Answer Key: Episode 8

That morning Hal beat Amser in—she was probably on another early morning talk show—beat Kairos, and Iffan, who always reported to work at precisely 9am. The only ones there were workers at the loading dock rolling in tanks of medical grade O2. He went to his office and locked the door. Everything was in place. Of course what he had on his person—ID, glasses, and clothes—wouldn’t make the journey, but unless Hal underwent a complete personality change, his set of gym clothes would still be in the closet and a pair of spare glasses in his desk.

Hal grimaced after downing the slurry and sat back. Early morning sun was filtering in through the blinds, casting soft light on his bookshelf, his workbench, the inactive computer monitor, the pens and paper clips and notebooks strewn about. He tapped his foot—nothing was happening, and the mixture should already have crossed the blood brain barrier. Another breath. He started going over the ratios of the chemicals in the slurry, wondering how he might recalculate.

Then it started. A loose paperclip rose up and floated through the air to set gently down on the pages of an open book. As if a ghost had entered the room.