[ it isn't until the second nudge that kaveh realises that he's already missing two screwdrivers and looks down from where he'd been perusing electrical tape to see where they've gone. the belated realisation has him brightening, and then, with grateful aplomb, dump the rest of his shoplifting spree into midnight's bag. his fingers skim along the bag's rim; he takes a moment to tweeze the fabric between his fingers. a cloth bag; that's innovative. it shouldn't be difficult for the women down in treasures street to figure out cheaper materials to weave that for themselves. baskets aren't particularly heavy or expensive, but they're rigid in shape and sometimes you don't need an entire basket to carry just a few grocery items. a cloth bag conforms to the items that you are carrying, and is easily stowed until you need it.

this is why kaveh can't quite get enough of innovation, he thinks. the spiral of his thoughts conclude at its logical stopping point at the question, to which kaveh looks up. ]

Oh! Well, in a way, aren't we executing it right now? I hadn't put any significant thought into this until you came up with the idea, so in other words, I'm just building off of your work, that's all. [ and then, because he's kaveh, he brightens. ] Ah, but if we want to test for theory number three, we'd need duplication, just to tweeze out any potential cosmic biases. So five individuals, one as control, two performing the exact same crime at the exact same time to see if there are any differences.

Now, I've a question for you: do you think a city can be sentient?