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He said, "I made my own ferret, Scott, in imitation of yours, and I used it." He seemed to smile, maybe at my reaction, my obvious gape. "In February, Scott, I found out that the Cone, the asteroid strike, the missile scare, everything ... they're all cover stories!"

"For what?"

He started backing down the steps, feeling with his feet, careful not to stumble on his way to the sidewalk. "I found out from a group up in Montana that's been doing some digging, Scott. A group that calls itself Novus Ordo Seclorum."

"'A new order for the ages?' Paulie, that's right off the back of a dollar bill."

He nodded, smiling as he reached the bottom of the stairs, standing flat-footed, right hand in the pocket of the fashionably loose slacks he was wearing. "Scott. Scottie ... " a soft snicker. "They are cover stories for the establishment of the New World Order. The governments of the technically advanced countries, us, Russia, Japan, France ... This is the moment of unification, an end to war, the beginning of... everything!"

I sat back, looking for the shine of madness in his eyes. But whose? His or mine? I whispered, "Why didn't you tell me, Paul?"

Anger glinting now, a show of teeth. "Because you never listen to me, Scottie. We always had to do things your way!"

"And then?"

Another smile. "In May, Scottie-poo, I went up to Washington, DC, for a reason. And when the IRS audit comes next week, I'll be on the other side. Scottie, they've agreed to let me ..."

He suddenly recoiled, taking another step back, jerking a revolver, some small .32 caliberish thing, from his pocket, pointing it at me. "Stay in your chair, Scott!" I stood up anyway, willing him to shoot, listening to the whine in my ears, feeling like I was ten feet tall. Hands and feet far away. Maybe I'm going to faint. There was a dull, hot flush, hotter than the summer morning air, forming all over my face, rippling down the middle of my back.

"Why'd you do this to me, Paul?"

He kept backing away as I walked forward, coming down the steps, following him towards the cars. He whispered, "Stay back, Scott. I'll kill you. I will."

"You already have, you malignant little prick."

He said, "You have to understand, Scott. I had to do it. Because of what you..."

I took another step forward, imagined myself rushing him, summer sunlight glassy and strange all around us. Maybe I'd get him first, maybe we'd grapple for the gun. Maybe one of us would die. Maybe both.

Paul looked away from me, a bizarre confused expression on his face, looking down on the ground at his feet, looking around at the shadows. Something about the shadows.

I looked beyond him, towards the horizon, towards the sky above the black ridge of trees. "Paulie." My voice sounded funny and far away. "Why is it so pink out here?"

Nothing.

I turned on one heel and looked eastward, towards the sun. There was an unfamiliar violet disk in the sky, surrounded by a nimbus of silver haze. Here and there, black prominences lifted, like an artist's impossible, frozen flame.

There was a soft retching sound.

When I looked, Paulie was on his hands and knees on the lovely brick sidewalk, puking, little pistol dropped in the grass, not far away.

In my death-dream, there was the sound of a toilet flushing. The splashy roar as the flapper valve opened. The whining song of the inlet valve, letting new water in as the float goes down. The turds leap up from the bottom of the bowl and start spinning round. The toilet paper sinks, sucked down into the darkness below.

Round and round and down we go.

Towards someplace.

Someplace long ago, in a universe far, far away.

Hmm. Would that be long ago, then, and, oh, so far away?

Or merely once upon a time?

Will I see malevolent indigo eyes open on darkness?

No. That's merely another story lost and gone forever. Mieses to pieces.

Out of the darkness, came a very polite, ever-so-slightly supercilious male voice: I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience, sir. If you'll just follow me, I'll get you where you belong and you can get on with your life.

Um. Amazing that a dead