and a 3x5 index card, on which was written, in Muriel’s slanted handwriting, “Bernal.  What I learned today changes everything.  Head over to Ungaro’s lab if you crave an explanation.”

    Of course he craved explanation.  Muriel was supposed to be at the opening of an exhibit of Renaissance silver at the Cheriton Art Gallery that night, not hanging around the lab of her pet AI researcher.

    Impromptu visits to Muriel-funded research programs were what Bernal got paid for.  He’d just gotten back from one, a road trip to South Dakota to deal with some bad feelings about the mammoth project, with a few side visits on the way.  Bernal rubbed his eyes.  It had been a long day’s drive from the campground at Seneca Lake, and he’d been looking forward to a hot shower and quick sleep in a back bedroom, with business left for the next day.

    But something had seemed off as soon as he had made it into the house, a quality of deliberate silence.  He’d run up the curving staircase to the sconce-lit hallway upstairs and said hello to the tailor’s dummy in the military dress jacket that guarded the low bureau with the turned wood bowl on it.  A glance into Muriel’s bedroom had increased his unease.

    Clothing lay piled against a radiator.  An old wooden soft-drink box, smelling of damp cellar, had been dumped out, and the toys that had once been stored in it, things like stuffed tigers with green eyes and long-obsolete video games, lay scattered across the dark-red oriental carpet at the foot of the bed.  A doll’s head had rolled under a highboy.  It stared demurely at Bernal from beneath long lashes, one eye half closed.

    Found objects, like a wood shoe form, the numerals 6 ½ bold black on its side, and a row