Nick stopped at the open door, shook his head and let a grin pull at the side of his mouth. He turned back, unwilling to let her get a leg up on him.

"That lead change still sucked," he said. The city editor just raised her hand and flicked at him with her extended fingers. The South Florida Daily News city room is a huge expanse of open space divided only by waist-high partitions. From above it must look like one of those rat mazes. Nick figured the idea of offices without walls was to elicit both a sense of personal space and open communication and camaraderie. Shared goals and all that. The designers probably didn't figure in the nascent e-mail culture. Now most of the gossip and innuendo and communication happened on the wires that ran through the ceiling and connected to every computer. Reporters never massed at the coffee machine or at one guy's desk to discuss strategy or to make fun of some management decision to create a "shopping mall reporter" position. Now everyone kept their heads down and whispered through the wire. Scorn to the guy who stood up and voiced an opinion out loud. The heads were particularly low as he left the city editor's office, a sure sign the others had heard his voice bombing the boss, some with embarrassment, a couple with pride and a few more hoping he'd get canned so they could apply for his crime beat. By the time he made it back to his pod, an assignment editor was already waiting for him.

"Nick, you probably ought to get over to the jail. They're saying a guard was shot by some inmates trying to break out."

"Yeah, I heard," he said, sitting down at his desk and picking up the phone. When the guy nodded and walked away, Nick waited until he was gone and then put the phone down. He pushed his chair back and pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to the photograph. His girls. The twins when they were still in elementary school, ribbons of different colors in their hair.