Just doing my job, my dears. Besides, I did my time—more than 20yrs under house arrest before Benny sprung me.

I heard Jill's voice, so I switched to automatic and stood. My joints and muscles seemed stiff and unresponsive because I had been crouched among the boulders, waiting in one position under thin foil for 4hrs. When I saw the human shapes, I raised the rifle and began firing into the crowd. I had almost emptied one clip and was snatching another when that lucky son of a bitch Tony George lobbed the flash-bang that exploded near my head. Thought I was blind and deaf but I was just stunned.

Forgive me while I attempt to pull together disparate elements from the story part and our chat in an effort to answer your questions, Annie. I am receiving much help composing thoughts and words from my group here in Bengalaru. We have an idea, which may be wrong but after Alice's explanation, we believe the timing is appropriate so we submit it for this group's consideration. We ask that Lucia post our theory in one piece so that you may study it and respond as and when you wish.

Consider Carlo's imagined movie scene and combine it with Jill's two haiku about the cold and dark. Remember what Benny said about Jill manipulating people and events so she can visit destruction upon those who oppose her. Remember also Jill's description of moving around with only a sword and a pistol in the woods, in the cold and in the dark. Finally, remember that in her mind, she moves about in the woods of her own imagining. Tell me, my friends, would it surprise any of you to learn that it is never a summer day, bright and warm, but always a winter night, cold and dark, in those woods of hers?

Jill loves cold and dark because it is her ally and shield—not from harm but from detection, from witnesses and from anyone who might get in the way or meddle with her schemes. We wonder if Jill may view cold and dark as more than just reduced molecular activity and illumination. We wonder if Jill views—not sees but views—cold and dark as a thing, perhaps living or perhaps not, and perhaps sentient or perhaps not, but a thing nonetheless. If we try to view the world as she views it, perhaps this thing has not only taken on form and function but a will of its own.

We know already that the world where Jill abides is a strange world, different from the world where we abide. What if cold and dark describes a formless being, malevolent and cruel, who uses our fears against us when we dare to enter its domain? What if Jill has faced this being—perhaps a beast, perhaps a deranged human will, or perhaps something worse, something so alien as to defy description—and made a pact with it? What if she sees familiar patterns in the way cold and dark moves and thereby knows what else may be out there, waiting for her? Perhaps these two malevolent wills have made a pact and perhaps even embraced one another.

What if cold and dark is literally Jill's ally and Jill's shield? If you can comprehend such sinister thoughts, perhaps you can comprehend one more. What if cold and dark and Jill have become one? Is there a single concept—a word—for what these two have become? Surely, you know this one word for cold and dark and Jill.

Annie, the answer to your questions may be all around you, but in a world that you do not and cannot see or even suspect exists. The answer may be not that Jill believes she can evade death or that she has a death wish but that she has become . . . death.

Now, that is helpful—strange but helpful. Thank you, you and your group, Raj. Your rather supernatural explanation may lack empirical proof but it helps me understand why Jill prefers operations in the cold and dark.

I love Raj's explanation. I totally understand it and yet I don't understand it at all—at the same time, which probably doesn't surprise any of you since you consider me utterly illogical.