The Commissioner smirked. Malloy knew what that meant. He knew men like the fat boy; he understood them. He had had Grayson Amery, Dr. Heirson—he knew the breed.
"What are you holding back on me?" Malloy demanded.
"Malloy, do you even know what a Rider is?"
Malloy paused. Then, "No, I don't."
"I thought not. Shall I tell you?"
"I imagine you were planning to."
The Commissioner braced his fists on the work surface of the desk and lifted his bulk halfway from the chair. "The Riders are a disease. Like rabies."
Malloy cleared his throat. "That's one way to look at them."
"Don't be servilely civil to me. That is an accurate, clinical description of the Riders—they are a cerebral infection."
"You mean their powers of emergency telepathy and precognition, their seeming secondary personality—all that's a hallucination?"