'I'm deep in, now, Laney says, and coughs.

'Deep in what?

'They didn't follow you, did they?

'I don't think so.

'I could tell if they had.

Yamazaki feels sweat run suddenly from both his armpits, coursing down across his ribs. He forces himself to breathe. The air here is foul, thick. He thinks of the seventeen known strains of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis

Laney draws a ragged breath. 'But they aren't looking for me, are they?

'No, Yamazaki says, 'they are looking for her.

'They won't find her, Laney says. 'Not here. Not anywhere. Not now.

'Why did you run away, Laney?

'The syndrome, Laney says and coughs again, and Yamazaki feels the smooth, deep shudder of an incoming maglev, somewhere deeper in the station, not mechanical vibration but a vast pistoning of displaced air. 'It finally kicked in. The 5-SB. The stalker effect. Yamazaki hears feet hurrying by, perhaps an arm's length away, behind the cardboard wall.

'It makes you cough? Yamazaki blinks, making his new contact lenses swim uncomfortably.

'No, Laney says and coughs into his pale and upraised hand. 'Some bug. They all have it, down here.

'I was worried when you vanished. They began to look for you, but when she was gone-

'The shit really hit the fan.

'Shit?

Laney reaches up and removes the bulky, old-fashioned eyephones. Yamazaki cannot see what outputs to them, but the shifting light from the display reveals Laney's hollowed eyes. 'It's all going to change, Yamazaki. We're coming up on the mother of all nodal points. I can see it, now. It's all going to change.

'I don't understand.

'Know what the joke is? It didn't change when they thought it would. Millennium was a Christian holiday. I've been looking at history, Yamazaki. I can see the nodal points in history. Last time we had one like this was 1911.