he gray light of the security monitors are all the sunrise Strickland needs. He climbs from the floor, his bed on nights he can’t bear to look at Lainie, and into his chair. His guts squelch, the sound of digesting painkillers. Must be hard work, because when he coughs there’s blood. It dots the white envelope on his desk. He wipes it. It smears, but that’s all right. Makes the envelope pulsate with importance. And it is important. It’s the paperwork for today’s dissection of the asset. He removes the document. It’s clean, beautiful—not a word is redacted. He doesn’t bother to read it, signs his name on a few dashes. He does linger over the diagrams. The autopsy looks pretty standard for a beast of such alleged scarcity. Y-shaped incision. Cracking the ribs in half. Scooping out the organs. The serrated-saw scalping. Brain plopped onto a pan. He can’t fucking wait.

Footsteps outside his door. Strickland looks up from the schema. This early, he expects Mr. Clipboard. But it’s not Fleming. It’s Bob Hoffstetler. He looks like shit. Sweaty, pale, skittish. Looks like Raúl Romo Zavala Henríquez, way over his head. Strickland leans back in his chair. Laces his fingers behind the head. It hurts, but the posture is worth it. This should be fun.