“Pataphysics,” repeats Ballard.

“Pataphysiques,” Cote corrects him. “It’s French. Science asks ‘why does the rock fall down?’ Pataphysiques is the opposite.”

“It asks why the rock doesn’t fall down?”

“Why it falls up.”

“It… doesn’t,” says Ballard slowly.

“Don’t avoid the question!” Cote’s grinning now. “Think of it as a deliberately wrong premise for a syllogism. Logic tells us that when your premise is false, you can’t disprove the conclusion, no matter what it is. Why does the rock fall up? Therefore, time isn’t real.”

“But that kind of proof is worthless!”

“Oh, sure,” sniffs Cote, “if you listen to logic.“

“Fifty thousand Hugo Weavings can’t be wrong!” booms the narrator.

“Go camera three,” Andy mutters.

“The optimal brand of peanut butter–” say 50,000 Hugo Weavings, grinning, in chorus.

“–is JIF!” say 49,999 of them.

“–is Peter Pan!” says one. He goes white. “Oh,” he says, turning in circles. “No, please, gentlemen–I–I couldn’t help it! Quantum physics made me! No. NO!”

Andy sighs as they converge. “Cut,” he calls above the screaming. “Cora, go get another one?”

Cora rolls her eyes. She hates thawing the Hugo Weavings, and doesn’t understand why they have to be stored nude.

Chili John gets the half-nod from the bartender and follows his thumb: there, obscured by palmetto. Yes. He drops a Sacajawea in a puddle of beer and tries on his most casual mosey.

He stops at the corner table, hooks his thumbs in his belt. “They say you’re the one.”

The man pulls at his Miller Lite.

“Are they right?” Chili John brushes one holster. “About that?”

Silence.

“They say,” he clears his throat, “they say you’re the man knows Greg Fu.”

The man looks up at last, and in his eyes is the look of a raw and ancient doom.

“You happy now?” gasps India, and hacks blood. She’s grinning. “Nobody wins.” Caradog’s lolled back in the chair, face white.

“Shut up!” he says. He’s tearing pictures off the walls, yanking back the bolster. “Where the fuck is it!”

“What?” India squints. “Jesus, you’re losing it.”

“The damn reset!” he shouts. “It has to be here! It has to bNNEET”

“–friends, okay?” India spreads her hands. “Here for business. Pat me down if you want.”

“Forget it,” grunts Caradog. “Nobody’s going to do anything stupid. Right, Pensieve?”

Pensieve stares at her, pulse racing. Remember. There’s something he’s supposed to remember.

Staring down at the pillow, rhythmic unblurring, Symmi blinks and feels the high start to slip away. No paranoia yet; she’s in a decidedly clinical state of mind.

Anatole’s chanting her name as he thrusts, the breathy way she doesn’t like: “Symm-eh!” She feels her viscera moving, pushing up against each other. Swing and knock. They’re a set of clacking silver balls hung from the frame of her ribs, back and forth like the ones on the desk of her high school counselor, damn, what was his name?

“Newton?” she murmurs. “Newlin!”

“Sih!” gasps Anatole, “what?” too late to pull out.