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running his eyes across the landscape of titled spines. Some of them were beaten and battered, others shiny new.
    Thomas grimaced the way he always did when his book was mentioned. 'In the basement with the others.'
    Neil smiled. 'Been demoted, huh?'
    Thomas returned to the couch, eyed the full shots of whiskey Neil had poured, decided to take a swig of beer instead.
    'So what's up, Neil? How are things at Bethesda?'
    As much as he loved the guy, it irritated Thomas the way he always had to press him for the details of his life. It seemed part and parcel of a more sweeping inequity that haunted their relationship. Neil had always been elusive, but not in a secretive or suspicious way. It was more aristocratic, as if something in his bloodline exempted him from full disclosure.
    Neil turned from the shelves. His face looked pale and blank in the lights. 'Actually, there's nothing at Bethesda.'
    Thomas cocked his head, not quite sure whether to believe him. 'You quit? Neil, you should've—'
    'I didn't quit.'
    'You were fired?'
    'I never worked there, Goodbook.' He paused as though out of breath. 'Bethesda was, ah… Jesus, I don't know how to say it without sounding cheesy. Bethesda was, well… just a cover.'
    Thomas scowled. 'Now you're screwing with me.'
    Neil shook his head, laughing. He held out both hands, like a prophet or a politician or something. 'No. I'm serious. I've never even set foot in Bethesda.'
    'But then…'
    'What have I been doing?'
    Thomas stood blinking. 'Are you kidding me? All this time you've been lying about where you worked? Neil…'
    'It's not like that, Goodbook. It's not like that at all. Lying about Bethesda was part of my job.'
    'Part of your job?'
    'I was working for the Man. For the NSA. When they tell you to lie, you lie, no matter who it is, and God help you if you don't.'
    'The NSA?'
    More laughter. 'Unfuckingbelievable, huh? I was a spy, Goodbook. A fucking science spook! Reverse-engineering God's own technology!'
    Thomas laughed as well, but like someone bullied into doing so. It was strange the way the company of intimates could make lunacy seem almost normal. Or maybe not. They were the baseline, after all; what we all use to sort the mad from the sane.
    'I knew this would freak you out,' Neil continued. 'Which is why…' He scooped up the bottle of whiskey and banged it on the coffee table.
    Thomas flinched.

    What was it about lies that made them seem so pedestrian? Everyone lied all the time—Thomas knew the statistics, knew that men lied primarily to promote themselves, while women lied to spare others' feelings, and so on. But it was more than a matter of typical patterns or brute frequencies. There was something essential about lies, something that ranked them alarmingly low on the list of slights and injuries. A toolbox wasn't a toolbox unless it had a pair of pliers—something to twist or bend with.
    'But why did you do it?' Thomas had asked. 'Why join… them .'
    Neil had this peculiar way of smiling sometimes. 'Sly' was too small a word to describe it. Even 'conspiratorial' seemed to lack the requisite number of syllables.
    'For the love of my country,' he said. 'Gotta protect the Fatherland.'
    'Bullshit. You a patriot? Please.'
    'Hey, man,' Neil crowed, 'my high school is, like, way, way cooler than your high school.'
    Thomas refused to laugh. It was an old joke of theirs, referring to the way patriotism was simply 'school spirit' writ large, a mechanism used to generate solidarity, to enforce consensus and conformity, particularly during times of crisis or competing social interests.
    'So why did you do it?'
    Neil slouched back into the couch. 'For the freedom.'
    'Freedom?'
    'You have no idea, Goodbook. The resources. The lack of constraints.' He paused as though debating the wisdom of his next words. 'I now know more about the brain than any man alive.'
    'More bullshit.'
    'No. I do. I really do.'
    Thomas snorted. 'Prove it.'
    Neil had flashed that self-same