“Well?”

“Have a seat. No, not there. This chair is much more comfortable.” Chris indicated a chair underneath a window that currently streamed bright sunlight into the room. A quick look outside and Kevin estimated that they were about a story up in the air. The faintest sounds of human activity came from outside. Kevin didn’t bother to look. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to see what was there, actually.

“Comfortable?”

“Not really. My stitches hurt.”

Chris nodded, looked thoughtful and then asked, “I can do something about that.”

“Maybe later. What I really want is to beat you to a bloody pulp. I’ll accept a lucid explanation of what’s been going on in lieu of that. Maybe.”

“I quite understand. The explanation is long but I can give you a quick version, to be amplified, if you like.”

“Reader’s Digest version, if you please.”

“You’ve been tested and are being offered a job.”

“I decline.”

“I expected as much.”

Kevin regarded the other suspiciously, and wondered just when the song and dance would end.

Marlow nodded as if he’d heard Kevin’s thoughts and snapped his fingers. Abruptly, the sounds disappeared and the light from the window dimmed. “We can’t be seen or overheard, now.” Marlow sat back and looked a tiny bit more relaxed.

“Kevin. I work for a couple of different, ah, associations, I think would be the best term for now. I also work for myself. It’s all very complicated. The long and the short of it is that in one of my official capacities, I had to test you to see if you were a suitable candidate to join the organization. In a second capacity, I had to try and make sure that some sensitive information didn’t fall into the wrong hands. My own purposes were not quite in alignment with either of those two objectives.”

Kevin frowned. This was every bit as confusing as Marlow had stated. But there was a quality to it that felt genuine to him and he had no explanation why.

“All of it has to do what you would call magic.”

“Right. I’m not a complete idiot. I’ve guessed that was the case, since none of what’s happened in the past eight hours has made any sense from any science standpoint that I know.”

“Allow me to disagree. It makes complete sense to you on the level that it’s reality. You know it’s real, now. You just don’t understand the laws involved.”

“Well, yes, of…”

“…course, nothing. That ability to adjust to a larger reality is what marks you as special, to all three of my official capacities.”

He let that sit in silence for a few moments while Kevin digested it. After a moment, “Recruiter?”

“Aye. Capacity one. As I warned you, yesterday.”

“Kind of an ambiguous warning.”

“True, but the best I could give you at the time.”

“Information collection?”