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Elizabeth let another black plastic device fall through her fingers and into its grey foam slot within the padded briefcase. She stood at her desk. Her movements were meticulous and precise, each one executed as though deviation would be a form of error. A stale atmosphere of anger and regret lingered in the room.

Mr Black stacked a plastic chair onto another. He lifted them with unnecessary force and carried them across the room, setting them beside Elizabeth’s desk.

“It’s a goddamn zoo back there. Don’t let the doped-up eyes and heel-dragging fool you. They’re all murderers and rapists, the whole damn bunch of them. The worst kind, too. They don’t murder because of reason, or because someone wronged them. No . . . they murder because they enjoy it.”

Elizabeth did not respond. Another device slid into its foam slot. One space remained empty.

The bulb box.

It was not on the desk.

Her eyes flicked briefly across the room. Then she remembered. It had been on the floor — beside Mr Langley.

She turned and spotted it.

Mr Black followed her gaze and without being asked, moved to retrieve it. For a man who had been all fireworks moments earlier, he now appeared to be making a sincere effort to be useful.

“Two orderlies per patient. That’s regulation. Never should’ve left a goddamn murderer alone with you.”

He reached the box, picked it up along with the six-button remote, and returned to the desk.

“That patient that went berserk this morning. The one who popped that orderly’s eye like a zit. You should’ve seen his room. Shit everywhere. The maniac was writing a goddamn autobiography on the walls with the stuff, like it was crayon.”

Elizabeth maintained her silence. Not as a protest, but as a method.

She had learned early in her training that language, when engaged improperly, became reinforcement. Mentally ill patients eventually said something designed to provoke a reaction. The rule had been simple: do not provide one. Silence had not been absence. It had been filtration. She allowed speech to pass through without resistance. She absorbed the data. She redirected without confrontation. People rarely followed instruction. They did, however, enthusiastically follow ideas they believed to be their own.

Mr Black reached the desk and extended the bulb box. Elizabeth took it sharply, without acknowledgement. He kept talking, as though words might shield him against the way she was looking at him.

“You know what . . . I’ve seen some strange stuff in this fortress over the years, but that room gave me the chills. Symbols and gibberish everywhere. One word written over and over again. Phleg-e-thon. If that even is a goddamn word.”

Elizabeth froze.

The bulb box was gripped in both hands, hovering inches from its slot. Her insertion had been mid-motion when something arrested her attention.

“Mr Black,” she said, without looking at him, “did you press any buttons on this device while retrieving it?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“I do not require speculation,” Elizabeth replied. “I require a definitive answer. Yes, or no.”

“Okay, Cupcake,” Mr Black snapped, defensive now, voice raised. “No. I did not touch anything on the goddamn box.”

Elizabeth remained focused on the object in her hands.

“You going to tell me what’s so fascinating about the box,” Mr Black added, “or am I waiting for the hardcover edition?”

Elizabeth rotated the device and presented it to him.

Six bulbs lined the front panel.

Only one was illuminated.

“Immediately prior to your interruption of my session with Mr Langley,” Elizabeth said, “he communicated a conclusion. He believed he had identified the operational principle of the bulb box.”

“And had he?” Mr Black stared at the glowing light, uncertain what he was meant to infer.

“Yes. Evidence suggested he had.”

“Well, ain’t that something.” Mr Black squinted at it, then folded his arms across his chest. “Looks like one of the maniacs learned a new trick. I’ll be honest, Cupcake, I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at. If this was some kind of test, it doesn’t look all that complicated.”

Elizabeth lifted her gaze from the box and fixed it on him.

The look was not hostile. It was evaluative. The way an instructor regarded a student who had arrived after the bell and expected leniency.

“No, Mr Black, the test was not . . . complicated,” she said. “Until moments ago, I had categorised it as functionally impossible.”

Mr Black shifted his weight, leaning back slightly, as though her attention carried mass.

“And thanks to your intervention,” Elizabeth continued evenly, “and that of Dr Clark, I am now unable to reproduce the conditions under which it occurred.”

She powered down the bulb box and placed it into its foam slot. The briefcase lid closed. The latches snapped shut with a precise, satisfying click. She lowered the case into the deep bottom drawer of her desk and shut it.

“Bullshit,” Mr Black said. “If some idiot solved your light-bulb test once, someone’ll solve it again.”

“No,” Elizabeth replied. “They will not.”

She met his eyes.

“I may have only been working at this facility for a matter of weeks. But in that time, my research has exceeded the progress of all prior years combined. I have finally reached a conclusion.”

She paused. Not for effect. To ensure accuracy.

“The category of mind capable of shaping probability is a mind that has disengaged from consensus reality. The further such a mind descended from shared structure, the less constrained it appeared to be by it.”

She pulled her laptop bag over her shoulder and headed for the door as Mr Black watched in silence, uncertain whether he was supposed to say something or simply endure the moment. Before exiting, she turned to face him one final time.

“And those ‘maniacs,’ as you describe them, are not idiots, Mr Black. Their vocabulary is demonstrably superior to that of the facility’s caretaker. Phlegethon is a real word,” she said. “It refers to one of the five rivers of Hell.”

She walked through the door, leaving the room, but added one final sentence without turning back.

“And stop calling me Cupcake.”

Mr Black’s face creased at the edges, folding into a scowl. His eyes drifted to the cup on the windowsill. The old one, with the faded sheet music printed along its side. The daffodil leaned against the rim, angled toward the room’s small window. He picked it up and threw it across the room.

The porcelain shattered louder than he had expected in the empty space. One of the lights flickered briefly.

He stared at it, daring it to do it again.

It didn’t.

His gaze dropped to the mess he had made. Broken shards of porcelain. A chip of plaster torn from the wall. Water flecked across the floor and wall. The daffodil lay among it, bent.

And the realisation that it was his job, as caretaker, to clean it.

“Brilliant,” he muttered.

Elizabeth’s sneakers struck the linoleum in sharp, measured beats. She had just passed through the double doors that separated her and Mr Black’s section of Leaf Wing from the patients’ recreational area.

Patients occupied themselves in familiar ways. One sat by a window, brush moving slowly across canvas, dabbing at a landscape that never seemed to change. Another leaned back in a chair with oversized headphones clamped over his ears, eyes closed, mouth moving faintly to a rhythm only he could hear. Others drifted between rooms, shuffling past doorways, lingering without urgency before moving on again.

Elizabeth would have continued toward the next set of doors if she had not heard a familiar voice cut through the noise.

She slowed. Listened.

It came again, louder this time, from the nearest TV room.

She could not see the screen at first. Too many bodies blocked her view. She pushed forward, past patients in their pastel clothing, their protests slow and unfocused. A combination of medication and dulled awareness allowed her to pass between them with little resistance.

She was inside the room now.

The wall-mounted television came into view.

The image shook. Mobile footage. Rain flecked the lens. The sky was dark with storm clouds. Cheering and jeering spilled from the speakers. Three figures stood in silhouette at the centre of the frame. One of them was unmistakably familiar. Larger than the others. A mountain beside two hills.

“Does the Freight Train have any last words before I put him down?”

For a fraction of a second, the screen flared white. The phone camera was bleached by a nearby lightning strike. Then everything snapped back into focus, sharp and overexposed, like the discharge of a photographer’s flash.

Elizabeth saw a face and knew immediately.

It was her father.

But he looked different. This wasn’t the man who held her mother’s hand or made pots of tea. This wasn’t the gentle presence she had grown up with. This was something else entirely. This man stood tall. His expression fixed with certainty beneath a heavy brow.

“Yeah,” he said. “The Freight Train’s got somethin’ t’say.”

A pause.

“Choo-choo.”

The punch landed at the same instant the thunder broke.

The sound was violent and indistinguishable. Granite splitting. Sky cracking. The impact swallowed by the storm.

Two bodies flew toward the camera, tumbling across wet pavement before skidding to a stop at the filmer’s feet. The image jolted and spun as the cameraman retreated on a skateboard. Yelling filled the speakers. A scream. The footage cut abruptly to a news presenter seated behind a desk. A banner scrolled along the bottom of the screen.

UNCONFIRMED FOOTAGE – DEVELOPING STORY

“Good evening. If you’re just joining us, we’re showing you a video that began circulating on social media less than an hour ago. It appears to show a confrontation during a storm earlier tonight, filmed on a mobile phone.”

The footage replayed briefly in the corner of the screen.

“The individual at the centre of the video has been dubbed ‘The Freight Train’ online. His identity remains unconfirmed. However, speculation is already mounting, with some users suggesting he may be a former professional heavyweight boxer.”

Elizabeth inhaled sharply, only then realising she had been holding her breath.

Her father had retired when she was born. She had never seen him fight. The man did not even swat flies.

“The clip is currently trending nationwide,” the presenter continued, voice steady. “Several high-profile figures have shared it in recent minutes, many using the hashtag #choochoo. We are working to verify the footage and will bring you updates as they develop.”

From an old battered armchair in the corner of the room came the unmistakable voice of Mrs Baldwin.

“Choo-choo, motherfucker.”

Elizabeth pulled her phone from her pocket and exited the room. Her stride lengthened. Her feet moved like pistons. Any faster and she would have been running.

She dialled as she walked and raised the phone to her ear.

It rang.

Once. Twice.

Someone answered.

“Mother,” Elizabeth said. “Is Father with you?”