Slater pulled the collar of his cream-colored trenchcoat above his neck and accepted a cup of instant coffee from his partner, Marmaduke. “What do you think, Em?” 

Marmaduke stared at the gooey remains on the floor. “I think we’re gonna have to play this one off the book. And I don’t mean the ThoughtBook.” He put on his ninth pair of glasses for the day.

“Any more puns and you’re gonna have sunglasses tan. You’ll be the laughing stock of the office.”

“I’ll handle it.”

Even though they were ensconced indoors, Stansel’s kitchen was still cold, its decoration clinically antiseptic. Slater felt like he was in a doctor’s waiting room. Waiting for what? Who knows. Maybe just for the end. After all the shit he’d seen, he’d embrace Death as a friend, but not then as a lover because he wouldn’t want to ruin what they already had. It was precious to him and he didn’t want to complicate it by getting romance involved. No, he’d already tried that before. He looked up at Em, who was still gazing at Jim Stansel’s bubbling broth, unaware of his thoughts, as ThoughtBook had died with its creator. 

“You know the city’s dust, Em. Why are we even here? We have no society to protect anymore.”

“Maybe you’re right, Slates. Maybe every day of our lives for the last two decades has strictly been in service of an artificial concept, and not at all intrinsic to our identity.”

“I’m just saying this could be our time to retire.”

Marmaduke smashed his cup of coffee on the ground, brown liquid spreading like an STD at a religiously fundamentalist commune. He grabbed Slater by his lapels.

“Goddamnit, Slater. If you can look into my eyes and tell me this doesn’t rankle your rafters, I’ll let it go.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Slater turned away, looking thoughtfully out a nearby window in the shape of Jim Stansel’s formerly tangible head.

“Damnit, Em, you know I can’t. I want to get to the bottom of this just as much as you do. So what’s our first step?” Marmaduke grabbed Stansel’s iPad and flicked through it.

“Some pretty nasty emails here to a Jeffrey Dollmer. Let’s go see what he’s up to.”

On the other side of the obliterated city, Jeffrey’s impressive moustache twinged.