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movie with the volume turned up and the tracking slowed down. I was getting used to such sounds—and no, that doesn’t mean I’d started watching explicit movies on slow advance.
    With barely veiled disgust, Paula said, “You people are so weak and pathetic, Travis.”
    I didn’t say, ‘How do you know they’re Names and not Numbers?’ because we both knew that Numbers don’t get themselves into these sort of situations. The best I could manage was, “And you people are so likeable and compassionate.”
    There was no let-up in the ecstatic moaning as we made our way along the corridor. If we hadn’t been called, it would have gone on for days, if not weeks. We couldn’t stop it, just ensure it continued in a sound-proof room in Community General. I was mortally embarrassed, not only because of the intimate nature of the moans but because they voiced so much more than desire. They proclaimed loud and clear the sort of pathetic weakness which Numbers never miss an opportunity to denigrate us for, and which we spend our lives trying to deny to ourselves and to them. That is, when we don’t give ourselves over to it completely, like the couple we were about to walk in on. As the moaning grew even more abandoned, I resorted to a lame attempt at humor to cover my shame: “I bet you’re just jealous because you’re not getting—”
    â€œTravis, don’t go there.”
    Time for another in my series of pathetic confessions: I love it when Perfect Paula tells me off.
    We paused at the apartment door, listening in horrified fascination to the sounds from within. There were seemingly endless groans and moans of ecstasy, and other sounds that might have been words but were so drawn out you couldn’t even tell what the language was. I’m guessing there was a ‘No’ and a ‘Yes’ and a man and a woman, but I’d no idea who was saying what.
    I looked at Paula as she listened to those sounds, and thought I glimpsed more than disapproval and disgust in her upswept eyes. I’ve started thinking I glimpse a whole lot of things in her eyes. I don’t know how many of those things are actually there, all I know is that I like to think they are.
    Paula caught me looking at her, and for once she couldn’t meet my gaze. For a few moments I forgot all about the moaning from the other side of the door marked 826.
    But only for a few moments. It was far too loud to forget for any longer than that.
    I drew my knockdown—an air-pistol that fires gel-filled sacks. They’ll stop the strongest man in his tracks without doing lasting damage to anything except his coverall; they leave a fluorescent dye-stain no amount of washing will remove. I wouldn’t need the knockdown if the only people in the apartment were the ones I could hear, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from fifteen years in this job it’s to expect the unexpected. Plus, let’s be honest, I like playing with my knockdown.
    Paula rapped on the door and said, “LogiPol! Open up!”
    The moaning carried on regardless. Even if the two people on the other side of the door had heard Paula, they wouldn’t be able to react. Not for about a year, if they’d taken what I thought they had.
    I reached for the door, threw it open, and stormed inside, waving my knockdown about like I’d seen actors do in the Olden Days detective shows I like so much. I was William Shatner’s T.J. Hooker to Paula’s Heather Locklear; I was Jimmy Smits’ Bobby Simone to her Detective Russell. If I looked anything like as impressive as I felt, Perfect Paula had to be impressed. I pointed my knockdown at each corner of the room in turn, holding the last pose long enough to let Paula get a good look at me being heroic.
    â€œTravis, put your knockdown away,” she said.
    She’s good at hiding it when she’s impressed.
    Reluctantly, I