In the first few months of her life, Angela Ingram was a perfectly normal baby, as far as Finch could tell. She was perhaps more good-natured than most. She did not complain when she was passed endlessly between the adults in her world. Will and Julie were protective parents, naturally, but within the safety of their Oasis compound, they didn't hesitate to pass the weeks-old baby off to anyone with clean hands.

Taylor Carter had limited experience with very small babies, and he was tentative at first. But once he got the hang of holding her, he was the most animated with her, doing voices and even unabashedly singing to her. Donna Kellingsworth, who had come to CEREI with Sam Campanella, was an experienced grandmother of three and taught them all a method of burping little Angela that avoided her spitting up. She held the little girl often, and spoke to her quietly and lovingly. John came by the office far more often than usual, and Angela seemed to like the rumbling of his chest when he spoke. Even Carter and Fusco stopped by more, on the excuse of picking up Taylor or getting free coffee.

Harold had to admit that he, too, spent more time than usual in the CEREI offices when he got the chance. The Numbers had been quiet in the run-up to Christmas, then spiked before the new year. But into January things quieted down again, and as Julie spent more time in the office, Harold got more chances to hold the baby. Like Taylor, he was a bit tentative with such a tiny girl. But she grew rapidly more interactive and less floppy, and she seemed to like him.

Christine held the baby every chance she got. She could code or text or make coffee with one hand and hold Angela with the other. She ran a conference call with four ambassadors while bouncing the infant gently on her knee. She read e-mails and reports aloud to her. She had always been good at multi-tasking, Harold reflected, and he wasn't surprised she handled the baby in stride. And naturally, as Angela's preferences began to develop, Christine became her favorite aunt.

That development made Harold deeply happy.

Still, Angela was Will and Julie's baby, and they were the ones she kept up at night.

So Harold was only mildly surprised when he answered a knock on the door one evening in early February and found Julie looking exhausted and bedraggled, with Angela in her arms and a wet burp cloth over her shoulder. "Will's been gone all afternoon," she said without preamble.

"I know. He's with Christine." His wife and his nephew had been meeting with developers and inventors since noon. They were supposed to be done by five, but Christine had called and said they'd be late.

"I don't mean to bother you …"

He reached and took Angela from her. "You're no bother."

" … I just really need a shower."

"Of course."

"She just nursed, and then she spit up all over me … I was hoping she'd go to sleep, but she's wide awake. I just need like fifteen minutes …"

"Nonsense," Finch said firmly. "You will go and take a long hot shower. You will have a hot meal. And then you will have a nap. When Miss Angela tells me that she's hungry I'll bring her back to you. Until then, I will finally take this opportunity to introduce her to the library."

"I just …"

"Go on," he said kindly. "I am very glad to spend some time with her."

Julie looked like she wanted to argue. But she also wanted a shower. "You're a prince."

Harold smiled and watched her leave. Then, quite happily, he carried the baby back to the library. "A library is where the books live," he told her. "And you are allowed to read any of them that you want. Well, we'll keep the first editions locked up until you're old enough to not chew them, but other than that, any book you want, any time. And I'll have recommendations for you, if you like."

He gathered her closer and kissed her forehead. She smelled like a baby, clean and warm. Her eyes focused on his face, perhaps on his glasses. She was lovely.

"Oh, Nathan," Harold whispered, "you have a beautiful little granddaughter. I wish you were here to meet her." But the ache was not quite as sharp as it had been when she was first born.

He went to the cradle and selected a colorful book. "I think this will do for starters, don't you?"

He didn't think he'd fallen asleep, but Harold woke with a start when he heard the door by the elevator open. He looked down quickly. Baby Angela was still contentedly asleep in his arms.

Christine called, "I'm home, love. Finally."

"In the library," he answered.

"Be right there."

He heard her move past the doorway and into the bedroom. He knew her routine now; she would shed her 'work' clothes and put on either sweats or a nightgown, possibly take out her contacts, depending on the day's combination of screen time and air pollution, and then join him. He closed his eyes again and waited.

A few minutes later, he heard her footsteps and opened his eyes.

Christine had stopped in the doorway. For one instant the expression on her face was pure want, so raw and sharp that Harold flinched. The next instant it was gone. Like curtains drawn over a window, she was her public self again, smiling gently at him and the child.

If he hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have known there was anything behind her mild smile. Almost, Harold thought he had imagined it. Almost.

But he had a strong sense of déjà vu, and a lingering sensation of terror.

He was utterly bewildered. It made no sense. Why terror?

"I didn't realize we had company," Christine said quietly, entirely normally.

"She spit up on her mother," Harold explained. "I told Julie I'd keep her until she was hungry again. Which will probably be soon. Would you like a turn?"

She shook her head, but moved to sit beside them. "No, my hands are still cold."

She had put on a nightgown, but also her robe and a pair of sweat socks. Close up, he could see the red that lingered in her cheeks. "Is it snowing?" His alarm faded. Maybe he had imagined it, or simply caught her in an odd light, or …

"No, but the wind's kicked up something fierce."

"How'd the presentations go?"

"Brilliant." She curled her feet up under her on the couch. "It's good that we have a board of directors. There are so many of these people with such good ideas, Will would just hand out bags of money and tell them to go be brilliant."

"Only Will?" Harold teased gently.

Christine shrugged her agreement. "There were a couple I would have just given a check to. They're so smart, and they're so passionate – and you get them in a room and suddenly this water guy is working with this solar guy and this recycling woman. Will and I don't really do anything but listen, but the more they talk the more they feed into each other. It's amazing."

"Sometimes just having a person you admire show an interest and give a bit of encouragement can change a life."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Missing Nathan, are you?"

Harold looked at the sleeping baby in his arms. "He would have been so delighted with her. Someone to spoil. A second chance to get it right."

"You'll clearly need to take over the spoiling role for him."

"Clearly. But he would have brought her ponies by now. I've just bought her books." He gestured to the stack of picture books on the table beside him.

"Right now all she needs is books. And nappies. And love."

"I suppose." The little girl did seem quite content.

Christine uncoiled and stood up. "I'll put the kettle on."

Harold watched her as she walked out. She was fine. Everything was fine. Whatever he'd seen – or thought he'd seen – in her eyes, it was nothing. Yet his unease lingered.

He could just ask her about it, he mused.

His instinct immediately shied away from that idea. Whatever he'd seen, it was too primal, too bare, to pursue. She had hidden it so quickly, so completely, that he knew she wouldn't admit to it.

And maybe it had been nothing.

Harold was relieved, honestly, when Angela stirred in his arms and opened her eyes.

It had a distinct smell, of burnt cheese and dough gone bad and sweat. The fluorescent lights were dingy and the one on the right flickered incessantly. The linoleum floor was cracked and yellow with age and grime.

Christine was screaming obscenities at Nathan.

"No, stop," Harold said. "Stop." But his voice made no sound, and she kept screaming.

It hurt to look at Nathan. He was so alive. His hair was a little rumpled, his cheeks a bit too bright. He was two or three drinks into his evening. But his eyes were intelligent, watching. A bit repelled by the screaming girl. Confused and concerned, but he looked to Harold for guidance, ready to follow his play. Trusting that his partner had the situation under control.

It hurt to look at him.

Oh, Nathan. If you only knew how I am going to fail you …

But if he stopped looking at Nathan, Harold would have to look at Christine. No, at DaisyB. She would be skeletal and sick and dirty. She would be desperate, willing to do or say anything that would get her drugs –

His phone buzzed, and Harold woke with a deep relieved breath.

Christine – whole, healthy, clean, and mostly asleep – murmured as he groped for the phone. There was no message on the screen, and it did not buzz again. "Go back to sleep," he said quietly. "I'll call you when I can."

"Be safe," she murmured. "I love you."

"I love you." He leaned to kiss her cheek, then slipped out of bed.

He dressed quickly. The dream clung to his mind and he felt vaguely sick. He had not thought about the pizza shop in years. Nathan alive; Christine strung out of heroin, nearly dead. Raging. Frantic. Wanting nothing but her fix, furious with that want …

Finch hurried downstairs and out onto the street. The cold pre-dawn air slapped him, knocking away the lingering ghosts of the dream. He took a long cold breath.

"Ohhhhh," he said to himself. The look he had caught the night before, that bare moment the library. The desperate want on Christine's face. He hadn't remembered. The same look as she'd had in the pizza shop, all those years ago.

But this time she wasn't strung out, and he wasn't withholding her heroin. So what …

"Oh."

He stopped dead. "Oh."

The pay phone rang jangling loudly in the early morning semi-quiet of the street. Finch took a deep breath, then picked it up. He glared up at the nearest traffic camera as he listed to the mechanical voice. But he was, in truth, relieved. Having a new Number gave him time to think.

He memorized the code words the Machine gave him.

It's impossible, he thought as he walked toward the nearest street where he was likely to find a cab.

And of course Christine knew that.

His heart ached suddenly, sharply. It was impossible. Of course. But it hurt that she wanted it so badly and he hadn't even been aware.

Harold had luxuriated in his new married life. Though he had tried valiantly not to compare Christine to Grace Henricks, this much was undeniable: his life was far, far easier when he didn't have to lie every minute, to conceal so many of his activities. He kept almost nothing from his bride. And he had – foolishly and wrongly – assumed that he knew everything that she was thinking, doing and feeling as well.

But she longed for a child, and he had been completely unaware.

It's impossible, he thought again. The Machine, the Numbers – the ever-present danger. Impossible.

Finch ducked into a cab, gave an address, sat back.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was misreading the situation.

He closed his eyes. Pictured again the look on her face. That scant instant when she looked at him with Angela in his arms, before she saw him looking back. The sheer want.

And all those times in the office. Christine with the infant in her arms. Coding. Making coffee. Holding meetings. Baby Angela nestled in the crook of her elbow.

But she had never said a single word.

Because, Finch mused, she had likely come to exactly the same conclusion he had: that it was impossible.

He was thinking around in circles.

If it was impossible, why couldn't he settle with that answer?

He opened his eyes and gazed out the window. Traffic was very light, for the moment, and the cab glided through intersections without hitting any red lights. Finch squinted a bit at the traffic came they passed. It blinked steadily red, not acknowledging him. But he knew it saw him.

It saw everything.

He had built a Machine that saw and heard everything. A Machine that understood people so well that it could predict their behavior. A Machine that could, and had, saved lives.

So no, nothing was impossible.

Not impossible. Terribly ill-advised, horribly dangerous. Foolhardy in the extreme. But not impossible.

And why not?

He'd lived once without connections, without hostages to fortune. But those days were most assuredly gone. So what was one more? Or two? Or a dozen?

He would die, sooner or later. He had accepted that years before, and Christine had before he'd married her. He would not have married her otherwise. An early and violent death was almost certainly in his future.

Another early and violent death, he amended. But a real one this time.

To leave Christine alone with a small child to raise alone was unconscionable.

Except – she wouldn't be alone. They had built a family around them, and even if Harold were killed, and John too, the family would remain.

And of course she would have more money than she could spend in a dozen lifetimes.

It was still a terrible idea. A profoundly terrible idea.

But it was not impossible.

"Oh dear," Finch said.

"What's that?" the cab driver asked.

"Nothing," Harold answered quickly. "Just thinking aloud, I'm afraid."

The cabbie nodded and drove through yet another green light.

John Reese generally took the library stairs two at a time, but this much-too-early morning he climbed more sedately, with a hot beverage in each hand. Bear raced up ahead of him.

Finch had already taped some materials to the board. He was frowning intently at his computer screen. Reese put one cup down at his elbow and made his way to the board. He studied the photo first. It was low quality but nice and close, clearly an official ID picture of some kind. The Number was in his sixties, perhaps, a pleasant, ordinary face, a neat haircut, dark hair with considerable gray at the temples, a tidy mustache. Thick glasses with heavy plastic frames. Genial smile.

John moved to the next document, basic information. "Samuel Weitz. Who's he?"

"He is – was – a public school teacher. History, seventh and eighth grade. He's been at the same school for 22 years. But he has not been to work since the Christmas break."

John winced. Long-term teacher, dismissed suddenly, lead him immediately to unpleasant suspicions. "You know why?"

"Either he retired or he was fired. Or perhaps he's on a leave of absence for some reason."

His fingers grew heavier on the keyboard; Reese could hear his unspoken frustration. "Don't tell me the New York City Schools have impenetrable security."

"I'll let you know if I ever get to their security. Like the New York Police Department, the public school information system is apparently composed of some unholy conglomeration of incompatible platforms, held together with chicken wire and bubble gum and maintained by a rabid baboon with a drinking problem. How anyone ever finds anything here … bah!" He lifted his hands from the keyboard. "I'll get back to that later. Let me finish up with the financials."

Reese sipped his coffee to hide his smile. His partner was clearly in a mood, and it was frankly too early in the morning to try to tease him out of it. "How's the baby?"

Finch jumped. "What baby?" he snapped.

"Baby Angela," John answered slowly. "You know, small, pink, loud, lives downstairs from you?"

"Oh." Harold seemed to gather himself. "Oh, yes, Angela. She's fine. She's … exhausted her parents to the point that I actually got a brief babysitting shift."

"I'm surprised your wife didn't try to elbow in."

"She was out with Will."

"Ah." Reese turned back to studying the Number's photo. He looked like a nice man. John hoped he wasn't a child molester.

"Mr. Reese, have you …" The computer beeped. "Ah. Finally." Finch tapped keys, and the printer started up.

"Have I what?"

Finch shook his head. "It's not important." He stood and brought the fresh pages to the board. "His credit score is above average. Some credit card debt, but not large. Not much savings, but quite a nice pension fund. Which he began drawing on in January. So perhaps he's merely retired after all." He handed the pages over and returned to his computer.

"No car?"

"No, and no driver's license. Not uncommon in the city." And then, "Hmmm."

"Hmmm?"

"Mr. Weitz has lived in the same apartment building for the past twelve years. But three years ago he moved into a different apartment. A three bedroom unit."

Reese felt his lip curl as the child molester suspicion crept up his spine again. "I don't suppose there's a brother or sister in the picture. Or a roommate."

"Not that I'm seeing. No sign of any ex-wife or ex-husband, no children. No elderly parents. So why does he need all that room?"

"Maybe he has a hobby," Reese said darkly.

Finch was back into his computer. John taped up the financials one at a time, studying them as he went. "This is strange," he said, when he got to the tax return. "He's reporting just over seven thousand dollars in untaxed income."

"Perhaps from his hobby, whatever that may be."

"You don't declare income from a hobby if it's illegal."

"Annnd," Finch said, "he's declared almost as much in expenses. Curious. Most of them are from Midtown Taxidermy Supplies, a handful of resale shops, an online store called Tiny Treasures. And the UPS Store."

John stared at him. "Our guy is doing taxidermy in his spare bedrooms?"

"Well, it wouldn't be …" Finch adjusted his glasses. "I was going to say it wouldn't be the strangest thing we've seen, but perhaps it would be."

"If my neighbor was doing taxidermy in his apartment, I might want to put a stop to it. I need to see that apartment." John considered. "I don't want to, but I need to."

Harold nodded. "I'll keep digging."

The income stream was a more likely source of information, but Harold could not resist dipping into the web site for Tiny Treasures first. It was, not surprisingly, based in China, but while it loaded the usual cookies, it did not present any obvious malicious software. He created a fake login and was presented with a coupon code for free shipping on any order.

The special offer of the day was a dozen tiny top hats made of felt, decorated with even tinier holly sprigs in their tiny hat bands, 'perfect for your Christmas Carol creations'. They were, according to the details, 7/8" high and ½" in diameter.

Finch sat back and stared at the screen. He could not imagine what a person would do with a dozen tiny top hats. They were very reasonably priced, he supposed, just $3.00 USD for the dozen.

Recommended additions included red felt scarves – 4" long by 1/3" wide, women's bonnets, and real fur muffs.

Engrossed, Finch glanced at the tabs. There were Colonial, Mod Sixties, Renaissance, Harry Potter, Monsters and Myths, Jane Austin, Elizabethan, Military, Ancient Civilizations. A dozen more.

He tried to resist, but found himself falling down the rabbit hole into the bizarre world of tiny clothing and accessories.

It took him some time to find the page link, hidden at the bottom of each page, for "Forms". Here the small glamor of the endless clothes fell away and there were pictures of the naked creatures all this finery was made for: life-size toy mice, chicks, bunnies, badgers, in an assortment of poses. In felt or fur. Finch hit the back button and realized that most of the products could be clicked on and then selected to fit the desired form.

And then, even further down, See Our Happy Customers Projects.

The first photo in the gallery was, indeed, a scene from "A Christmas Carol", a diorama where all the people were played by small toy mice (felt), each dressed meticulously in costumes, right down to their tiny buckle shoes.

There was a scene from "The Nutcracker", with a toy chick on pointe at the center of the stage. One from "Little Women". One with mice (fur) in empire-waisted dresses, presumably some Jane Austen scene, though it was impossible to say which one.

The next page was labeled "Trench Warfare", but no picture was available.

Finch stared at the white screen for a long moment.

Little scenes. Like doll houses, but for grown women with endless spare time and money.

Not only women, he corrected mentally. Clearly their new Number had some interest in this hobby.

Taxidermy supplies.

He tapped the back button again and studied the Austen scene. Toy mice in high-waisted dresses and bonnets. A peculiar, fussy little hobby. But harmless enough.

Until the taxidermy supplies factored in.

Finch shuddered.