The patrol car and its entourage have left Griffith Park behind and now cruise through a moderate river of headlights on these residential streets. Hayes turns left from Hillhurst onto Los Feliz Boulevard, and the eastern sky lowers like a darkening purple bruise. People in neighboring cars are honking and waving: the formation seems to have found itself in the midst of a fanbush. The scooters spread out and around the patrol car, forcing the other cars further from Hayes, though one bouncy, exuberant commuter manages to flourish a noteslate reading NO BIG BROTHER in large block letters within Hayes' sight before her vehicle drops back into the trailing pack.

"Can you imagine this chaos to the tenth power?" says Hayes.

"It wouldn't be like that," we answer. "Not with everyone wired up and the novelty gone."

"It's a stupid idea."

Perhaps.

It's not far to the freeway onramp. Traffic isn't bad. Hayes cruises southeast for three miles on I-5, then northeast on the 110 six miles to the Glenarm exit. Less than fifteen minutes after leaving the park, the entourage is rolling along the wide, quiet streets of South Pasadena, through a neighborhood of hulking Tudor-style homes crouched far back on expansive lawns behind screens of spreading oak trees. The fanbush follows at a respectful, prudent distance, pulling over to both curbs as the patrol car and its outriders turn into Hayes' driveway. The car stops next to Sandra's ice-blue GMW.

"You're sure we can't offer some tactical advice?" we ask through the robot as it and Hayes cross the fairway-smooth lawn.

Orange light from one upstairs window casts an emberlike patina on the robot's skull as Hayes fixes it with a skeptical eye. "Just stay out of it," he says.

The robot inclines its head. "As you wish."

Hayes squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath to calm his churning stomach, and marches with over one million subscribers (and rising) to the front door of his house.

"Good luck," we say behind him, watching (among several million other things) the odds on a separation fluctuate.

The other robots are dismounting and assuming their sentry posts around the property as Hayes palms the front lock and steps into the refrigerated air of the entry hall.

"Is that you, Brian?" calls a sweet, alto voice from upstairs through the dimness.

"It's me, sweetheart," says Hayes. He begins climbing the stairs to the second floor, the polished oak of the banister cold beneath his hand, his tongue dry and blocky in his mouth. "I'm finally home."

"Good," Sandra says, appearing at the top of the stairs, backlit by the soft-white bulbs in the hallway behind her. "Enjoy it. You've got it to yourself."

Hayes stops dead, halfway up the stairs. "What are you--?"

His eyes focus on the overnight bag dangling from her right hand. She wears a scuffed leather bomber jacket over a tight white T-shirt and dark jeans, rather than the sweats she usually has on this time of night.

Sandra begins descending the stairs, lips stretched in a cold and frozen smile. "How was your evening?" she asks, something crystalline underlying her voice, something that threatens to crack wide open.

She pauses two steps above him, and Hayes catches his breath (as does at least half his audience, many of whom proffer words of unheard advice that would no doubt hurt his cause more than help it). His eyes flick in turn to her long black hair, green eyes, wide mouth, slim hips. The smell of her sandalwood shampoo is nearly intoxicating, and his head seems to wobble on his shoulders. "Pretty miserable, really," he says unsteadily.

She slings the overnight bag over one shoulder and folds her arms beneath her small, high breasts, looming above him like a headsman. "Oh, right, you really acted miserable, out having drinks with that overinflated bimbo you used to date. Not that I caught all of it. My mother had to message me to log in. My mother."

"Honey, you know nothing happened," says Hayes, putting a hand against the wall to steady himself. "I ran into her on the street, she invited me for a drink. That's all."

"Right, like she just happened to run into you, when your location's charted more minutely than a hurricane. How dumb can you be, Brian? How dumb do you think I can be?"

"Sandra, you're not dumb, you're--"

"Oh, I must be. Nothing happened," she spits. Her lower lip trembles, and a tear seeps from the corner of one eye. She looks toward the high ceiling, blinking furiously. "I was there, Brian, like the rest of the country. Everywhere you looked, I looked. I felt the way you reacted. Heck, I practically wanted to jump across the table and fuck her. Do you know how humiliating that is, to experience your husband's lust for another woman? God, I feel so filthy having been in your head. How could you?"

Sandra punctuates this last question with a series of flat slaps at Hayes' shoulder as she pushes past him down the stairs. The commentary boards go nuts, Sandra's fans (there are some) cheering and Hayes' legion of detractors hooting. Hayes reels on the stairs, inducing much nausea across the country. "Honey, let's talk, come back, where you going?"

"I'm going to my sister's. Just leave me alone." She waves a dismissive hand over her shoulder.

"Please, wait, Sandra."

But she's already out the front door, which snicks shut softly behind her.

Hayes hears the low hum of Sandra's GMW as it backs out of the driveway and speeds away down the street. "Oh, Jesus," he whispers, head bowed, arms hanging limply at his sides.

A soft ping sounds from the kitchen, followed by the voice of Sandra's brother-in-law Tom. "Hey, Brian, pick up. I know you can hear me. All right, don't pick up, that's ace. But don't worry, man. She'll cool off. Donna'll talk some sense into her. All right, man? Listen, you need to talk, I'm here, buddy, okay? Aw, don't do that, man, come on."

Hayes, in the entry hall, has sunk to the cold tile floor, and now finds to his amazement that he's crying -- shoulders shaking, breath hitching, fiery tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Oh, shut up, you prick," he mutters under his breath, shivering.

"Hey, it's ace, man, I know you don't mean that. I'll be over in a bit with some cold beer, how's that? Girls' night here, guys' night there."

"Christ," says Hayes, wiping his eyes as he levers himself to his feet. He stumbles out the door and speaks it locked behind him, shutting out Tom's grating voice.

After the air conditioning, the warmth outside is like stepping into a greenhouse. A robot still stands sentry at the bottom of the porch -- the same one that rode with Hayes in the patrol car, though replacements have already been rotated in for some of the perimeter guards. "L.A., do you know where she is?" Hayes demands.

"Of course," we answer. "Would you like a little advice?"

"No, just a ride. Can we catch her?"

"Easily. She didn't go far. Her car's at the near corner of Lacy Park."

Hayes doesn't wait for the ride. Full body screaming with irrational urgency, he takes off running up the sidewalk and around the corner. Catching sight of him, the fanbush makes as if to follow, but we interdict their vehicles for the time being. Hayes and Sandra need some time alone.

It's less than a third of a mile to the park, across the city limits in San Marino, but that's still a long run for someone with Hayes' exercise habits. A million-plus subscribers, lungs burning and heaving in sympathy with his, watch as if through a pounding handheld camera as the patrol car pulls up even with Hayes on Old Mill Road.

"You sure we can't offer you a ride?" we call through the open window where the robot rests a casual elbow.

In answer Hayes puts on a fresh burst of speed, making the left onto Mill Lane. The patrol car and scooters pace him from the street.

Three minutes into his run, he spots her blue GMW under a streetlamp on St. Albans, at the edge of the park. She's sitting on the hood, arms folded around her long legs. The park, its border thick with trees, falls away into darkness behind her.

Hayes half-slumps against the side of the car after he staggers into the light of the streetlamp, his breathing loud enough to wake the dead -- or at least to obscure the words Sandra says without even turning to look at him.

"What?" he asks.

Silently, the robot escort take up discreet positions in a ragged circle fifty to sixty feet around the car.

"I asked, why did you do it, Brian?"

Hayes flops awkwardly back onto the hood of the car, exhausted, feet still on the ground. "It was only a couple of drinks," he gasps.

Sandra shakes her head. "I don't mean this evening. I mean this whole thing -- going through with the project when they picked you in the lottery. I mean, why? When you knew how I felt about our privacy."

"Well, the money," Hayes says between gasps.

"Don't tell me the money. Tell me something that means something."

Hayes rolls onto a shoulder so he's staring at her back. His mouth opens several times, but nothing comes out. Sandra turns and looks back at him over her shoulder, her expression harsh and unreadable in the streetlamp's chiaroscuro. "All right," he says. "I thought it would keep me faithful. I'd been having, you know, thoughts. Adultery in my heart and all that. I figured with all these people watching I'd never dare to act on them. I thought it might save our marriage."

Sandra sags, letting her head fall to one side. "You dope," she says wearily. "You've known me for almost ten years. Am I really so scary you can't say something like that to me? Am I?"

"Sometimes," Hayes says.

They sit there in silence for nearly two minutes, while Hayes' burgeoning subscribers grow ever more impatient, and their posts ever more ill-tempered.

Hayes is just straightening up to walk dispiritedly away ("Bad move!" scream the polls) when Sandra says, "I thought you might come chasing after me, you know."

He stops. "You did?"

"Sure," says Sandra, gazing up at a sky where no stars are visible. "Remember that game we used to play in MacArthur Park when we were first getting serious? I'd ask you if you'd ever let me get away, and then I'd run as hard and fast as I possibly could."

Hayes can hear the distant sound of freeway traffic, and a warm breeze stirs the hairs at the nape of his neck. "So I'd run and I'd catch you," he says. "And just as I was catching my breath you'd do it again. Run away."

"I wouldn't stop until I knew you were past spent."

"I hated that fucking game." Hayes follows Sandra's gaze to the blank monitor of the sky. "But I couldn't let you win."

"You still don't get it. I only won when you did." Sandra turned her head, drilling Hayes with her eyes. "Brian, are you going to let me get away?"

"I ... of course not."

"Really?" Sandra says -- and takes off running into the trees.

Hayes and his subscribers let out an exhausted groan, but he follows, across the grassy verge and into the trees. Quietly efficient, the robots follow.

The boards go crazy, and the oddsmakers are off to town.

Dark clutching shapes crash crazily about Hayes. The stitch that blazes almost immediately in his side sends thousands of viewers groping to dial down their sensory input. But it's not far through the trees, and Hayes sees Sandra ahead beginning a sprint across a wide playfield. As he emerges into the open, body awash with equal parts adrenalin and despair, she's already halfway across and pulling ahead.

Fifty yards further on, Sandra vanishes into another screen of trees. Hayes pushes himself to the limit, knowing he'll have to catch her while she's slowed down by the foliage. When he reaches the trees, he plunges in without slackening his pace. Branches lash and rip, but he keeps on.

In the next clearing waits a children's playground, and he sees Sandra stumble two steps into the soft sand as she tries to skirt the jungle gym. He catches her there, grabbing one shoulder to spin her around. "Gotcha!" he gasps. But both lose their footing, and together they tumble to the sand.

Instacash changes hands all over the country, minus a small percentage.

Sandra rolls atop Hayes, her weight lightly pressing his abdomen, knees in the sand to either side of him. "Now who's got who?" she asks breathlessly.

"I've still got you," says Hayes, staring up at her towering figure.

"I'm still mad at you, Brian." She seems about to say more, but her nostrils flare and she lifts her face into the air. "Hey, do you smell that?"

"Smell what?" says Hayes, chest heaving. The air is sultry, and the sand still warm against his back.

"It's like ... don't you remember?" She rests her hands to either side of his head and slowly lowers herself to where she can kiss him on the mouth.

Galvanized, Hayes takes her head between his hands and returns the kiss. He pulls back, pulse racing, only long enough to enunciate, "Spyware, terminate."

A command box appears in Hayes' vision, occluding Sandra's puzzled face:

ARE YOU SURE? YES NO

And as a million subscribers howl in protest, Hayes says yes. Like a birthday candle, the spycast puffs and scatters to black.

The boards resound with indignant cries of foul, but only a handful of subscribers think to access the public security feeds from the spotcams scattered throughout Lacy Park. The few that do, have eyes only for the two lovers entwined on the summery playground sand.

None see what they might, if only they would look: the half-dozen silver-chased robots that lurk in the trees, fading into the darkness in a widening ring as crushed white moonflower petals drop from their hands like bright jewels.

But they are human, N.Y., and they do not, will not, look. Surely none of them would credit the excellent health of the experiment, nor suspect how very long yet it will run. But they'll have cause enough to thank us in the end, never fear.

That concludes our report. And how are things proceeding at your end?

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