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division. It’s been a total game changer for outliers like the Riverport lab.”
    “Ten years ago everybody lost their minds because someone opened a Wings Over Riverport. Now this.”
    “People do like chicken.”
    Jack had to admit: the new campus did a good job of killing nostalgia. It was beautiful, pristine, calm, and confident. It said: We’ve got it under control. Things are going to be okay.
    He thought about cops in Chiang Mai, rolling on Monarch tires, and Riverport cops working hand-in-glove with Monarch Security. Monarch Agricultural drones were using seed bombs to replant swathes of clear-cut Amazon, while Monarch Pharmaceuticals subsidized the espresso machines of hardworking unlicensed cab drivers.
    “Hey, funny thing: that guard said Will used to work here.”
    Paul smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah, about that. When did you last hear from your brother?”
    Here it comes. “A week ago. He said I needed to come back and talk sense into you, actually.”
    Paul stopped in his tracks. “That’s why you’re here? Not because I asked you to?”
    “I’m here because he sent me that e-mail and then you asked me to. What’s going on? The message you left was pretty…” What was the word? “Grandiose .”
    “Where’s Will now?”
    “He wanted me to go straight to the house, but I figured I’d get more sense out of you.”
    Paul chewed his lip for one thoughtful second, and then said: “It’s better that I show you. Fuck. ” Paul’s eyes were locked on something over Jack’s shoulder: the security guard had come back, was talking into his radio, looking in their direction and nodding. “C’mon, walk fast.”
    Walking away from a badge at 4:00 A.M . wasn’t something Jack questioned. He and Paul had started with egging houses on Halloween, graduated to breaking into junkyards to shoot zombie footage for high school film class, moved on to a short-lived flirtation with growing weed in his bedroom, and ended in that final scene with one of the state’s more serious killers. If Paul said turn away and fly casual, Jack didn’t overthink it.
    “You mind telling me what’s going on?” They reached the end of Founders’ Way, turned right, and then: “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
    Paul Serene’s twenty-foot-high face smiled down. The videoboard was attached to the façade of the old university lab, preserved within the vision-challenging lattice of the new Quantum Physics Building dome. The view pulled back from Paul’s mug, revealing him holding a roiling ball of light in one palm, before a benevolent sweeping gesture invited the viewer into what was presumably a brighter future. This was signified by the light ball enveloping the screen and MONARCH INNOVATIONS sparkling into view.
    “Before you say anything—”
    “Ain’t you pretty!”
    “Never mind.”
    “So benevolent. So constipated.”
    Paul fished out a transparent laminate and moved to a clear security door by the main entrance. “It wasn’t my idea. I just turned up for the shoot.”
    “What is it you do here again?”
    Paul swiped his card. Nothing happened. He swore softly, repositioned it, tried again. This time the card swipe was rewarded with one of the most satisfying clicks Jack had heard. The brushed-steel frame nudged open. Paul sighed with relief.
    “Project coordinator,” Paul replied. “They recruited me out of college. I make sure things get done, effectively, on time, and in a way that gets people excited.” He held the door open. “After you.” The interior of the glassed atrium was warm, containing three stories of extravagantly empty space. “The dome is a double layer of 3-D-printed textured polycarbonate and reinforced glass. The air layer provides insulation. Depending on the position of the sun, the shadows cast by the canopy’s asymmetrical architecture take on different aspects: striations, crazed glass, shapes significant to people who know more about math than I do.”
    “Neat