and the opportunities were always
there, and I just never had the guts to pass anything by. Finally I
did."

Quay smiled at him, and Cutter shifted in his chair. "The Confidet did
that."

Cutter nodded.

It came to him suddenly, something he'd never suspected until that
moment. There was something very definitely wrong with what had happened
to him. The Confidet had affected everyone but him; there must have been
something wrong with the one he had been using. It had worked with Mary,
but hadn't Bolen said something about the energy being used in
proportion to the demand? Mary had certainly created a demand. Bolen
said the life of it was indefinite, but couldn't the energy have been
used up?

"Ah," he said carefully, smiling, to Quay. "You wouldn't have it around,
would you? That Confidet of yours?"

"Oh, hell, no," Quay said. "I gave it to Bolen a long time ago. He came
around for it, in fact. Said he had to keep track of all of them."

Cutter left hurriedly, with Quay and his wife following him to his car.
He drove straight to Bolen's house.

Fury built inside of him. All this time, Bolen had kept track of his
Confidet, the one that Mary had used, and all this time, he had known
Cutter still had it. Cutter was furious over the realization that Bolen
had been using him for experimentation, and also because the Confidet
that he had tried to use had turned worthless.

All his hatred, all his anger churned inside of him like the heat from
shaken coals, but when he walked up the path to Bolen's small house, he
did so quietly, with extreme care.

When he saw Bolen's face in the doorway, he wanted to strike the man,
but he kept his hands quietly at his sides; and though he hated himself
for it, he even smiled a little at the man.

"Come in," Bolen smiled, and he spoke softly, and at the same time he
examined Cutter with quick, penetrating eyes. "Come in, Mr. Cutter."

Cutter wanted to stand there and demand another Confidet, a good one,
and not walk inside, politely, like he did. And he wished that his voice
would come out, quickly, with the power and hate in it that he had once
been capable of. But for some reason, he couldn't say a word.

Bolen was extremely polite. "You've been using that Confidet, haven't
you?" He spoke gently, almost as though he were speaking to a frightened
child.

"Yes," Cutter managed to say.

"And what you expected to happen, didn't. That's what you want to tell
me, isn't it?"