.” A female voice — maybe Sunshine? “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Caitlin said. “Where’s the fucking door?”

“Um, to your left, ten feet or so.” It was Sunshine; she recognized the Bostonian accent.

Caitlin knew exactly where her cane should be: propped up against the wall near the door, where others had left umbrellas. But some asshole had moved it, presumably to make room for something of his own.

Sunshine’s voice again. “It’s here,” she said, and she felt the cane being passed to her. She took it. “Are you all right?”

Caitlin did something she rarely did. She nodded, a gesture she never made spontaneously. But she didn’t trust her voice. She strode out into the corridor, which sounded like it was empty; her footfalls made loud echoing sounds on the hard floor. The din of the dance faded as she continued along, and she swept the way in front of her with her cane. She knew there was a stairwell at the far end, and—

There. She swung open the door and, using her cane to guide her, located the bottom step. She sat down and put her face in her hands.

Why were boys such jerks? Zack Starnes, who used to tease her back in Austin; the Hoser here — all of them!

She needed to relax, to calm down. She had stupidly left her iPod at home, but she did have her eyePod. She felt for the button, heard the beep that indicated the device had switched to duplex mode, and—

Ahhh!

Webspace blossomed into existence all around her, and—

And she felt herself relaxing. Yes, seeing webspace was still exhilarating, but it also was, in a weird way, calming. It was, she guessed, like smoking or drinking. She’d never tried the former; the smell bothered her. But she had drunk beer with friends — and Canadian beer now, too, which was stronger than the US stuff — but she didn’t really like the taste. Still, her mother enjoyed a glass of wine most evenings, and, well, she supposed that plugging into webspace, seeing the calming lights and colors and shapes, could become her own evening ritual, a visit to her happy place — a very special place that was hers and hers alone.

The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology was located at 142 Xi-Wai-Da-Jie in western Beijing. Wong Wai-Jeng enjoyed working there, more or less, and the irony was not lost on him that doing so made him a civil servant: the dissident Sinanthropus was an employee of the Communist Party. But the irony of the government supporting this institution devoted to preserving old fossils wasn’t lost on him, either.

Today for his morning coffee break, Wai-Jeng decided to stroll around the second-floor gallery of the museum — the four connected balconies that looked down on the exhibits below. He paused in front of the great glass tank on the granite pedestal that held the pickled coelacanth. There was irony here, too, for the giant lobe-finned fish was labeled a “living” fossil — which it had been until fishermen had netted it off the Comoros a few decades ago. It seemed in good shape still; he wondered if Chairman Mao was faring as well in his mausoleum.

Wai-Jeng turned and walked over to the railing around the opening that looked down onto the ground floor, ten meters below, with its dinosaurs mounted in dramatic poses above beds of fake grass. No school group was visiting today, but two old men were down there, sitting on a wooden bench. Wai-Jeng often saw them here. They lived in the neighborhood, came inside most afternoons to get out of the heat, and just sat, almost as motionless as the skeletons.

Directly below him, an allosaur was dispatching a stegosaur. The latter had fallen on its side, and the carnivore’s great jaws were biting into its neck. The postures were dramatic, but the thick layer of dust visible on the tops of the bones from this vantage point belied the sense of movement.