The man on the other side was made of squares and all their hard-angled cousins.

Broad, block shoulders, lean rectangles for limbs, a trapezoidal face with a harsh jaw line, two sharp black lines for a mustache.

Even his hair came in angles, parted straight as a ruler with a jagged stripe of silver interrupting the black

near each ear. Only his eyes didn't fit. They were blue, soft, dewy, and distant, like he'd been

thinking about something very sad for a very long time. Those eyes were the only thing keeping him from looking like a robot or a secret

agent, or maybe just a librarian who went to the gym a lot. A lot. I kept staring for longer than

regulation. I found his face hard to look away from.

Then the man knocked again, said,

Mr. Steele?

And I opened the door.

Yeah, that's me, I said.

I tried to roughen my voice a little,

make it sound like I really didn't want to be bothered today,

but in a throat

already roughened by dehydration, it just came out a mummy's croak. What do you want?

If we're going to discuss that, I'd think I'd better come inside. If you're going to come inside,

I think you'd better tell me why you're here, I said. His nostril twitched.

He smoothed it out with a devil-may-care, but I definitely don't smile.

Then said...

Sorry. Didn't mean to seem rude.

My name is Manifold.

Richard Manifold.

...