leave him alone and enjoy the party along with everyone else, or be thrown into Castle Dev’s moat. As usual, one of the journalists tested the boundaries, at which point tuxedoed Omnitopia security moved in. Subsequent ablutions were administered by the ladies and gentlemen of the press themselves.
After that, Dev was at liberty to wander where he liked. His normal strategy at such events was to meander in cycles from the dance floor area to the buffet to the gaming bower, then have a mineral water and do it again, so he more or less automatically fell into that rhythm now. It was at the buffet, between the grill and the salad table, that Dev saw faces he’d had to look up earlier so that he’d be sure to recognize them: a smallish plump lady in a dark cocktail dress, and a tall broad-shouldered dark-haired man in a respectable Sears suit of the kind Mirabel used to buy him, along with two small sweat suit-clad boys who had all their attention bent on the short-order chef who was grilling their burgers.
“Arnulf?” Dev said in an undertone as he came up behind them. “And Angela?”
They turned. “Mr. Logan—” Angela said.
He put up his eyebrows as he shook her hand. “Oh, are we playing it formal, then? ‘Milady.’ ”
She laughed at him. “Don’t you start! But I have to say, you do smell a lot better.”
“Angela!” Rik said as he and Dev shook hands.
“Well, seriously, he does, didn’t you get a whiff of him back in Indigo? All right, it was a costume you were wearing, a virtual rig, but where did you get that smell?”
Dev shook his head, smiling somewhat ruefully at the memory. “Once upon a time, when I lived above the shop—”
“Like you don’t now?” Rik said.
“It was a much smaller shop,” Dev said. “Well, way back then, it was my job to take out the garbage. There was this back alley, and the building we lived in shared it with a bar and a pizzeria, and all our garbage cans stood out there together. And there was a little old guy who was there every day and went through the cans. A very cranky guy, he was. He had this overcoat that hadn’t been to the cleaners’ since World War Two, and the smell of it, ay yi yi . . .” Dev rolled his eyes. “That’s what I borrowed.”
Angela looked thoughtful. “What happened to him?” Angela said.
Dev shook his head sadly, as he always did when thinking of that dingy little alley. “He died, one day—right out there by the cans. They took him away, and found out that he had no relatives, and no will. But they probated his estate, and you know what? He was a millionaire a couple of times over.” He sighed. “He changed my life. I swore that if I ever got rich, I wasn’t going to keep it to myself. I was going to spread it around and make a difference in other people’s lives . . . because there are more ways than one to stink.”
Rik’s look was wry. “Dev,” he said. “One thing. It’s great to be here, and we want to thank you for having us. But what exactly did we do?”
Dev laughed. “It’s technical,” he said. “Your Microcosm popped a symptom that was turning up elsewhere in a lot of different forms. But your version of it was simple enough for us to get a handle on what was causing the problem . . . so we were able to keep a lot of other people’s dreams from going up in smoke. As a result, you’ll forgive me if I drop in on your ’cosm from time to time, in my own skin. Just to keep an eye on things.”
“But not as casual labor,” Rik said.
“Um, no. Though I can find you a replacement assistant if you feel you need one.”
“It’s okay,” Rik said, exchanging a glance with Angela. “I think we can manage whatever might come up.”
“All right,” Dev said. “Anyway, you’ll find my fast-track e-mail in your box when you get home. If you find you need me for something, don’t hesitate.” He looked down at the boys. “And how’re you gentlemen doing? When you’re done with those, we’ve got one of those balloon-sculpture guys and a storyteller and some other entertainment over past the gaming bower. And my daughter’s there, with a bunch of her school friends. Maybe a little young for you, but