Glasshouse

I clutch his hand. "Stop! Turn your flashlight back. Yes, there, right there."

"What is it?" he asks.

"Let's see." I tug him toward it. "Come on, I need the light."

The tu

"Give me the flashlight."

"Here." He passes it without argument. I get as close to the wall as I can and shine the light into the crack. Nothing, no sign of hinges or anything. I crouch down and shine it into the hole. Nothing there, either. "Hmm."

"What is it?" he asks anxiously.

"It's a door. Can't say more than that." I straighten up. "We can't do anything about it right now. Let's go home and think about this."

"But if we go home, we won't be able to talk!" In the dim light of the flashlight, his eyes look very white. "They'll overhear everything."

"They don't see everything," I reassure him. "Come on, let's go home. This afternoon I want you to mow the lawn."

"But I—"

"The lawn mower is in the garage," I continue implacably. "Along with other things."

"But—"

"If they're not waiting for us when we get home, they're not monitoring the tu

I feel safe telling him that much, even though if they brainscoop me and feed me to Curious Yellow right now, it'll take down three of us: me and Sam and Janis. Kay may be in denial right now but she—No, you've got to keep thinking of him as Sam, I tell myself—isn't, I think, going to sell me to the bad guys. I am pretty sure I can read Sam well enough now to know what's bugging him. It's fu

"Yes." He sounds tremulous.

"Then you're going to have to trust me for a little bit longer because I don't have an escape plan yet." I squeeze his hand. "But I'm working on it."

Together, we walk toward the light.

THAT afternoon Sam changes into jeans and a T-shirt and mows the lawn. I'm in the garage wearing overalls and safety goggles, because I've made a mold from the plaster of paris dies and I'm pouring solder into it, casting a lead copy of the key to Fiore's cabinet of curiosities. The lead key won't turn in the lock, but it'll do okay as a template for the engraving disk and the small bar of brass I've got waiting.

To confuse anyone who's watching, I've got some props sitting around—a wooden wall plaque purchased from the fishing store, a plate to engrave with some meaningless dedication. When I showed Sam what I was up to he blinked rapidly, then nodded. "It's for thewomen's freehand cross-stitch club," I said, pulling the explanation right out of my ass. There is no such club, but it sounds right, a backup explanation that will trigger a reflex in whatever watcher is sca

We may be living in a glass jar with bright lights and monitors trained on us the whole time, but it's not likely that everything we do is being watched by a live human being in real time. We massively outnumber the experimenters, and they're primarily interested in our public socialization. (At least, that's the official story.) To monitor an intelligent organism properly requires observers with a theory of mind at least as strong as the subject. We subjects outnumber the experimenters by a couple of orders of magnitude, and I've seen no sign of strongly superhuman metaintelligences being involved in this operation, so I think the odds are on my side. If we are up against the weakly godlike, I might as well throw in the towel right now. But if not . . . You can delegate all you want to subconscious mechanisms, but you run the risk of them missing things. Sic transit gloria panopticon.

The Church services are almost certainly monitored in every imaginable way. But after Church, Fiore and his friends will be too busy re-ru

Concentrating on making the key and thinking about how much I am begi

After what feels like a few infinitely tense minutes—but the lying clock insists it's been the best part of four hours—I emerge from the garage. The hot morning sunlight has softened into a roseate afternoon glow, and insects creak beneath a turquoise sky. It looks like I've missed an idyllic summer afternoon. I feel shaky, tired, and very hungry indeed. I'm also sweating like a pig, and I probably stink. There's no sign of Sam, so I go indoors and hit the bathroom, dump my clothes and dial the shower up to a cool deluge until it washes everything away.

When I get out of the shower I rummage around in my wardrobe until I find a sundress, then head downstairs with the vague idea of sorting out something to eat. A microwave di

"Where've you been?" I ask. "I was going to sort out some food."

"I've been with Martin and Greg and Alf, down at the churchyard." I look at him, closer. His shirt is sweat-stained, and there's dirt under his fingernails. "Doing the burying."

"Burying?" For a moment I don't get what he's talking about, then it clicks into place and I feel dizzy, as if the whole world's revolving around my head. "The—you should have told me."

"You were busy." He shrugs dismissively.

I peer at him, concerned. "You look tired. Why don't you go have a shower? I'll fix you some food."

He shakes his head. "I'm not hungry."

"Yes you are." I take hold of his right arm and lead him toward the kitchen. "You didn't eat any lunch unless you sneaked a snack while I wasn't looking, and it's getting late." I take a deep breath. "How bad was it?"

"It was—" He stops and takes a deep breath. "It was—" He stops again. Then he bursts into tears.