Orb had never stopped thinking about Hoppity.
He remembered the basement.
The burning notebook.
The bag in the Slop Yards.
He also remembered seeing Hoppity walking Main Street weeks later.
“You killed him?” Ian asked.
Orb looked toward the floor.
“I thought I did.”
“Gilden brought him back.”
Orb’s head snapped up.
Ian laid out what he knew.
The Reverend.
The vaccine.
The inspections.
The recordings.
The census.
The bank.
The gold corridor.
Orb listened without interrupting.
When Ian finished, he opened a drawer and removed his badge.
“I spent half my life trying to keep this town from destroying itself.”
Ian looked at the badge.
“And?”
“Never occurred to me somebody could make money helping us do it.”
They went to Doc Loxo.
The doctor examined a sample of the circuit vaccine and found a secondary instruction layer buried beneath the protective code.
It was not mind control.
It was subtler.
The program lowered resistance to repeated signals. Suggestions became easier to accept. Familiar voices felt more trustworthy. Doubt took longer to form.
“Subjective to influence,” Loxo said.
“Susceptible,” False Black corrected.
“That too.”
False had joined them without being invited.
Dewdrop, recently released on bail, arrived ten minutes later with Sexy Spidy.
Ms. Ladybug locked the doors to The Nest.
For the first time, the people Gilden had spent months dividing sat at the same table.