It Looks Like You're Writing a Letter
Chapter 8

David Wilkinson awoke and opened his eyes.Staring into the murky darkness of the room he gradually became aware of hissurroundings. The ceiling above his head was rough brick, illuminated dimly bythe cold flicker of monitor screens a few metres away.

He sat up and swung his legs over the edgeof the military-style bunk. Rubbing his eyes he was depressed to note he wasstill in the bunker under the church in Fort Smith. Across the room he saw thatThorner and Kruke were already awake, dressed and deep in conversation. Hedressed himself in his smart trousers, grudgingly tucked in his shirt andslipped on his shoes before slouching over to the older men.

"Any chance of some coffee Kruke?"his tone was defeated, meek. The cockney accent was muted, almostimperceptible.

"Ah! Good morning David. Did you sleepwell?"

"I had weird dreams."

"To be expected. Here, you'll needthis," said Kruke as he passed an arm piece to David. David looked at it.Beige, with comfort straps, and heavy - this was no high-end alloy device witha sapphire screen. It had the air of medical equipment about it, and the largeeasy to read buttons cemented his opinion that this was the kind of devicefavoured by the old and infirm.

"Fucking really?"

"Ah ah ah!" admonished Kruke, asThorner looked amused. "I don't think that kind of language is fitting, doyou, David?" The emphasis he put on the last word of the sentence madeDavid pause.

"Uh. Yeah. Yes. Sorry. Thank you."

Thorner turned to Kruke. "I think I'mgoing to quite like young David here."

David looked unimpressed but stayed silent.

Kruke grinned. "Coffee's in the pot.Help yourself."

Suddenly one of the computer operatorscleared his throat and stammered nervously. "Mr Kruke? I think you'dbetter take a look at the news."

Kruke's cheery demeanour vanished,immediately replaced with his usual militaristic frown. He pushed the techworker out of the way and drew up the news channel on one of the largemonitors.

"Turn the sound up. Turn it up!"he demanded.

"... Gridwide manhunt continues forthe fugitive Tanner Griffen - currently located in the region of Shawnee,Oklahoma and heading east. Citizens are advised not to approach him as he isknown to be armed and extremely dangerous. Security forces have been despatchedto apprehend Griffen, a notorious criminal, racketeer and hacker, after hisbrutal murder of Senator Joseph Rigsby and his aide this morning in OklahomaCity."

The screen showed the same mugshot ofGriffen, mohawked, pierced and tattooed, in full leathers and giving the fingerto the camera. David suffered a pang of loss and nostalgia, quickly overtakenby indignation.

"What?" he blurted out, "Inever done it! How could I? I was with you lot, wasn't I?" his tonestarted out defiantly but turned more questioning - as if he wasn't one hundredpercent sure he hadn't actually done what he was accused of.

"OK, stay calm," mollified Kruke."There's something going on here. We all know you can't have killed theSenator. As far as the authorities are concerned, however, Tanner Griffen did -and Tanner Griffen is currently on the run. The question is, what do we doabout it?"

Thorner stepped in. "Wait a minute -can we replace out exactly what time the murder was committed?"

"Sure" Kruke motioned to one ofthe computer operators.

"1:35am this morning Mr Kruke."

"And what time did you complete thereprofiling?" Thorner asked Kruke.

"Well, let me see - about an hourbefore that, just before the techs and I retired for the night."

Thorner scratched his chin. "We allknow Ora won't allow duplicate idents. Kruke, is it possible for someone tohave grabbed Griffen's ident once it wasn't being used anymore, as in, after hebecame David?"

"Eminently possible, Thorner. PerhapsTanner had been fuzzed out long enough for the system to think he had expired -physically died. Once someone is flagged as expired, their profile ident can berecycled, but that takes some high level access."

"So, I didn't do it, can we all agreeon that?" David's expression was panicked. He'd never felt this anxious onthe occasions when he actually had killed someone.

"Please calm down David," saidKruke in a low tone, "someone out there has your old ident, we know this.We know they killed Senator Rigsby and now they're on the run. Question is - ifSec get to Griffen, it won't be long before they realise it's not you. Well,not who you were, you know what I mean. The manhunt for you will be back on, andall our good work here will have been for nothing."

"Kruke, has this happened before - oldidents getting hijacked?" asked Thorner with a suspicious tone.

"No, not to my knowledge. This is mostunusual."

Kruke moved briskly to a filing cabinet atthe edge of the room. Opening a drawer he pulled out a flat file and from thata bunch of keys.

"Thorner, I guess you'd be best tomake use of these." He threw the old-style car keys to him. "No pointin you trying to travel by auto-car. It would give away your position as soonas you started it up. That old girl may be thirty years old, but she still runsjust fine. There's enough energy in the cell to take you most of the way butyou'll need to replace somewhere to recharge. Be careful with it, I don't haveanother."

"Wait," said Thorner, his browfurrowed. "Are you expecting me to go on this hunt for Griffen?"

"Oh yes, you all are. David can't stayhere a moment longer - he's a risk to me, and the sooner he's out of myfacility the better. You weren't supposed to be here in the first place.Jeopardy has a job to protect David until he reaches his new profile location.This is an unexpected wrinkle in that plan, but I'm confident she'll clear thisup. Stay with her until it's done."

Jeopardy emerged from the shadows in thecorner of the room. "Unbelievable Griffen," she spat, "even whenyou're dead, you're a pain in the ass."

Kruke turned to Thorner. "Oh, andThorner - if you bring the authorities back here, I will be gone long beforethey reach this building."

"Let's go," urged Jeopardy.

They gathered their belongings, each packedinto a rucksack, and made their way out of the bunker, through the church andout of the rear exit. Parked in the alleyway behind the church was an old Volvofamily saloon. It was bright red, rusting and there were numerous pools offluid congealing beneath the engine bay.

"What a delight," mutteredThorner, pressing the remote opening button on the key fob. Absolutely nothinghappened. He opened the driver's door with a twist of the key and motionedJeopardy and David to get inside.

Inserting the old-fashioned metal key intothe ignition, he turned it without much hope, but to his surprise the carstarted first time with an asthmatic hum. The small colour screen in thedashboard flickered into life, speckled with dead pixels.

"Where's Griffen now?" he askedJeopardy, who had taken the passenger seat. She checked her left arm piece -Thorner noticed she had two, one on each arm.

"He's just left Shawnee, still headingeast. We should be able to cut him off if we head west on Route 40."

Thorner manually typed their heading intothe car's vintage satellite navigation computer and pulled away asinconspicuously as possible, joining the thin traffic towards the interstatehighway.

The car was noisy and hot, the airconditioning having expired many years ago. The gas required to refill it hadlong since been outlawed for its damage to the environment. Nothing electricalworked.

Thorner called to the back seat: "Howyou doing back there, David?"

David was looking pensively out of thewindow at the sparse, dry wilderness. "I'm OK," he lied, his eyesmoist.

Thorner softened. "Look kid, I knowthis must be tough but you're going to be OK."

"Maybe. What are we going to do when -if - we catch up with Griffen? I mean, this guy is a murderer, right? Are wegoing to ask him nicely to give up my profile and disappear?"

"I don't really know right now. I'mthinking."

"We kill him," said Jeopardy,matter of factly.

Thorner looked at her, somewhat aghast. "Killhim? That's your plan?"

"Yes - it's the only plan. We can'ttake the risk that Sec get to him first in case he knows where David is or who'shelped him. It's simple. There's no reason for Tanner Griffen to be alive atall, and I'd be happier knowing I pulled the trigger."

David ground his teeth, but didn't sayanything. Not even the things he desperately wanted to say, like how it reallypissed him off to have people talk so nonchalantly about killing him when he'donly been someone else for less than 12 hours. This Jeopardy chick obviouslythought she was a badass, but just one day ago, he would have slit her throatand laughed as she bled out. It was strange how completely he felt that was nolonger an option. It was something Griffen would do, but David wouldn't.

How did he end up here, dressed like asuburban dweeb, travelling across the country in a prehistoric car with an oldoff-Gridder and some psycho girl? A large part of him would have preferredgoing out in a messy showdown with the Sec meatheads, exchanging hot electricfire until a good shot burst his head like a ripe peach. The Sec officer whopulled the trigger could have gone back to base and bragged about how he tookout the great Tanner Griffen when nobody else could. That was the kind of legacyhe was always planning to leave. An unstoppable force of chaos right up untilhis own bloody-mindedness caught up with him. Instead he was suffering somekind of living death, trapped in crisp white cotton, catching every profanitybefore it left his lips.

He sighed and pushed up his left sleeve.Cringing once again at the ugliness of his arm piece, he woke it from sleep andscrolled through his profile, still trying to get to grips with some of theminutiae. It was important he become comfortable as soon as possible, Kruke hadsaid. What David said, where he went and what he did would have to fitperfectly into this new template so as not to arouse digital suspicion.

Political views: mildly left of centre butnot enough to offend anyone. He was pro-choice, anti-animal testing, withstrong views about nature conservation borne out by multiple online membershipsto animal sanctuaries and video-streaming zoos. His profile proudly boasted hisvegetarian status. His physical body had already started to mourn the loss ofbacon, burgers and kebabs.

Musically, David wasn't really interested.His choice of musical groups and bands were strictly from the radio-friendlyselection pumped incessantly into licensed public spaces and subscriber's homesand vehicles. Not really a choice at all, the act of choosing without choosing,enjoying what was there by default without having to make any decisions orformulate any opinions. David would never utilise comparative analysis onwhether Shovel Bastard's second album was as brutal as their debut. Notlistening to music at all would have been a bolder standpoint.

David scrolled dejectedly through hiscontact list. A sea of happy, white-toothed Americans grinned back. Peacesigns, pictures with elephants on holiday, fat shapeless babies, examples ofWestern excess paraded as a means to validate existences. He contemplatedgarrotting Thorner to death with his belt while he drove, hoping the ensuingcrash would take out all three of them, but he couldn't guarantee thatpost-mortem, he would be identified. The accident might be ignored by the mediaas three nobodies cluttering up the embankment with their unruly corpses. DavidWilkinson's death would always be as unremarkable as his life.

He shut off his arm piece and pulled hissleeve down again.

"So, Jeopardy - how long have youworked for Kruke?" Thorner was asking.

Jeopardy didn't look at the consultant,continuing to scan the horizon for some unknown threat. "About threeyears, on and off."

"How many of these do you do a year?"

"Varies. Most I've done is aboutthree, that's about right. Can get messy and drawn out, hard to plan anythingmuch with this kind of job."

Thorner nodded. "So, what's with theextra doohickey?" he motioned towards her right arm.

"I've got one arm piece that'sconnected to the Grid, and one that isn't. The one that isn't is connected toKruke's bunker. Means I can get messages to and from him via the sub-Grid andnot be detected."

"Ah. Clever." Thorner didn't meanthis to sound patronising, but it did.

"I've gotta piss," announcedDavid from the back seat.

"Noted," stated Thorner, matterof factly.

Fifty miles or so down the same road, ajagged shape loomed in the distance. Jeopardy squinted a particular way and analmost imperceptible servo whine emitted from her eye sockets as her implantszoomed in.

"Refuelling station. We should stop."

They pulled into the station forecourt in aplume of dust and grit. At first glance it was hard to see if this was even anoperational business, but the ragged 'open' sign in the door looked promising.They got out of the car and each stretched painfully.

"Why is it so tiny inside? Whodesigned this thing?" complained David, rubbing his cramped legs.

"Come on. Thorner, fill her up, we'llgo inside." Jeopardy had taken control, habitually.

Jeopardy and David approached the shopbuilding. It sagged at the seams and no two surfaces appeared to join properly.Brown stains of rust ran down between the cracks like the sides of along-scuttled trawler. For the first time David saw that Jeopardy was subtlybut powerfully armed with energy weapons. Her belt bristled with small, black,knurled alloy handles and microswitches - all belonging to some form ofhigh-end crowd suppressor or personal aggression management system. David hadonly seen this kind of gear on Sec Special Ops forces. If this chick was toughenough to take them from SSO, she might just be a force to be reckoned with.These toys weren't available on the black market. If you wanted them, youusually had to win them in a fight.

They pushed open the door, which rang abell somewhere behind the counter, and went inside. Dust hung unmoving in thesword-like shafts of sunlight streaming across the room, like a still from anold movie. Everything was covered in a thin layer of grime. If the shelvesweren't so well-stocked, David would have assumed this place had been abandonedabout twenty years ago.

They walked slowly between the aisles ofjunk food. Apart from the buzzing sound of the decrepit recharging stationoutside, it was utterly silent. The whole place was like a mausoleum, anunattended wake for capitalism.

"Good afternoon." The voice madethem both jump. Jeopardy's right hand instinctively flew to her belt butremained there as they swung around and saw the tiny old man who had appeared,as if by teleportation, behind the counter. "Can I help you young'uns?"

Jeopardy started breathing again. David wasembarrassed to realise he had hidden behind her when the old man had startledthem. He straightened himself.

Mary Bilton approached the counter. "Wellhello there, you gave us quite a shock sir! My name is Mary and this is David,we're just passing through on our way to Shawnee." Her voice was a sweetTennessee drawl all of a sudden, her body language had changed entirely as shegiggled and wiggled. David was nonplussed but kept silent. He glanced at hisarm piece's geolocator function. In the plan view of the building, whereJeopardy was standing, was Mary Bilton, 23 from Forest Hills, Tennessee. Lovesdogs, engaged to be married to Brad Scott, a builder by trade.

The old man behind the counter brightenedvisibly. He was like a gnome in flannel, as much a part of the shop fittings ashis old wooden counter. "Is that a Tennessee accent I detect, Miss?"

"It surely is!"

"Well, you're a long way from home ifI may say so - what brings you to this part of the country?"

"Oh, you know - just hunting down oldfriends!" She tittered, nauseatingly.

"Well, you just need to be careful,right now. Word is there's a maniac on the loose. Killed a senator, he did, upin Oklahoma City! Security put a warning out - look." The garage ownertwisted his torso so that Mary could see Griffen's mugshot on his arm piece,which span loosely on his withered arm. "Every business within a fewhundred miles has been warned not to tangle with this lunatic."

David's face began to itch. He stood behindMary and shuffled his feet. Every second was physically painful - luckily theold man was too enamoured with Mary to even cast a glance towards him.

"Oh we will be careful, he looks likea terrible person. Looks like my poppa is done with the recharge - unit numbertwo, oh and we'll take this bag of chips also." Without looking away, shegrabbed a nearby sack of potato chips and placed it on the counter. The old mangrinned toothlessly, waved over his till, and the total appeared on Mary's armpiece. She waved back and the transaction was complete. For David, the pennydropped. Somewhere in Tennessee a young bride-to-be was about to get an unusualitem on her credit card bill.

David's panic was not subsiding. He'd seenthe door to the toilet at the back of the shop, along with the sign reading 'FORKEY SEE MANAGEMENT'. Mary turned from the counter, gave David a sweet smile andwent back out into the white sunlight. The old man sat back down behind thecounter and became instantly transfixed with a sports game on his arm piece.

David approached the counter asnonchalantly as possible and cleared his throat. "Say, sir - could I useyour bathroom over there?"

The old man was barely responsive, butreached under the counter and pulled out a brick with a key tied to it. Heplaced it in front of David without looking up. "If you block it, 300credit surcharge."

David grabbed the brick and scuttled to theback of the shop.

Jeopardy was Jeopardy again and was waitingin the car with Thorner when David came scuttling out of the shop building. Heclimbed into the back seat again before leaning forward between the front seatsand talking in hushed tones.

"What the hell was that? Is this howyou operate?"

"What's he talking about?" askedThorner, with a concerned expression on his face.

"Jeopardy had a full personalitytransplant in there, sweet talked the old goat and got us a free recharge!"

"I guess we'd better get moving then,"said Thorner, his concern evaporating. He started the car and they peeled outof the garage, and back onto the blacktop.

"Calm down, David," said Jeopardyin a mocking tone. "You know as well as I do that the credit companiesabsorb any losses. I can't be seen to be spending across the country, leaving anice glowing trail for Sec to follow. I can't check in to any buildings asmyself either for the same reasons. I don't have much choice but to... borrowpeople."

"It's creepy. And what was with thevoice?"

"You never know who's got audiorecording equipment on them. Some people do it just because they're paranoid. Icould get traced on my voice patterns. At least if my voice matches the profileit's still congruent and won't throw up any alerts."

David did his best to look unimpressed. Hisblood had started to cool in his veins again and he could hear himself thinkover the roar of it.

"I suppose you would have gone inthere, smoke bombed the old guy and emptied his till with a root exploit,before stealing all his candy bars and torching the joint?" goadedJeopardy.

"Yeah, maybe. Seems a bit more honestto me."

Jeopardy rolled her eyes. "Maybe thisis why you're on the run and I have a successful career."

David pulled a face and went back tolooking out of the window. He unclipped the ear buds from each corner of thearm piece and put them in his ears. Scrolling through the personal playlist, hesaw nothing but AOR, R&B and classical music. Instinctively he went toperform a search for something more offensive.

Jeopardy looked over her shoulder just intime to bark a warning. "Don't even think about listening to anythingother than what's on that profile, David. It will be broadcast immediately toevery single connection you've got. Think about it."

They drove in silence for another half anhour, before Thorner said apropos of nothing: "It's all such bullshit."

Jeopardy shifted in her seat to look at himas he drove, amusement on her face. "Expand?"

Thorner gesticulated at the windscreen. "Thisworld, how it's ended up. How did we get to this, every place we go to we'reautomatically checked in, when did we all agree that this continual scrutinywas OK? Everything we spend, tracked and added to an algorithm, every personalconnection is public, there's no privacy."

"What are you complaining about? Noneof this affects you, off-Gridder," Jeopardy countered, with a wry smile.

"Sure it does. Do you know how hard itis to live without an Ora profile these days? Virtually no public services areavailable to me because they don't know who I am. That goes all the way fromlibraries to hospitals to state welfare. I don't qualify for any of it, becauseessentially I'm not a citizen unless I've signed up and paid my dues toOraCorp."

Jeopardy shrugged her shiny, leather-cladshoulders. "Sounds like it's a choice you have to make, Thorner. I expectpeople thought the world was coming to an end around the time the Guttenbergpress was invented too."

Thorner's knuckles whitened on the steeringwheel. "Come on, don't paint me as some kind of Luddite. I've not optedout - I just never opted in. The world kept on spinning crazily out of controlaround me while I stayed as I was. It's not fair. I know that sounds naive, butI can't understand how civilisation as we know it got OK with selling its soulto a corporation within such a short space of time."

"Lazy," David piped up from theback seat.

"What?"

"People are lazy. Bottom line is,people don't want to think or spend any effort they don't absolutely have to.The more Big Momma told them what to buy, where to eat, who to speak to, whatto watch, the happier they were. The more information they surrendered to thealgorithm the more accurate the results, so of course everyone ploughed intheir shoe size, birth weight, first pet's name and so on. A lot of the timepeople don't even know why the information is required by the network, but theygive it anyway."

Thorner shrugged. "But people havealways been lazy, or at least had the propensity to be. I guess cheap consumerelectronics started that ball rolling."

"Yeah, but that's not all,"continued David dryly, "you've gotta remember people are easily scared,and if you're the powers that be, keeping the populace as scared as possible isgreat for profits. OraCorp spent decades telling people terrorists and paedoswere lurking around every corner, both physical and digital. Citizens were toldthat the only way to guarantee safety was to flush these people out - ifeveryone was free and easy with their data, those who were not, were obviouslyhiding something."

"Sounds like a witch hunt," saidThorner, his mouth thin.

"Yeah, yeah - just like that butwithout the finger pointing. It wasn't up to the general public to replace thesepaedo rings and terrorist cells, it was enough for them to just keep quietabout the extra few hundred CCTV cameras that appeared around their town, orclick 'OK' to the updated privacy policy without reading it. Just submit."

Thorner ran his hand around his growingstubble. "Who's really running the show?"

David smirked, Jeopardy laughed out loud. "There'sno mystery here, Thorner," he continued. "OraCorp is a company likeany other. Its board of directors is public. It's not some kind of secret,underground Illuminati kind of deal. It makes profits, huge profits, but it'sall legal and above board. What we're actually experiencing is a kind of loop -a kind of, I don't know, circle of implicit acceptance. The users of theservices are as guilty as the company that provides them. It's a bit like whenwe used to have newspapers, and everyone complained about how low-brow theywere and how they were never accurate, just exploitative and scaremongering.When it came down to it, they printed that trash because it's what sold. At theend of the day, the public sold themselves to OraCorp and were happy to do it."

Jeopardy chipped in. "He's right,Thorner. There's no evil mastermind trying to control society and make itinconvenient for you to rent a library book. Just a company that gotinconceivably large through giving people what they wanted. The free marketeconomy writ large. The American Dream."

Thorner drove in silence for a littlewhile, digesting this.

The sun was starting to reach the apex ofits arc across the day. Shadows recoiled under the car, the rocks and the treesas if trying to hide from it.

"You guys are young. Do you think it'sOK, how things are? Am I just past it, a relic?"

David cocked his head and thought beforeanswering. "Yesterday, I would have told you I loved it. It gave meopportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise. I was a junkie from a broken homewho taught himself how to speak to machines. I hacked, I stole, I madeconnections in the criminal world that a puke nothing kid should never havehad, and that's how I got the big paydays. The Grid is like a huge playground,and if you've got the keys after dark, you can ride for free and do what youlike."

"And today?"

"Today," David sighed deeply, "I'mnot going to tell you I'm a reformed character and I regret my evil past or anyof that sh- stuff. But having who I was taken away from me so easily, it's mademe wonder what it means to be someone in the world today, how much of me isactually left you know? That other guy, the one who's on the run right now? Hehad a history, everything he'd ever done was available somewhere on a server.Every social update about what gig I'd been to that night, or which girl I'dbanged, I mean it's not exactly important I guess, but it was my legacy Isuppose. Not much to speak of, but having all that taken away, it's not a goodfeeling. Maybe that's why I freaked out when Jeopardy pulled her Tennessee hickimpersonation. If it really is that easy to be someone else, then who youreally are can't have much value, can it?"

Thorner looked at Jeopardy. From what hecould see in her porcelain features, she wasn't fazed by David's words. "Whatabout you?"

She folded her arms and pouted. "It'spretty easy to give up your identity when you didn't want it in the firstplace. You see this?" she pulled a two-inch bladed knife from a smallholster on her belt and waved it under Thorner's nose, "The first time Iused this was to kill my old man. My mom had slipped it under my pillow, andwhen he came in drunk that night and tried to fuck me again, I stuck it in hisliver."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen."

"Jesus." Thorner wasn't used tothis level of empathy and it washed over his nervous system like a new tide. Itwas a good feeling, to feel this bad for someone. It was bittersweet. It feltlike an old program being launched, one that was in dire need of updates.

"It's fine. After eight years, he hadit coming you know what I mean? Anyway, my point is - after that I went on therun. My mom took the rap, did six years inside for it, I never saw her again. Iwent off the Grid and started running with various biker gangs up the westcoast. This one night, we came across a little house way out in the middle ofnowhere and needed food and alcohol so decided to see what they had. All thelights were on, but someone had gotten there before us and killed the entirefamily, probably only an hour before. Anyway, I took the daughter's arm pieceoff her while she was still warm and used her profile, that did me long enoughto learn how to work the sub-Grid and grift between profiles as and when I neededto."

"So you've not been you for so long,it doesn't matter who you are, that's what you're saying?" asked Thorner.

"Yes."

"So how did you end up working forBill Kruke?"

"He showed up on the sub-Grid one daylooking for people with profile hacking expertise, so I replied. Things weregetting shitty with the bikers I was with, so I just got up in the middle ofthe night, stole the bike with the most energy in the cell and went to work forKruke."

"And never looked back."

"What's the point of looking back?What's there?" she spat - her eyes flashed like a blade in a nighttimealley fight. "It's like our newborn in the back seat was saying, it's justzeroes and ones on a server somewhere, who gives a shit."

"No, I can't accept that," saidThorner, firmly. "I can't just accept that everything you've felt,experienced, only exists because you checked in to the location, or updatedyour profile status, or whatever. How can it? What about your feelings?"

"Feelings change, Thorner. Memoriesare selective and unreliable. These things fade if they're not documented inimages, text, connections. It's that permanent record that OraCorp own. Theyown the only tangible evidence that any of us ever existed, or meant anythingto anyone else."

"So when I die, I will never have beenalive?"

"Of course - once everyone who has metyou and shared experiences with you over your lifetime have also died, there'snobody to feel anything for you, or remember you. The only chance you have toremain after physical death is to leave some remnants that can be audited,searched for, connected to others. Write a book, or a symphony, paint a fuckingpicture! If you can't do those things - and let's face it most people can't -this digital tapestry is all they can hope for."

Thorner knew she was right, and was tootired to argue anyway. It depressed him deeply but he couldn't argue with thelogic of it, he'd known it for five years already - he'd died the day Marthahad died.