And one October night, punching himself past the scarlettiers of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, he saw threefigures, tiny, impossible, who stood at the very edge of oneof the vast steps of data.  Small as they were, he could makeout the boy's grin, his pink gums, the glitter of the long grayeyes that had been Riviera's.  Linda still wore his jacket; shewaved, as he passed.  But the third figure, close behind her,arm across her shoulders, was himself. 

Somewhere, very close, the laugh that wasn't laughter.