"It’s vinyl," said Ajay, laying the ant down, on its back, and deftly wielding the razor knife. Hollis watched the tip of the blade slide smoothly into the side of the round base. "Yes. Been cut, glued. Easy. There." The bottom of the base lay flat on the newsprint, a round of blue a few millimeters thick. "Well," said Ajay, peering into the twin small tunnels of the ant’s hollow legs, "what’s this, then?" He put down the knife, picked up a long, slender pair of tweezers, with canted tips, and inserted them into one leg. He looked up at Hollis. "Watch. I’m going to pull out ... a rabbit!" He produced, gradually, a spongy sheet of thin yellow foam. Displayed it dangling limply from the tweezers’ sharp jaws, five inches square. "Rabbit," he said, dropping it. "And for my next trick ..." He inserted the tweezers again. Felt around with them. And slowly, carefully, drew out a two-inch length of narrow, transparent flexible tubing, plugged at either end with a tiny red cork. "Looks like very professional funny business to me." There were various differently cylindrical bits of metal and plastic inside the tube, like a section of a hippie-techno necklace. He looked at it more closely, then looked up at Hollis, raising his eyebrows.