Slitscan allowed him to do the one thing he possessed a genuine talent for, so he'd managed to avoid thinking in terms of cause and effect. Even now, attempting to explain himself to the attentive Mr. Yamazaki, he found it difficult to feel any clear linkage of responsibility. The rich and the famous, Kathy had once said, were seldom that way by accident. It was possible to be one or the other, but very seldom, accidentally, to be both.