I brushed away the grit and sunk into a couch whose spine had long been broken, only to puff up another musty cloud. I cleared the screen again, then mentally nudged the tru-cast recording on it to play. This was at least the twentieth time I’d replayed it. Maybe the thirtieth. I’d lost count. The image showed two FBI agents, both mindjackers, in a scene so familiar I had memorized every detail: the agents’ black guns pointed at the camera, glinting from the lobby’s plasma lights; the mindreaders huddled by the receptionist’s desk, trying to keep out of the showdown; even the janitor frozen in his window cleaning at the hospital gift shop, staring at the soon-to-be-famous sixteen-year-old girl wielding the camera phone like a weapon. At least that’s how I imagined her holding it—maybe because I was inclined to think of everything as a weapon these days. But my imagination would have to suffice, not having been one of the jackers present, on either side of the camera.
