Love,

Tony

 

Sandy's knees gave way; she sat down harder than she had intended. Maybe it wasn't over, after all.

 

"Nothing today, Tony."

 

"Nothing?" Tony looked up at Harve in surprize. He had to quell a moment of reflex panic, the feeling that no work meant no pay. He was on salary now, and okay, he might not be earning a commission for fixing someone's system today, but he wouldn't exactly go broke, either. "Good!" he told Harve. "I'm behind on correspondence and way behind on filing."

 

Harve grinned. "Have fun cleaning up your desk."

 

Tony did. He spent the morning pushing documents into folders and shoving them into his filing cabinet drawers. Then, with his desk mostly clear, Tony glanced at the clock, remembering Sandy and wondering if it was time for the next step in his campaign to win her back. It was—lunchtime. Now he could go scouting.

 

Tony went by Sandy's office building during lunch hour with a special eye toward the trash cans in the alley. He didn't notice any roses, so he dared to hope.

 

Of course, that didn't mean his roses weren't sitting in a wastebasket somewhere inside the building; but if she didn't mind having them in sight, there was a chance.

 

 

As soon as he arrived back in the office, Tony turned to his computer to check his e-mail.

 

There it was at the top of his inbox, Sandy's name next to the word "Roses." Heart suddenly hammering, he clicked on the link, then read,

 

Dear Tony, The roses are lovely—thank you so much. I can hope, too. Let's get together for coffee after work today and see if we can work something out. At Nepenthe?

 

Tony's pulse rocketed; for a moment, he felt as though he were floating. Then the words on the screen came into focus again and he tapped out a confirmation and sat back to bask in the glow of achievement.

 

When the glow faded a little, Tony reminded himself that all he'd achieved was a new start. If he really wanted Sandy back, he'd have to work out a campaign—but the way he felt right now, if she insisted on sex, he'd agree, scruples or no.

 

And of course, his whole body thrummed with desire at the thought; he felt as though he were a guitar tuned for her playing.

 

How about if she had come over to his side and was ready to say "yes"? Or even to keep dating without sex?

 

An unaccountable wave of depression hit Tony, but at least he knew its cause. He would just have to soldier through and be as good as his former word—and he had enjoyed going to the theater much more with her, than by himself.

 

But the reminder of the routine they'd shared also reminded him that he was in the office and should at least go through the motions of earning his paycheck. He turned back to the screen just as a window opened, filling the center of the frame.

 

Only this one didn't feature a beautiful woman exhorting him to buy something—it showed him the maroon hallway with which he had become all too familiar.

 

Well, there wasn't much that had to be done on the job today, anyway—and he needed somebody to share his triumph. He let the image on the screen become more and more real to him until he found himself walking down that moist and infirm corridor beside the reassuring bulk of the stocky priest.

 

"I've got another date, Father," he said, straight out.

 

"Very good, Tony! I couldn't be more pleased for both of you."

 

"Well, I don't know about being pleased for her," Tony said. "She's not getting as good a bargain as I am."

 

 

"Oh yes she is—and I do indeed think highly of the young woman. Your opinion of your own worth, Tony, is far lower than the reality."

 

"Maybe someday I can believe that."

 

"Do! After all, your experiences combatting Finagle and his minions should convince you of some of your abilities."

 

"They're helping a little," Tony admitted, "but those aren't the traits that make for a good fiance, let alone a good husband."

 

Father Vidicon smiled. "It takes courage and perseverance to make a marriage succeed, Tony."

 

"A marriage, maybe," Tony said glumly, "but how about a romance?"

 

"How about it?" Father Vidicon gave him a quizzical look. "Why don't you ask the young lady?"

 

Courage and perseverance, Tony reminded himself. He reached out, picked up the phone, and dialed.

 

It was ten minutes to four when Sandy's phone rang. She answered it with more caution than hope; after all, she'd had a dozen calls that day, and none had been from Tony.

 

"Sandy?"

 

It was his voice.

 

Sandy sat up a little straighter and felt a smile coming on. "Hi, Tony." Her voice came out high and thin, and she cursed mentally.

 

"Hope you had a good day."

 

"Well, it was better after a long white box arrived. You're a dear! You didn't have to, you know."

 

"No, I don't," Tony said. "You deserved them. We still on for Nepenthe after work today?"

 

Sandy tried very hard to rein in her exultation. "Yeah… I think I could manage that…"

 

"Okay, then." Tony sounded massively relieved. "I'll be there by quarter after for sure."

 

Awkward pause.

 

 

"That'll be great," Sandy said through wooden lips.

 

"Yeah, it really will," Tony said in a rush. "See you then."

 

"Nepenthe," Sandy said. " 'Bye."

 

She hung up the phone and Rachel pounced. "Well? Was it him? What did he say?"

 

"I'm meeting him at the coffee house right after work." A wave of dread swept Sandy. "Oh Rachel, what if he wants to make the break-up official?"

 

"What if he wants to make sure it hasn't happened?"

 

Tony couldn't concentrate, his whole body was quivering with elation. He was so filled with energy that he felt he would burst, felt he could go out and build a skyscraper just to let off tension.

 

Still, he had to go through the motions of work. He turned to the screen and, for want of anything better to do, clicked on his Internet icon. Its home window opened— but another frame opened on top of it.

 

Another dratted pop-up ad! Well, he'd at least see what the topic was before he closed it. He gave it a quick glance—then glanced again and read the words the funny little man in the monk's robe was pointing to: Want to save the world? Well, you can—or at least, the duty engineer at Interworld's earth station!

 

Then, as though he knew Tony had finished reading, the little monk turned to point at a button that said, "Start."

 

Tony felt a minute's burning resentment. Wasn't it enough that he give the ghostly priest his nights without having to give up his days, too? But he remembered that he might want to be keeping his nights to himself in the near future—well, to share with only one other person who was far from being a monk

—and that Father Vidicon just might have been instrumental in smoothing things over with Sandy. For the first time, it occurred to him that he might not be the only living person helping out the saint.

 

So he leaned back in his chair and let his eyes lose focus as he clicked on "Start." The picture inside the frame changed to a long room lined with screens that centered around a console, a long room that seemed to become longer as Tony gazed, until it wasn't on the screen any longer, but all around him, and Tony knew he was inside the earth station, watching invisibly as a ghost.

 

Ben had had an absolutely lousy morning. The dog had knocked over his food dish, the cat had started in on the drapes, then the dog had taken his own sweet time on his morning walk. So much for the pleasures of house-sitting to escape his narrow apartment for the week.

 

 

Then, of course, his car had refused to start, and it had taken the tow truck an hour to get there—

pretty fast, for rush hour, but it hadn't seemed so at the time. Then, of course, it only took the driver a few minutes with jumper cables, and one quick signature later, Ben was on his way, blessing his auto club—but that had axed the errands he'd been planning to run on the way to work, not to mention the leisurely breakfast. He'd had to settle for a biscuit sandwich and a large coffee at the drive-through, both of which would probably be cold by the time he got to work. Then, as he'd driven under the shadow of the huge old satellite dish, he'd heard the roar of heavy equipment and had had the good sense to brake as he came out of the curve, to see the backhoe digging a trench just past the line of smaller satellite dishes. It was going to be a jolly day, all right, with that thing bellowing right outside his window. He turned right at the power company's transformer that supplied the electricity that ran his earth station and braked as his car rolled down the drive to the double gate in the chain-link fence.

 

Of course, the lock didn't want to turn when he put his key in. He jiggled and twisted, though, and it finally gave, grumbling at having to move. He shoved the gate open, went back to his car and drove in, got out to close and lock the gate, and turned to survey his hurricane-fenced enclosure. From this angle, the satellite dishes had turned their backs on him and the long one-story control cabin at his right—a converted house trailer, actually—did leave the view clear for him to look out over the college campus to the island of Manhattan, there on the skyline.

 

The sight was inspiring, of course, but it was also the reason Ben was here—or that Interworld had its ground station on top of this old mountain (big hill, actually). They had leased the site from the college so that they had a clear microwave path to the Empire State Building, where Interworld had its distribution control center. Stations in New York City piped their signals into the Empire State Building by fiber-optic cable, and there on the Eighty-third floor the signals were converted to microwaves so that they could shoot out here to the earth station. The little microwave dishes on the tower picked up those signals and sent them down long strands of cable into the control cabin, where Ben would punch buttons and turn dials to change those signals back into microwaves and send them through other cables into the feed horn of the big satellite dish, where they would spray into the metal umbrella to be beamed up to Inter-world's satellite twenty-two thousand miles above the equator—and, of course, that satellite and several others would send their signals down to these same dishes to be gathered into the feed horns and piped back into the control cabin to be microwaved to New York, so the people in Manhattan could turn on their cable TVs and see what was happening all around the world. In the early fifties, "Window to the World" had meant dollying a camera over to a window to look down twenty stories onto Forty-second street. Now it meant seeing what was happening on a street in Tokyo—or New Delhi or Baghdad, wherever the news of the world was happening that day.

 

The thought lifted Ben's spirits, as it always did— lifted them enough so that the backhoe didn't seem quite so annoying anymore. He slipped back into his car and parked it outside the cabin. It had taken a lot of convincing to keep the college's development committee from building the new dormitory between the earth station and Manhattan. In fact, it had taken some pretty strong persuasion to make them realize that Interworld wasn't just concerned about their spoiling the view— but reason had finally prevailed, and they were building the new dorm over to the side.

 

 

Ben stepped out of the car into a blast of summer heat and humidity. He winced and trotted over to the cabin. He closed the door behind him, blessing electronic equipment's need for air-conditioning, and raised a hand toward the intern he was relieving. "Hi, Gloria."

 

"Hi, Ben." Gloria stood up, slapping her pen down onto the log sheets on the clipboard.

"Everything's boring."

 

Ben grinned; for Gloria, "boring" meant "normal."

 

"Glad to hear it. Hot date tonight?"

 

"On a Thursday?" Gloria gave him a strange look.

 

"Hey, anything you do tonight is going to be hot."

 

"Sorry to hear it." Gloria went to the door. "Well, everything's set for the three o'clock feed. Want me to run it?"

 

"Nah, I'm here in time." Ben went to the operator's chair and sat down to scrutinize the log. "Not that much is set to happen, anyway."

 

"Looks like a good documentary coming at 7:00 P.M.," Gloria said. "Enjoy it."

 

"You too," Ben said absently, and managed a wave just before the door closed. Then he went back to perusing the log. He had two minutes before he had to start the feed, and the dish was already aimed at the Interworld Three satellite. All he had to do was punch two buttons. He looked up at the clock, tracking the sweep second hand with his fingers ready. As the hand hit the top of the clock, he pushed the buttons, then glanced at the monitor—then stared. All he saw was "snow," the randomly-dancing dots that meant there was no signal coming through. Wildly, he glanced at the meters and saw their needles bouncing merrily—so the signal was going to the dish as it should. Why wasn't it going up to the satellite?

 

The telephone rang. Ben snatched it up, snapped, "I know. I'm working on it," put down the receiver, and ran to the window. One glance at the dish showed him why; it was still set for the horizontal transponder. He hit the manual key to rotate the great bowl to the vertical. Usually he would be able to hear the chain drive clanking, but not with that backhoe's roar, so he looked— and saw the chain stock-still. It didn't move, so neither did the bowl. It stayed set on horizontal. The dish was frozen in the wrong position.

 

Why?

 

Then he saw the backhoe swinging its shovel around for another bite at the ground—right between the power company's transformer and the dish. "St. Vidicon, protect us from Finagle!" he called on his way to the door. He yanked it open and pelted out into the summer heat, yelling and waving his arms. Of course the backhoe was making so much noise that it drowned out his yelling, but the driver saw his frantic signals and cut the motor. "What is it?" he called.

 

"You cut the cable!" Ben called back.

 

The driver stared, then looked back at the trench and swore.

 

"Didn't you see sparks?" Ben panted as he came up to the backhoe.

 

"Thought my shovel had hit flint," the driver answered.

 

"Good thing you have a padded chair," Ben said, "or you would have found out the hard way. I'll go call the power company." He ran back inside, but before he called, he was going to have to figure out a way to get the three o'clock feed up to Interworld Three. He suffered a brief vision of soap opera fans all over the country staring at the snow on their screens and cursing. He would have indulged in it himself, but he prayed to St. Vidicon instead.

 

Satellite communications weren't exactly Tony's forte, but he certainly knew the basics of circuit design, so it only took him a glance or two, and a little eavesdropping on Ben's frantic thoughts, to realize that if you can't get a signal where it's supposed to go by its usual route, all you have to do is figure out a different path. However, that meant he was going to have to put his thoughts into Ben's head

—well, not into, exactly, just around his head where he could pick them up. He hovered unseen next to the racks of equipment, focusing his thoughts on Ben.

 

They coruscated off like a meteor shower, and a small ugly flat head lifted from Ben's hair, hissing,

"Avaunt, interloper! This brain is not yours."

 

Tony froze, staring as the creature's skin opened to spread a hood behind its head—and conveniently over Ben's, blocking him from Tony's thoughts. "What manner of creature are you?" he demanded.

 

"I am the Serpent of the Single Mind," the cobra hissed, "and I have filled hisss with one thought and that one thought only—that he must find a way to make the great sssky-facing bowl rotate. Begone, interloper— I'll not have you dissstracting him."

 

"Distracting is scarcely the term," Tony said. He had already figured out another solution to the problem— but how to get it through to Ben, with the cobra's hood blocking the way? "St. Vidicon, I could do with a little inspiration here!"

 

Obligingly, the idea surfaced from his subconscious. Grinning, Tony asked the snake, "How did you get here?"

 

 

"Why, by hisss choice," the cobra answered. "From hisss youth, thisss man ssought to avoid dissstractions when he concentrated his thoughtsss upon a problem— and out of that wish, I grew to sshield hisss mind from any other influence."

 

"But only when he's solving a problem," Tony reminded the snake. "When he is not, don't you think you should be letting alternative solutions in?"

 

"It isss hisss choice," the snake returned. "If he had wished for solutions that did not follow from a train of thought, each step in its proper order, I would not have arisen."

 

"But you know he's not going to be able to solve this problem by logic."

 

"I know nothing of the sssort."

 

"Well, take my word for it." Tony began to move to his right, heading toward Ben's face. "He's going to have to think outside the terms of the problem, or he won't find a solution."

 

"What iss that to me?"

 

Tony stared; then, still sidestepping, he asked, "You don't care whether or not he solves the problem?"

 

"Not a bit," the snake answered. "I exissst to ssshield his mind from distractionss while he thinksss, nothing more. I care only if an unwanted thought should enter hisss mind."

 

"How about if the thought is wanted?'

 

"It issss not."

 

"But if it's an alternative solution to the problem, he will want it."

 

"I sssee no evidence of that," the snake answered. "Ssstop sssidewalking, man! Do you think it will do you any good to ssstand before his eyesss? I assssure you it will not!"

 

Tony stood in front of Ben. The snake reared up above his forehead, its hood spread, making him look for all the world like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Tony reached out to touch the control panel, reached into it, and jiggled a contact.

 

Ben frowned as the tally light that showed the transponder link from the Japanese news agency blinked. All he would need right now would be for that link to go dead too! The Japanese network paid well to keep a transponder illuminated to carry the signal from its New York bureau to its Tokyo headquarters twenty-four hours a day whether there was any program to carry or not, just to make sure they weren't late with a story. Ben didn't want to mink about the rebate Interworld would have to pay if that link went dead. A second's disruption in the signal now and then wouldn't be a tragedy; it could be sunspot interference or even just…

 

The tally blinked again; then the dark one next to it blinked on for a second but went dark.

 

Ben frowned. How could the tally for Interworld Four's number six transponder light up? It wasn't scheduled for now. In fact, the dark jewel showed that it wasn't in use; how could the tally have…

 

His eyes widened as the thought penetrated, and he whirled to check the schedule.

 

"Wicked man, you have bypasssed me!" the snake hissed, and struck at Tony, fangs dripping.

 

Chapter 17

 

Tony leaped out of the way and the snake crashed into the panel—well, not crashed, really, since it went right through, being only an idea. The lights on the panel went crazy for a second before the cobra slithered back out. "You have defeated me in my duty! You must pay!" It reared up, hood spread, fangs gaping.

 

"But you've deserted your post," Tony pointed out. "What kind of alien thoughts are entering his mind while you're here trying for revenge?"

 

"Then I shall slay you quickly!" the snake hissed, and struck again.

 

Tony sprang high, and the scaly body swished past— only this time, he landed on Ben's head. "I'm going to put a thought into his brain," Tony said, "a thought of a pretty girl!"

 

The snake hissed in rage and struck.

 

Tony leaped aside, but not quite fast enough; fire scored his ribs. Then he was down on the panel again, the snake was coiling protectively around Ben's head, and Tony found himself puzzling how to rid Tony of the serpent for once and for all. Then he remembered that wasn't what St. Vidicon had sent him here to do and watched anxiously as Ben frantically punched buttons.

 

The signal was still coming through from Manhattan and transponder six wasn't due to be illuminated for four more hours. Ben only had to receive that signal, not send it, and its link was one of the smaller dishes. That might be time enough to restore power to the main dish. One way or another, it was the only way to get this program through to its destination. Ben punched buttons, routing the signal from Manhattan through to transponder six; the tally glowed, confirming the connection, then Ben picked up the phone and dialed the number for the earth station in California. "Hi, this is Ben from the New York link… Yes, I know you've lost The Guided World; we've had a disruption here. No time to explain—just look to Interworld Four, transponder six vertical… yeah, it's there, okay, take it. I'll send a full report as soon as we're done." Then he sat back and blew out a long shuddering breath, nearly limp with relief. The crisis was past.

 

But only temporarily. Reviving, he picked up the phone again and called the power company.

 

Tony paced the maroon corridor beside Father Vidicon. "Okay, the country is now receiving their favorite soap opera. Tell me I did the right thing."

 

"You did the right thing," Father Vidicon said, amused. "If they hadn't watched that soap opera, they would have watched another, and at least The Guided World isn't glorifying premarital sex or organized crime."

 

"I suppose there's that," Tony admitted. "Of course, it could be more important that I saved Ben's job."

 

"Yes, we do have to balance society's needs against the individual person's," Father Vidicon agreed,

"say— Sandy's."

 

Tony looked up, startled. "You don't mean I'm ignoring her needs!"

 

"It may seem that way to her at the moment," St. Vidicon said. "You made a good beginning sending roses, Tony. Be sure you follow it up."

 

"I will," Tony said, then realized that he had said it out loud to a computer monitor. He glanced around, face burning, but no one seemed to have heard him—no faces were prairie-dogging over the partition to see what he was talking about. He turned back to the screen just in time to see Father Vidicon wink before the screen cleared.

 

Tony glanced at the clock, remembering Sandy and wondering if it was time for the next step in his campaign to win her back.

 

Sandy waited in an agony of impatience before she left the building; she knew it would take five minutes to walk to Nepenthe, and she didn't want to get there first.

 

She needn't have worried; Tony was sitting at their usual table against the wall, staring morosely into a cup watching the foam settle. Sandy felt her self-confidence renewing and sauntered over to him.

"Hi, hacker."

 

His head snapped up, his eyes locked on hers. His mouth moved once before sound came out, and it was hoarse and strained. "Hi." Then, a bit stronger, "Hi, beautiful."

 

Sandy tried to hide her glow. "Mind if I sit down?"

 

 

"No, not at all! I mean, please! Uh … what can I get you? Raspberry mocha?"

 

He'd remembered. "Yeah, thanks."

 

"Coming right up." Tony darted away.

 

Sandy sat by herself, realizing that she was in a stronger negotiating position than she'd thought.

Well, actually, she hadn't thought—she'd just been ready to agree to anything he wanted so long as they were dating again.

 

Even marriage.

 

Now, though, it looked as though she could make a few demands, such as not accepting a ring yet.

 

She suddenly realized that wasn't a priority. Maybe the folklore she'd grown up hearing was true, maybe she should find out how good a lover he was first.

 

The mocha appeared in front of her. She looked up from it to see Tony's anxious gaze as he sat.

"You, uh… have a good week?"

 

From anybody else that would have been a probe, but she knew Tony was only trying to make small talk. "Things have been pretty quiet. Yours?"

 

"Just the usual." He thought of telling her that "the usual" had included a company of actors that was about to self-implode and a frantic earth station operator, but decided against it. Honesty didn't mean answering questions she hadn't asked, after all—especially if they might make her think he was delusional.

 

"So life as usual, huh?" Sandy lifted her cup.

 

"I can hope," Tony said softly. "I'd like 'usual' to include going out with you—except that life is never 'usual' when you're in it."

 

Sandy took a breath; the boy was definitely improving. "I think that could be arranged," she said carefully, "but there'd have to be some after-show activity."

 

"Anything you want!"

 

He was so earnest, so forlorn, that Sandy realized she could make whatever demands she wanted—

and that made her realize she should keep them moderate. It would be wrong, very wrong, to take advantage of the poor guy.

 

But it was wrong to take advantage of her, too.

 

 

"All I want is for nature to take its course," she said slowly.

 

"And hope that it passes?" Tony asked, heartened.

 

Sandy looked up at him in surprize, then smiled with affection. Tony might have been callow and naive, but he was so real.

 

Cute, too.

 

And he was the only guy who hadn't dated her just because he wanted sex. "Let's hope nature gets an 'A,'" she said.

 

"Even if it has to plagiarize?"

 

Sandy stared in surprize, then felt her smile grow into a grin. "I have no objection to your reading the occasional book," she said. "Found any good ones lately?"

 

The topic shifted into literary gear without a tremor— and that easily, the relationship was back on.

 

Even as he climbed into bed—his own, and alone— Tony was still marvelling that the evening had gone so much better than his usual dates. The conversation hadn't lagged, not a single awkward pause, and Sandy had actually seemed to enjoy his company. Must be her generous nature.

 

Then another possible explanation occurred to him, and he stiffened, staring up at the lights on the ceiling. Thank you, St. Vidicon, he thought.

 

There was no answering admonition, no booming voice, but he did feel an aura of amusement and satisfaction that quickly passed but left in its wake the conviction that he wasn't alone.

 

Tony dreamed, of course—dreamed that he was walking down that humid hallway that was beginning to feel more and more organic, and Father Vidicon was saying, "So I've faced three of them now, and can only wonder when I'll confront Finagle himself."

 

"Sounds pretty busy." Tony frowned. "How can there be people claiming you've worked miracles to protect them from things going wrong?" .

 

"There's time for the occasional rescue while I'm walking down this hallway waiting for the next ambush," Father Vidicon said, "though I must admit you have helped considerably."

 

"Quid pro quo." Tony grinned. "Thanks for helping me with Sandy."

 

"Me?" Father Vidicon said with exaggerated innocence, but when Tony chuckled, he admitted,

 

"Well, I might have put a thought or two into your mind. Which reminds me—how are the dance lessons going?"

 

"Me? The original two-left-feet fool? I tried to learn when I was twelve and tried again when I was sixteen, and the best I can say of it was that I didn't trip anybody else."

 

"Perhaps, but your midteens are ten years in the past, aren't they? You may find your coordination has improved considerably—and I asked how you're doing now."

 

Tony sighed and confessed.

 

"Don't think of your legs as having to hold up your body," the dancing teacher advised. "Think of it as supported by invisible wires from above you—that's it! Back straight, shoulders square—posture is very important. Now, step, rock, back, and step!"

 

The music started, and neither Tony nor his partner spoke, concentrating fiercely on getting the steps right. He felt vaguely disloyal to Sandy, dancing with another woman even if it was just a dance class. He consoled himself with the thought that she wasn't very pretty. None of the girls here were.

 

But, truth to tell, neither were the women he passed on the street, which was strange, since only a few months ago, he had been amazed how many beautiful women there were on his way to work. The traitorous thought crossed his mind that having met Sandy, only the most dazzling of women would seem beautiful to him, but of course that couldn't be true.

 

"Step - rock - back - step!"

 

Tony did.

 

Gail stepped into the studio to wave before she left the radio station. "See you, Gordon."

 

Gordon looked up in surprize. "You're leaving early. It's scarcely drive time."

 

"Came in early, too," Gail said. "My little girl's in a grade-school pageant, so I knew I'd have to bow out at four."

 

Gordon shuddered. "Better you than me. Good luck."

 

"You too, Gordon. Station's all yours. See you tomorrow."

 

'Tomorrow, Gail." Gordon gave a quick wave, then hit the program button and began talking into the mike. "That was the Everly Brothers with 'Wake Up, Little Susie.' We'll have another twelve in a row up for you in just a minute here on Rollin' Oldies One-oh-one, but first, let's check the traffic report.

How're things at Twelfth and C, Carmen?" He toggled the "remote" and eased in the sound of helicopter rotors. After all, everyone knew Carmen prowled the back streets in a Bug-mobile and hiked to the intersections from a parking place, and they hadn't actually said she was in a helicopter, so what was the harm?

 

"Well, Gordon, we've hit a snarl here," Carmen's voice said. "Only a fender-bender, fortunately, and the officers are here taking the accident report, but it's slowing westbound traffic to a snail's pace. I'd recommend you homebound people try Church Street all the way to Eighth Street, then double back to Avenue C after the snarl. I'll talk to you from Second and Avenue K in…"

 

A raw, monotonous beat crashed in, bass drum and snare with some sort of string, and a driving nasal voice chanted, "School's a waste And job's a paste, And cops'll watch Your every move. So leave

…"

 

Gordon made a frantic dive for the studio monitor and yanked it down to a bare mumble. "What the hell?"

 

The phone rang. Gordon grabbed it and pasted on the smile. "Rollin' Oldies One-oh-one! Sorry, no requests just now, gotta little problem …"

 

"It's going to be a really big problem really fast if you can't get that racket off our station," Josh's voice said. "What the hell got into you, playing that teenage garbage during drive time?"

 

The boss, of course! "I ain't playing it, Josh." Gordon swept the board with a glance. "It's not coming through the board at all."

 

"You kidding? Everything comes through the board."

 

"Yeah, I know." Inspiration struck. "Everything except …" Gordon turned to the automation computer and saw the activity light fluttering. "Josh, it's the computer! It kicked in early!"

 

"That kind of music on our computer?"

 

"It's a computer, Josh, and we're hooked into a music service. It feeds all kinds of music."

 

"You mean somebody actually broadcasts that sludge?"

 

Gordon froze, listening to the music. That repetitive beat, inhumanly regular, and the teenage lack of resonance … "Josh, that ain't coming from the music service. If that's a pro band, I'll eat the hard drive!"

 

"A garage band?" Josh sounded confounded. "How could they be on our station?"

 

"Because they hacked into our computer, that's how! Haven't you heard the kids around town griping because none of the stations plays their kind of music? Get our computer consultant down here fast or we'll lose every listener we've got! 'Bye, now—I've got a few phones to answer." He hung up, rolled his eyes up to Heaven for a brief "St. Vidicon, protect us from Finagle!" under his breath, then punched another line and picked up the phone again. "Rollin' Oldies, but not our usual style …"

 

"Hey, Tony!"

 

Tony looked up at Harve, feeling the thrill of the call to battle. "Something come up?"

 

"Just your cup of coffee! Get down to WOLD-FM right away—some kid has hacked into their automation computer!"

 

Tony didn't stop to ask how they knew it was a kid, just grabbed his laptop and headed down to the garage and slipped into a company car. Once outside the steel box of the building, he turned on the radio and realized why they were sure the hacker was a teenager.

 

Bells were ringing, and they weren't on Santa's sleigh. Gordon took a quick look at the phone and saw every line glowing. "Send an engineer, St. Vidicon! 'Scuse me, now—I've got phones to answer."

He hit another line. "Rollin' Old … yeah, I know it's a shock. Wires crossed somewhere; it's not what we're playing … How? Well, we think some kid has hacked into our computer … Thanks, I'll need it.

I've got it turned way down low, but I have to keep an ear on it, and I'm out of ibuprofen … No, you don't really need to bring me any; why should my problems be your problems? Don't worry, I'll get it off the air as soon as our engineers figure out how to disconnect it. G'bye, now!" He hit another line.

"Rollin' Oldies One-oh … Yeah, I'm real sorry about that, ma'am, but there isn't a whole lot I can do about it yet—the wonders of modern computers, you know? We'll get back to the British Invasion as soon as we … Yeah, you too, thanks." He punched another line. "Rollin' Oldies One-oh…" The doorbell rang. He looked up in relief, and said, "Lemme put you on hold just a sec. The repairman has arrived."

He punched hold and ran to let Tony in. "Thank heavens you're here! There's the computer! Good luck!"

 

Tony almost said he wouldn't need it but bit back the show of arrogance and only grinned as the DJ

hurried off to answer another call. Tony patched in his laptop, powered up, and gazed at the screen, letting his consciousness drift into the circuit, trying to do as St. Vidicon would as his fingers flew over the keyboard. He knew St. Vidicon was with him when the program became more real to him than the room around him and he found himself swimming through a tide of ones and zeros. But it was a rip tide, torn by another stream surging through a jury-rigged gateway that shouldn't have been there.

 

Know your enemy—or at least, your opponent. Before Tony did anything to close that ramshackle gateway, he swam through it and upstream to find out where the alien signal was coming from.

 

In a bedroom on the other side of town, the cheering slackened and the short, pudgy African-American teenager clapped her hands over her keyboard. "I am so wicked!"

 

"You go, Randy!" The bass player slapped her shoulder. "You got us on the air!"

 

 

"Easy picking," Miranda assured him. "Seems they never stopped to think somebody might want to change their playlist."

 

The lead singer had his ear to the radio. "That really us? Sounds thin."

 

"Hey, they ain't got the kind of equipment I do," Randy protested. " 'Course they're gonna sound coarse!"

 

" 'Course they're gonna sound coarse!" the lead guitar player repeated, musing, and the drummer took it up. " 'Course they're gonna sound coarse!" He hit the kick drum and added a lick on the snare topped by the tom-tom, then repeated it again and again.

 

'"Course they're gonna sound coarse!" the rest of the group chanted. "'Course they're gonna sound coarse!" They picked up their instruments.

 

Randy glanced at the CD light to make sure the recording was still spinning, then heard the music behind her and decided the nature of the problem had changed. Could she put this band on the air live?

 

Of course she could! She was almost tempted to tell those fat middle-aged listeners, "This is Randy, bringing you the music of today!" but there was no point in giving the cops her name and address, was there? After all, what they were doing was technically illegal.

 

"Tell the computer guy I want that racket stopped now!" Josh raged over the phone. "Then tell him to trace the hacker! I want that kid in jail for life!"

 

"Yeah, sure, Chief, but he's working as fast as he can." Gordon glanced at the engineer, who sat motionless, gazing at the automation computer's screen with a very thoughtful look on his face. It wasn't really a lie— hadn't Edison said brainwork was the toughest kind of all? And he should have known, he had hired enough brains to be an expert.

 

"Tell him to unplug the blasted thing!"

 

"He can't, it's hard-wired," Gordon explained. "So's the input from the music service."

 

"Tell him to cut the lines!"

 

"First off, he says that if we do that, it will take a day and a half to get the system back on-line,"

Gordon explained, "and the kid will just hack in again anyway. Says he has to find out how the hacker got in and un-hack him. It'll be quicker and a lot more permanent."

 

Josh groaned.

 

 

A harried middle-aged woman called up the stairs, "Miranda! Time for dinner!" But she heard the music and started the climb, shaking her head with a sigh. Those kids would never hear her over that noise—and if it was that loud, they were practicing something new, not listening to a cut they'd recorded earlier. They wouldn't be happy about having to shut down—but they all knew what her cooking was like, and in teenagers, appetite just might win out over the need for self-expression. Good thing she'd cooked enough for a small army.

 

It was a tough problem for Tony—how to get the kids off the air, without leaving a trace for a security expert to follow. They seemed like good kids, and there was no point in getting them in trouble for a prank. A mighty big prank, mind you, and one that was costing the station a lot of money, but nonetheless a prank. He could scramble the code as a first step … He dived into the data stream and flailed about, making ones and zeros crash into each other, changing the music to static—and was shocked to see them being restored to their positions and the music clearing.

 

That was why—here came an unearthly-looking creature with more heads than Tony could count and at least a hundred tentacles, carefully setting the numbers back in order with a uniform distance between them. "Who the heck are you?" Tony cried.

 

"I am a Centimanes; I am the Hundred-Handed," the creature replied, "A Centimanes?" Tony stared. "You can't be inside a circuit! You're a Titan! You're supposed to be the size of a mountain!"

 

"We are magical creatures." The monstrosity didn't miss a beat, or a digit. "I can take any size I deem necessary for the service of Order."

 

"Well, you're certainly performing a disservice to the radio station that's trying to broadcast oldies!"

 

"That is no concern of mine," the Centimanes answered. "I am the Servant of Order; I see to it that the data stream is kept neat and tidy."

 

Tony frowned. "And you don't worry about whose data you're ordering?"

 

"Neatness counts," the monster answered. "Tidiness is next to godliness."

 

With a shock, Tony realized he had met a supernatural obsessive-compulsive. "You're only dealing with the symptoms," he protested. "You have to attack the problem at its source."

 

"I care not whence the digits come," the Centimanes returned. "I only care that they stand neatly."

 

A wave toppled the numbers—a minor power surge. The Centimanes righted them.

 

Tony made another try. "The numbers keep scrambling because there are two information flows.

Let's go find the junction."

 

 

But the Centimanes kept tapping numbers with its hundred hands. "I must be sure they stand in order."

 

With a flash of inspiration, Tony realized how he could lead the micro-monster to solve the radio station's problem without hurting Randy. "Let's go!" He shot away through the silicon, reaching out a hand to topple numbers like a child running a stick along a picket fence. The Centimanes gave a squawk of horror and dashed after him, righting numbers as it went.

 

Randy had an audio mixer for the band, of course— she had made it in electronics class, and the instructor had been so delighted he had given her an "A." She had designed it with an input for each instrument plus five singers' mikes, and they were all plugged in and showing green on her peak meter.

With a devilish grin, she plugged the output into her computer, called up the audio card's mixer, made sure the levels were right, then routed the signal into the data stream. "You're on the air—live!"

 

Chapter 18

 

The drummer hit a triumphant lick topped with a cymbal crash and the lead singer began his chant:

" 'Course it's coarse, Our music hoarse! Remember its source Is dirt and force!"

 

Nodding her head with the beat, Randy presided over the middle class of the city hearing from its angry youth—and about time, too.

 

Riding Randy's data stream, Tony shot through the gate she had opened into the automation computer. Ahead, he could see the other gate, the one she had closed to stop the flow from the music service. Now the problem was opening the one and closing the other, and he certainly couldn't do both at the same time; they were gates of digits, and he only had two hands.

 

But he knew someone who had more.

 

The gate that held back the music service was only a quadratic equation; Tony wrenched the factors apart and the digit-encoded music flowed. It collided with Randy's stream. Digits toppled one upon another, making for utter confusion.

 

Keening like an ambulance, the Centimanes dived into the maelstrom, its hundred hands sorting bunches of digits and righting others. It would take the creature only a second or two to straighten them both out. Tony had no more time than that to figure out how to shunt Randy's data stream away from the transmitter.

 

In Randy's room, the band froze, staring at the radio, which was emitting a blast of static that drowned out the band's music. "They're trying to jam us," she called over the roar. "I'll set up another gate!" Her fingers flew over the keys.

 

 

"Jam!" the drummer cried, and tore into a solo. The rest of the band cheered and added their throbbing notes to underscore his beat. The drummer topped his lick with a cymbal, and the bass took up a solo of his own.

 

Ahead, another gate materialized, but Tony shot through it before it could close and grabbed ones and zeros, assembling them into an algorithm that blocked it open. He swam on, searching for the output to the transmitter.

 

There it lay ahead, with Randy's data stream flowing through it! He rocketed on, formulating the equation that would divert hip-hop.

 

On the other side of the gate he circled back, fighting the current flow, and set his shoulder to the gate as he recited the code to shut it. Inch by inch, the gate began to close.

 

With a roar, the Centimanes slapped tentacles onto the gate, pushing against Tony. "The flow must not be impeded!'

 

"Why not?" Tony shouted. "It wasn't here in the first place! This gate is only shutting off the data stream that was intended to flow through this circuit!"

 

"I care not for was—I care for is!"

 

Tony gave a recursive curse and, while it was circulating between himself and the Centimanes, ran his hands over the gate, sensing its form, translating it into code in his head. When he had it, he worked out the countercode and recited it as he proceeded to take the gate apart bit by bit.

 

It took only nanoseconds and left him staring at the Centimanes through a snow-storm of ones and zeros that the Centimanes automatically righted and spaced as it demanded, "What have you done, mortal?"

 

"Eliminated the gateway," Tony said, "and the invading music with it. This circuit is as it was designed, creature. Keep it well!" With that, he withdrew his spirit-extension and found himself staring at the screen, fingers poised over the keyboard.

 

A hand slapped Tony's shoulder. "You did it!"

 

Tony frowned, looking up at a strange, middle-aged beefy face. "Sure. Kid stuff."

 

"I want the kid who did that stuff!"

 

"Uh, Tony Ricci," the announcer said hesitantly, "this is Josh Largan, our owner."

 

"It's not that easy to trace a hacker," Tony said, "especially after I've cut 'em off. Why would you want the kid, anyway? Didn't really do that much damage. There's no need to get her in trouble."

 

'Trouble?" Largan bellowed. "I want to hire her!

 

Any kid who can break into this computer, can figure out ways to keep other kids out—and at a quarter of the price I have to pay you!"

 

Tony was only too glad to pack up his laptop and head for the door—after all, he had a date that night.

 

The negative side—or maybe very positive side—of being back together was that Tony was much less inclined to resist temptation, if it meant hurting Sandy's feelings and maybe losing her. Sandy, on the other hand, was much less inclined to offer that temptation, or to push for anything more than petting. The result was mutual confusion and growing frustration.

 

Basically, Tony's approach was not to seek what wasn't offered, and Sandy wasn't about to offer anything that he would probably reject, no matter that he wanted it badly but was trying not to take advantage of her.

 

On a silvery Saturday, they went to roam the city, kicking through the snow, gossiping, stepping into coffee shops whenever the chill crept in, laughing over the newspapers at a bistro, strolling through three different museums, walking along a sidewalk lined with artists' pictures and pointing out several to remember, then going to another bistro to compare notes about the pictures they'd thought worth comment—but not exchanging those comments where the artists could hear. Museums, shopping for knick-knacks and paintings, talk and laughter and the occasional kiss made up a day Tony knew he would never forget.

 

When they arrived back at her apartment building, he said, "We're still on for the movies tonight, aren't we?"

 

"Of course," Sandy said with a smile.

 

"Okay, I'd better run home and change." Tony gave her a quick kiss. "Six-thirty?"

 

"Yeah… sure." Sandy sounded surprized, maybe disappointed, but gave him a kiss back—only this time, it lasted a bit longer, and when Tony backed away, she seemed more cheerful.

 

He went home, changed, picked her up, and had an evening that would have rivalled the day if Sandy hadn't kept glancing at him out of the corners of her eyes as though wondering if he were still there. Trying to reassure her, he held her hand whenever she wasn't eating popcorn, and it seemed to help a little.

 

They came out, happily dissecting the movie, but when Tony started to turn into their favorite club, Sandy held back, and said, "I don't think so. Not tonight."

 

"What?" Tony looked back surprized, then said, "Okay, then. Home?"

 

Sandy nodded, and he flagged down a cab. He kept asking her opinion of one aspect of the movie after another but received very short answers; Sandy seemed very nervous for some reason, and Tony started feeling as though he were in her way. When she turned the key in the lock of her outer door, Tony said, "Guess I'd better go, then. Thanks for a wonderful day."

 

"What?" Sandy turned, astounded. "Aren't you coming in?"

 

"If I'm invited," Tony said. "I'm not assuming that I'm welcome every night."

 

Sandy stood staring at him for a moment, then said very softly, "Thank you, darling. You were right; this is one of those rare evenings that should end here."

 

Tony forced a smile, making it as warm as he could, and kissed her on the cheek—only she moved her head, and his lips met hers instead. It was a long and lingering kiss, but when it ended, Sandy pressed a finger over his mouth, whispered, "Good night," and was gone through the door.

 

Tony stood staring at the doorbell for a few minutes, sorting out his confusions, then turned and went down the steps. He was surprized to find the taxi still there. He leaned down to the window and asked, "Are you free?"

 

"Sure am," the driver said. "I always stay to make sure my fares get in their doors. Pays off sometimes, too."

 

"This is one of those times, I guess." Tony slid into the back seat and gave her the address.

 

It was a cold, crisp December night. Outside the large building the snow sparkled on the ground, falling through the air like the pearl white seasonal sequins that would be heavily discounted in the next few weeks. Inside the building the white of fresh, sterile paint made the cold hallways even colder as Beth headed toward the studio once again.

 

As she opened the heavy metal door, one that always reminded her of a high-security bank vault, she was greeted with a blast of hot air. She took a deep breath and inhaled the heady scent of blue and pink gels baking over blazing lights, black cables freshly uncoiled, and the sweet aroma of canned coffee and melting duct tape.

 

Ah, there was nothing like the smell of Christmas, and to Beth the Christmas holidays always began with the WBEG Winter Pledge Drive. Yes, there was nothing like begging for money to get you into the true spirit of the holidays. That reminded her to make a mental note to call her mother when she got home.

 

 

She stepped into the studio and promptly sneezed as the searing heat of the lights for the set warmed her in an instant. She'd been going back and forth all day— and most of the week—between the warm control room, the cold hallways, and the hot studio. Something was clearly wrong with the heating controls in the building. Add that to the long list of things that were not working consistently, and it was amazing they were still on the air.

 

Dodging phone volunteers and camera crew meandering back to their positions from the break between the breaks, and nimbly navigating around the dozens of cables strewn across the floor, Beth finally arrived at the cameras and began checking the tally lights for any improvements.

 

"Seven minutes till the break," a tall man with a bushy red mustache called out, then looked over at her. "Any luck?"

 

"You tell me," Beth replied. "Did they work last break?"

 

He shook his head, then readjusted his headset and turned the volume up on the remote pack clipped to the waistband on his jeans. She sighed and turned back to the camera, supping on the attached headset."Mac?" she asked, pressing down the TALK button.

 

"Yo," he replied, slightly out of breath as if he had just run into position. He probably had. She could hear the distinctive crunch of potato chips on the other end. "Put up Camera Three."

 

She glanced at the monitor and saw the same image as the one in her viewfinder, but the red tally light wasn't lit. She looked over at the other cameras and noticed a red light on Camera One. Well, that tally light worked, but by all explanations it shouldn't.

 

"Punch up Camera One," she insisted. A moment later the image of a close-up on a telephone flashed onto the monitor—but the tally light lit up on Camera Three. She shook her head sadly. What was going on? The tally lights, like everything else, had been acting up for the last three days, and the engineers were working around the clock to fix the problems for tonight's breaks. The problem was, they couldn't find a problem. It defied explanation. The equipment only seemed to work when it wanted to.

That was really nothing new in the TV industry, in this station in particular, but it was usually a little more reliable than this.

 

Suddenly the chatter in the room died down as a short man in a bad toupee entered the room, followed by an entourage of assistants. Beth took a deep breath, took off the headset, and marched over to him as Bill, the tall mustached man, helped him settle into the comfortable, Victorian-style armchair on the mock-library section of the set.

 

"Mr. Halloway, I'm Beth Grady, your director for the pledge breaks tonight."

 

The man smiled at her in a polite, distant manner as his assistants and Gerald Mann, the producer, began to fawn over him and get him ready.

 

Mr. Halloway was the newly-elected mayor and had built and won the election on his "Education for All" platform. He had openly touted the pedigree and excellence of the local PBS station, WBEG, and therefore had insisted on being the cohost for the Saturday conclusion of their Winter Pledge Drive.

The other host, Stanwick Sage, a WBEG employee who oversaw production of a local show, was sitting on the round central podium surrounded by pledge gifts. He was a pro at keeping the pledge breaks quick-paced, entertaining, and on track. The mayor appeared to have none of those qualities. Beth doubted he could write a speech himself, let alone remember it.

 

That was why the little technical inconveniences such as reversed tally lights and malfunctioning Tele-PrompTers, were a major problem now, and why Beth was sure her pet ulcer had developed a sister. The mayor was less than an amateur at live television and had been very hostile to the idea of looking foolish in any way.

 

Beth glanced at the phone volunteers and shuddered slightly, wishing there had not been a mistake with how the groups had been assigned. The local Bankers' Association was supposed to be here, but instead they had somehow gotten switched with a new group of some sort of sci-fi fan club. All the volunteers were wearing black cloaks with large green eyes painted on the backs.

 

Now, Beth had nothing against sci-fi fan clubs or dressing up to be on television. She liked to role-play herself and attended sci-fi/fantasy conventions whenever she could. WBEG welcomed their support as much as that of any group in the community—last night, the phone volunteers had been the Doctor Who fan club for WBEG's annual marathon, a very entertaining and nice bunch of people. Most of them had dressed up as characters from the show, several had tripped over very long scarfs either they or someone else was wearing, and one man had even tried to bring along his small schnauzer, dressed in tin foil and named K-9. Compared to them, green-eyed cloaks were tame, but there was something about the group that gave Beth a very uneasy feeling— as though they were watching her and waiting for something. Maybe it was the green eyes on their cloaks. That was what she told herself as she headed back to the control room. The volunteers could wait, and the producer could deal with the mayor—she had a break to run.

 

"Three minutes to air," Mac told her, as she dashed into the control room, realizing halfway down the hall how close they must be to air time. She threw on the headset and plopped down in the director's chair. It retaliated for the abuse by rolling backward into the wall. She grabbed the edge of the table and slid the chair back up to it, then flipped a bunch of switches, pressed a few buttons, and spoke into a small microphone.

 

"Ready in Master Control?" she asked.

 

Static answered; then a smooth voice, low and cool, spoke.

 

"Ready."

 

 

Beth frowned, trying to figure out who the engineer was, since it was obviously not Fred, the high-pitched computer nerd who'd been scheduled. Shrugging it off, she glanced at Mac, who sat behind the switcher, fingers poised above the buttons and twitching from too much coffee. "Ready?"

 

He nodded. She checked with the CG and Audio operators, then flipped on the permanent TALK

button on her headset. "Ready in the studio?"

 

"Ready," Bill replied.

 

"One minute till air," she announced, looking at the red numbers on the countdown clock ticking away. "Whenever you're ready, go ahead and give it to us, Master Control."

 

There was an almost imperceptible flash in the image on the program monitor, one of ten monitors that were set up at the other end of the room across what the crew affectionately called "the Grand Canyon," empty space between the control desk and the monitors.

 

"We're hot and live with thirty seconds to go!" Beth declared. The nerves were killing her. She was so nauseous she was afraid she might throw up, and gripped the cool surface of the table for support.

 

"Fifteen seconds."

 

She closed her eyes and silently offered up a prayer to St. Vidicon to keep the equipment working until they were off the air. Luckily it was only a six-minute break.

 

"Urn, Tony—I could use a little help here …"

 

"Whassamatta?" Tony swam up from the depths of sleep, saw St. Vidicon's face, and tried to remember that he always felt refreshed after one of these errands. "Who's in trouble now?"

 

"Beth, that young television director you helped last June," St. Vidicon said. "Her equipment is rebelling again."

 

"Gotcha, boss." Tony stood up, looking around him at the maroon tunnel.

 

"Oh, and—you might need this." Father Vidicon pressed something into Tony's hand. A quick glance showed Tony it was a rosary. "Uh, thanks," he said, and stuffed it into his pocket, then spread his hands. "How do I get to the TV station?"

 

"Like this," Father Vidicon said, and Tony felt the floor drop out from under him.

 

'Ten seconds."

 

 

Under the table, Beth's leg was twitching anxiously.

 

"Ready open mike, ready cue talent, ready fade in one," she called. "Five… four… three … Open mike, cue talent, fade in one!"

 

They were live and on the air. Whether or not they stayed that way was up to the good Lord and St.

Vidicon.

 

Flashes of light and miniature glowing squiggles flew past, the speed increasing. Finally there was an explosion of light and a pyjama-clad man tumbled to the floor of a pitch-black tunnel.

 

Hold on to your gigabytes and pass the Pepto—Tony had a new assignment.

 

He got to his feet and immediately fell down again as the floor moved beneath him. He looked down and saw, covering the floor of the tunnel (and taking up most of the corridor), four huge cables, each the width of a sidewalk and all moving around under his feet. They started to sway and jump more and he scurried to stand, bracing himself against the flexible rubber-coated wall. Then he realized that the tunnel was no longer completely dark and that each cable was a different color—red, green, yellow, and blue. He looked down the tunnel for the source of the light, but before he could pin it down, the cables began to shake violently, the red one in the middle shaking most of all. He gripped the walls for support and waited to see what new monster was savaging the world's technology this time.

 

He didn't have long to wait. A line of men and women, only as tall as his waist if that, appeared.

They were dressed in brightly-colored long-sleeved shirts with coordinating trousers and vests. On their heads were pointed hats, the tips of which glowed as though they encased light bulbs. They looked like garden gnomes—like the tacky plastic kind you see in your neighbor's yard—only they had to be much smaller and were moving very quickly. In fact, they were running. Each one was carrying a giant letter, white and faintly glowing. The first one was capitalized and eventually Tony glimpsed a period running to catch up with the rest of the sentence. There seemed to be hundreds of them, racing through the tunnel and trying not to panic as a comma slipped and fell. Tony rushed to help him up. "Excuse me—what's going on?"

 

The gnome roughly shoved him out of the way,

 

grabbed the comma, and took off at lightning speed to jump back into the place he had deserted.

The others brushed passed him, not even noticing him as he leaped aside to make way for a giant O.

More than five hundred of them ran past, disappearing into the tunnel once more, the light going with them.

 

Since Tony didn't have anywhere else to go, he ran after the gnomes. He fell several times on the tricky, moving cables before he finally saw light ahead of him— red, this time, and coming fast. Two gnomes raced toward him, holding an enormous glowing red ball between them.

 

 

"Watch out! Tally light coming through!" one of them shouted.

 

Tony jumped back against the wall and the glowing ball shot past him at top gnome speed. He frowned after it, then turned to go on down the tunnel after the letter carriers.

 

Finally, he came to a glowing blue hole in the side of the tunnel. He took a deep breath and jumped through it, landing on a green cable on the other side. Looking around, he saw he was in another tunnel just like the first. He followed it, moving warily, since he really had no idea where he was going. At last the floor began to slope upward, the slope steepening until Tony was climbing more than walking, feeling as though he were three years old and trying to climb up a slippery steep slide.

 

Finally, he came to the top and crawled through a hole that was slightly larger then the biggest letter. He found himself in a glowing room with metal walls. Looking up, he saw that the light came from a hole in the ceiling that gave a glimpse of a more brightly-lit room above. Looking down again he saw, about a third of the way from the back wall, a huge blackboard with slim metal bands forming rows in equal widths across it. Half a hundred gnomes were standing on platforms beside the blackboard, holding their letters in front of them, while still more were climbing into place and even more were waiting to get on. In front of the blackboard ran three slightly taller gnomes, all dressed in yellow with gold stars on the tips of their hats. One held a scroll of what looked to be computer printout, shouting out words to the other two, who were arranging the letter-gnomes in order. The entire blackboard was moving upward into the even more brightly-glowing room above them.

 

Their speed seemed to vary, and as Tony stepped forward, hoping to get a better look, he noticed that there was another blackboard behind the first that was moving down, toward the room he was in.

Letter-gnomes stood on the thin platforms and jumped down as soon as they were within three feet of the floor; then, still holding their letters, ran back to the larger group, waiting to get cycled back in.

 

They were making words and sentences. A speech. Suddenly he realized what he was seeing. He had been sent to help out with the often-malfunctioning PBS station WBEG once again. A few months before he had fought against a swarm of gremlkins who had attacked the character generator. The problems had escalated beyond that now, just when the station seemed to be doing better financially, and the equipment was either not working at all or working sporadically. He'd been sent inside the system to find out what was wrong and fix it, paying particular attention to the tally lights. He realized that what he was looking at was obviously the inner workings of the TelePrompTer. However, he had never in his life heard that TelePrompTers were operated by gnomes.

 

A voice boomed inside the room, echoing off the walls. 'Ten seconds … Five … four… three . .."

 

Tony realized the "room" was connected to the intercom system.

 

'Two," the voice said. "One … we're off the air."

 

Every gnome in the room, except the ones on the platforms, collapsed, taking deep gulping breaths as if they had just come up from an underwater battle. No more gnomes appeared on the blackboard in front and gnomes riding down on the back blackboard jumped off it, tossing their letters toward the outer edge of the room and falling to the floor in a crumpled heap. Eventually both blackboards slowed to a stop and the gnomes, having recovered somewhat, slowly stood up, holding on to each other for support.

 

"The next break is in twenty-one minutes," the echoing voice boomed.

 

There was a resounding cheer from the gnomes, and they all charged toward Tony.

 

Chapter 19

 

Once again, the gnomes barely noticed Tony as they ditched their letters and jumped into the hole that led back into the tunnel. He watched each one slide down the slope crying out in joy and running off into the tunnel—which, Tony realized, was the cable that connected the camera to the control room.

 

The room was emptying fast. In a few moments he would be alone and more confused than ever, and given some of his recent missions, that was really saying something. Before he could think about the consequences, he threw himself in front of the exit hole. Four or five gnomes promptly collided with each other, creating a gnome pile-up. Several of them cried out, and a younger one even squeaked in panic.

 

One of the yellow-clad gnomes—a sturdy-looking, middle-aged female with small spectacles—

skidded to a stop near the pile and glared at Tony furiously. "What exactly did you think you were doing, young man?!?" she demanded. "Do you realize how many gnomes you could have hurt?!? And every one of us is important if we're going to help the station survive the night!"

 

Tony stood up as soon as the gnomes had de-piled themselves, all glaring at him ferociously. He looked around apologetically, brushing off his clothes. "I'm sorry. I just need to know what's going on.

Who are you?"

 

Several of the gnomes harrumphed and a few laughed. The yellow woman looked at him skeptically. "You don't look like an imp or a gremlin. Are you the one damaging the system?"

 

"Oh no," Tony said quickly, eyeing some of the more burly gnomes who were shaking their fists at him. "I've been sent to help."

 

"Sent?" another gnome, this one various shades of brown, demanded. "Sent by whom?!?"

 

"St. Vidicon." Tony figured he might as well be honest, since they probably didn't know who Father Vidicon was anyway—but a murmur of surprize and gasps of reverence echoed through the steel chamber. In a single smooth motion all the gnomes swept off their hats and bowed their heads. After a moment of silence they replaced their hats and looked at him with new respect.

 

 

All but the yellow lady. "Prove it," she snapped.

 

Prove it? How? Tony stared, at a loss, then remembered Father Vidicon's gift. He felt in his pocket and pulled out the rosary.

 

The yellow lady gasped, staring.

 

So did Tony. He had never before seen a rosary made from computer chips and strung on a strand of fiberoptic cable. The cross that dangled from it was made from four burned-out capacitors.

 

The gnomes murmured and took off their hats, bowing their heads. The yellow one nodded, apparently satisfied.

 

Tony, however, was still confused. "How did you hear of Father Vidicon? He's scarcely been martyred yet."

 

"Silly boy," an older gray-haired gnome with a pocket protector and slight potbelly answered. "We operate clocks and watches and hourglasses and sundials!" He paused. "Well, okay, not sundials—but time doesn't matter to Technomes!"

 

"Technomes?" Tony asked. He had never heard of such a thing.

 

The gnomes were outraged. "Who do you think runs the stoplights and the telephone wires?!?" one demanded.

 

"And the TVs and VCRs and microwave ovens! Who runs those?!?"

 

Tony was confused. "Well, electricity, cables, sound waves …"

 

He was cut off by a rush of voices. "And what keeps clocks ticking in a power outage?!?"

 

"What if there's a short in the system? Who runs it then?"

 

"Who did Thomas Edison think he was, inventing that light bulb contraption? Have you ever been inside one? It's horribly hot in there!"

 

Tony was feeling overly overwhelmed. Luckily the woman in yellow seemed to notice and silenced her fellow Technomes with a wave, then turned back to Tony and held out her hand. "I'm Beatrice. Call me Bea."

 

"Tony."

 

 

They shook hands, and she led him back to the exit hole. "We'll explain it all to you back at the break room," she announced.

 

Tony tried to ask another question, but Bea reached up and grabbed his shoulders, bending him down, then shoving him through the exit hole. He slid down the slide with a yelp and hit the bottom with a bouncing thud. He got to his feet as quickly as gravity allowed and stepped aside just in time to avoid being hit as Bea came sliding down behind him. She jumped up and took off running down the tunnel, the light on her hat showing the way.

 

"Follow me!" her voice cried, echoing down the tunnel behind her.

 

Tony took off after her, trying to keep up with her amazing speed and following the bouncing light in the tunnel ahead. He had been in TV studios before and knew there were yards and yards of cables. It would take forever to get out of the system.

 

He couldn't have been running for more than a minute or two when there was a flash of blue light and to his great surprize, he stepped out of the cable and into the back of the break room refrigerator. He stumbled forward and nearly landed facedown on a large plastic container of pudding, clearly intended for someone's lunch box—a normal-sized someone, not gnome-sized.

 

He looked around, amazed at the huge cartons of orange juice and half-and-half, the giant Tupperware containers full of salads and soups, and lots of other leftovers from lunches. Even a mammoth box of donuts peeked out around the mustard at the front. He'd never spent any time standing at the back shelf of a fridge before, but it was really quite fascinating. Bea looked at him and smiled.

 

"I told you time didn't matter to us," she declared with a hint of superiority. "We're sent wherever and whenever there's trouble." She looked around at the groups of gnomes who had already started to party down. Spaghetti streamers decorated the shelf ceiling and five gnomes were rolling two very large cans of soda over to another group. One gnome ran forward and stuck what had to be some sort of a tap into each can, and the gnomes promptly filed up in line, filling tiny mugs with cold, cool, carbonated goodness. Bea flashed him a smirk and a shrug. "And when the trouble's over, we like to relax."

 

Apparently gnomes had taken relaxation tips from college students. Some were chugging soda.

There was a high-stakes poker game going, using colored sprinkles from several of the donuts and set up on a Clementine with cherry tomatoes as stools. One group had even managed to get the lid off a container of red Jell-O and proceeded to swim in it. The bright light of the fridge bulb illuminated the whole rowdy scene, and Tony realized he had finally found the answer to whether or not the light stays on when the fridge door closes.

 

The brown-clothed gnome with the gray hair and pocket protector handed him a small ceramic mug and led him over to the soda keg as Bea followed.

 

"I'm Robert, call me Bob," he said, holding out a hand. Tony clasped it and shook. Bea led them into a quieter corner of the fridge, near the god-only-knows-how-long-it's-been-in-here lettuce. They sat down on a large, but mostly, empty bag of cheese cubes.

 

"We're Technomes," Bea repeated, once they were settled.

 

Tony shivered as the chill of the fridge began to creep into him, but focused on paying careful attention to what she was saying as she continued. "Our job is to make sure that things work. Obviously we can't fix everything—there's simply not enough of us—so we help out in emergencies."

 

"Most people don't even know we exist," Bob added, "but we've been around since the dawn of civilization. 'Course there wasn't as much to do back then, but we kept ourselves busy regluing tablets and making sure fires didn't go out too often."

 

"Mending socks," Bea added.

 

"Fixing quills and refilling ink. Then there was the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci kept us busy for a while."

 

"So did the Wright brothers, remember them?" Bea and Bob exchanged pained glances, and Bea turned back to Tony. "You know, we did stuff like that. But these days we're run off our feet. We've even had to divide into subgroups."

 

"Which are?" Tony prompted.

 

"I'm a school gnome," Bea declared proudly. "I help straighten up teachers' desk drawers, unjam the stapler, scrub the bad stains off the blackboard, and such. Then there are the computer gnomes who basically have then-own sub branch of Net gnomes, who fix problems on the Internet, get Web sites back up and running, destroy spam, and try to head off viruses. Traffic gnomes control the stoplights and walk/don't walk signs. They also freelance in construction work. That's where we got the red tally lights

—we borrowed them from the streetlight on the corner."

 

"But that means someone could get hurt," Tony exclaimed.

 

"No, no, no," Bea assured him. "We set the yellow lights on blink. Whenever you see that happen—

stoplights stuck blinking on one color—it's because the traffic gnomes had to borrow the light for something else."

 

Suddenly Bea frowned and looked at a green-, yellow-, and red-clad gnome drying off from a swim through the Jell-O. "Edgar, when you pulled the red light, did you remember to set the yellows on blink?"

 

Edgar frowned, trying to remember.

 

 

They heard the muffled sound of a distant crash.

 

Edgar took off running.

 

"Apparently not," Bob muttered, then looked at Bea with a sad sigh. "Edgar's getting more and more forgetful these days. We'll have to do something about that. We could get him a nice job in the CD

department."

 

Bea nodded, thinking, and sipped her soda. Bob turned back to Tony.

 

"Anyway, there are also two kinds of tele-gnomes," Bob continued. "I'm a telephone gnome—I run back and forth fixing telephone lines, phone jacks—cell phones are a royal pain, let me tell you. Then there're the television gnomes who take care of TV stations like this one and try to keep cable signals and reception clear. They also have to worry about cameras and lenses now, as well as DVD players, VCRs, satellite dishes, and digital programming."

 

"I'm glad I don't work in that office," Bea muttered. Bob agreed.

 

Tony looked around. "Which ones are the television gnomes?" he asked.

 

"Oh, they're still stuck in the control room fixing the problems there. The cooking gnomes send them catered snacks when we're not on the air. You know all the lights on the video switcher?"

 

Tony nodded.

 

"Right now, each one of those is a gnome."

 

Tony stared, struggling with the sheer magnitude of the idea. But something was puzzling him. He turned to Bea. "I was sent here to help fix the station's technical problems, but you seem to be doing fine

—so why am I here?"

 

They shrugged, and Bob said, "Maybe you can find the root of the problem. We're just trying to keep it on the air."

 

"Haven't you looked for the source of it?" Tony asked.

 

They nodded, then looked away. "It was the first thing we did," Bea told him. "Nothing seemed to be wrong with the equipment, so we figured something was down in Master Control—the engineering headquarters."

 

"And what did you find?"

 

They shrugged. "The gnomes we sent there never returned. We sent two more parties, and they didn't come back, either. No one goes near that area who doesn't disappear without a trace."

 

"Could a gnome be behind it?" They looked offended, so Tony quickly added, "I mean, has any gnome ever gone bad?"

 

"Where do you think Imps come from?!?" Bob declared. "Those are serious offenders, and we don't take no responsibility for them! Oh sure, some gnomes get carried away and play a trick or two, like stealing a single sock out of the dryer, but what gnome hasn't wanted to do that?"

 

Gnomes were the reason for odd socks? Tony shook his head and turned his mind back to the problem at hand. What was going on inside Master Control? He sat back and mulled over the information as he sipped his soda. Clearly he needed to find a way in there.

 

And find a way back.

 

"Three minutes till air!" someone shouted from over by the soda kegs. "Get to your positions!"

 

One by one the gnomes got up and hurried over to the door back into the cables. Tony held Bob back as he moved to join them. "How do I get to Master Control?" he asked.

 

Bob looked at him as if he were crazy. "Why go there? You won't come back!"

 

"That's my problem. Can you tell me how to get there or not?"

 

Bob nodded and called out to a cooking gnome, dressed in white with a fluffy baker's hat. "John, can you show Tony here to Master Control? Take him to Roger." He turned back to Tony. "Roger can show you the way there."

 

"Thanks." Tony followed John to a side entrance. They jumped into a hole in the wall and disappeared into the darkness.

 

Well, the first break had gone pretty smoothly. Beth sighed with relief as she drained the soda can, crumpled it, and tossed it into the recycling bin, heading back to the control room. One down and six to go. Please let the machines keep working, she silently pleaded.

 

She slipped back into her seat and put on her headset. She'd a chance to talk with the mayor, who was pleased with how the last break had gone—though she'd had to assure him that in spite of their strange costumes, the volunteer phone operators were really very nice and were certainly not taking the spotlight off him. He was satisfied that the evening would be a success.

 

Unfortunately, the phones were not ringing off the hook as she had hoped. Well, maybe they would pick up later, although given how boring the last break had been, no matter how Stan tried to lighten it up, she doubted it.

 

 

Mac wandered back in and sat down at the switcher, brushing some potato chip crumbs off his shirt. He smiled sheepishly as Beth gave him a reproachful look. Cockroaches in the control room, that would be all they needed now.

 

'To you in ten," the sepulchral voice from Master Control said.

 

"Ready mikes, ready fade in three," Beth called. "Three … two … one … Open mikes, fade in three!"

 

The break was underway.

 

Unfortunately, it promised to be even more boring than the last, as the mayor launched into a speech on sewer service reforms. It wasn't boring for the crew, though—they were all praying silently for the equipment to keep working. Come on, just a little longer. Just a few more minutes.

 

Looking back on it, Beth would never be quite sure how it began, but someone on the set screamed.

Beth, determined to keep the mayor on the air, kept the camera on him, but glanced at her preview monitors for the wide shot of the set. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

 

The phone volunteers had abandoned their posts. Three of the dozen were standing on the set, pointing an odd assortment of guns at the crew and the remaining, non-cloaked, volunteers. The rest of the cloaked club were rounding up everyone who wasn't manning the equipment and forcing them over to the phone bank.

 

The mayor, realizing what was happening, stopped his speech and looked off screen. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded.

 

Beth still knew better than to change the camera angle, even with Mac asking her a dozen times when she wanted to switch. "Do we really want the folks at home to know about this?"

 

The leader of the cloaked club pointed a gun at Stan's head. "I want us on the screen! NOW!"

 

"Do it," she ordered, and Mac punched up Camera Two.

 

"Please, no one panic," Beth told her crew over their headsets, although she felt as if she were going against her own orders. "Please stay calm. Everyone will be okay. I'm calling the police."

 

"Don't call the police," the leader said into Camera Two. "If we hear one siren, if anyone enters this building from now until we get off the air, we will shoot everyone in this studio."

 

There was an audible gasp, and Beth waited breathlessly in the control room to hear their demands.

What did they want? Money? Fame? Who would be stupid enough to hold a PBS station hostage? It's not like anyone was watching.

 

"We regret using the threat of violence," the leader went on, "but we feel it is necessary. We don't want to kill anyone, but we will if we have to. We are fighting a war, and we understand that there may be casualties."

 

War? Oh my God, they're terrorists, Beth thought wildly. What could she do to stop them? Were they going to die?

 

"As some of you know and many of you do not, aliens are among us," the "volunteer" declared.

 

Everyone froze, unsure if they had heard him correctly.

 

"That's right, aliens. We are not the Fly-By-Night Candy Foundation, who deliver to pregnant women and college dorms around the clock as our banner claims. We are, in fact, The Interglobal Confederation of Totally Outrageous Conspiracy Theories."

 

The what? Beth thought about the name for a moment and figured out their initials. TIC TOCT.

They should have had clocks on their cloaks, not green eyes. Alien eyes, she realized with a start. Why hadn't she seen it before? Even if she had, she would never have expected this.

 

"We are a secret organization of civilians dedicated to destroying the threat of alien interference in our daily lives and of preventing the great Intergalactic War that will soon be upon us. Do any of you realize how many evil things in the history of our world have been the treacherous plans of beings from another world?"

 

He walked over to one of the mayor's staff, sitting by a telephone looking pale and worried. "You!"

he demanded.

 

She squeaked with fear.

 

"Who was responsible for the assassination of JFK?"

 

"Um … Lee Harvey Oswald?" she mumbled.

 

"WRONG!" he yelled. "It was aliens! And who was responsible for the Black Plague?"

 

"Um … rats?"

 

"ALIENS!" he shouted. "Who started both world wars in an attempt to destroy our planet?"

 

"Um … aliens?" she suggested meekly.

 

 

"Exactly!" he cried, beaming with delight at her understanding.

 

Well, give them points for creativity. Beth had certainly never learned THAT in a history book.

 

He turned back to the camera and addressed the audience, all ten of them. "We do not like violence," he said again, "but we are very good at it. We appeal to the people of this country …"

 

Country? Didn't they realize this was a local PBS station? It couldn't even reach the whole state.

 

"… to donate to our worthy cause! After all, we are fighting to save your lives as well as our own; we are fighting to save the world. But we need more money so that we can develop weapons powerful enough to defeat our enemies! Donate to us, here at this station, and save the lives of these brave volunteers while you help us save the world!"

 

There was a resounding cheer from all the black-cloaked volunteers.

 

Stan smiled, still sitting on the central, circular podium in the center of the set. "Hey, that's not a bad slogan—WBEG-TV—saving the world through public broadcasting."

 

"I'm in charge here!" the leader shouted. "I'll come up with the slogans!" He turned back to the camera once again. "Citizens of the world, unite!"

 

Oh, the country wasn't enough, he now assumed this broadcast was global. As if they had the money for THAT.

 

"We have long fought against the alien menace— join us now and fight for your world! Fight for your future! Send money to secure the safety of your home, of your children, from the alien scum! We must protect ourselves! Now is the time for action!"

 

"And for pledging at the hundred-dollar level we have a VHS copy of tonight's program," Stan declared, desperately trying to get back to the break's script. "At the seventy-five-dollar level…"

 

"I'm talking!" the leader yelled. "And when I'm talking, you shut up!"

 

"But we—we have lovely thank-you gifts," Stan offered.

 

"I have no interest in your pathetic gifts!" the leader glared at him, then looked at the VHS tape.

"Ooh, Lord of the Dance …"

 

There was stunned silence in the control room.

 

"Well," Beth declared. "At least the equipment is working."

 

 

"Yippee," Mac declared without enthusiasm. "Those nutjobs get to stay on the air."

 

Beth knew the group was crazy, but they were holding the guns, and however far-fetched their theories, they were serious. Deadly serious.

 

Suddenly the phones in the studio began to ring.

 

Chapter 20

 

Every single phone rang, all at the same moment. Beth realized with a start that the phone number had been up the whole time. Reflexes took over, and she called, "One on the phones … Quick, quick!

Pan right… Now! Take One."

 

The picture of the two rows of phones appeared on the screen, the mayor's frantic staff talking into them, and Beth could only watch helplessly. There were so many ringing that some of the cloaked conspirators even had to put down their guns and pick up pencils, taking down donation pledges.

 

Beth couldn't believe that people were actually calling in. She realized that the whole town was probably watching by now. Did they realize this was real? Or did everyone think it was some kind of War of the Worlds publicity stunt to get money pouring in? If it hadn't been for the fact that this was a real hostage situation, it might not have seemed like such a bad idea.

 

"Guess what?!?" a phone volunteer cried, jumping up and running to the hosts' table where the leader was standing. "Someone from Springfield will pledge one hundred thousand dollars if you can save the world by the end of the evening!"

 

"Yes!" the leader exclaimed. "I love a challenge!"

 

And just when things seemed to be getting better, and the TIC TOCTians were getting distracted, the worst possible thing happened.

 

Everything stopped working.

 

They were off the air. There was no light, no sound, nothing. It was as if every piece of technology in the building suddenly stopped. Beth could only imagine what the group would do, now that they were off the air.

 

"Please turn back on, please turn back on," she muttered.

 

Tony and John had just dived into the switcher when everything went dark. The room was a mass of confusion as all the tele-gnomes stopped what they were doing and froze, uncertain of what was going on outside, but all knowing that something was terribly wrong.

 

 

"What's happening?" Tony demanded, fighting his way through the darkness to the nearest gnome.

 

"No one knows," she replied, standing perfectly still.

 

Tony realized that whatever was happening on the outside, having the station go off the air could only make things worse. "Get back to work!" he commanded. "Whatever happens, we have to stay on the air!"

 

This seemed to jump-start everyone. The Technomes began moving again. In a few minutes the lights came back on, and Tony found himself in a huge rectangular room, full of moving platforms and thin, tiny cables. Hundreds of gnomes stood perched on platforms or ran between the narrow aisles and into a hole at one end of the room. Each gnome had a very bright light in his or her hat and Tony realized they were lighting up, and operating, the switcher buttons.

 

A tall gnome walked over to him briskly and held out his hand. He had a bristly beard and a mustache, both reminiscent of a college professor, and gripped an unlit pipe between his teeth. He removed the pipe and shook Tony's hand.

 

"Roger," he said, introducing himself.

 

'Tony," Tony replied.

 

"You're the one sent by the saint himself?"

 

Tony nodded, and Roger quickly moved him to the center.

 

"Look, I need to know what's going on." Tony tried to quell his mounting apprehension. Whatever made the gnomes stop came from outside the equipment, even outside the studio itself. "I have to get out of the equipment and into the Master Control room somehow," he said, almost pleadingly. "Whatever happens, you have to keep the gnomes working—make sure the equipment stays on!"

 

Roger nodded gravely and turned to several tele-gnomes, who had just run into the "room." He told them Tony's orders and sent them back into the cable tunnels to tell the others to get the station back on the air.

 

Tony looked around, trying to figure a way out of the switcher. He fumbled in his pocket and clenched St. Vidicon's rosary tightly, rubbing the computer chips and thinking as hard as he could. Then he saw it.

 

A shadow came over one of the gnomes and the gnome jumped up and down on the platform, making the outside button move. Tony realized that the shadow was a human finger. Maybe he could get inside a person on the outside and see what was going on? He had gotten into the inner workings of all kinds of things—why not a person? It could work. If only he knew how.

 

 

The shadow descended again and without thinking, he ran for the platform it was heading for, mumbled an apology as he shoved the gnome off, and jumped up, hitting his head against the orange plastic ceiling.

 

Suddenly he was flying and falling all at the same time, surrounded by darkness. Then he emerged, breathless, into a glowing red-and-pink tunnel—a vein, he realized, and dived in to swim through the red liquid. He found a section heading north and let the current carry him past fat cells lying around sipping pina colada, muscle cells flexing themselves and arguing about which of them was strongest, and several groups of white blood cells wearing martial-arts black belts and attacking nasty-looking leather-clad gangs of bacteria.

 

Tony lay back in the stream of blood that carried him along and settled in for an interesting ride.

 

It seemed forever, but could really have been only a few moments, before the switcher suddenly came back to life, lighting up the rest of the control panel. They were live and on the air again.

 

At first the studio had been pandemonium, with the TIC TOCTians' leader running around screaming at the crew, until Stan—good ol' professional Stan—turned to Camera Two, and said, "Please bear with us, viewers— we're having a few slight technical difficulties. We're sorry for the interruption—

but it does show you why we need your donations: to keep on the air."

 

"Order! Order!" The leader shouted, brandishing his weapon, The mayor's staff fell silent, jumping back into their seats by the phones.

 

Satisfied that the studio was back under his control, the leader turned to Camera Two, and cried,

"See! The aliens conspire to deprive you of our inspiring words! Send in your pledges now to keep them from conquering the world!"

 

He was, of course, standing in front of the brightly-painted flats with the WBEG logos. No one would ever forget which station was putting his little army on the air!

 

In the background every spare person was answering phones—all except the mayor, of course, whose face was a blotchy mixture of white and red, looking both frightened and furious at the same time and, not knowing what else to do, was sitting in his chair quietly.

 

"They will eradicate us all!" the leader screamed. "They will destroy your government and rule over your pathetic little lives! You will be mindless slaves, and they shall feast on the flesh of your children!" He paused in his frenzy and added with a gracious smile, "And that's why we'd like you to donate to the 'Save the Earth from Alien Attack' fund."

 

"The phones are ringing off the hook," Stan said, genuinely pleased with that fact at least. It meant people were watching. Which was a good thing, right?

 

 

"Yes, they are, Stan," the leader agreed. "And that's good, for if they were not, I would have to massacre the entire phone staff and force their families to watch!!" He paused again and smiled. "Now let's go over to my second-in-command—Major Paine—and see what lovely gifts we're offering tonight."

 

"Dissolve Three," Beth said, resigned, and the screen changed to an image of Paine standing in front of a tote board.

 

"Thank you, General, first—at the thousand-dollar level—we have your basic membership in the

'Inter-global Confederation of Totally Outrageous Conspiracy Theories,' including an all-expense-paid vacation to our training camp, as well as your very own gun. Now at the five-thousand-dollar level, you can start off with a commission as a lieutenant, guaranteeing at least five other 'Friends of the Federation' under your command. As an additional incentive, if enough people make a pledge at the ten-thousand-dollar level then we will NOT kill your mayor. However, if enough people pledge at the hundred-thousand-dollar level, then we will kill your mayor. Now back to you, General."

 

All the color had drained out of the mayor's face. He was looking both horrified and embarrassed.

 

After what seemed like hours, and many wrong turns into strangely fascinating organs, one actually shaped like a pipe organ (clearly, gnome travel laws did not apply to human blood vessels)—Tony finally reached what he had been looking for: the brain.

 

He had thought it would be impressive, but then of course, what did he know? He'd never been inside someone's brain before. He stood in a narrow hallway at the top of the spinal cord staircase in front of a plain wooden door. He reached out, turned the handle—and found it unlocked. His host must be a very trusting sort. Of course, it was his body. Tony only hoped he wasn't violating some unspoken law about not trespassing within thy neighbor's mind as he stepped inside.

 

What greeted him was a huge mess. Filing cabinets lined the walls, half-open, with papers falling out of them, dangling from the drawers, and littering the floor. He looked down at the papers near his feet and read them out of sheer curiosity. Some of them were chewed-up math problems, others were scribbled notes such as do homework, or go to grocery store, or call home. Still others were questions: what is the meaning of the universe? or how does a toaster work? The majority of papers, however, simply had one word written on them in block letters: RANDOM.

 

Tony wondered what his mind would look like if he were inside it. He looked around the room again and saw four or five dusty armchairs sitting in a circle around a bricked-up fireplace that had a rusty, tear-stained plaque hanging above it that read: THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS.

 

At the other end of the room, there were two doors several feet apart. The one on the left was covered with finger paint, bright stickers, and crayon drawings. The one on the right was sparkling clean

—the only thing in the room that was—and ornamented into neat, geometric designs. In between them stood a tall dresser, covered in dust and cobwebs. It contained three drawers that clearly had not been opened for quite some time.

 

Tony walked over and examined the dresser, looking at each neatly-labeled drawer in turn. From top to bottom they read: Childhood Fantasies, Brilliant Ideas, and Sex Drive. Figuring that this was more than he should know—certainly more than he wanted to know—he stepped back and nearly tripped over someone standing behind him. Stumbling backward, he caught himself before hitting the floor. He climbed to his feet and looked down to see what had tripped him.

 

Standing there was a small child, possibly as old as ten, though he would have had to be short for his age. He was dressed like a biker in black jeans and leather jacket. His hair was tousled and messy; he wore dark sunglasses and had a candy cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

 

"Who are you?" Tony asked. He hadn't realized there was anyone in here. He hadn't seen anyone when he came in.

 

The kid shrugged and pretended to light his cigarette, chewing on the sugary end. "I'm the Rebel."

 

Tony stared at him. He'd heard someone say once that everyone had a little rebel in him, but he somehow doubted this was what the person had meant.

 

Before he could ask the child any more questions, both doors burst open and several people came charging into the room, arguing with each other. They yelled and cried and in some cases even swung punches at each other. Tony didn't know what was going on, but he noticed that the people—all men—

looked vaguely alike. They all had dark brown hair, brown-green eyes, and some sort of facial hair, a beard or mustache or goatee. Only the boy beside him was clean-shaven. All the men were different sizes and dressed differently, except that each one wore a black T-shirt with something written on the front in white, bold letters. Tony looked down at the boy and noticed his T-shirt for the first time. The word REBEL was printed across the front, and Tony immediately turned back to the others, who were marching past him and carrying their arguments over to the messy filing cabinets. One by one he tried to read their shirts and was able to make out various words such as COURAGE—a muscleman type wearing a musketeer hat and a superhero's cape; SELF-PITY—a very large and strongly-built man; SELF-CONFIDENCE—a small, puny, straggly-looking guy with greasy hair; VANITY—a perfectly-groomed, very handsome man in an expensive Italian suit; and DEFENSE MECHANISMS—a large jumble of bulky bodyguards connected by a five-person vest.

 

The argument only stopped when a man appeared in the doorway to the right. He looked like a geeky nerd who wore glasses and a pristine striped shirt over his visible T-shirt, which read INTELLIGENCE across the front.

 

"Could you plebeians keep the shouting to a minimum?" he demanded. "There are a few people here who have jobs to do!" With that, he disappeared back inside the room and slammed the door shut.

 

 

The argument barely paused, then continued unabated until another man appeared, this time out of the left-hand door. He was dressed in an artist's smock that was spackled with paint of every color, a black beret perched on his head, and a Vandyke-style goatee. The word CREATIVITY glowed from beneath his smock.

 

"Excuse me!" he shouted angrily. "Some of us are trying to work here!!!" And he ducked back into the room and slammed the door.

 

The argument paused a little longer, but within minutes had started up again, even louder than before. Tony knew something had to be done, or he wouldn't find out anything—he might not even be able to get out. He glanced at the group, hurling insults and scrap paper at each other, then realized no amount of time he had was going to solve their problems. He turned back to the doors, looking from one to the other and trying to pick. Figuring INTELLIGENCE was bound to understand the urgency of the situation better than CREATIVITY, he opted for that door, knocked, then entered.

 

The room was neatly organized with rows of computers and blackboards. Harsh fluorescent lighting illuminated every nook and cranny. A table was set up in the center with a chart of the human body, clearly monitoring every movement.

 

"This is a restricted area," Intelligence snapped. "No unauthorized personnel allowed."

 

"The station's in trouble," Tony explained. "I've been sent to help." He'd never had to explain his presence so many times on one mission.

 

"Sent by whom?"

 

"Saint Vidicon," he announced.

 

Intelligence looked thoughtful, as if trying to remember where he'd heard that name before. He turned to a man cowering under a nearby desk. "Fear, go check the files, see if you can find Memory—

he's probably asleep in the cerebellum. Check for the name, 'Saint Vidicon.' I want all references on him immediately."

 

Fear, a medium-sized man in clothes two sizes too big, quickly nodded, shaking and trembling as he stood up and ran out of the room. Intelligence stared at Tony, looking him up and down and clearly trying to decide whether or not to trust him.

 

"Decisions!" he bellowed, and for a moment Tony wondered what he was talking about. Then two men appeared in the room from the back and walked up to him, past him, and over to Tony, walking around him in a circle and looking him up and down thoroughly as Intelligence had done. One of the men was dressed all in white with the words GOOD DECISION printed on his white T-shirt in black letters. The other was dressed all in red with the words BAD DECISION printed across the front of his red T-shirt in black letters. They reminded him of the angel and the devil that sit on the shoulders of cartoon characters.

 

"Well?" Intelligence demanded, addressing Good Decision. "Should we trust him?"

 

"Absolutely!" Bad Decision cried. 'Trust everyone!"

 

"I wasn't talking to you." Intelligence gave him a scathing look, then turned back to Good Decision and looked at him questioningly.

 

"I think we can trust him," Good Decision said with finality.

 

Apparently he didn't have to give a reason why, his opinion was good enough. Intelligence nodded and looked at Tony.

 

"What's your name?"

 

'Tony."

 

"And what is the purpose of your visit to the land of Mac?"

 

Land of Mac? That was a new one. "I need to know what's going on in the TV studio and see if I can help."

 

Intelligence nodded again and looked almost relieved. He gestured for Tony to follow him and led him to the back of the room, where there was a white door. He opened the door and walked into another room. The only objects in it were three plain chairs, the door they'd come through, another door several feet away, and two gigantic television monitors, oval, like Mac's eyes. Huge, fringed curtains descended quickly, then rose again as Mac blinked. From this room, Tony could see everything that Mac could see.

Loudspeakers set into the walls somewhere allowed him to hear everything that Mac could.

 

Mac looked up at the monitors across the room, and Tony saw the black-cloaked leader with his fellow TIC TOCTians holding the mayor's staff and the crew hostage. He turned to Intelligence, who motioned him to sit and quickly but thoroughly explained what had happened while Tony had been in the system.

 

"Well, Stan," the leader of the TIC TOCTians was saying, "the evening is going very well."

 

"Yes," Stan agreed, and turned to look at the camera, "I've often wondered what it would take to get the people of our lovely community and surrounding areas truly to appreciate the quality programming that WBEG brings them every year. Who knew it would come in the form of a group of Anti-Alien Activists holding us hostage?"

 

"Very true," the leader agreed. "I've been a fan of WBEG and the quality sci-fi shows that air on it for many years now."

 

"So what's your favorite show?"

 

"The local gardening program."

 

"Really?"

 

"Yes, I usually call in every other week. I raise petunias."

 

"I'm a spider plant man myself."

 

In the control room, Beth slammed her head on the desk repeatedly, trying to wake up. Not only was this the most dangerous, bizarre, and surreal pledge night ever in the history of public television, it was also by far the most successful. Who knew?

 

The current conversation between the cohosts—now involving the mayor, who was discussing his favorite rosebush and jade plant—segued into a discussion on lawn care.

 

The crew and the mayor's staff watched, feeling as though they were in a surreal dream.

 

Beth was watching a director's nightmare.

 

Stan, the mayor, and the TIC TOCTian leader had currently covered every topic of conversation from politics ("Well, yes, we think he's a good mayor, but what are his policies on Alien Control?") to religion ("Of course we believe in God! God created aliens!") and even comic books ("Superman is an Alien, doesn't anyone else realize that?!? They're all out to get us!") The mayor was taking everything rather well. Apparently everyone but the producer and the crew now thought this was an elaborate joke.

The mayor—who had only had people pledge to save him and had been shown great support by the community—was now acting like the hero of the hour, pledging some of his own assets to help save the world from the Alien Menace. The guns, on closer inspection, turned out to be spray-painted BB guns, modified into what the cloaked group called their Multi-Action, Double-Barreled Lasers.

 

So the threat of imminent bodily harm was gone— but why were they still on the air?

 

Two reasons. The first was that they were still generating dozens of phone calls. It had been close to an hour since the last break, and the crew and volunteers needed some downtime, not to mention the audience, who had to be at least beginning to get bored. A few calls had come in requesting they go back to the program, but so far they hadn't been able to.

 

That was the second reason. The TIC TOCTians simply refused to leave. There were enough of them that, guns or no, they could have overpowered the others.

 

 

At first, no one had bothered to call the police because of the leader's threat—then, after the situation settled down, because no one really thought there was still a danger. But when they'd realized the guns were harmless, Beth had given in and called them on her cell phone. The SWAT team was outside but had told Beth they'd decided not to interfere when it became clear the incident was staged.

Beth tried to tell them it wasn't, but they chose to believe what they saw on the screen instead of the director.

 

There had to be a way to get the TIC TOCTians to back off without anyone getting hurt. Beth simply had no idea how to do it.

 

Chapter 21

 

Tony, however, did. After listening to the whole story from Intelligence, he stood up and paced the room, an idea forming inside his own mind—a perverse idea, but the whole situation they were in was perverse, and what was it that Father Vidicon had told him? Sometimes you had to fight perversity with perversity?

 

Well, the idea was far-fetched, but it just might work. All he needed was a few answers from the studio and a few directions from Intelligence.

 

"Can you tell me how to"—he paused, trying to find the right word—"operate Mac? I need to have him ask the director a few questions."

 

Intelligence nodded and led him to a control panel at the front of the room, complete with microphone and sound system.

 

"Hey." Mac leaned over to Beth and gently poked her shoulder.

 

"What?" she asked, irritated, but not with him.

 

"I have an idea. Have any of the cloaked group tried to operate the equipment yet? Like the cameras, anything like that?"

 

Beth frowned. "I don't think so." She turned to her headset. "Bill, have any of our crew been replaced by members of the organization?" She waited for his reply, then turned to Mac. "No, they haven't. Why?"

 

"That means they can't operate the equipment. They've probably never even been in a TV studio; otherwise, they would have come back to the control room and tried to run it from here. They could have run through the whole place, but they've stayed in the studio."

 

"What's your point?" Beth asked. "If you've got an idea, let's hear it."

 

 

By now Tony knew the power of saying you were sent by someone else—someone respected. His message would be even more powerful if they thought he was that person himself. Not Father Vidicon, of course— that would be unthinkable, and they probably didn't know who he was anyway. But something Intelligence had told him—some of the totally outrageous theories they had—gave him an idea.

 

"Have you got a phone book?" Mac asked, and Beth handed him one with a curious glance. She watched him flip through the book and find an address; then, before he could think twice, he leaned in front of her and punched up the studio intercom on the large control box in front of her, adjusting the microphone so that it pointed at him. Inisde Mac, Tony prayed that the TIC TOCTians were as superstitious as they were suspicious.

 

In as deep and booming a voice as he could manage, Mac spoke, his voice echoing through the studio. "This is the ghost of Abraham Lincoln."

 

The cultists all looked shocked; several of them gasped. He had guessed right—none of them knew about the surround-sound intercom the architect had insisted on building into the studio.

 

"I, too, was assassinated by beings from another world," he announced, and had to fight seriously to stop himself from laughing.

 

Beth stared. This was a Mac she had never seen.

 

One of the cloaked men sitting behind a phone jumped up and cried out, "I knew it!"

 

"I have appeared to you today to give you this dire warning," Mac intoned. "The threat of Alien Attack is upon us. Save the Union as I fought to save it! You must stop them from destroying us all!"

 

The cloaked group gave a cheer, and the leader fell to his knees, awed and inspired. 'Tell us what you know, great leader, and we will save our world!"

 

"Go to the place where their first ship has landed, cloaked and disguised as a tall building in the downtown area." He proceeded to give them the address, and they proceeded to write it down. Then Mac boomed, "Farewell!"

 

The leader stood up, addressing his fellow TIC TOC-Tians. "Our time has come! Let's save the world!!"

 

They cheered and followed him out of the room, out of the building, and into their cars.

 

The mayor's staff watched them go. The mayor simply smiled at the camera, and said, "Well, folks, it's not what I usually think of as educational, but hey—entertainment is also a necessary part of life."

 

 

"That's right, Your Honor," Stan chimed in, then turned to address the audience as well. "And now for the moment you've all been waiting for: part 2 of Lord of the Dance."

 

"And we're out in five… four… three… two… one!" Beth cried joyfully. "We're off the air! Take the phone number off the screen, I never want to see it again!"

 

Tony was amazed that it had worked. By all accounts it shouldn't have. No one was that dumb—but perversity was perversity, and saints be praised, it was over.

 

At least, one particular saint be praised.

 

"Where did you send them?" Intelligence asked.

 

"The police station." Tony shrugged. "They'll barge in waving their guns, and the police can deal with them from there."

 

Intelligence smiled and watched the camera crew celebrate by running off to the break room.

 

"How did you ever think of anything like that?" an admiring Beth asked Mac.

 

"Like what?" Mac seemed genuinely puzzled.

 

Beth sighed and followed him out of the studio. Sometimes the man's modesty was infuriating.

 

Tony knew his job wasn't done yet. He still had to get inside the engineering room. Still being in Mac's body allowed him to check out Master Control from outside the equipment. If there was nothing wrong there, he could hop back into the cables and check it out from the other end. He turned back to Intelligence.

 

"Can I ask a favor?"

 

Ten minutes later they were at the door to Master Control. Tony—or rather Mac—knocked, but there was no reply. He tried the handle; it was unlocked, so he stepped in.

 

The room was a mess. Tapes lay scattered on the floor, extension cords were knotted and jumbled, and all seemed to be plugged into one socket—full to bursting—yet none of them were plugged into anything on the other end. Ripped and crumpled script pages were strewn across every surface, and stale pieces of potato chips, donuts, and other ant traps were littered everywhere.

 

But the most telling sign of who had been there was the can of dark, sticky, acidic cola that lay on its side on the control board, the liquid oozing out all over the keys and into the circuits.

 

 

Mac gave a cry of anguish, and Tony knew who had been there. It was obvious. No engineer would have ever left soda near equipment that expensive, or dumped tapes on the floor like that. It would have cost him his job. Cola could ruin electronic equipment.

 

This had to be the work of Finagle.

 

Of course, whoever he had sent this time was nowhere to be found, though Tony/Mac searched the room thoroughly. The culprit must have left as Mac was turning the door handle, and Tony now had no doubt as to who had arranged to have the TIC TOCT group volunteer to answer the phones tonight.

 

No matter the plot, it had been successfully foiled. And to Tony's great surprize, it had not even required fighting some sort of horrible monster. He had to admit it had been refreshing. Unusual, but nice.

 

Mac went back to the control room and unknowingly dropped Tony off in the audio booth, since the lights on the switcher were all gone and Tony assumed that the gnomes had gone back to the fridge to party. He said good-bye to Intelligence and the others, most of whom were still arguing in the outer room, slipped back into the bloodstream, rode out to Mac's fingertips, and sank into the CD player as the man reached out to check the theme music.

 

After apologizing to a gnome for landing on him, then getting caught up in running fast enough to keep the CD spinning until the gnome regained his feet, Tony headed back toward the fridge. A few wrong turns and a quick tour through the computer editing systems later, he was guided back to the fridge by a young female editing gnome, rather round around the middle, where he thanked Bea and Bob and the others, who thanked him in turn (some even asked for his autograph). After a few minutes of relaxing on a loaf of bread, drinking freshly tapped cola from the keg, and diving into the red Jell-0 for a refreshing swim, he felt that strange and wonderful sensation that he was going home.

 

On the next date, Tony's reserve frightened Sandy. He was as courteous and cheerful as ever, but there was something a little forced about it, some strange holding back. Of course, it didn't help that they'd been watching a Wagner opera, but when they arrived at her building, and Sandy forced brightness, saying, "Come on in," and Tony hesitated, she took the bull by the horns. "What's the matter?"

 

"The clinches aren't my strong suit, are they?" Tony looked like a man waiting for a noose.

 

Sandy stared in surprize. Then she said, "You're fantastic. But a girl's got a right to say no when she isn't in the mood, doesn't she?"

 

"Of course." Tony leaned forward for a kiss.

 

Relieved, Sandy leaned forward, too—after all, she was a step higher than he was—but was amazed how cool his kiss was, and how brief. "Good night, then," he said, and turned away.

 

 

"Hey!" She stepped down to catch his arm. "I didn't say I wasn't in the mood tonight."

 

Tony turned back, surprized. "Are you?"

 

Sandy gazed at him a moment, then said, "Not a nice question to ask. How about you do your best to persuade me?"

 

Tony smiled, and for the first time that night, it was a real smile. "All I ask is a notice telling me it's open season."

 

'Then don't forget your rifle," Sandy retorted. "Coffee?"

 

The next night, however, she definitely wasn't in the mood—or the next, or the next. They fell into an easy rhythm of going out to a movie or ballet or opera on weekends and sitting together talking at Nepenthe on the weekdays when neither of them had to work late— but after the first three nights when Sandy thanked him for a great evening at the door to her building, he started asking the cab to wait again. It was like their first few dates but without the suspense, and it went on and on. Sandy began to feel doom hovering once more.

 

Finally, one evening, she screwed up her courage while he was getting the coffee, and when he brought it back, she said, "Something's wrong."

 

"Yeah." Tony set her cup down in front of her and sat down. "We're being so virtuous a person would think we're married."

 

Sandy stared, then gave a laugh that made people at nearby tables look up. Tony grinned with relief. Sandy clapped a hand over her mouth, throttled the laugh down to giggles, and said, "That's why I'm not too sure about getting married."

 

"Maybe you're right," Tony said.

 

Sandy stared at him in shock and felt as though a lump of cold lead were growing inside her.

 

"It doesn't have to be like that." Tony reached forward to clasp her hand. "If we do marry, we'll have to work at keeping the romance in it. I've seen enough of my married friends to know that."

 

"Marriage isn't supposed to be work," Sandy said.

 

"Yeah." Tony's smile was rueful. " 'They got married and lived happily ever after,' right? Only they didn't. They had their ups and downs, same as everyone. A wise old man—well, older—told me your courtship lasts your whole life."

 

 

"Then what's the point in getting married?" Sandy demanded.

 

"It's a hunting license," Tony explained. "You don't have to feel guilty when the courtship succeeds."

 

Sandy sat still, thinking that over. Then she said, "So you felt guilty?"

 

"Only once," Tony said.

 

Sandy hadn't known she could feel smug and ashamed at the same time. Then she realized the silliness of it and leaned forward. "Should I feel guilty about making you feel guilty?"

 

Tony smiled. "Let's put it this way—I also felt proud."

 

"Oh, that you were such a real stud, huh?'

 

"No—that I'd made you happy."

 

Sandy stared into his eyes for a moment, then said, very seriously, "If you asked again, I might say yes."

 

Tony stared, feeling as though he were a conductor for a high-voltage current. When it ebbed a bit, he managed to say, "Will you marry me?"

 

"Yes," Sandy said.

 

Tony kept staring, stunned. Then she could see the energy building in him, knew he was about to give a yell that would have shamed a Rebel, and smiled again. "Drink your coffee."

 

He managed to hold in the yell and gulped the rest of his cappuccino. Then Sandy took him home to celebrate their engagement.

 

Epilogue

 

Father Vidicon strode onward down the throat of Hell, and he was resolved to confront whatsoever the Good Lord did oppose to him. Even as he went, the maroon of the walls did darken to purple and farther, till he did pace a corridor of indigo. Then the light itself began to dwindle and to darken until he groped within a lightless place. Terror did well up within him, turning all his joints to water and sapping strength from every limb, yet he did resolve upon the onward march, rebuked his heart most sternly, and held the fear within its place. He did reach out to brace himself against the wall—yet it was damp and soft and yielding, and did seem to move beneath his palm. He did pull his hand away right quickly and did shudder, and was nigh to losing heart then; yet he did haul his courage up from the depths to which it had plunged and did force his right foot forward, and his left foot then to follow; and thus he onward moved within that Hellish tunnel.

 

Then as he went, the floor beneath him did soften till he did walk upon a yielding surface, and he stumbled and did fall, and caught himself upon his hands. He did cry aloud and backward thrust himself with a broken prayer for strength, for that floor had felt as moist and yielding as tissue living. "In truth,"

he muttered, "I walk indeed within the throat of Hell."

 

He plucked himself up and pushed himself onward, bowed against the weight of his fear, yet going.

 

Sudden light did glare and did sear his eyes, so that he did clench them shut, then did slowly ope, allowing them to accustom themselves to such brightness, whereupon the glare was gone, and Father Vidicon did see a grinning death's-head that did glow there—yet not of its own light, for it was of a pale and sickly green that did shine too brightly for the light to be within it. Yet naught else could Father Vidicon see there about him. He did frown and held his hand before his face; yet he could see it not. "In sooth," he breathed, "what light is this, that is darkling in itself—what light is this, that doth not thus illuminate? How can light cast darkness?"

 

The answer came all at once within his mind, and he did pull his Roman collar from out its place within his shirt, and did hold it out before him, to behold it as a strip of glaring bluish white. "It doth fluoresce!" he cried in triumph, and he knew thereby that light did truly fill the hall but was of a color that human eyes see not. Yet his collar, in consequence of the detergent held within it, did transform that color, and did reflect it as a one that human eyes see as glowing.

 

Father Vidicon replaced his collar then within his shirt with hands that trembled only slightly; and he murmured, "I have, then, come within the land of the Spirit of Paradox." His heart did quail within him, for he knew that the perversities he'd faced ere now were naught indeed when set against the reversals and inverted convolutions of the spirit that he soon would face. Yet he bowed his head in prayer, and did feel his heart to lighten. With a silent thought of thanks, he lifted up his head and set forth again down that gigantic throat. The death's-head passed upon his left, and on his right he did behold a skeleton frozen at odd angles, as though it were running and was small with distance. And onward he did pace, past skulls and crossed bones on his left, and on his right, skeletons in postures that might have been provocative, had they worn flesh—and as they must have been to the Spirit of Paradox.

Father Vidicon did pray that he would not behold a being fully fleshed, for he felt sure that it would lie as one who's dead.

 

The passage then did curve downward toward his left, past bones and left-hand helices inverted widder-shins. A galaxy did reel upon his right, yet the spiral arms were on the rim and darkness dwelt within its heart, a disc of emptiness. Then did stars coalesce upon his left to form a globe elongate, and it did seem as though the universe entire did move backward and invert.

 

The throat he paced did upward curve, still bending leftward, and he did hear above him footsteps that did approach in front, then did recede behind. He frowned up at them, yet still did march ahead, past glowing signs of death in birth, on and on through hallways that did ever curve unto his left. Yet they did begin once again to curve downward also, down and down, a mile or more, till at last, he did behold, upon his left— A grinning death's-head.

 

Father Vidicon stopped and stood stock-still. A chill enveloped him, beginning at the hollow of his back and spreading upward to embrace his scalp, for he was certain that this death's-head was the first he had beheld within this viewless tunnel. Then did he bethink him of the footsteps he had heard above his head, and knew with certainty (though he knew not how he knew) that those had been his own footsteps going past this place. They'd seemed inverted for, at the time, he had walked upon the outside of the throat he was now within; yea, now he walked within it once again. "In truth," he whispered, "I do wander a Klein flask." And so it was—a tube that did curve back upon itself, then curved within itself once again, so that he passed from inside to outside, then back to inside, all unawares. Aye, forever might he wander this dark hall and never win to any goal except his own point of origin. He might well press onward, aging more and more, till at last he would stumble through this hall, a weak, enfeebled, ancient spirit Yet, "Nay," he cried, "for here's the place of paradox—so as time goes forward, I shall grow younger!" And hard upon the heels of that realization came another—that he might wander where he would, yet never find that spirit within whose throat he wandered—the spirit that did invest this place.

 

Or did the place invest the spirit? "Aye!" he cried in triumph. " 'Tis not Hell's mouth that I did enter, but Finagle's!" And so it was, in truth, and the throat of Finagle was like unto a Klein flask.

Therefore did Father Vidicon set forth again with heart renewed and fear held in abeyance, to pace onward and onward, downward to his left, then upward left again, until the wall did fall away beneath his hand and the floor curved down beneath him. Then he cried in triumph, "I have come without! Nay, Spirit, look upon me—for I have come from out to stand upon thy skin! Behold him who's sent to battle thee!"

 

A door thundered up scant feet away, nearly knocking him backward with its wind of passage. He did fall back, plunging downward, and cried out in fear, flailing about him, near to panic—and his hand caught upon a spike which did grow from that surface there below. More such spikes caught him, pressing most painfully against him, for their points were sharp; yet he heeded not the pain, but did gaze upward, and beheld a great and glowing baleful eye that did fill all his field of vision.

 

"Indeed, I see thee now," a great voice rumbled. "May there be praise in censure! I had begun to think I would never have thee out from my system!"

 

"Nor wilt thou," Father Vidicon did cry in triumph, "for the outside of thy system is the inside!

Indeed, thine inside is thine outside, and thine outside's inside! They are all one, conjoined in endlessness!"

 

"Do not carol victory yet," the huge voice rumbled, "for thou dost address Finagle, author of all that doth twist back upon itself. I am the fearsome spirit that doth invest all paradox and doth make two aspects of any entity separate and opposed as thesis and antithesis, in Hegellian duality."

 

 

"Ah, is it Hegel's, then?" Father Vidicon did cry, but…

 

"Nay," Finagle rumbled, "for Hegel thus was mine."

 

"Thou dost affright me not," Father Vidicon did cry. "I know thee well at last! Thou art the bridge from Tomorrow to Yesterday, from Positive to Negative, from nucleus's strong force thus to weak! Thou art the bridge that doth conjoin all those that do appear opposed!"

 

"Thou hast said it." Finagle's voice did echo all about him. "And I am thus the Beginning and the End of all. Bow down and adore me, for I am Him Whom thou dost call thy Lord!"

 

"Thou art not!" the saint did cry, and righteous wrath arose within him. "Nay, thou art a part of Him, as are we all—yet but a part! Thou must needs therefore be within His limit and control."

 

"Art thou so certain, then?" The great eye did narrow in anger. "For an I were the Beginning and the Ending joined, how could I lie?"

 

"Why, for that," Father Vidicon replied, "thou art the Spirit of all Paradox, and canst speak true words in such a way that they express mistruth! Thou dost lie by speaking sooth!"

 

"Thou hast too much of comprehension for my liking," Finagle then did rumble. "Ward thee, priest!

For I must annihilate thy soul!"

 

Light seared, and did shock the darkness, turning all to fire, lancing the good saint's orbs sightless with light. He did clap his palms over them, and closed them tightly—yet the light remained. Recalling then that he was within the Realm of Paradox, he did ope his eyes to slits, and the little light admitted did darken dazzle till the saint could once again distinguish form and detail.

 

He beheld a gigantic, fiery bird that did drift up from ashes, its wings widespread and cupped for hovering, beak reaching out to slash at him. Then terror struck the priest's stout heart, and he grasped the spikes that held him kneeling on Finagle's flesh and, throwing back his head, did cry, "Oh Father! Hear me now, or I must perish! Behold Thy servant, kneeling here in helplessness, beset by that dread raptor called the Phoenix, in whom resides vast power, for in its end doth it begin! Give me now, I pray Thee, some shield, some weapon here for my defense, or I must perish quite! Even the last shreds of my soul must be transformed and subsumed into pure, unmodulated energy devoid of structure, an that fearsome predator doth smite me!'

 

He held up hands in supplication—and light did glare within his palm, pulling back and pulling in, imploding, gathering together, coalescing—and the saint did hold an Egg of Light!

 

Then did the spirit's vasty laugh fill all the Universe, bellowing in triumphant joy, "Nay, foolish priest! For all thy pleas to thy Creator, nothing more than this hath He to give thee! An egg—and thou wouldst oppose it 'gainst the bird full-flown! Now yield thee up, for thou must perish!"

 

But, "Not so," the saint did cry, "for I do know thee well, and know that when thou most doth laugh, thou art most in dreads—and when thou dost most gloat on victory, thou art most in terror of defeat. Thou must needs be, for to thy Phoenix grown out of an ending, I do bring a beginning that must needs bear its death!"

 

Then he did rise, that he might face the greatest peril of his existence upright and courageous; and he held the Egg out in his two hands cupped, as though it were an offering.

 

The Phoenix screamed, and fiery wings beat downward to surround him. The beak of flame seared toward him, like unto a laser; and he bore himself bravely, though he did feel his spirit quail within him.

Fire did surround him on every side, closer then and closer— and the spirit of pure energy did envelop him and did sink in upon him …

 

And inward passed him. The heat of that passing did sear his flesh, and he closed his eyes against it. Cool breath then touched his face and, opening his eyes, he saw the bird, shrunken now unto a handsbreadth, shrinking still, diminishing and growing smaller. Its despairing cry did pierce his ears and heart; for as it shrank, it sank. The Egg absorbed all flame and every erg of energy, until the Phoenix's head did shrink at last within its shell. There it sat, glowing within Father Vidicon's cupped palms, brighter and more pure than e'er it had been.

 

The priest breathed a sigh, and cried, "All praise be to Thee, my Lord, who hath saved me from the mountain of the Light of Death."

 

Then the dazzle faded from his eyes, and again he saw that huge orb, still glinting balefully upon him. "How now, then, priest," Finagle's voice did rumble. "Thou hast defeated my most puissant servant.

What shalt thou, therefore, do with me?" His voice did sneer. "Shalt thou now annihilate me? Nay, do so

—for then thy race shall be free of this urge to self-defeat that doth invest it!"

 

Fathomless tranquillity enveloped the priest. "Nay," quoth he, "for I cannot make thee cease to exist, nor can any—for thou art part of God, as are we all, and thou art spirit—the Spirit of fell Paradox.

Nay, tempt me not to hubris, arrogance—for I do know that, did I eliminate thee, thou wouldst turn that, even that, about, and make of it Creation. Thus wouldst though blaspheme—for none can create, save God. Thou wouldst not die but wouldst simply change thy form—and 'tis better to have thee as thou art, so that we know thine appearance. Go thy way—thou art a necessary part of existence."

 

"So, then." And the huge voice rang with disappointment quite profound—nay, almost with despair. "Thus thou wilt let me live."

 

But Father Vidicon knew that when the Spirit of Paradox did seem desperate, it was in truth triumphant. "Be not so proud," he did admonish it, "for thou art even now within the hand of God, and

'tis that which He hath proven through me—that even thou canst be comprehended, and accepted within a person's harmony of being. Thus thine urge to self-defeat can be transformed into growth. Thou wilt ever be with Eve's breed, fell Spirit, and with Adam's—but never again need any man or woman fear thee, for they will know thou art as much a part of the world about them as the rain and wind, and as much of the world within them as the urge to charity."

 

"So thou dost say," the spirit rumbled, "yet doth that not make a mockery of thy victory? Dost thou not see that I have triumphed finally? What shalt thou do with that Phoenix thou hast at long last slain by bringing within the scope of Birth? Wilt thou then destroy it, and with it, all beginnings?"

 

The priest then shook his head. "Nay; for 'tis not mine to do with anywise. I must surrender it unto its Source." Then he cried, "Oh, Father! I give Thee now Thine Egg of Rebirth, with all the thanks and praise that I do own—thanks that Thou hast preserved me, but more: that Thou hast deemed me worthy to become Thine instrument for this restarting!" He thrust the Egg up high, an offering there within his hands, and it rose above his palms and arced upward, and farther upward and farther, and Father Vidicon did cry out, "See! This is the Egg of All, the Cosmic Egg, the Monobloc!"

 

Then at its zenith did the Egg explode, filling all that emptiness with light, searing barrenness with its seeding of Energy and Matter, investing all the Void with the Cosmic Dust and with it, the structure of Time and Space, thus bringing Order out from Chaos.

 

And Father Vidicon did rise within it like to a flaring candle, for flame surrounded him transcendent and un-burning; and thus did he ascend through Space and Time, unto the Mind of God.