By the light of the moon

motel, subsequent to which you purchase a
bagged dinner of such high caloric content that it will knock you
into sleep as effectively as an overdose of Nembutal, because all
you want is to spend a quiet evening putting your brain cells at
risk watching the usual idiotic TV programs in the company of your
puzzle-working brother, and then spend a restful night disturbed by
as little cheeseburger-induced flatulence as possible, but the
modern world has fallen apart to such an extent that you wind up
taped to a chair, gagged, injected with God knows what hideous
disease, targeted by unknown assassins... And yet your friends
wonder why you're becoming a young curmudgeon.
    From behind Dylan, as though he were as telepathic as he was
crazy, Doc said, 'You're not infected. Not in the sense you think.
No bacteria, no virus. What I've given to you... it can't be passed
along to other people. Son, I assure you, if I weren't such a
coward, I'd inject myself.'
    That qualified assurance didn't improve Dylan's mood.
    'I'm ashamed to say cowardice is another of my character flaws.
I'm a genius, certainly, but I'm not a fit role model for
anyone.'
    The man's self-justification through self-deprecation had lost
what little fizz it might at first have possessed.
    'As I explained, the stuff produces a different effect in each
subject. If it doesn't obliterate your personality or totally
disrupt your capacity for linear thinking, or reduce your IQ by
sixty points, there's a chance it'll do something to greatly
enhance your life.'
    On further consideration, this guy didn't have the bedside
manner of Dr. Frankenstein. He had the bedside manner of Dr. Satan .
    'If it enhances your life, then I'll have paid some reparations
for what I've done. Hell's got a bed waiting for me, sure enough,
but a successful result here would compensate at least a little for
the worst crimes I've committed.'
    On the motel-room door, the security chain rattled and the
dead-bolt lock scraped steel against steel as Doc disengaged
them.
    'My life's work depends on you. It now is you. So stay
alive if you can.'
    The door opened. The door closed.
    With less violence than on arrival, the maniac had departed.
    At the desk, Shep no longer waved. He worked the jigsaw puzzle
with both hands. Like a blind man before a Braille book, he seemed
to read each piece of pasteboard with his sensitive fingertips,
never glancing at any scrap of the picture for longer than a second
or two, occasionally not even bothering to use his eyes, and with
uncanny speed, he either placed each fragment of the image in the
rapidly infilling mosaic or discarded it as not yet being of
use.
    Foolishly hoping that recognition of the desperate danger would
transmit by some miraculous psychic bond between brothers, Dylan
tried to shout 'Shepherd.' The soggy gag filtered the cry, soaked
up most of the sound, and let through only a stifled bleat that
didn't resemble his brother's name. Nevertheless, he shouted again,
and a third time, a fourth, a fifth, counting on repetition to gain
the kid's attention.
    When Shep was in a communicative mood – which was less
often than the frequency of sunrise but not as rare as the periodic
visitation of Halley's comet – he could be so hyperverbal
that you felt as if you were being hosed down with words, and just
listening to him could be exhausting. More reliably, Shep would
pass most of any day without seeming to be aware of Dylan. Like
today. Like here and now. In a puzzle-working passion, all but
oblivious of the motel room, living instead in the shadow of the
Shinto temple half formed on the desk before him, breathing the
freshness of the blossoming cherry trees under a cornflower-blue
Japanese sky, he was half a world removed in just ten feet, too far
away to hear his brother or to see Dylan's red-faced frustration,
his clenched neck muscles, his throbbing temples, his beseeching
eyes.
    They were here together, but each alone.
    The pocketknife waited, point buried in the arm of the chair,
posing as formidable a challenge as the magic sword Excalibur
locked in its sheath of stone. Unfortunately, King Arthur was not
likely to be resurrected and dispatched to Arizona to assist Dylan
with this extraction.
    Unknown stuff currently circulated through his body, and
at any moment sixty points might drop off his IQ, and faceless
killers were coming.
    His travel clock was digital and therefore silent, but he could
hear ticking nonetheless. A treacherous clock, from