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"That's because they wanted faster results."  He tapped the pen against the clipboard slowly and simply, echoing the monotone of his voice.

"Then how do you know?"

His upper lip folded deeply inside his lower lip for a moment, as if searching a pocket for the right words.  Then his mouth gave up and both lips flapped with the abandonment of a frustrated exhale.  "Seems likely, right?"

"You're guessing?"

"Aren't we always?"  He flipped the pen around his fingers twice then scratched something down on the clipboard.

"Always what?"

"Guessing.  Aren't we always guessing?"  He shrugged with one shoulder.

"So you don't know."

"One starts to get hunches after a decade or two of doing the same thing over and over."  The word decade was accompanied with a wandering outward spiraling hand motion.

"A hunch?"

He shrugged again.  "That's all we get."

"We?"

"You, me and everyone else.  We.  The victims in this charade.  The characters in this play.  Whatever you wanna call it."  Each pronoun received special enunciation emphasis.

"And them?"

He went back to tapping his pen.  "You gonna make me guess again?"

"Please don't."

"Good luck with that, then."  He waved me forward.

"That's it?"

"For us?  Yes.  This is it.  For me?  No.  There's more of you coming.  For you?  Yes.  If you stop guessing."  He handed me a rectangular card.  "There's your ticket."