“Thanks, you too. Where are you?” He was always somewhere.

“Cannes. Just finished giving a talk at a fancy thing for rich people. Uh. Hey, I went on a date.”

“What?” This conversation wasn’t going how I’d planned.

“I like her, she’s really nice. I wanted to tell you that before it got weird. I don’t know why it would be weird. But I guess I just made it weird all by myself, didn’t I. It’s not serious or anything, she’s just someone I met …” He left that trailing off like he was maybe going to tell me more but then decided not to.

Andy and I had never done … stuff, but I had been interested at one point, and I think he had been as well. I don’t know if those points had ever overlapped, but if they did, or if they still were, I didn’t know how to tell.

“That’s great, what’s her name?”

“Becky, but she goes by Bex, like with an x.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

“She is much cooler than me,” he explained.

“That’s not that hard.” We chuckled together, and I felt like I was at least doing a good job of pretending like we were equals.

“So what’s up?” he asked.

“Well, this is going to sound weird after your report, but, like, I have not been on any dates. Instead I am seriously considering applying for a job at Peter Petrawicki’s new laboratory, which I believe is building brain-machine interfaces that are several generations beyond what has currently been built. I want to go work there so I can find out what they’re doing.”

“And what will you do once you find out what they’re doing?”

He seemed so confident. A lot of new responsibility came at him after April disappeared, and he seemed to be handling it really well. But that meant he was a little less fun now, and more earnest. I think a lot of times, people become who we need them to be. I wasn’t like that, but Andy was.

“I don’t know,” I said, a little flustered. “I guess that depends on what it is! It could be anything. I just want to have an eye on that dude. Also, it’s what I’m researching here … kinda … and it’s a really big deal. Part of me actually wants to be involved.”

Andy was quiet for a long time and then finally responded.

“You have to be very careful. This is almost certainly industrial espionage that you’re talking about here.”

“Why do you think I called instead of texting? Fewer records.”

“Fuck, Miranda, how long have you been thinking about this?”

“A while. I’m scared, though. I think I called you to talk me out of it.”

He laughed then.

“Well, maybe in spite of my better judgment, I’m not going to do that. You have to go.”

“Why?”

“I can’t—” he stammered. “I mean … I don’t know. It’s just a gut feeling. This isn’t over.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something strange is happening. I think it might have something to do with April.”

He said it fast, like he wanted to get it out before he stopped himself. I did not respond quickly.

“Andy …”

“It’s not just that either. I think the Carls leaving, I think that wasn’t the end. I think it was the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“I don’t know, but if you think Peter is working on something big, I think we need to know about it. I think you need to go.”

I hit send on the application.

“Well, I guess we’ll see how that goes.”

It did not go how I expected.

Andy Skampt

January 5 at 2:30 p.m.

I wanted today to only be a day of good feelings and it was. It was until I was woken up with the news. I’m pulled in two directions right now. The first is that I do truly believe that human cruelty is the exception, not the norm. This is so important to remember.

But the other is that these things are happening more and more. Yes, each one is just one person, and no, their actions never make sense. But this is part of a broader trend in disconnection. It almost never ends this way, but almost never is becoming more and more common. We are disconnected from each other, and we are losing all our old ways of feeling like we matter. That tears people up inside. Usually, they act inwardly, but sometimes they lash out and hurt the people who are close to them. Even less often, they hurt strangers.

Does it help to know that? Maybe not. Maybe it only helps to know that we are all part of something great. And that’s the danger of acts like this. Not only is it, in part, a symptom of a loss of faith in the human story, but it also perpetuates that loss of faith. I haven’t lost it, though. In response to this, please share a story that keeps your faith in people strong. I have thousands, but I want to hear yours.

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MAYA

After I was reasonably sure that I didn’t look like a complete, crumbling mess, I left the dressing room. The kind woman from the booth came over as I exited.

“Honey, are you OK?”

“Yes,” I said, barely making eye contact. “Do you know where the nearest ATM is?”

“Sure, it’s out by the cow.”

“The cow?”

“The big red cow? Outside?” she replied, like it was obvious.

“Oh, of course, the cow.”

I went and got as much money as I could get out of the ATM: $600, $200 at a time. And then I went back to the vintage-dress place.

“This is very weird, and a lot to ask,” I said when I got there, “but there is a vendor that is selling something I would like to buy, but he does not want to sell it to me.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like Cowtown. The whole point is that everything is for sale. If it isn’t here, you don’t need it!”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of the thing, more a matter of …” I trailed off, looking down, half playing it up, half still really feeling it.

“Are you saying … ?” she whispered.

“Look, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this—”

“Who was it? Al Johnson, I’ll bet,” she interrupted in a whisper.

“It was the guy selling the crystals and fossils, just a few tables down.”

“Hmm, I honestly have no idea who he is. It’s a big market,” she said at full volume.

“So, what I was wondering is if you could go and buy all of the smooth white things he has. They’re really pretty, like opals or pearls, but light like plastic. Also, if maybe you could ask him where he got them and play it up like they’re really valuable and you’re getting a deal. And if by any chance you could get his name and the name of his business …”

She looked skeptical. “Why would I pretend like they’re valuable? That’s just gonna bring up the price.”

I took out a wad of twenties and said, “I don’t know if they’re valuable, I just want him to think they are. There’s six hundred dollars here, keep whatever you don’t spend.”

She looked at me like I was a little nuts, which, fair, but she took the money.