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Flop. Failure. Fool. Moron, idiot, ninny-hammer, dumb-bunny.
    But all that was behind him. Now he was going to make his mother proud of him.
    Erika wasn’t his biological mother. Former tumors didn’t have real moms. She adopted him unofficially.
    They didn’t take mother-child trips to the park. Or go into town for an ice-cream soda. On the rare occasions when people saw Jocko, they wanted right away to beat him with sticks. Sticks, umbrellas, canes, buckets, anything handy. So far, Jocko didn’t seem to be one of those monsters that most people feared but also liked. For his safety, Jocko was limited to this house and the forty acres that came with it.
    Erika Five, who lived now as Erika Swedenborg, was the fifth of five identical wives that Victor had grown in his creation tanks in New Orleans. The first four displeased him. They were terminated. Victor didn’t believe in divorce. Erika Five also displeased him. But she escaped on the night that Victor’s evil empire in Louisiana collapsed. Took a bunch of his money, too. She was the only member of his New Race to survive that catastrophe.
    Suddenly Jocko peeled the final DMV passcode out of its security skin as easily as stripping a banana, and he was
in
.
    “Banzai!”
he cried.
    He entered the truck’s license-plate number. Requested the owner’s ID. The information appeared on the screen.
    “Huzza! Hoorah! Hooray!”
    The truck was owned by a nonprofit corporation, Progress for Perfect Peace. That sounded nice. Warm and cuddly. Progress was a good thing. Perfect peacewas a good thing. Even a monster with lemon-yellow eyes and virtually no proper moral upbringing could see what good things they were.
    Progress for Perfect Peace had an address. In Rainbow Falls. Jocko printed it.
    After he backed out of the DMV, he looked for a Progress for Perfect Peace website. Wasn’t one. That seemed peculiar. Suspicious. A charity ought to have a website. Everyone had a website.
    Even Jocko had a website: www.jockothinksaboutlife.com. When he had an important insight about life, he posted it there. Maybe his thoughts could help other people. Just a few days ago he had posted:
All muffins are tasty, but some are tastier than others—which isn’t an insult to the lesser muffins, it’s just the way life is. I like mine with jelly
.
    Jocko checked public records for Montana corporations. No need to hack them. Progress for Perfect Peace, Inc., had an address. It matched the one from the DMV.
    The CEO was Victor Leben. The name was no coincidence. Victor Frankenstein. Then Victor Helios. Now Victor Leben.
Victor
.
    “Holy moly!”
    On the screen, the
o
in
Victor
seemed to be an eye. Watching Jocko. Victor would know Jocko found him. Victor knew everything.
    Jocko was wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of Buster Steelhammer, the greatest star in the history of World Wrestling Entertainment. The shirt usually made him feel brave. Not now.
    The
o
in
Victor
. Watching. Impossible. But Victor could do anything. Victor was omniscient.
    Bad. Very bad. Terrible.
Catastrophe!
Jocko suddenly became supercharged with negative energy. Nerves wound tight. Heart swelling with fear. Work it off, work it off.
Dance! Dance!
Jocko sprang to his feet on the chair. He danced desperately. The chair spun. Victor watched through the
o
in his name, somehow, some way, watched.
    Dancing, spinning, watched by Victor, Jocko was as good as dead. Jocko was a dead monster dancing.

chapter 7
    Behind the wheel of his Land Rover, Dagget followed a serpentine course through Rainbow Falls, hoping his lawman’s intuition inspired the many turns he made. He suspected that he was probably guided by nothing more than whim.
    In the passenger seat, Frost studied his laptop. On the screen, a blinking red dot on a partial map of the town revealed the current location of the patrol car driven by Rafael Jarmillo, the chief of police. The day before, they had secretly affixed a transponder to Jarmillo’s vehicle, and