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own hearts. If it is deemed appropriate that they be adopted, they are ceremonially incorporated into the nation—”
    “It would be great if you would use shorter sentences,” Meg said.
    Leo rolled his eyes and carried on. “At which point he interrupted me too, and said he didn’t care about the particulars; was there some sort of computer database recording what happened to white babies stolen by—and I am using his words here—bloodthirsty savages like myself? I just started laughing because what else was I supposed to do?”
    “Scalp him and eat his liver on a pyramid, I guess,” Nick said, swishing his hands through the warm water.
    “Well, yes. I should have thought of that of course. And he does have a great head of hair, but who would want to touch it?”
    Nick smiled, and so did Leo, but Nick knew they were both pretending to make light of Mr. Mibbs. Just the thought of touching that man gave Nick the creeps, like hearing a door close in an empty house.
    “So I laughed,” Leo said, “and I asked him which part of the past he was from. He said it was an official question: Was there such a database? I said he could take his official question and stuff it up his ass. He said that if I didn’t answer his question I would be sorry.”
    “You think he was Guild brass or something?” Meg’s voice was high with excitement.
    “Yes,” Leo said. “I think he was.”
    “What happened then? He said he’d make you sorry, and then what?”
    “Then he . . . well, he looked at me,” Leo said. “He’d avoided looking at me up until that point, and then suddenly he just lifted his head and stared. You must have felt it, Nick. That thing he did with his eyes. When he looked at you. That feeling, that desolation.”
    “Felt what?” Meg asked.
    Nick recalled the emotion that had flooded him when that gaze had been turned on him. “Despair,” he said.
    “Yes. It was like he was pushing into my head. Pushing out my emotions and replacing them with his.”
    “Mind control,” Meg said. “The Guild uses mind control.”
    “Surely not,” Nick said. “It’s easy enough to read people’s emotions when they look at you. He was just a weird, unhappy man with a disturbing imagination. He wasn’t a Guild official. Think about all the Guild officials we know here at the compound. Think about the Alderwoman, Alice Gacoki. She’s nice and normal. This guy wasn’t representing Guild policy. They would have called you in to the parliament buildings if they wanted to know something about . . .” He tried to remember the tribes Leo had mentioned, and couldn’t. “Your culture.”
    Leo sucked in his cheeks.
    “But that’s not the point,” Nick said. “The point is that that guy was just weird. Weird people must jump, too.”
    “You are a happy camper, aren’t you, Nick?” Meg held the tiny paper umbrella from her drink over her head, and imitated Nick’s accent. “Is it raining fire and brimstone? Goodness gracious, I hadn’t noticed!”
    “If I’m a happy camper, you’re a conspiracy theorist,” Nick muttered.
    Meg shrugged. “Mind control doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Everything about the Guild is too comfortable, too nice. Like the fact that there actually aren’t any weirdos here, and as you say, weirdos must jump. So where are they?” Meg sucked the last of the Sex on the Beach from her glass with an obnoxious slurp. “Something’s wrong. There has to be a catch.”
    “She’s right.” Leo twirled his panda so he was facing Nick. “The Guild is too perfect, and that guy was way too creepy for your average asocial modern guy. I could feel it. There was something very wrong about him, and about what he was asking.”
    “Feelings!” Nick scowled. “Can we stop talking about feelings? God!”
    “Have it your way.” Leo sounded tired. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
    “I think you—both of you—are jumping to conclusions. The Guild has been perfectly open, and more than