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the yard, sitting quietly, looking at flowers. Tapping with his bat, happy enough. He looked up, waved the bat at her, gave her that smile. Yesterday he’d been stuck in the house, all miserable. He’d ended the day screaming in bed, so frustrated. Today he was looking at flowers. Who was it that thought up that idea, the idea that had made today better than yesterday? Who loved him enough to think that up? Who loved him more than anyone else in the world loved him?
    Her.
    She did.

ESCAPE FROM SPIDERHEAD
    I
    “Drip on?” Abnesti said over the P.A.
    “What’s in it?” I said.
    “Hilarious,” he said.
    “Acknowledge,” I said.
    Abnesti used his remote. My MobiPak™ whirred. Soon the Interior Garden looked really nice. Everything seemed super-clear.
    I said out loud, as I was supposed to, what I was feeling.
    “Garden looks nice,” I said. “Super-clear.”
    Abnesti said, “Jeff, how about we pep up those language centers?”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “Drip on?” he said.
    “Acknowledge,” I said.
    He added some Verbaluce™ to the drip, and soon I was feeling the same things but saying them better. The garden still looked nice. It was like the bushes were so tight-seeming and the sun made everything stand out? It was like any moment you expected some Victorians to wander in with their cups of tea. It was as if the garden had become a sort of embodiment of the domestic dreams forever intrinsic to human consciousness. It was as if I could suddenly discern, in this contemporary vignette, the ancient corollary through which Plato and some of his contemporaries might have strolled; to wit, I was sensing the eternal in the ephemeral.
    I sat, pleasantly engaged in these thoughts, until the Verbaluce™ began to wane. At which point the garden just looked nice again. It was something about the bushes and whatnot? It made you just want to lay out there and catch rays and think your happy thoughts. If you get what I mean.
    Then whatever else was in the drip wore off, and I didn’t feel much about the garden one way or the other. My mouth was dry, though, and my gut had that post-Verbaluce™ feel to it.
    “What’s going to be cool about that one?” Abnesti said. “Is, say a guy has to stay up late guarding a perimeter. Or is at school waiting for his kid and gets bored. But there’s some nature nearby? Or say a park ranger has to work a double shift?”
    “That will be cool,” I said.
    “That’s ED763,” he said. “We’re thinking of calling it NatuGlide. Or maybe ErthAdmire.”
    “Those are both good,” I said.
    “Thanks for your help, Jeff,” he said.
    Which was what he always said.
    “Only a million years to go,” I said.
    Which was what I always said.
    Then he said, “Exit the Interior Garden now, Jeff, head over to Small Workroom 2.”
    II
    Into Small Workroom 2 they sent this pale tall girl.
    “What do you think?” Abnesti said over the P.A.
    “Me?” I said. “Or her?”
    “Both,” Abnesti said.
    “Pretty good,” I said.
    “Fine, you know,” she said. “Normal.”
    Abnesti asked us to rate each other more quantifiably, as per pretty, as per sexy.
    It appeared we liked each other about average, i.e., no big attraction or revulsion either way.
    Abnesti said, “Jeff, drip on?”
    “Acknowledge,” I said.
    “Heather, drip on?” he said.
    “Acknowledge,” Heather said.
    Then we looked at each other like, What happens next?
    What happened next was, Heather soon looked super-good. And I could tell she thought the same of me. It came on so sudden we were like laughing. How could we not have seen it, how cute the other one was? Luckily there was a couch in the Workroom. It felt like our drip had, in addition to whatever they were testing, some ED556 in it, which lowers your shame level to like nil. Because soon, there on the couch, off we went. It was super-hot between us. And not merely in a horndog way. Hot, yes, but also just right. Like if you’d dreamed of a certain girl all your