ce-over. I was wearing
my best day clothes, which were my basic London shabby chic white shirt and gray
wool slacks and narrow blue tie. It looked natty enough in the UK, but I knew
that in the US it made me look like an overaged door-to-door Mormon. The judge
kept looking at me. *Call to action,* I thought. *End your speeches with a call
to action*. It was another bit of goofy West Coast Vulcan Mind Control, courtesy
of Linda's fucking ex.

"So here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to stand up here and let you know what
had happened to me and ask you for advice. If we assume for the moment that I'm
*not* crazy, how should I demonstrate that here in the court?"

The judge rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder, making glossy black
waterfalls of her hair. The whole hearing is very fuzzy for me, but that hair!
Who ever heard of a civil servant with good hair?

"Mr. Berry," she said, "I'm afraid I don't have much to tell you. It's my
responsibility to listen to qualified testimony and make a ruling. You haven't
presented any qualified testimony to support your position. In the absence of
such testimony, my only option is to remand you into the custody of the
Department of Mental Health until such time as a group of qualified
professionals see fit to release you." I expected her to bang a gavel, but
instead she just scritched at her comm and squirted the order at the court
reporter and I was led away.

I didn't even have a chance to talk to Gran.

26.

##Received address book entry "Toby Ginsburg" from Colonelonic.

## Colonelonic (private): This guy's up to something. Flew to Boston twice this
week. Put a down payment on a house in Orange County. _Big_ house. _Big_ down
payment. A car, too: vintage T-bird convertible. A gas burner! Bought CO2
credits for an entire year to go with it.

Trepan: /private Colonelonic Huh. Who's he working for?

## Colonelonic (private): Himself. He Federally incorporated last week,
something called "TunePay, Inc." He's the Chairman, but he's only a minority
shareholder. The rest of the common shares are held by a dummy corporation in
London. Couldn't get any details on that without using a forensic accounting
package, and that'd get me fired right quick.

Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's OK. I get the picture. I owe you one, all
right?

## Colonelonic (private): sweat.value==0 Are you going to tell me what this is
all about someday? Not some bullshit about your girlfriend?

Tre