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taking place in early December, deep in the cold months of uncertainty. On September 17 the asteroid went into conjunction, got too close to the Sun to be observed, too close for new readings to be taken. So the odds, which had been inching steadily upward since April—three percent chance of impact, ten percent chance, fifteen—were stalled, late fall and early winter, at fifty-three percent. The world economy went from bad to worse, muchworse. On October 12 the president saw fit to sign the first round of IPSS legislation, authorizing an influx of federal money to state and local law-enforcement agencies. In Concord, this meant all these young kids, younger than me, some recent high-school dropouts, all of them rushed through a sort of quasi-police-academy boot camp. Privately, McConnell and I call them the Brush Cuts, because they all seemed to have that same haircut, the same baby faces and cold eyes and swagger.
    The thing with Mr. Shepherd was not, in truth, my first run-in with my new colleagues.
    The chief clears his throat, and Paul leans back, happy to let him take over. “Son, listen. There is not a person in this building who does not want you here. We were proud to welcome you to the patrol division, and were it not for the present unusual circumstances—”
    “Sir, I was first in my class at the academy,” I say, aware that I am talking loudly and that I have interrupted Chief Ordler, but I can’t stop, I keep going. “I have a perfect attendance record, zero violations, zero citizen complaints pre- and post-Maia.”
    “Henry,” says the chief gently.
    “I am trusted implicitly, I believe, by Watch Command.”
    “Young man,” says Lieutenant Paul sharply, and holds up her hand. “I think you misunderstand the situation.”
    “Ma’am?”
    “You’re not being fired, Palace. You’re being promoted.”
    Chief Ordler steps forward into a slant of sunlight from the small window. “We think that, given the circumstances and your particular talents, you’d be better off in a seat upstairs.”
    I gape at him. I scramble for and then recover the power ofspeech. “But department regulation says that an officer must put in two years and six months on patrol before becoming eligible for service in the detective unit.”
    “We’re going to waive that requirement,” Paul explains, folding up the incident report and dropping it in the trash. “I think we’ll also not bother with reclassifying your 401(k), just for the time being.”
    This is a joke, but I don’t laugh; it’s all I can do to stay upright. I’m trying to get oriented, trying to form words, thinking
new times
and thinking
a seat upstairs
and thinking
this is not how it happens, in the dream
.
    “Okay, Henry,” says Chief Ordler mildly. “That’s the end of the meeting.”
    * * *
    I learn later on that it’s Detective Harvey Telson whose spot I’m filling, Telson having taken an early retirement, gone “Bucket List” like many others were doing by this point, by December, heading off to do the things they’ve always wanted to do: speed around in race cars, experiment with long-suppressed romantic or sexual inclinations, track down the old bully and punch him in the face. Detective Telson, as it turns out, always wanted to race yachts. America’s Cup kind of stuff. A lucky break for me.
    Twenty-six days after the meeting in her office, two days after the asteroid emerged from conjunction with the Sun, Lieutenant Paul quit the force and moved to Las Vegas to be with her grown children.
    I don’t have the dream anymore, the one where Ordler lays my hand on the Bible and makes me a detective. There’s another dream that I’ve been having a lot instead.
    * * *
    Like Dotseth says, the cellular phones are getting dicey. You dial, you wait, sometimes you get through and sometimes not. A lot of people are convinced that Maia is bending Earth’s gravitational field, our magnets or ions, or something, but of course the asteroid,