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donned shades, depending on the rain or sun that ConSEnt decreed.
    Nero guessed that ConSEnt had Napoleonic ambitions–and could fulfill them.  There was a joke that ConSEnt was the sole reliable source of census data, even if it didn’t collect survey forms.  The Enterprises built, owned, and operated all teledevices in use.  They also traced anybody moving through their equipment;  so, in a way, they could know where everybody was at all times.
    ConSEnt was above the law when Nero had left for Doka.  ConSEnt alone decided who would have access to the frame, or who'd be barred from society.  Yet, ConSEnt had never been in Nero's way.
    After tonight, he would choose a side.  Perhaps.
    Establish what is right and wrong, and do what is right, Margo preached.  Easier said than done.  Performance, I'm good at;  right and wrong...  I was right, because what I wanted was right by fiat.  Now it's different.  I don't know–I don't!
    Nero paused;  he felt a knot forming in his throat.
    Margo would have known.  My wife would have if she were alive, if I had not killed her, if I had not killed my children.   He took a sip of licorice.  Swallowing it was painful.
    A large window opened onto the now-dark landscape outside his trailer.  The edges of walkways shone with the eerie luminescence of gloweed, which was dim, but sufficient to mark the way.  Kebe had given him a worthy question to answer, and maybe an excuse to see her again, too.  Tomorrow he would make a decision.  Yes, tomorrow.
    *
    That night he had a dream.  Margo came and brought a book.  She read to him from it, but Nero could not remember what she told him.  The book had a golden cover, and he knew it was about love.  He had read part of the book;  but Margo was reading from pages Nero never touched.  Margo's words were soothing.  Every word was good.  Then she had to go, kissed him on the forehead and hugged him before leaving. 
    When she left Nero woke up and wept.  Margo knew about right and wrong.  In his dreams, she was never angry for what happened.  She never accused him.  She never blamed him.  That didn't stop Nero from blaming himself with endless anger:  forgiveness was impossible.  He made the rules, and he had broken them.  He broke them because of love, he thought.  No, that was not love.  If he had loved Margo and the children, he would have done better.  He would not have broken the rules–his rules.  His own rules would have saved them.
    He needed to punish himself for breaking his rules.
    But he would not have broken his own rules, had he not loved them.  He loved them, and because of this he had to break his rules.  His rules were an obstacle.  The rules stood between him and his family.  He had to break them to be with his family.
    The rules were good, they had stood through trying circumstances.  His rules were right.  But he had broken them, and now he had to pay the price.  He had broken them, and that was bad.  He had broken them for love, and Margo said that was good.
    Torment, Nero thought, was here once more.  Welcome back, robber of my peace.  You have forsaken me for another day, and now return for the night.  Ah, how I can rely on your presence.
    Margo loved him.  He loved Margo and the children more than himself, and more than his rules.  That was right and good.  Yet, it was not.  If he had loved them, he'd have lived by the rules, and they'd have lived.  His love was imperfect and without harmony.
    Margo knew more about love than he would ever have known, and she taught him, line upon line, by grace, forgiveness.  His painful tears flowed slowly.  Tears rolled down his face, dripped onto his chest.  Emptiness!  His heart was hollow, his existence was hollow, like a dead tree still on its roots, like the memory of life.
    Nero needed real life.  He needed to find out about the other pages in Margo's book.  He wasn't going to while baby-sitting solitude;  he had not succeeded