Without Alexandra home, Jeremy needed to think through a problem with his hands, so he went after the broken watch. Online, websites said this is the gathering pallet, the stop-lever spring. This is the warning wheel. There are pieces to the mechanisms. Fix one, fix them all. But that was a lie. It was one piece off, nothing works.
I want it all. Don’t you?
Month of fools ’92.
He could not make out what Wright was getting at.
Wright who had been too enthused when he told Jeremy the Five Techniques were not torture but that it was known they worked because the Chinese had broken their own that way.
Wright who had told Jeremy the ways to step that would kill you involved ammonium nitrate and fuel.
Wright who had advised the less you speak, the less you lose.
I want it all. Don’t you?
She did not.
Now, Jeremy turned the screw, the appliance reconstituting in his hands, but the numbers didn’t come. The lights didn’t. He arranged the nest of watch circuitry in a drawer.
He checked his phone. It was nearly time.