All around was the airy mess hall. The big windows high above on one wall were covered with steel mesh. Occasionally, a searchlight would rake across the translucent glass.

"Bring your security blanket," Remo whispered as he walked to the window wall.

Grautski hesitated. Ferngard didn't. Scooping up the blanket, he ran after Remo. Grautski followed reluctantly.

"Who are you, man?" Ferngard asked hoarsely.

"Just a friend of humanity," Remo answered softly. The underlying tone of menace was lost on both prisoners.

"You really mean what you say to hair-dryerpuss?" Ferngard asked. "You was in prison?"

As he spoke, he glanced up at the windows. They were far away. Layers of imposing mesh coated them. The glass interior was crisscrossed with even more threads of steel.

"A long time ago." Remo nodded grimly.

"You don't look like the jail type," the inmate said. "You seem pretty damn straitlaced."

"I was framed," Remo said. "The guy who's my boss now set me up. I was sentenced to die in the electric chair. It didn't work. But as a dead man-at least officially-I was able to go places and do things that a living person would have a hard time doing."

They were at the wall.

"You really got the chair?" Ferngard asked, amazed.

"I don't like the electric chair," Todd Grautski said, wandering up behind them.

"You don't like de 'lectric toaster," Ferngard snapped, peeved.

The Collablaster glanced from one man to the other. "The same technology produced them both," he argued weakly.

They ignored him.

"Sat, strapped, bagged and burned," Remo told Ferngard. He pressed his hands to the wall. It was cool to the touch.

"Wow. How many people you kill?" Ferngard asked.