It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do. It was a shame for Sean that he hadn’t had one in a week. He slept the sleep of the damned, but somehow didn’t wake up feeling appreciably better about anything, in spite of Claire’s assurances the previous night. She agreed that she would continue with the play, and also coerced her father into continuing his involvement and dropping the charges against Sean, on threat of ex-communication. David Miller remained a source of anxiety for Sean. Part of him would much rather his father-in-law wasn’t there at all. He’d prefer to see Uncle Magnus play the role of Polonius, assuming the police would ever let him go. Sean never quite managed to discover why Magnus was in there.

Another source of anxiety was Mr Maloney. As Sean reluctantly left the house for work that day, he wondered exactly what happened in that phone call. He wondered if his swipe-card would still work, or if his replacement would be working in the maintenance shop already, prodding the robots and scratching their head.

Rounding the corner of the corridor that lead to the Plaza, he immediately stumbled upon the third and main source of his anxiety. There was a very large crowd outside the theatre now, and it was openly hostile. In fact, he was pretty sure that he could see at least one crude likeness of himself, and more than the odd pointy stick. There was no way he could get to work without passing through the crowd. It was for real this time. Unless…… nope, Sean wasn’t dreaming. This mob was baying for blood… unless…

“There he is!” someone shouted. And Sean, driven to new extremes, fainted with fright. And also in the interests of getting on with things.

He woke up on the floor of the theatre manager’s office. Mr Maloney had only just completed the act of filling a jug with water from the office cooler, which he continued to throw over Sean anyway, for good measure. Sean screamed.

“I can overlook the.. erm.. communication the other night, Sean.” Mr Maloney began, “but please say to me that there’s no truth in this.”
“What?” Sean spluttered. He had no idea what had just happened.

Terence Maloney pointed to his desk. On his desk was the previous day’s newspaper. This time the headline read:

HOBO CLAIMS ROBOT MAINTENENCE CROCK SHOCK

“But… he’s a hobo, surely no-one believes that!”
“He works for the newspaper. They all do. Didn’t you know that?”
“Oh god.”
“Sean…” Mr Maloney used the same tone that Claire often did with him. And his mother, come to think of it.
“Mr Maloney. Terence. There will be a performance on Sunday. I guarantee it. Now can you please tell the mob to go away?”
“I will do, as soon as they’ve finished burning that big effigy of you. Although I’ve no idea how they managed to get that many pointy sticks into its…”
“Oh my god.”

A horses head ricocheted off the French windows, leaving an unseemly smear, followed by muffled screams from the square below.

“Perhaps, Sean, you’d better stay inside this time?”
“Yes, I think so…”