Quantifiable. Scientific theory was tested and either proved or disproved. No gray areas.

No shadows.

He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to talk to Nicole, to tell her that in the last two days he had learned something he hadn't known before. Something that was hard to put into words but still palpable in his chest. He wanted to tell her that he no longer was going to chase the dime, that as far as he was concerned, it could chase him.

He clicked on the phone and dialed her number. His old number. Amalfi Drive. She picked up the phone after three rings. Her voice was alert but he could tell she had been asleep.

"Nicole, it's me."

"Henry… what?"

"I know it's late but I -"

"No… we talked about this. You told me you weren't going to do this."

"I know. But I want to talk to you."

"Have you been drinking?"

"No. I just want to tell you something."

"It's the middle of the night. You can't do this."

"Just this one time. I need to tell you something. Let me come over and -"

"No, Henry, no. I was sound asleep. If you want to talk, call me tomorrow. Good-bye now."

She hung up. He felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. He had just done something that before this night he was sure he would never have done, that he couldn't even imagine himself doing.

He groaned loudly and stood up and went to the windows. Out past the pier to the north he could make out the necklace of lights that marked the Pacific Coast Highway. The mountains rising above it were dark shapes barely discernible below the night sky. He could hear the ocean better than he could see it. The horizon was lost somewhere out there in the darkness.

He felt depressed and tired. His mind drifted from Nicole back to thoughts about Lucy and what he now knew appeared to have been Lilly's fate. As he looked out into the night he promised himself that he would not forget what he had said to Lucy. When she decided she wanted out and was ready to make the move, he would be there, if for no other reason than for himself. Who knows, he thought, it could end up being the best thing he ever did with his life.

Just as he looked at it, the lights of the Ferris wheel went out. He took that as a cue and went back inside the apartment. On the couch he picked up the phone and dialed his voice mail. He listened to the message from Lucy one more time, then went to bed. He had no sheets or blankets or pillows yet. He pulled the sleeping bag up onto the new mattress and climbed inside. He then realized he hadn't eaten anything all day. It was the first time he remembered that ever having happened during a day spent outside the lab.

He fell asleep as he was mentally composing a list of things to do when he woke up in the morning.

Soon he was dreaming of a dark hallway with open doors on each side. As he moved down the hallway he would look through each doorway. Each room he looked into was like a hotel room with a bed and a bureau and a TV. And each room was occupied.

Mostly by people he didn't recognize and who did not notice him looking. There were couples who were arguing, fucking and crying. Through one doorway he recognized his own parents. His mother and father, not his stepfather, though they were at an age that came after they were divorced. They were getting dressed to go out to a cocktail party.

Pierce moved on down the hallway and in another room saw Detective Renner. He was by himself and was pacing alongside the bed. The sheets and covers were off the bed and there was a large bloodstain on the mattress.

Pierce moved on and in another room Lilly Quinlan was on the bed, as still as a mannequin. The room was dark. She was naked and her eyes were on the television.

Though Pierce could not see the screen from his angle of view, the blue glow it threw on Lilly's face made her look dead. He took a step into the room to check on her and she looked up at him. She smiled and he smiled and he turned to close the door, only to find there was no door to the room. When he looked back to her for an explanation, the bed was empty and only the television was on.

At exactly noon on Sunday the phone woke up Pierce. A man said, "Is it too early to speak to Lilly?"

Pierce said, "No, actually it's too late."

He hung up and looked at his watch. He thought about the dream he'd had and set to work interpreting it, but then groaned as the first memory of the rest of the night poked into his thoughts. The call he'd made to Nicole in the middle of the night. He climbed out of the sleeping bag and off the bed to take a long, hot shower while he thought about whether to call her again to apologize. But even the stinging hot water couldn't wash away the embarrassment he felt. He decided it would be best not to call her or try to explain himself. He'd try to forget what he had done.

By the time he was dressed his stomach was loudly demanding food but there was nothing in the kitchen, he had no money and his ATM card was tapped out until Monday.

He knew he could go to a restaurant or a grocery store and use a credit card but that would take too long. He had come out of the embarrassment of the Nicole call and the baptism of the shower with a desire to put the Lilly Quinlan episode behind him and let the police handle it. He had to get back to work. And he knew that any delay in getting to Amedeo might undermine his resolve.

By one o'clock he was entering the offices. He nodded to the security man behind the front dais but did not address him by name. He was one of Clyde Vernon's new hires and had always acted coolly toward Pierce, who was happy to return the favor.

Pierce kept a coffee mug full of spare change on his desk. Before beginning any work, he dropped his backpack on the desk, grabbed the mug and took the stairs down to the second floor, where snack and soda machines were located in the lunchroom. He almost emptied the mug buying two Cokes, two bags of chips and a package of Oreos. He then checked the lunchroom refrigerator to see if anybody had left anything edible behind but there was nothing to steal. As a rule the janitorial crew emptied the refrigerator out every Friday night.

One bag of chips was empty by the time he got back to the office. Pierce tore into the other and popped one of the Cokes open after sliding behind the desk. He removed the new batch of patent applications from the safe below his desk. Jacob Kaz was an excellent patent attorney but he always needed the scientists to back-read the introductions and summaries of the legal applications. Pierce always had the final signoff on the patents.

So far, the patents Pierce and Amedeo Technologies had applied for and received over the past six years revolved around protecting proprietary designs of complex biological architectures. The key to the future of nanotechnology was creating the nanostructures that would hold and carry it. This was where Pierce had long ago chosen for Amedeo Tech to make its stand in the arena of molecular computing.

In the lab Pierce and the other members of his team designed and built a wide variety of daisy chains of molecular switches that were delicately strung together to create logic gates, the basic threshold of computing. Most of the patents Pierce and Amedeo held were in this area or the adjunct area of moleculary RAM. A small number of other patents centered on the development of bridging molecules, the latticework of sturdy carbon tubes that would one day connect the hundreds of thousands of nanoswitches that together would make a computer as small as a dime and as powerful as a digital Mack truck.

Before beginning his review of the new group of patents, Pierce leaned back in his chair and looked up at the wall behind his computer monitor. Hanging on the wall was a caricature drawing of Pierce holding up a microscope, his ponytail flying and his eyes wide as if he has just made a fantastic discovery. The caption above it said "Henry Hears a Who!"