There was a sharp intake of breath as the sound of the whirring , no longer muffled by Walter ’ s shirt , rose . At first it looked as though Walter had suffered awful burns to the front of his torso . But eyes were drawn to the source of the whirring , which placed everything into perspective . Walter had been remade . Where flesh and pumping organs had previously sat , there was now the discernible signs of electronic equipment . The whirring had been coming from the tape deck , but it was accompanied by the flashing lights of a graphic equaliser , and the mechanical rotation of a CD changer . The tape deck had been set to rewind and was doing so furiously . Walter jabbed
awkwardly at the buttons that adorned what had been his abdomen , but , instead of stop , he hit eject . As he did so , a red jet of viscera flew out of the tape deck in a crimson arc , spraying the account man ’ s shirt and face with the obsolete matter that had once been Walter . The account man stumbled back and then he shrieked .
It had been a hideous event , and its memory had haunted Greg . But in this moment , the thought of it did not trouble him . Instead , there was something soothing in this recollection as he again drifted off to sleep . When the black surface returned for the third time , Greg reached out and touched it . The surface resembled sturdy glass and was convex in shape . While his fingers could now be seen in the reflection along with the room and its contents , Greg could still not see himself . The beat of the motorised music remained , but the volume and the clarity of the sound had increased . Just as his fingertips were brushing towards the outer rim of the surface , he felt a