two and two together, and we'd get a holy stink from Eisenstadt's crowd."
"What, then?" I wanted to know, just wishing it was all over with. "Dr. Eisenstadt and his top people are all in Washington for a conference," Parch replied. "We arranged it that way. The rest of his people who are not also my people are, interestingly, not working this evening. In the course of research, our people took the matrices of a huge number of people. Thousands, I'd say. They didn't know what was being done, of course, and the process isn't important. We were looking to see the differences, of course. To compare them. When it became clear that we would reach this point, my people started working on looking at those matrices, taking parts from various ones, literally creating new identity matrices, complete people who never lived." "Violins," Dory mumbled.
Parch ignored her. "Each of you received quite detailed individual attention. We needed real people—that is, ones that might be—and we needed ways of life for each of you that would allow you to live normal, if obscure, lives, out of the mainstream as it were, where you wouldn't be likely to even be discovered by accident."
"A retired salesman from Akron and his homemaking wife," I sighed, resigned to almost anything now. "Huh?"
"Like the people in bars and dance saloons, on vaca-tion. The kind that go to Vegas on a four-day, three-night package holiday. The normal folks who live and die and nobody cares."
He looked at me a bit puzzled. Finally he said, "This is the best way, believe me. Best for you, too. No more sexual or identity hangups. No more learning how to walk in high heels. No more lusting after other women, either. I'm aware of its partial physiological basis, but it can be overridden. The brain can be fooled into almost anything."
"I'll bet," I said sourly. I was shaking slightly and I couldn't stop. "You'll be real people," he went on. "You'll remember your pasts, you'll fit in where you're put comfortably, and you'll live your lives with not even a thought of us, a hint, a lingering memory."
"When are you going to do this to us?" I asked him. The men in the back of the office stepped forward. "In a few minutes," he said. I felt a prick on my arm and turned with a jerk to see a man already holding a spent syringe. Dory had received the same treatment. "Wha—" I managed.
"You'll be fully conscious," Parch assured us. "We need that. But we find this drug will make you much less inclined to argue and much more eager to cooperate. Just relax and let it take hold." Already I could feel it working. A strange numbness came over me, as if my whole body were going to sleep. My eyelids grew heavy and finally closed, my mouth became dry, my tongue felt thick and limp, and I strug-gled unsuccessfully as my thoughts seemed, also, to go to sleep. And yet, as Parch said, I was somehow fully conscious, a lump of clay. "Open your eyes," Parch said gently, and I stirred slightly and did so. "I'm your friend," he told me. "I'm the only really good friend you have."

Yes, I knew him now. He was my friend. My very best friend.
"You trust me," he continued in that same soothing tone. "You know I won't do anything to hurt you. I want to help you. I want only good things for you. You'd trust me with your life, wouldn't you?" I nodded, both awake and not awake. He was my very best friend and I trusted him with my life.
"You'll do anything I tell you to do, won't you?" he prodded. "Just anything."
I nodded eagerly. I'd sure do anything at all he asked me to do. He was my very best friend and I trusted him.
"Now, get up from the chair and go with these nice men. They are your friends, too, and mine. Go with them to where they take you and do what they ask. You want to go, don't you?"
I smiled, nodded, and got up. Such nice men. Friends of my very best friend. I trusted him so I trusted them, too. I'd go with them anyplace they wanted and do just what they said.
One of them took my hand. "Let's go," he said, and we walked out of the office. Behind me I could hear Harry Parch speaking to Dory, but it just didn't concern me and registered not a bit.
They seated us in the large chairs on the raised, green-carpeted area of the lab center. A tiny part of me seemed to know what was going on and tried to fight against the drug, but it was hopeless.
Seated where I was, I could see part of the lower level. The consoles were all on, with thousands of multicol-ored switches thrown, some blinking, some changing colors, while CRT screens showed everything from odd patterns to rows upon rows of print. Technicians sat at the different consoles, many with headsets, fiddling with dials, controls, and keyboards. A white-clad technician came up to me, fixing straps around my arms, legs, and below my breasts, securing me in one position in the chair. Then she reached be me, there was a clicking sound, and the large helmet-like device came down over my head. The tech-nician guided it with one hand while fixing my hair in a certain way for ease of the probes, I suppose. Parch came into the room and looked around, then nodded. He went over to one of the technicians. "Gonser first," he told the man at the screen. "You set up?"
"All systems normal," the man responded, then, into his headset, "Loud cubes. Memory insertion modules six through eight. On my mark. Now." The screen flickered. Idly I thought, he isn't even look-ing at me. He has his back to me. It was an independent thought and I tried to grab onto it, cling to it, but I failed. I steeled myself for what might come next, mar-shalling as much will as I could. It wasn't going to work. Somehow, they were going to blow it. Somehow, I was still going to be me, that little part of myself not drugged cried out.
"Initial I.M. sequence, probes out, Chair One," the chief technician said, and suddenly I was aware of a tremendous vibration from the middle of my forehead up and all around me. The humming sound was quite uncomfortable.

"Matrix probes go, report on probe lock."
My whole head started to feel funny, like millions of tiny needles were being stuck in it. Actually there was nothing physical at all; there would not be until one of the little light probes found what it was looking for. The humming subsided, to my relief, and so did the odd, ticklish sensation of the probes.
"Probe lock on," a voice from one of the other con-soles said crisply. "Probe lock, aye," the chief responded. "Prepare pri-mary sequencing. "Prepared. Locked on."
"Stage one. Begin manual stimulus."
The woman who had strapped me in and lowered and adjusted the helmet now spoke to me.
"What is your name?" she asked. "You needn't re-spond to these. Just relax. Do not answer the questions."
I struggled against the drug, against everything, but it was no use. Every time she asked a question the answer would always come to mind, the same way it was im-possible not to think of the word "hippopotamus" once you'd been told not to think of it.
"Where were you born? Sex? Mother and father?" The questions went on and on, like a job question-naire you didn't have to fill out, only read. The ques-tions, however, covered a wide range of my personal life and experiences, my attitudes, quite a bit more than the basics with which they'd started. It was frustrating to realize what they were doing—locating holographic keys, master bits of cross-referenced material which the com-puter itself could trace from there. There was no sensation. "We've got sequencing!" Somebody shouted, and the woman stopped asking me questions and stepped back. I recalled Stuart's explanation and knew what they were doing now. The computer had located enough key pieces of information that it was now asking the questions itself, asking them directly of my brain at a speed so fast my consciousness wasn't even aware of it. I have no idea how it works, but I have no doubts about it. It seemed to go on forever. Finally a buzzer sounded somewhere and the chief technician, still huddled over his console, nodded. "Initial sequencing completed. Begin recording on one, two, and three," he ordered. "Read out on my mark… now!"
Again there was no sensation, but there wouldn't be. The brain had no senses of its own, and this was a read-out, a copy of what was there, not anything actu-ally being done to it.
For the slowness of the first stage, this one seemed to be over before I knew it. Again the buzzer sounded. "Recording complete. Analysis. Run two-six-five." "Running."
"Analysis completed."
"Run comparator with new I.M. on 4-5-6." "Running ... Completed. Comparator confirmed. Some slight adjustment in levels required. Got it. Matched. Go:"
"Very good," the chief technician said. "Prepare for manual check."

"Manual check ready, aye. All systems stable and normal."
"Begin manual check."
Again the woman technician next to me spoke. "What is your name?" she asked.
"Victor Leigh Gonser," I responded aloud, and with it I felt some triumph. The drug was wearing off! I felt sure of it! If I could just hold on I could break this control!
"What is your name?" she asked again.
"Misty Ann Carpenter," I replied, feeling more confi-dent now. It wasn't working!
"How old are you?"
"Thirty-six," I responded.
"How old again?"
"Twenty—just."
"What sex were you born, Misty?"
"Male."
"What sex?"
"Female." Dumb questions. I was beginning to relax. They couldn't do anything to me! Maybe it was the double switch, but I was sure now I was immune.
"And where were you born?"
"Alexandria, Virginia."
"Where?"
"Cedar Point, Oregon." I was feeling relaxed now, the tension easing out of me. It wasn't going to work. Sooner or later they'd realize that. I didn't know what Parch would do then but at least I would still be me. "We've got it," a technician called. "No problem. Run program." "Running."
Yes, I was still me. I was still Misty Ann Carpenter, twenty, female, from Cedar Point, Oregon, and I damned well was gonna stay that way. Chapter Nine
I woke up slowly, as if from a very deep sleep. For a minute I didn't know who or where I was, but it all came back to me as I opened my eyes and looked out the large window of the Greyhound bus. Ain't it funny how things go, I thought, and, for a moment, I just lay there, leaned back in the seat, and remembered. Cedar Point was a small logging town. Just that. Daddy was a logger, and his Daddy'd been one, too. There weren't nothin' else to do. Mama was right pretty, but she didn't have much schoolin' and they got hitched when she was just sixteen. Three of us kids, me the only girl, later they closed the logging. Made a park outta it. Daddy, he didn't have nothin' and no place to go, so he started drinkin' hard. When he was drunk he was mean, and when he was mean he beat us, Momma hardest of all, and he was drunk more and more of the time. I remember him, all big and fierce and mean, with the blaze of drink in his eyes.

Mama, she was so pretty even after that, but she cried a lot and tried to bring
us up proper, sendin' us t'church Sundays and doin' what she could on the welfare and the food stamps. 'Cept Daddy kept gettin"em and tradin' for booze. One day he didn't come home at all, and they come and tole us he was in jail for killin' a man in a drunk fight. Things was better after that, but Mama she just couldn't get ahold of us.
Me 'specially. I kinda felt bad about it now, but what's done is done, as Mama us'ta say. In my teens I skipped school mor'n I was in it. It was dull and I never was too good at that readin' and writin' stuff, anyway. The boys, now, that' s what I was good at. I finally just quit school, said the hell with it. Why go? I was just gonna finally find the right boy, get married, and have my own mess of babies. Didn't need school for that.
That's how I'd finally got in with Jeremy Stukes. He was a big hunk of muscle, real strong, and the biggest prick I ever did see. I fell for him like a ton of bricks, and, afore I knew it, I was listenin' to his big dreams about goin' to the big city and makin' a pile. I was seventeen then and the most I'd been from Cedar Point was Klamath Falls, once, with Mama when she had trouble with the food stamps.
Jeremy, he and me made plans, and one night we got the big escape. I snuck out with a bag, and he picked me up in this real big, fancy car. I was so took I never even asked whose it was. Turned out it was stole, damn him. A cop picked us up goin' south and we beat him out, all right, but by then I was both scared and mad as hell at him. I started tellin' him what I thought of him and, 'fore I knowed it, he'd throwed me outta that car and drove off, leavin' me there in the middle of nowhere with a bag and a couple of bucks. Well, I was plenty scared, sure, but I wasn't gonna go home, either. For all I knew they might 'a thought I stole the car, and, besides, wasn't anything to go back to anyways. So I just started hitchin'—found it was real easy. Hell, I always knew I was pretty and stuck out in all the right places, so I didn't have much problem.
One ride was this nice salesman, and I needed a shower and he was real friendly, so we stayed overnight in a motel together. I knew what he had in mind, but I kinda needed it myself, and the only real surprise was that he give me twenty dollars when he let me off. I hadn't really thought of it before, but suddenly I saw there was lots of lonely men out there and somebody like me, well, she could maybe help 'em out and make some bucks at the same time. I finally made Sacramento, but I got busted kinda quick there and it scared me. They couldn't tell how old I was, though, and they weren't real tough, just told me I hadta get outa town right fast. This one vice cop was real friendly, and him and me made it together, and he told me I should go to Nevada, where what I was best at wasn't a crime.
So I worked the roads up to Reno, only to find that it was legal everyplace but Reno and Vegas. Still, I had no place to go and nothin' else to do, and the
money was good enough that I managed to pay the fines. Got to be a regular down at vice. Funny, though, cops in vice ain't like real cops. I kinda think they don't like some of the laws they carry out. Anyways, this one cop introduces me

to this other guy he knows and, last week, I get an offer from this place called
Cougar Lodge. This guy tells me I can get four hundred a week free and clear plus room, board, clothes, you name it, by turnin' one trick a day, minimum, more if I wanted. All nice an' legal.
After almost two years on the streets, makin' it for peanuts as a free-lance, I knew I'd either hav'ta hook up with one of the pimps in town or I'd finally get tossed in the joint for real, not just do a few thirty-day stretches in County Jail like usual. My cop friend told me this Cougar Lodge was a high-class house, run right and with state exams and stuff like that. I'd already had to use the free clinic a few times, for one abortion and lots of times for VD checks, and while I was clean still I knew it wouldn't last. Not with the kinda Johns I was gettin'. So I tole the guy O.K., I'd try it, and he took me to his own Doc—a fancy one—and I came out clean. And then I got this bus ticket, and here I was, goin' south to who knew what? Who cared, either?
"Stateline, Nevada casinos," the driver called out, and pulled in. I looked around. So this was Tahoe, I thought. Looked like the Reno Strip in the Oregon mountains.
I got off and found it was real cold. I didn't expect that, although I had my heavy jacket on. Reno was cold, but we'd been gain' south, for Christ's sake! The same guy I'd met in Reno was there to meet me, all bundled up, and he got my bag, real gentleman-like, and we walked to his car. It was somethin' else, I'll say. A big, fancy Mercedes all shiny and new. Maybe, Misty old girl, you got hooked up right. Maybe you finally got the breaks. His name was Al Jordan, a little, fat guy about fifty or so puffin' a big fat cigar. He was the manager, he told me, and went over the terms once more. I reminded myself that I was twenty-one, at least to him, since at twenty I was still too young for the legal stuff, but I'd been lyin' about my age for a while now. The place was real beautiful, up in the mountains and all. Kind of a winter resort, with snow and everything. I didn't mind, since Cedar Point was sure colder'n this sometimes and Reno wasn't exactly Miami Beach in February. The place looked like a big old hotel, which I guess it was once. It was real pretty inside, too, with a big hall, blazin' fireplace, bear rug, all that. But I really knew I was in the big time when I saw that they took all the big credit cards. That was a giggle. Wonder what they put on the little slips? I got introduced to the staff by Al, then we went into his big, fancy office and he gave me a bunch of forms. I looked at 'em but had a little trouble readin' 'em, and he helped me. They was the damndest things. Tax withholding forms, social security, shit like that. I really started feelin' like I'd found a home. "You'll work a six day week, with Mondays off," Al told me. "But you'll get six days around your period off, and you can go anywhere you want, stay here, go into Tahoe, whatever. You're paid once a month, at the beginning of your break, into a bank account in your name—that's one of the forms there, the yellow one. You can take as much out as you want any time at the desk, or let it stay. It'll be in the bank, making money for you, until you want to use it." That sounded fine to me.
I had my own big room, with bathroom, and big, round bed. Al let me

decorate it the way I wanted, on the Lodge, and I had a lot of fun doin' that. We
also went on a shoppin' trip to Tahoe, with me pickin' up a buncha really sexy clothes and all.
The other girls were real pretty, too. Some were real smart, some came from the streets like me, but all looked gorgeous. I never got along much with other girls—men was my style—but they was nice enough as a bunch and we each had our own room and place.
Al brought this one guy to me who was a beauty expert, they said, and I really got the works. After he was through I almost didn't know myself, and when I got into my workin' outfit I decided I was at least as sexy as the other girls.
The workin' outfit was real high heels, panty hose with black mesh, and a kinda bikini, plus nice, long earrings, a sexy hairdo done for us by a guy who came through a lot, cosmetics, and the like. We was told to let our hair grow long, keep our fingernails long and them and toenails painted, and all that. When a customer—we was told never to say trick or John—came in, we kinda paraded in the lobby struttin' our stuff and he picked whichever of us he wanted.
There was some bad feelin' among some of the other girls against the ones that got picked most often, but as I got picked a lot I didn't mind. Let 'em eat their hearts out.
The guys weren't real kinky types, either. Oh, a cou-ple, but mostly those types were weeded out. We ser-viced the best in the West, Al always said—salesmen, big shots, show-biz people (sometimes even makin' house calls down to town for them types). Some were into bondage and S&M, which was cool, as long as they didn't hurt me. Al knew which way we all bent and he tried to steer the customers to the right girls when he thought he should. He seldom made mistakes.
I never liked the S&M types, and so I never got 'em. Oh, once, a goof, but I put that straight. Bondage, though, I didn't mind, and all the other kinky stuff, the role-playing and other games, that sort of thing. Some of the guys got off just from the mirrors I had all around, includin' on the ceiling. I told myself every day when I woke up, around two or so, that I had found paradise, maybe for a lot of years. Carole, for example, was thirty-seven, looked young-er, and still goin' strong. I could do it forever. I made a lot of lonely guys happy, gave high-class sex to guys who hardly knew how to fuck, and I couldn't get enough. I really liked the ones on power-trips, though. I was so submissive bondage was just an extra turn-on, and I loved it. I couldn't get enough. The rest of the time I just stayed home, mostly, watchin' TV and shit like that, including the porn movie channel to get ideas. Every once in a while I'd go down to Tahoe, 'specially after the weather got warm and the ski bums cleared out, to swim a little in the pools of the big hotels, gamble some, and, once in a while, get picked up and treated for a night, sometimes for a freebie but mostly not. I spent some dough, though, not so much on that—I found I never really had to buy a meal—but on pretty clothes, jewelry, that sort of thing. Hell, I had nothin' else to spend it on, and I could die young or somethin' and

what good would it do me? At the end of a year I got a big raise, too, so it kept
buildin' up. I bought mink and jewels and fancy, sexy clothes and still had money in the bank, even after the govern-ment took out its cut. Over that first year, though, a real funny thing hap-pened. It was so graduallike I didn't even think about it 'cept when buyin' clothes, but here I was, a growed woman, and I outgrew my bra!! Got thinner at the waist, too. Changed a bit. My 35-24-35, which wasn't bad, became a 42-23-36, which was real weird at my age. I was always sexy, but I started bein' almost always horny, even always dreamin' of sex. I thought maybe Al was puttin' somethin' in the the food, but even he and the other girls noticed it and said somethin' after a while. I never really tried to figure it out, but while it was better than ever for business the big boobs sometimes made my back hurt and I started findin' myself rubbing my workin' parts just sittin' around. It was like I was becomin' an animal or somethin ', and it worried me a little. I told Al, but he just said this life was what God had made me for and now that I'd found it I'd just turned completely on. "All your juices are flowing full-tilt," he said.
But it was a change. My voice was a little lower and all-the-time super-sexy without me even havin' to shift gears, and I knew my moves were all super-sexy, ani-mal like. But as time went on I worried less and less about it. I got lots of customers every day, and a lot of repeat business, and a couple of the big show-biz stars started wantin' me only. Pretty soon I stopped worryin' about things, or even thinkin' much about anything except fucking and pleasing men and getting as many as I could.
Finally, after I'd been at the Lodge a long while, one of Al's friends, Joe Samuels, who ran a fancy strip club in town, asked me if I'd ever thought about doin' that. I told him I had-I'd watched them fancy strippers and really liked the idea of takin' it all off while all them men watched. It turned out that Al owned part of the Copa Club and didn't mind. He was such a sweet guy. I got up a little early and went to school again, but this was a different kind of school. A stripper's school—only they said "ex-otic dancer" or some such shit. There was a lot more to learn than I figured. Not just the dances, the moves, but the timing. When to turn, when to drop this or that, all that. So I started stripping for the Copa Club part of the time and as I got to be more of a draw I got less and less of the walk-ins at the Cougar, stayin' only with my old regulars and the really big shots. I loved stripping almost as much as fucking, and there was no reason not to do both. I was goin' up in the world I loved, and I was havin' a ball at it. I got recognized on the street, not just for bein' sexy but for bein' a big shot, a celebrity. I got a rush just lookin' at the Copa Club's big sign now, with a
picture of me on it and just one word, "MISTY." All capitals like that. I didn't like to read and never read much of anything but that one sign I read over and over. I got a driver's license—I don't think the testing guy was payin' any mind at all to how I was doin'—and credit cards and a little sports car in a fancy pink shade.
Pretty soon Joe was gonna open a new, bigger Copa Club in Vegas, and he and Al wanted me to go down there. I liked it in Tahoe, but Vegas was big time,

and I couldn't say no. Besides, it was warm, even in the winter.
I didn't want to leave Al, and it was kinda a tearful goodbye, but I knew I hadta go. I went down a couple weeks early to get settled in and look around my new home town.
It was Reno and Tahoe all rolled into one. I had no troubles there, even if I wasn't really known yet—I knew I'd own this town, at least the part of it I wanted, real quick. I stayed at the Sahara while lookin' for my own place and I had a lot of fun cruisin' the strip, tryin' to have a good time each night without liftin' a finger or payin' a dime.
My third night in town, I met this nice-looking young guy, said his name was Jeff something-or-other, and we went out on the town and had a real good time, even if we did lose at the tables. After, we went up to my room at the Sahara and, well, one thing led to another, and I was gettin' all set, when I turned my back on him for something or other and felt a sharp sting right in my ass. I let out a sharp "Ow!" and started to turn around, but the whole world just blacked out.
Chapter Ten
Run program!"
Again there was no sensation, no idea that anything was going on, but funny things, lots of big words and memories and all sorts of stuff, rushed back into my head.
An elderly man who looked like Einstein, only fatter and older, stepped up to me. "How do you feel?" he asked gently in a soft accent that was central European, I guessed. I seemed to know him from somewhere, and I struggled to recall.
"Stuart," I managed.
He smiled. "Excellent! You know me. Now-who are you?" I tried to think. Who? It was all so mixed up. "Mis-ty Vic-tor Gon-ser Carpen-ter," I managed.
"Which is it?" he prodded. "Which one are you?" I tried to think for a minute, sort things out in my head, and they wouldn't quite come together. It upset me, not knowing, not being able to put it all together.
I tried to think. I remembered Misty Ann Carpenter and her life perfectly. I was Misty Carpenter and it was my life. On the other hand, I was also Victor Leigh Gonser, male, mid-thirties, somehow in the body of Dory Tomlinson. I tried to look at my body, feel my body. It was Dory's body, yes, but it was also my body. Misty's body, Vicki's body. It felt both natural and odd.
"I—I'm both;" I said in wonder.
Eisenstadt nodded again. "Good. Very good to come so far so fast. I think that as you go on the two parts of you vill more and more come together. You vill be a new person, not Victor, not Vicki, not Misty, but a blend of all three. I think that is all ve can hope for, and I think it might just be for the best." He signalled and the apparatus was lifted from me. He offered his arm and I

got up from that chair, that damnable chair, and unsteadily followed him back
into his office. He gestured for me to sit down, then poured a little brandy for me which I gulped greedily.
"Do you know how long it's been?" he asked gently. I shook my head, still trying to get a grip on myself. "Long, I think. The only attention I've paid to time recently was when to take the yellow pills and when to take the green ones."
He chuckled, then grew suddenly serious. "It's been more than three years." That stunned me. Three years! I was twenty-three now, then, and Dory would be almost seventeen.... That brought up a thought. "Dory?" He turned and gestured behind me, and I recognized an older Jeff Overmeyer enter with a strange, dark young woman. She was a tiny woman, not just in height but she seemed so small and fragile, with dark reddish-brown skin, wide, flashing eyes that looked almost coal black, and long, almost blue-black hair. But she was extremely attractive, narrow-waisted, small-boned yet somehow with the toughness of leather about her. Her face was a classical Amerind beauty' s, with high cheek-bones and the look of the exotic, almost mystical, about her. She wore tight, faded jeans and an old T-shirt with some Indian design, showing small but firm breasts beneath. A faded pair of cowboy boots seemed perfectly in place on her.
"Dory?" I gasped.
She just stood there a moment, staring at me, wide-eyed. "Vicki?" she responded, unbelievingly. "Is that really you?" I got up, she ran to me, and we hugged and held each other close. I found that I was crying, and, looking at her, I saw that she was, too. I was conscious of how different I now appeared to her, and felt a little odd about it. We finally let go, and Eisenstadt offered her another chair. She just sat there for a moment, staring at me.
The scientist looked past us. "Jeff! You might as well come on in, too." The agent came over and took another scat, facing us. He looked older, I thought, but still the same. Only Stuart never changes, it seemed. "I can't believe it!" Dory said in an amazed tone. "What did they do to you? You shouldn't look all that different after three years." "I can explain that," Overmeyer said. "Parch arranged with a man named Al Jordan, who runs a high-class sex palace up in Tahoe, to take on a new recruit. Jordan has some ties to organized crime, and was nailed a number of years back, but never spent any time in jail. Instead, he does favors for the U.S. on occasion, from sexual blackmail to taking on people like Vicki here—or should I still call you Vicki? It doesn't seem the same any more." My mind was reeling from all this. Al a Parch man? It didn't seem possible! I felt somehow betrayed and used. Still, Jeff's question deserved an answer. Which one was I?
"Make it Misty," I told him. "I've been her for a long time now, and it's the only real identity I have. It seems—right. I dunno." "O.K., Misty. Anyway, knowing where you were going, they fiddled with some areas of your brain. Doc? You know more than me about that."

He nodded. "Yes, they changed the orders to parts of your body. Increased
hormone production, that sort of thing. It's wery complicated to explain, but easy to do. Basically, they adapted your physical body perfectly to your, er, occupation, in the same way they might increase steroid production in a bricklayer to develop big-ger muscles. They overrode the genetic instructions—but while it is permanent it is not inheritable." I was shocked, but also oddly relieved to find the changes in me explained. Still, I said, "A tailor-made nymphomaniac?" He shrugged apologetically. "That is the potential of this process, I fear. Tailor-made anything. That is vy ve had to find you both and get you back now. They are to the point vere they are starting to process the staff here, actually inwiting big shot politicians to come in, that sort of thing. They are out of
control. Acting now vas a big risk, but acting later may have been impossible." Overmeyer nodded. "I'm due next week. Oh, not for processing, not officially. Just having my matrix taken, they say. But I know better. I've seen the people they've been processing lately and it's scary." "Wait a minute! Let me get my breath and bearings!" I protested. "We—we do have some time, don't we?"
"A little," Stuart replied. "I took a leaf from Herr Parch's own book. Only their routine duty staff is on right now—and I have some of my people at key sta-tions. Ve are not being monitored here, and the big vuns in Security, like Parch, are all back East until tomorrow. I relaxed a little. I had to trust these two men, since I knew so little myself about this labyrinthine place.
Labyrinthine, I thought idly. Misty wouldn't even be able to think of the word, let alone pronounce it.
I looked at Dory. "What—where did they send you?" I wanted to know. " Speaking of changes—you're some little sexy bomb yourself. If I'd known I was gonna grow up to be that I wouldn't have changed bodies." She laughed a little. "It is hard on me, too," she replied. "But, for the last few years, I've been growing up on an Indian reservation in northeast Arizona. A school for Indian orphans. Oh, they knew I wasn't Navaho, but they finally sort of accepted me. While you were having all that fun, I was going through high school again—or a poor excuse for one. It's terrible what's been done to the Indian, and they're such good people. I wasn't much of a student anyway. All I knew was I'd finally get married to some buck and we'd live in some hovel out in the wilds and have babies and try and manage." I nodded, seeing the pattern of Parch's "placement" concept. "You sound different, you know," I told her. "Sort of an accent there." She nodded. "They programmed me with Navaho—a real bitch of a language, by the way—and Corho, which is a northwest language so it'd seem right, but not much English. I was supposed to be a half-breed by their standards—half Navaho, half Corho. A good part of me, maybe proportionately more of me than you consider-ing our ages, is Delores Eagle Feather, and everything I say is sort of filtered through Navaho. I find I think in Navaho, mostly, where there are word equivalents, but my whole English and French vocabulary is there for the

asking."
"So are you Dory—or Delores?" I asked.
She screwed up her face a little. "I never liked Delores much, although, like you, it's the only legal identity I've got. I'm going to go back to Dory, I think. It's gonna be harder getting used to you as the old Vicki, though. You sure don't look like I remember."
"I'm not the old Vicki," I told her. "But I don't know who I am yet, either." "Both of you have. some adjusting to do," Stuart said, "and it vill take some time. It vill come gradual, not in one woosh. I had the option of restoring you vere you left off or just feeding your old matrix back in on top the new, and I decided it vas best to do the latter. You should know your whole life, and, particularly in your case, Vic—Misty, the new parts of you are better equipped to handle that body of yours. I could erase the new encoding for the genetic instruction override, but it vouldn't be a service. Your body vould be out of bal-ance. It vould cause fat, and your enlarged boobs they vouldn't shrink, just kind of deflate and sag. Better ve keep both of you in at this stage." Dory nodded. "I prefer it that way anyway. I'm not the same person I was when I left here, but I think I'm the better for it in some ways. I feel more Indian now, and that's good, not only because of what I now am but also because, for all the terrible life most Indians have, they still are a great people. I learned a lot from them, and I'll always be a part of them." I looked at Stuart. "You must have had more of a reason than this to bring us back now. Where do we go from here?"
He looked at us seriously. "Listen, the both of you. A lot has happened in the past three years. For vun thing, obviously, ve can do anything they can do and at least as veil. Parch, and the people over Parch, are mad vith power. If they aren't stopped, I don't know vere it viii lead. I fear that I, too, might be put under my little babies out there after a vile. Eventually—veil, the whole country? The vorld?"
"But there's an equal threat," Overmeyer put in. "This Association, or whatever, is on the march. It's winning. You can't really see 'em, just smell 'em, in a nasty way. Last month the four largest religious cult organizations, different as night and day, all merged into one huge body. Their followers can't be deprogrammed by anybody short of IMC. Their combined assets are in the billions, their followers fanatical and growing, and they're everywhere, not just
the U.S."
I frowned. "But most of the world is communist. That wouldn't work there—unless you're suggesting a war."
He shook his head. "Not a war between us and the communists, no. But they' re working there, too. A whole new Chinese philosophical group has arisen, cultlike, and has gathered powerful friends in Peking. It appeals to the ideals of communism and argues their present attainability. The Soviets will probably be the hardest nut to crack, but even there we see similar forces at work. They're patient, this Association. I think they'd be willing to simply grow up into powerful positions in the party until they were the leadership. Once in charge of even a single Soviet Republic, their work efficiency, dedication, and production

would propel their leaders to the top in Moscow—and in that kind of society
people can be ordered to be processed."
I shook my head, a feeling of hopelessness coming into nee. How much nicer, more comfortable, to be Misty Carpenter, to not worry about things like this or even be able to conceive of them in her little world. "What can we do?" I asked.
"Ve can do the only thing possible," Stuart responded. "Ve can take the biggest gamble in all of human history. Listen, you remember long, long ago, interviewing the alien Pauley?"
I nodded.
"Veil, remember vat he said? That the Urulu vould save us if they could be convinced ve vere vorth saving?"
I strained to remember. It seemed a long time and another life ago. Still, I nodded. "Go on."
"Vic—Misty, look, ve have talked about it and ve think now that it may be our only hope. Ve must contact the Urulu, somehow conwince them that ve are vorth redemption, and get them to come in. To destroy IMC and face down this Association before it is too late."
My old conversation came back to me now, and I was dubious. "But he said there was a chance they'd just decide we were infested and destroy the entire planet."
"Misty, the planet's already being destroyed," Over-meyer put in. "Weren't you listening? Ten years, twenty, and you might neither recognize nor want to be human on this planet, if that word has any long-term meaning. IMC is making the enemy's task easier here, although you can't convince them of it. The world isn't going to collapse tonight, or tomorrow, or next year, but it's rapidly reaching the point of no return, when they'll be in such control that this sort of plan will be impossible. The Urulu have to see us humans the way we are, not the way we'll be remade. Dr. Eisenstadt and the rest of us who are sick at the way things are going are con-vinced that we must make our move now." "Which brings us back to what we have to do with this," Dory responded. "Why us?"
"I vould like to say it's because I love the both of you, vich I do, but it goes deeper than that. This fellow Pauley, he was the most reasonable of the vuns they caught. The most human, you might say. He'd lived vith us a long time and understood us a bit better. Also, according to your own reports, he seemed to feel some sort of guilty conscience, particularly around you. Ve think he is our only hope. Ve intend to free him—and, vunce ve do, you may be the only hold on him ve have."
Dory looked dubious. "I don't like it. I can still remember the absolute contempt that woman, that alien, on the ferryboat had for us. I can't imagine that
they'd be any better than the enemy."
Overmeyer looked at her. "They are because they have to be—don't you see that, Dory? If they're no better, then we're already lost. It's a gamble, sure. Lots of things could go wrong. They might be as bad as the others—they can't be any worse. They might not listen. Pauley might just say to hell with us and leave.

They might blow us all up. But what is the alternative?"
She didn't like the idea despite the arguments, that was clear, but she could only shrug. "I'm just along for the ride." "Not qvite," Stuart told her. "There vere several reasons for taking the added risk of bringing you back, all carefully vorked out and thought out. For vun thing, if Pauley does feel real guilt about—Misty—then you are a double dose, and a reminder to him. She will also need somevun to help and support her. It is a big burden to carry alone. And, of course, you are more practical than she—sorry, my lady, but it's true. You came up vit the plan for the newspaperman, yes? You had better sources of information within IMC than did Vicki, who vas in a much higher place. You complement each other. You are a better team than either alone. You see?" I was a little put out by Stuart's assessment of me, but the more I thought of it the more I had to agree, particularly now. I was being raised from the dead, as it were, and entrusted with the fate of the whole human race, the heroine of a bad thriller that just happened to he so damnably true, and I needed somebody badly.
"How do we begin?" I asked them.
"First we talk with Pauley," Overmeyer said. "He's here?" He nodded. "Always has been, on a special security level with the few others we have. It's computer-monitored and watched, but we have the computer here, and if we can feed false data into brains it's no trick at all to feed false data into security pictures, sound monitors, and the like. Once we spring him, we arrange the computer so you walk right out of here. It's the wonderful thing about relying on computerized security systems—they only work if the programmer's honest. We've had time to prepare this, Misty." He reached in his pocket, pulled out several cards and handed them to us. I recognized them at once—the same credit card-like security keys as before. "Your voice codes we'll give you in a few minutes, and we'll arrange for instructions to reach the elevator guards ahead of time. Isn't bureaucracy wonderful? As much as it obscures and slows, it also makes things painfully simple—if you understand it, and if you get the paperwork right. You will be able to leave—but once you're in that parking lot upstairs you're on your own."
"You're not gonna be able to keep this from Parch for long," Dory pointed out. "Even if we get out, he'll know when he gets back." Stuart nodded. "Yes, but ve vill give him a little something to puzzle over first. It is time ve vill buy, no matter how little. An hour, a day, can make the differ-ence."
I looked down at myself. "Some getaway," I commen-ted. "Super low-cut slit, sparkling green evening dress, high heels ... I'm really going to be inconspicuous. "
"You couldn't be inconspicuous anywhere," Jeff noted. I smiled sweetly at him. How different it would be for the two of us now, I thought wistfully. I looked over at Dory. "Well? What do you think now?" She smiled and shook her head in wonder. "God! You're so sexy! I can't believe it!" Then she turned back to the two men.

"Let's do it," she said.
Chapter Eleven
Stuart and Jeff left us to prepare our going away party. I felt uneasy about it all, but, as Jeff had said, there really wasn't any choice in the matter. The alternative was that Parch or this Association or both would take over, remaking us into happy little robots. I only hoped that the two of them were up to matching Parch trick for trick; otherwise, I'd still open Joe's new joint in Vegas and Dory would be opening a beads and trinkets stand on U.S. 89. The trouble was, a part of me wanted nothing to do with it all. I had what I really wanted now, popularity, adulation, fun.... It didn't seem fair, somehow, to wrench me back and load the world on my shoulders. "Three years," I said to Dory. "It doesn't seem possi-ble. All that time, such a different life."
She nodded. "Out of curiosity, why the long peroxide curls? I always thought my fluffy auburn hair was real pretty."
"It was and is," I told her. "But it's—professional. The big body, big boob look seems to require a blond. Look at all your past sex symbols."
She sighed. "I suppose so. I'll tell you, though, that I would not have recognized you. I still can't really be-lieve it. You've changed so much.... Inside as well as out. That sultry voice, those moves. I can hardly wait to see you eat a banana. They said you were a high class prostitute. Was that true?" I nodded. "It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. Lately I'd moved up into stripping. I was going to headline a new club in Vegas. Dory, this may sound funny, but I like my new self. If—when—we get out of this, I'll go back to it. Still, speaking of changes—you're a small package of dynamite yourself. You really grew up with the right stuff—again. But you seem a little more thoughtful, more reflective, more comfortable with yourself." "Maybe some of this did us a favor. The blend of new and old made us new people, but whole ones."
Whole people. I liked that idea. Victor Gonser had never been a whole person; he was all act, introspection, aloof from the humanity he craved to join, but could not. Vicki Gonser, too, had been trapped in a nasty transsexual web, out of place and time. Misty Carpen-ter, the original, had been shallow, dumb, totally self-centered and egotistical, a hollow person, somehow. Parch's idea of what women should be—beautiful, sexy, seductive, submissive, and without a brain in their heads.
Dory, too, had been trapped in her old body, cut off from the society she wanted to be a part of even more cruelly than Victor had been; sexy, attractive, bright, and lesbian, not confident of herself, her future, her place in society, facing a new kind of life she didn't really want but couldn't avoid. I looked at her now with a great deal of affection, and felt a few unbidden tears rise inside me. Whole people.
I suddenly reached out, grabbed her, hugged and kissed her once more, and

cried softly.
Victor wouldn't have done that, and the old Misty wouldn't have understood why.
"I'm so very glad to see you," I whispered softly. She hugged me and kissed me again, and I could see that there were tears in her eyes, too. "Me, too, Vicki Misty Gonser Carpenter." I laughed and we hugged and kissed and touched and, in that moment, I think, we both did become truly whole.
The battle was for the minds, Pauley had once told me, not the shells. Stuart came back in. "Ve have located him and talked to him," he told us, and I had no doubt who "him" was. "Ve brought him up to date. He seems quite agreeable, and particularly anxious to see the two of you. Ve told him vat happened to you both."
Jeff Overmeyer stepped into the room and I looked at him. "How will you get him out?" I asked.
"He already is out," Jeff replied, and I froze. There was something terribly wrong about him, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. "Oh, no!" I almost sobbed. "Yes, it's true," he sighed. "I'm not Jeff. We switched. But it was voluntary, I promise. He knew what he was doing."
Both Dory and I were on our feet now, staring at him. "But—why?" I looked at Stuart.
"Ve discussed it early on. Somebody had to do it. Jeff has been on the outs vith Parch for some time. He couldn't get avay and he knew it, but if he stayed he vould go under the computer. This way his mind, at least, is safe—for a vile—and no Urulu are missing. That extra time is bought a bit more, but it is bought dear, yes?"
I nodded glumly. "Dear indeed."
"Oh, come on," Pauley said, sounding relaxed and sure of himself. "My old body wasn't much older than Jeff's and is in good shape." His tone grew grimmer.
"He was a dead duck and he knew it. Better this way than no way at all." He walked over to us and looked us over. "Let me take a look at you." Involuntarily, we both stepped back, away from his grasp. "Don't you touch me!" Dory snapped.
"Wait a minute! I'm not going to switch with you—I promise." He saw we were still hesitant. "Look, if we're going to do anything at all together we have to trust each other. If you don't trust me now then we're lost before we start." I shivered slightly, but stood still. "All right," I said nervously. He took my hand, then placed his other hand, fingers spread, on my forehead. I could feel nothing. Finally he nodded to himself and let go, turning to Eisenstadt. "Interesting. You have it all now, although some of the approaches are unique. Dory? May I?"
She took another step back nervously, but steeled herself finally and let him repeat the process. Finally he said, "All right. I sense the conflict within each of you, the problem of integrating two lives. Being holographic, your brain still has

trouble handling both and is franti-cally re-sorting, re-filing, and trying new and
different pathways. But it'll work itself out. You may find your mind playing little tricks on you but it won't matter in the long run. I think they're capable, Doctor. Shall we get out of here?"
"Wait a minute!" Dory exclaimed. "If Jeff's so hot how do you expect to get out of here as him? And if you switch, it'll leave a real loose end." "That is true," Stuart admitted, "but, you understand, if it vas only Jeff and myself this would never have been possible even to now. Misty, Dory, these are good people on the whole. Normal, decent people. Even Parch, in his own odd
way, is no monster. But there are monsters in the chain of command—ordinary, normal fellows vith vives and kids who vorship power. It is, in some vays, like Hitler vithout Hitler—the monster cannot be pinned down, but he is there. Now ve, of IMC, have vun chance to show that ve are not just good Germans, following orders no matter vere they go. Everyvun looks for the Hitler, but it is the banality of evil that makes it so Insidious." He stepped to his door and gestured. Two technicians came on the run. Stuart nodded to them. "These brave fellows are John Castellano and Villy Stroyer. Johnny, here, is my chief administrative aide. Both are too young to know the horrors of vich I speak first hand, yet they are vith us. They know the horror that is here."
Castellano, a small, dark, hawk-nosed man with long black hair, spoke. "We' re volunteers, Miss. And we have clearance to leave if we want." He turned to Pauley. "Which do you want?"
Pauley looked both surprised and impressed, both by their commitment and their casual acceptance of him. "Either of you married?" he asked. "No sir," the other man, a bit older but still a decent-looking man with a fine-lined Nordic face and a slight paunch. "I was—once." Pauley considered it, then turned to Eisenstadt. "Why not you, too, Doctor? John—you've worked with him. Think you could be him? Until we come back, anyway, and can get you into a younger body." Castellano looked nervous—they both did—but he sighed and said, "I think ve can pull it off, yes."
The voice was all wrong, but he had the tone, accent, and inflection down pat.
Eisenstadt stared at them and I thought I saw the tiniest glimmer of a tear in his eye. "You vould do this?"
Castellano nodded. "Doctor, I don't want to see you under that thing with Parch at the controls. I was ready to do it as Jeff Overmeyer, I'm willing to do it now."
Pauley became all business. "Lie down on the floor, then—all three of you. Good. Now, grip each other's hands tight. Just relax—it won't hurt." We watched, fascinated. For the first time I was going to see the Urulu exchange bodies without being a party to it. It was very odd to watch. Pauley alone was not knocked out by the process, but Pauley kept changing from body to body, so three would be out cold and the fourth would move, then drop and another would move, and so forth. I

realized he was trying to put the right people in the correct, although wrong,
bodies. Suddenly it was over, and Stroyer got up fairly confidently. "We'll have to wait for them to come around," said Dan Pauley. "Partly to see if I got it right, and partly so we can see how convincing it all is." It took seven or eight minutes for the first to come around, the Jeff Overmeyer body which was now occu-pied by the original Stroyer. He rubbed himself, groaned, sat up, shook his head, and tried to get a grip on his new self. I could sympathize.
Castellano's body was next, with the same trouble, but with a slight difference in manner and tone.
"Whew!" gasped Stuart Eisenstadt. "Ven ve do it it's slower but not such a jolt to the central nerwous system!"
His own body was last to revive and had the most trouble adjusting. "The biggest problem, though, will be remembering that accent," Pauley warned him. He looked pleased.
"Well, now we have left them a Dan Pauley, a Jeff Overmeyer, and a Stuart Eisenstadt, all of whom would be missed. And two technicians will leave at the end of their shift as normal, not to be missed at least until they fail to show up tomorrow morning."
Stuart nodded. "Yes. I have the codes in my head, so ve are safe there. But—see, you vomen—give me your cards."
We were a bit puzzled, but handed over the little plastic keys he'd given us not long before.
"Let us make it look very right," he said conspiratori-ally, and went to his inner office where there was a computer terminal. He switched it on, began typing, then stopped and inserted one of the cards in the slot on the side. There was a rat-tat-tat noise, and the card popped out again. Now he inserted the other card and repeated the process.
Finally he handed the cards back to us, took his own—that is, Castellano' s—card and punched in, then Stroyer /Pauley's. I looked at mine but could see no differences.
"Ve are now married," he said with some amusement. "Me to you, Misty, and Dory to, ah, Stroyer. Isn't bu-reaucracy amazing? There is now even a statement on file in the computer files of Las Vegas County to that effect." I shook my head. "But—why?"
He grinned. "It vill register now on the computer record that ve vere met by our vives, who vere cleared to this point, and left with them a couple of hours later. When they do a cross-check by computer, they vill find ve are married and things vill look normal. Every little step ve cover is important." Besides, he added, giving a mock leer, "I feel so much younger and better and now the feeling it is legal."
For such an absolute security prison it was remarkably easy to just walk out as we'd walked in so long ago. The right words were spoken, the right combinations turned in the elevators, and all went smoothly. Stuart was right, I realized. The most burglar-proof safe in the world is no better than paper if someone wanting to break into it knows the combination.

"Ve'll take Castellano's car," Stuart suggested. "It is the largest." He stopped a
moment. "If you have the keys, Pauley, in his pocket." Pauley looked surprised, fumbled, came up with a small key ring, and we all sighed. Although large by today's standards it was still a small car, and while Pauley took the driver's seat and Dory the front bucket Stuart and I squeezed in the back. There was little room.
"Where to?" the Urulu asked.
"Avay. Out of here," Stuart replied. "Vunce on the vay ve vill make better plans."
He started the car, backed out, and switched on the air conditioner. I was already starting to bake, and the hatchback in the rear gave the little compressor a real workout. We drove out of the parking lot and down the base road. "Gate coming up," Dory warned.
The sentry came out as we stopped at the gate, gave us an odd look as he saw the assemblage in the car, but after looking at all four of our cards he waved us on. In twenty more minutes we were on U.S. Route 95, headed south. We'd done it!
Take that, Harry Parch! I thought smugly.
"Where are we headed for?" I asked.
"Sign back there said Las Vegas 250, which I assume means kilometers," Pauley replied. Not much in be-tween, either. We could use a road map." Stuart was a little worried. "I don't like the idea of going to Las Vegas," he told us. "Too much Harry Parch there."
"Well, I could turn around and head north," Pauley suggested, "but I remember there's even less there. We're on the wrong side of the mountains and they could cut us off fast on any of those roads. I'd say Las Vegas is our best bet—we have lots of options from there."
"Most of my stuff's in storage there," I noted, "but I've got a room at the Sahara with a change of clothes. I'm not gonna get anywhere dressed like this." Stuart frowned. "I don't like it. If anything goes wrong it'll be the first place they look."
"That's true," I agreed, "but, remember, I'm supposed to be there. Poor Joe—how will he take his opening big act skipping out on him?" Stuart thought about it. "Yes, there is something in that. Tell you vat, Dan. Let' s go into Vegas, then try to change cars if at all possible vile Misty tends to her affairs. I think you could cover her from the street and help in case things go wrong. Misty—how much money do you have?" I laughed. "I don't have much need for it," I told him. But I've got a bunch of credit cards."
He shook his head vigorously. "No. No credit cards except maybe to check out. They can trace you easy from those cards. I mean cash." I thought a minute. "Misty—the old Misty—never paid much attention," I told him. "Most of it's in savings, just a little in checking." "Hmmm ... The banks vill be closed by the time ve get there. But ve need money. Any idea how much you got?” I shook my head. "Only roughly. Ten or fifteen thouand at least."

Everybody seemed to react in shock at once. Dory whirled and said, "That
much? In three years? You must he something!" I shrugged. "I started at four hundred a week, but top-draw strippers make a lot more."
Stuart sighed. "Vell, I don't like it, but it looks like ve have to stay in or near Las Vegas until the banks open tomorrow morning. Ve need that money. Dan?" "I have to agree," he told us. "We'll need travel money at least. And if I can't contact a station tonight, which is unlikely—we used to change 'em every month or two anyway—it might be a long trip finding which is active." I looked at Stuart. "You didn't say I had to finance this whole thing. Couldn't you at least have thought of the cash angle?" He looked defensive. "I said the plan was good, not t hat ve had thought of everything."
We drove along, and I had to look at my companions and marvel a bit. What an unlikely team out to save the world, I thought: A well-meaning, idealistic scientist who could change the world from a computer terminal but forgot things like money, an alien cut off from his species and an unknown quantity beneath his slick ve-neer, a Navaho girl of uncertain personality and little background for any such intrigue, and a former male political science professor now happy as a voluptuous blond bombshell of a stripper. What an insane team. And me—just who was I, anyway? I knew the answer almost instinctively, from every cell and nerve in my body. I was Misty Ann Carpenter, queen of the strippers and sometimes lady of the evening, that's who. And I felt comfortable and right that way.
What had happened to Victor Gonser, I mused, as the miles of desert and mountain roared past. Where had he gone? I was Misty Carpenter—but she didn 't exist. She'd been created in that same computer by Harry Parch and his technical crew. Was I real—or some embodiment of a male sexual fantasy? Certainly I wasn't what the average woman wanted to be or admired. I was a toy, a pampered pet, a plaything for other people, a mistress, a lover, too good to be true for the common male libido. And I liked it. If anything I alone was setting women's liberation back twenty years or more. And I didn't care, So, in a sense, Parch had won a victory over me even with my old memories restored. And because it worked, it didn't really matter. But where was the old Victor Gonser? I looked for him, but found only traces here and there. Oh, I remem-bered my past all right, but it seemed distant, remote, as if it'd happened to somebody else, like in a very long, boring movie or something.
Data. Computers again. I had the data of Victor's life. The data but not the—matrix? Soul? I couldn't be sure. I tried to think back to when I was he—how long? Four years? I was that person for thirty-five years, my pres-ent self for four, so why was he so less real to me than Misty Carpenter? I thought back, tried to get inside him, and found I could not. Even the little things—being much taller, stronger. It just didn't relate. All the episodes of his life were there, but I could only see myself behind those eyes that witnessed it. I tried to remember the sex and even there I couldn't get it right. I'd remember the

woman, remember the room, everything, but when it came to doing it I was
always being penetrated, not the other way around. I couldn't even remember what it had been like to even have a penis. Why couldn't I? Memory is holographic. The phrase echoed in my mind, but now I began to
understand what Stuart and Dan had been talking about. Your data wasn't stored redun-dantly, over and over. The brain would quickly fill despite its huge capacity. But if reference A were stored only once, and all the bits and pieces were stored only once, the cerebrum would simply pull from those spots to create a picture, a complete thought, in the mind. Or a self-image.
And that was what was happening to me. The Gonser data bits were there, of course, complete and ready for use, but the core of me, my self-image, could either fragment into two totally split personalities, in which case I would be schizoid, or one would attain domi-nance, would establish itself in the primacy seat of the identity matrix.
Did anything of Victor Gonser remain? Well, Misty Carpenter was a stripper and prostitute who could dis-cuss Von Clauswitz, A.J.P. Taylor, and the fine points of Jungian psychology before going to bed with you. "We're coming into Vegas," Dory announced, bring-ing me out of my thoughts. I opened my eyes and looked out, seeing the bright lights in the distance although it was still twilight. Vegas was beautiful by night, I thought, but ugly as hell in the daytime.
"Two motels, fairly near but outside the Strip," Stuart suggested. "Why two?" I asked.
"If they are avare of us they vill be looking for four," he explained. "And off the beaten track the rates are cheaper and the traffic thinner. Better ve stay extra cautious and get avay."
There was no argument for that, although I, at least, felt a little more secure. I had walked the Strip for almost a week and checked it out, and I was a legiti-mate visitor.
We dropped Dory and Dan off at one little motel, a nothing sort of place, really, a few blocks off Las Vegas Boulevard, and they registered without problems. I was glad to see Dory accepting it so well considering her ill-concealed distrust of Pauley. She had guts, I had to admit that. Stuart and I took a room in another place just down the street. It looked O.K., and after we were all settled in we met again at a Sambo's for a bite to eat and some discussion.
"I think I should go directly to the Sahara and get my things," I told them. "The longer we wait the more the risk."
"Agreed," Pauley replied. "Look—no use in all of us going. Doctor, you and Dory stay here—I'll drive Misty down close to the Strip and let her off. She can walk down to the Sahara and get what she has to." He paused, looking at me seriously. "This and the bank tomorrow will be the riskiest part of this stage of the trip. Be extra careful."
"I will," I assured them all.

Dan let me off quickly and sped away, but I knew he was just going to stash
the car in the Sahara's back lot. I walked slowly but confidently towards the hotel-casino, acting like I had every right to be there—which I did. I took it slow and easy, though, to allow Dan enough time to park and make his way around to the lobby area.
Walking into the casino was like coming home, the sights and sounds and bright lights, the clunk of slots turning and stopping and the bells going off signalling jackpots, seemed like lost friends welcoming me back. Three guys tried to pick me up on the way to the eleva-tors, a little above average, but nobody looked particu-larly suspicious. That didn't mean much, of course, since Parch’s agents were visible only when they wanted to be. It would be up to Pauley to protect my rear.
There did seem an abnormal number of people just lounging about, though, and it gave me pause. For the first time since hitting Vegas I started getting nervous, looking sideways at people. Was that clerk the same one us yesterday? Was that guy with the racing form loung-ing against that post over there ogling me surrepti-tiously for the right reasons? I suddenly didn't feel so sure. I reached the elevators and punched the button, con-scious of eyes on me that, perhaps, weren't friendly or lustful eyes. It seemed to take forever for the damned car to come, but finally it did. I stepped in, and as the door started to close two men ran for it. I stepped back involuntarily, fear shooting through me as the lead man caught the door, hit the rubber safety stop, and, as the doors went back, got on with me. The other man followed. I had already pressed 6, my floor, and now I cursed myself for it. Who were these men, these strangers so insistent on riding with me? One man pushed 8, the other 11. Higher floors than mine. Could they be planning to walk back down from 8 and surprise me at my door? The elevator stopped at 6 and I got off, not very relieved that the two men stayed on. I fumbled for my key in my small purse and almost ran to my room. I put t he key to the lock, then hesitated once more. Were they waiting for me inside? Would Harry Parch's chilling voice greet me when I opened it? I had no choice, but still I hesitated. I wished Dory were here, or Dan, or somebody. I was suddenly feeling very alone and frightened. Finally I took a deep breath, put the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed the door in. It was dark in the room, and I quickly and apprehen-sively turned on the lights. Nobody there. It didn't reas-sure me. Closets, bathroom, they could be anywhere.
Scared to death now and cursing myself for insisting on this little side trip, I cautiously explored the entire room. Nothing. I sighed, knowing it might only be a brief reprieve. Quickly I hauled out my smaller suitcase and looked at my wardrobe. Finally I hauled out the big one, too, and started sorting. Undergarments, panty hose, toiletries, cosmetics, all went in the small one, along with some different shoes and some miscellaneous outfits. For now I decided that the simple, casual look was appropriate. Some blue jeans, sandals, and a thin sweater over just a bra.
The rest of the stuff I threw into the large suitcase. I hesitated on the short

mink jacket. It was too warm and I wasn't dressed for wearing it, but it seemed
like it might come in handy when we left the desert. Somehow I managed to cram it into the small suitcase and get it shut. I tried picking them up but while the small one was barely manageable with two hands, the big one was impossible. I would need help. Feeling that the world was closing in on me, I thought frantically for a moment, then realized that I would have to have a bellman. I sighed, picked up the phone, and called the bell captain.
A young man was up very quickly with a small cart too quickly, I thought with suspicion. He quickly loaded the bags and took them down to the lobby. I began to think the worst, that, perhaps, they were on to me, all around me, but wouldn't pounce. They were waiting for me to lead them back to the others. I checked out, and at least the cashier was a familiar face and a woman. I found that I could leave the large ruse in hotel storage, at a few bucks a day, until I sent word of where to send it, and that relieved my mind a bit. I had them put two weeks worth on the credit card and signed it, hoping I'd remember to keep up payments. I really didn't want to lose all that good stuff. I looked for Dan in the lobby and finally spotted him, but tried not to look directly at him. He was down a bit towards the casino, playing the slot machine nearest the lobby.
I managed the small suitcase as best I could, and it was only a moment before a middle-aged man came over and offered to help. In any other circumstances I would have been delighted, but I found myself wonder-ing if this was legit or not. But I couldn't move that thing very far—my back was killing me anyway—and I accepted his help to move the bag to the main entrance, where cabs normally lined up.
I thanked the man and he responded, "Any time at all, Babe," which sounded sincere and natural enough and then he went back into the casino. Cabs weren't prevalent, but one pulled up in five min-utes or so which I told to take me to the bus station. At the station, I walked in, waited until that cab had picked up another fare, then came back out again, thanking God that it wasn't too far to lug the case. I got in another cab and took it to the Sambo's where we' d eaten. He thought it was an odd destination, but didn't argue. I waited there a long twenty minutes or so, and finally a small car, a red one, pulled up and Pauley stuck his head out. "Misty! Get in!" I frowned at this car change, but lugged the case to the curb and managed to lift it in to Dan. I got in and he took off. "What happened? Where'd you get this car?" "It's not good," he told me. "I think we got away with this but by a whisker. I was just heading back to the car when several cop and plainclothes cars pulled up front and back of the Sahara. One local boy, probably proud of himself, was already standing at the car and some of them ran to him. I checked the front and saw others rushing inside. I knew you were away, so I just walked away, slowly and naturally. Finally I found this one, parked and unlocked on a side street, and I stole it. Somebody'd gone into a laundromat and left the keys in. So it's hot, and I'll have to ditch it. Look, I'm taking you back to the room. Brief Stuart, then

have him get Dory and come to your room, or you do it. I want to find out what'
s what in this city, and I have to dump this far away. O.K.?" "All right," I replied, sounding worried. "Look—take care of yourself. Without you this is all for nothing."
He pulled up in front of the motel room and surprised me by leaning over and kissing me. I was startled. Then he winked, took my suitcase out with one hand, and said, "You just sit tight. Nobody catches me twice. Just get Dory with you and don't move from that room until I get back no matter what—hear?" I nodded, and he roared off. Off in the distance I could hear the wail of sirens, off in the direction of The Strip. I knocked on the door and Stuart opened it cautiously, saw me, then came out and helped both me and my suitcase inside. I quickly filled him in on the develop-ments.
"Probably poor Castellano," he sighed. "He probably forgot the accent and let New. Jersey come through."
"We have to get Dory," I told him, but he held up his hand. "No, let's do it the smart vay." He pointed to the telephone. "No sense in all of us getting exposed." I was so rattled I could hardly think straight, not to mention dead tired and achy. I was damned glad to have Stuart around to do the thinking for me. I called Dory. She answered almost immediately andtook the news pretty well, but she said, "Look, I'm just about to get in the shower. Give me twenty minutes or so. I'll be over then. I'll knock twice. O.K.?" "O.K.," I responded, hung up, and told Stuart the news. Then I sat down on the bed and found myself suddenly trembling, unable to stop. Stuart came and sat beside me and put his arm around me. "Poor Misty," he said as gently as possible, "you are not equivipped for this sort of thing. Vell, neither am I. But ve do vat ve must, yes?" I nodded and squeezed his hand very hard. He held me tightly, and I needed to be held, and made me feel at least a tiny bit secure. Dory was almost on schedule, still dressed as before but with a large motel towel wrapped turban-like around her hair. "They didn't have much time to grab anything of mine when they snatched me," she explained. "No loss, though." Something in my manner seemed to betray my recent attack of nerves, and she came over and squeezed my hand, then looked at me face to face. "Huh. I'm almost as tall as you when you're in sandals." She grinned. "I don't think I'm ever gonna make five feet, though, so you got me by three inches." It broke the tension a bit and I relaxed a little more, laughing at her. I began to have even more respect for her now, knowing she realized how tightly wound I was and diverting me with trivialities.
Finally she sighed and looked at the two of us. "Look, I don't know about you but I'm really dead tired. I haven't been to sleep in almost two days and that shower was the last straw. Would you mind?" "Of course not," I said. "Pick a bed."
She stripped without hesitancy, noting that her clothes had to last her a while yet, and climbed into bed. Stuart idly started looking through the Las Vegas

promotional literature, and I finally relaxed enough to get undressed myself. I
flexed my back muscles, which were really starting to ache, and Stuart, seeing this, came over and started giving me what felt like the most orgasmic backrub I could imagine.
"It is the breasts," he explained, although I'd already figured that out. "A lot of veight pulling you forward, a bit more than your genes designed your back muscles for. Unless you get reduction surgery it's something you'll .have to live vith."
I nodded. "I know. Maybe someday I'll be settled down, not need 'em so much any more, or the back will finally get to me and I'll do something." I lifted them up with my hands and looked down at them. "Good Lord, Stuart—was there ever a woman born naturally who grew a pair like these? Sometimes I feel like a cow."
He chuckled. "Thousands, probably. But few in such delightful combination." He sighed. "Ah, if I were only thirty years younger!" I looked over at Dory in the other bed. She was out like a light, mouth open slightly, totally oblivious to the world. "But, Stuart," I whispered, "you are thirty years younger." He started a moment, then looked thoughtful. "So I am," he said, wondering, then undressed himself. God! I needed him! I was tired, and he was tired, but we lay there in the darkness after, neither of us really able to sleep, think-ing about things that the past few minutes, at least, had helped us forget.
I stirred a bit. "Why do I always get the wet spot on my side?" I whispered. "It's a male plot. Ve're trained to work it out that vay," he responded lightly, and we both chuckled softly and were silent for a moment. "Still vorried?" he asked.
"A little," I admitted. "About a lot of things. Not just tonight, although that's bad enough, Lord knows." "Vant to tell your doctor about it?" I smiled in the darkness. "It's me, Stuart. Since I—came back—today, I've been struggling with myself, with who I am." "Ve yarned you about that."
"No, no, it's more than that. In the car this afternoon—I knew that I had undergone a profound change. Victor Gonser is dead. Gone. And not just physically. There is only me, and I'm Misty Carpenter." He thought for a moment. "No, I think you have the right solution but the problem it is backyards."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"The solution, the only solution for you, is to be Misty Carpenter, now and forever. It is not only a person you like but one you must be, for you will be Misty Carpen-ter to the vorld no matter vat. The problem you have is that this Victor fellow, he is not as dead as he should be. You are looking at yourself through his mind, his moral-ity, and you think, yell, it is wrong that I like being a voman, like being Misty Carpenter, like the heads turn-ing, doors opening, the sex, the exhibitionism. Because he is not dead, this Victor, he makes you feel

guilty, doubt yourself. Look—this Victor fellow ve both knew. Did you like
him?"
I considered the question. "No. Well, not exactly. I didn't mind him so much as the way he was forced to live."
"He vas an egomaniac and an insufferable bore," Stuart responded. "A man who lived in his own private little hell, vich he built himself, and preferred self-pity, vallowed in it, even kind of enjoyed it. So—you start! Vy should you care? You are not he, you are Misty Carpen-ter!" I tried to respond to that, but I was all confused inside now. It had seemed so simple.
"You see? Now vy vas he such a bore, a stick-in-the-mud? He never could join. He was dark, not very good-looking, bald, and had a pot belly. No girls paid him any mind. He had built such a mountain of defenses against a lonely childhood and a possessive Mama that he could not break them." Tears came unbidden into my eyes as his comments brought back a lifetime of anguish and bitter loneliness.
"So now he is gone, pfft! And in his place is Misty Carpenter. She, too, has her problems, but they are not Victor's problems. Heads turn ven she valks into the room. Men fall over themselves to gain her favor. Misty can never be lonely. A dancer? Look at those big, beauti-ful eyes! Everyvun vants her. Everyvun loves her. Money? Vatever she vants she gets. Inhibitions? No. She loves the crowd and they love her—she valks naked in their midst if she vants. Is she used? Exploited? No, not really, for she loves vat she does and does it by choice, yes?"
"You make it sound so trite," I said bitterly. He hugged me. "And so it is! But that is all it is. You have a golden opportunity here. Vat have you done so far? You have taught. You have done brilliant research, written many books that have caused young people to think—a very rare thing these days. That alone is more than most human beings ever accomplish. Far more. Now, you are born again, yes? You experience anew, are able to give anew, learn and grow in new and impossi-ble vays, vithout losing any that you have already ac-complished. This is not bad—it is vunderful. The only hard part to understand is vy you feel guilty about it. You should be proud, not ashamed! Trite? Perhaps, per-haps not. But if they are trite they are the
trivial things as veil, yes? They are not the main things in life. But joy is important, love is important, caring is important. Yes—become Misty Carpenter, body and soul. You must. For only then can you live and love and give and get."
I sat there quietly for a while, digesting what he said, and he left me alone to do it. He was right, of course. I was Misty Carpenter because I wanted desperately to be Misty, who was always adored and never alone. Stuart was right, though. Victor was not dead. Victor was transformed, raised up. A part of me would always be Victor and should always remember him, understand him in order to know and help all the Victors of this world. But I was not Victor. I was me.
I kissed him with feeling, then turned and my hand touched the little plastic

alarm clock on the nightstand. I took it, suddenly, and looked at it. "Stuart—it's
almost one-thirty."
"So?"
"Dan's not back yet."
"That has been on my mind, but I haven't let it get to me. He vas tough enough to trap on your boat, yes? He vould be almost impregnable in a big city. I think he is spying for us."
"But—suppose he doesn't come back? Suppose he just takes off?" "If he'd vanted to he could have done it any time, yes? If he has, then ve have lost, of course. But I think not. He vill come back." "I almost hope he doesn't," I said. "Then we would be out of this." "For a vile, yes; for a very short vile. But then the campaign begins. And ve—you, me, Dory, all of us—vill be its wictims. No—he must return. He vill! And you must hope so, too, deep down. No matter who or vat you are you have a responsibility."
"I didn't ask for it."
"No, but few of us do ask such things. Fools, perhaps. You studied history. It is not extraordinary men doing great things. It is, mostly, ordinary men propelled by events, by circumstance, into extraordinary positions." I could almost hate Stuart then. He was too insuffer-ably right all the time. Finally I said, "Stuart—when he does come back, what then? If the alarm's out and they know I've been to the Sahara, have the car, then the bank is out. I have less than twenty dollars left in cash. Dory has almost noth-ing. And you've got—what?"
"Tvelve dollars and sixteen cents," he admitted. I nodded. "And we have no car now. They'll be look-ing for us anyway. We need money and a way out. I don't know about the way out, but I can get us some money. More than we got, anyway."
He knew what I meant. It didn't really bother me, of course, but I couldn't help thinking of Dory.
Stuart understood. "Look, you forget—you who should of all people not forget—that she is a twenty-three-year--old voman, yes? A modern voman. You are not—you are vat you vant to be, a concept of a voman, but not of her background. She is not naive, nor stupid. She was raised on the tradition that vomen can do anything, be anything. You are in some vays the old model, she the new. You have decided vat is the right sort of vomen you vant to be—you can not change that, nor can you act on vat is right for her. That is her choice." "But—I—we—damn! It's kind of weird, but, Stuart, I'm in love with her! I have been in love with her ever since I first met her. I don't want to hurt her!" "So? Vat is so veird? She loves you, you love her. You two of all people are the best sort of lovers. You know it's vat's inside that counts, not the body you year."
"But I like—men."
"So again? Sex is love, maybe? Since ven? Sex can be vith love or vithout it. You should know. But vun is not necessarily the other." He sighed. "Still, if you must do it for us, you must, even if she vould have some hurt- vich I'm not too

sure about. Our responsibility is to those people who can not know vat is going
on. They have no choice, and so neither do ve, if they are not to become wictims, yes? First ve do vat ve must. Then ve decide our own lives. So vat is the alternative? Ve all shack up vile you get a dance job and the rest of us sveep floors, yes? Or?"
"What would I have done without you, Stuart?" "The same thing—only more slowly, and vith more pain." I hoped that he was right, not so much for his sake hut for mine. The night wore on towards morning, and, in spite of ourselves, we finally fell asleep.
A gentle knock on the door awakened me. I glanced at the clock—a little after five. Not even light yet. I began to think I'd dreamed it when the knock came again, a little more insistently. I got up as quietly as I could and went to the door, checking to see that the chain was on. I opened it a crack and whispered, "Who is it?" "Dan," came a hissed reply. "Let me in—quick." I undid the chain and he slipped in, then I closed it and chained it again. I stared at the shape in the dark, which looked smaller, different, somehow. " Dan—is that really you?"
"Yes," he responded. "I—had to switch, Misty. It was a close call. Turn on the light and get ready for a shock. We better wake the others, too." I reached over and flipped the lights on and gasped, The figure in the room was a tiny one, wearing a brown monklike robe with hood and sandals. Dory and Stuart stirred with the light, woke up, and looked blearily in our direction. Both saw the new Pauley and gasped. "Relax—it's Dan," I told them, and I really hoped it was. He reached up and pulled back his hood. The head was totally shaved, even the eyebrows, and the face, which once might have held some human attraction, looked bony and emaciated.
"Are you—male or female?" Dory asked, staring in wonder. "Female," he responded, "although sexless is more naturally true." Speaking aloud his voice did have a feminine tone to it, but the inflection, the manner, was all Pauley's.
"Who or what was that?" I wanted to know. Pauley sighed and collapsed tiredly into a chair. "Look, I'll tell you the whole thing from the beginning. I ditched the car on the north side, in a motel parking lot, then started walking back towards downtown. Thank God they have busses all night here, and one came along and I grabbed it, heading back for the Sahara area. I had to know what they were doing. I tried to be as inconspicu-ous as possible, but I no sooner entered the casino when I spotted a very familiar figure across the way talking to a couple of security men. It was Harry Parch." "Parch!" Dory gasped, then turned to Stuart. "I thought you said he wouldn't be back until late today."
"Something must have tipped earlier than planned," the scientist responded. " They got him back here on the next plane." "Well, anyway, there I was in a known body, target number one, fifty feet

from my worst enemy. I turned to walk out the door and as soon as I hit the
street this girl in this long robe, here, comes up to me and starts a pitch to sell me flowers. I tried to put her off, but a glance back showed Parch and the security men heading my way, so I eased her down towards the parking lot. I couldn't help noticing how nice, how trusting she was, smile always on her face. Well, there was this dark area, and I got ready, figuring at least I wouldn't have to kill anybody. No use hiding with Parch around. So, I reach out to her, and, by God, she reached out and grabbed me first! Not just her hand—I mean with her mind!"
"She was Urulu?" I gasped.
That strange face was grim. "No, not Urulu. But I felt the push—it's hard to describe. Let's just say she let her mind flow out, flooding mine. I had an instant reaction, first an instinctive block, then I rushed in and made the switch on my terms. Her ego—her matrix—was so sim-ple, so uncomplicated, that I damned near crushed it, and I left my old body sitting in the phone booth with a cupid smile on his face."
"But she could make the svitch, like you, yes?" Stuart prodded. "But this ve have not yet developed. I vould know it if ve had." Pauley shook his head. "It wasn't IMC, either. It's a new wrinkle, but an old pattern. I wouldn't have guessed it, not yet—but it is The Association." I thought back to the tapes, and the conversations we'd had, and shivered. "So ve are under attack after all!" Stuart murmured. Pauley nodded slowly. "The war is here. How long it's been here I can't tell—we've all been out of circulation for three years. That's why I can't just contact Urulu here. I tried a couple of the numbers but they were disconnected." He turned to Stuart. "Tell me about the Redeemers." The scientist shrugged. "Ve have had such cults around this country for years. They are mostly young, mostly made up from runaways, former addicts, teens vith un-happy homes."
"I remember the Children of God, the Moonies, lots of others, from when I was growing up," I added. "I suppose Hari Khrishna is still around." "Most have merged," Stuart told us. "This new church wept them up, a big movement. You cannot escape them, and, thanks to the courts and the First Amend-ment, you can't interfere with them. Many of the older ones have come together vith them. They own huge tracts of land, are rich and pervasive." "I know how rich they must be," Pauley responded. "I left the mongol sitting there and went over to this cart that read 'Flower Power for Love and Godhead.' I saw two others similar to myself working further down the airport, and I checked in my pocket. There was almost $230 there. "That much was good. You ought to have seen those APs when I tried to sell them flowers! I even pressed Harry Parch himself!" "You didn't!" Dory gasped.."And did he buy one?" "He looked at me kind of funny for a minute, and I thought I'd gone too far, that he knew who I was despite all. But, I'll be damned if he didn't gentle up and buy a nice carnation! I even chivvied him out of his change for a 'contribution.' " "Dan!" I scolded. "You shouldn't have! How did you ever—“

That strange, shaven head came up, and I'd swear there was a definite change
in the form. It seemed to be eerily transformed, to shrink, change, become someone else.
It rose, an incredibly sincere pleading in its eyes. "Buy some flowers?" this plaintive voice asked, so genuine and convincing that we all seemed to pull back a little. "Would you convert some money to beauty?" it pleaded, so genuinely that it scared the hell out of me. Suddenly the effect was gone, replaced by Pauley's confident manner and smile that shone through that odd body. He chuckled. "My God! That's incredible!" I managed. His face turned serious. "You see," he said, "my peo-ple developed the IM transfer without mechanical aid, as an evolutionary device. We were weak, our brains our only defense in a world unremittingly hostile. Our brains gave us IM if we needed it, and gave us a certain illu-sory power as well. There would be this terrible crea-ture, ready to eat us, and we'd activate this protective circuit. Suddenly we weren't Urulu food any more, we were a plant, another carnivore, something like that. We can still do it—the power of the Urulu is all in the mind. We've been fighting all our existence, and we still have it." It was unsettling to all of us. Frankly, Dan Pauley had been a real person, even in different forms. He was not a friend on the trail or on the ferry, but he'd become a lice sort of guy in imprisonment and escape. But he wasn't a nice sort of guy at all, I thought. He was an alien creature whose very thought patterns were different from us. He was simply imitating us, giving us what we wanted him to be. That's why everybody liked Pauley, everybody felt comfortable with him. Stuart, ever practical, broke the mood. "Did you keep the money?" he asked. Pauley smiled. "Sure. Two hundred and thirty flower power bucks plus five from Mr. Harry Parch."
"But what good does it do us?" I protested. "We're still known, and now Parch knows we're in town. He can smoke us out—it isn't that big a place. And now The Association will know that a Urulu is here, too." Pauley shook his head. "No, not much threat from The Association at this stage. These are drones. Their minds have been drained, the useful information, if any, filed, and they have been given identical, empty personas. They're robots, that's all. That's why the girl's mind cracked when I resisted. It simply wasn't equipped for it. The other two won't even recognize that one of their own is missing. They'll go on until relieved, then go back to their living quarters. Nobody will notice or care. The biggies will only show up to make sure everything's going right and collect the money. They won't even count. Individuals don't exist in The Association." I started to press for more information on the enemy but Stuart was ever practical. "The fact remains that Harry Parch is here and he knows ve are here. He can lock up this town tighter than a drum but very qvietly, vith full government authority. Ve have to get out of here. As the crow flies, ve are less than eighty miles from IMC."
"Well, we've gotten this far—we can't give up now," Dory put in. "I won't give

that son of a bitch another crack at me!" She started thinking. Finally she said,
"Look, I'm the least known and most unobtrusive person here. Parch hasn't seen me since I was a kid and my odds of meeting him head on are pretty slim anyway." There was no arguing with that. "O.K., then," she went on, fire in her tone, "so we've got $235, plus whatever we have left over. That's a lot. Now, when the stores open, I'm gonna take that money and buy us a way outta here."
Check-out was noon, but, despite some nervousness, we needed a little more time and I managed to sweet-talk the manager, a kindly old guy. I was a little appre-hensive about letting Dory out alone, but Dan and I were both conspicuous, for different reasons, and even if Stuart's current face wasn't familiar to them, which it was, he would have been lost on such a shopping expedition.
She came back in a taxi with a pile of stuff we had to help unload. I looked over it, somewhat approvingly, the only one who, at least, didn't need a wardrobe.
"I kept it simple," she told us. "Things we needed, things for a good disguise, all from the discount stores except the wigs, which I had to pick up at Sears." We sorted the stuff out and I was amazed at the variety. She handed me a package. ""Mix it," she told me. ""It's hair dye. Sensual Auburn, it says. Seems stu-pid to dye it its natural color, but I couldn't stand black on you, red always looks phoney, and it looked the best."
I took her advice, although with a bit of regret, and filled the sink. A bit later she took over the bathtub and started pouring in small packets that turned the water into what looked like really thin mud. "What," I asked her, "is that?"
"Skin tint," she replied. "You mean you never saw it? It was just getting to be the in thing a few years ago. It's out now, I guess, but it's still around. It's a dye, it won't wash off, and this particular batch is called 'Bronze Goddess.' You can get 'em in any color—even blues and pinks and stuff like that." I looked at it dubiously. "How do you get it off, then?" You can use an alcohol sponge, but most folks just let it wear off. It fades out in a couple of days. Now, «trip and get in—we got to cover every part of your nice, white skin with it."
The stuff actually didn't look bad on the skin, or in it, or whatever it was. Like a really deep suntan, a real golden bronze. She spent a lot of time making sure I had a complete coat, using a sponge applicator. When she was finished my skin and hair just about matched, although my blue eyes were a little incongruous. Dory was even prepared for that. "I knew you might have sunglasses, she said, " but not with a light frame." She handed me a pair and they looked pretty good. A golden nail polish and light lipstick completed the job, and I had to admit, looking at myself in the mirror, I looked like an entirely different person. With my hair now up and back, my ears showing, I looked exotic, all right, but not like Misty Carpenter. I decided to stick to the jeans, sweater, and sandals. It was simple, and comfortable.

She had gotten Pauley a short brown wig that looked pretty good, some false
eyebrows that gave the Urulu a more human look, and a simple jeans and T-shirt outfit. "You'll have to wear the cult sandals, though," she apol-ogized. "I couldn't guess your shoe size."
For herself she put her hair up and fitted a black Afro wig over it, applied some judicious cosmetics, and got some new jeans and a souvenir T-shirt but she added a matching denim vest. "Had to go to the children's de-partment," she grumped. She stuck to her boots, on the theory that she still was the least recognizable, and pulled out a denim cowgirl-type hat with fancy stitching. Stuart was the hardest, since we couldn't change him much. A complete change of clothes made him look touristy, a light jacket, more sunglasses and a brown cowboy hat completed the picture. He had a two-day growth of stubble, and we suggested he not shave for a while. We did, however, give him a dye job, changing his black hair to a browner shade, with just a touch of gray on the sides. It made him look different enough that he seemed satisfied. Pauley was amazed. "How did you even know the sizes?" She grinned. "When you've been a woman all your life you get to guessing other women's sizes pretty well."
We stood back and looked critically at one another. "What do you think?" Pauley asked.
"They'll do," Dory replied. "Look, it was the best I could do for a hundred and fifteen dollars. You never had problems, I am least likely to be known, Stuart—well, if he came face to face with somebody who'd known the original owner he'd be in trouble, but not casually, or from an I.D. photo. No, Misty's the only one with problems."
"What do you mean? I think I look terrific!" "Yeah, you do—as usual, which is the problem. Honey, you have a forty-two-inch bust on a twenty-four-inch waist. There's no disguising that. Your every move is an advertisement. One sex goddess attracts as much atten-tion as another—and attention is what we don't want to attract." "What can I do?" I wailed. "This is me." I felt that it was a ridiculous position. Who'd ever thought that not being noticed, being nondescript, fading into the background, being very common and ordinary, would be such an asset? Where are you, Victor Gonser, when I really need you? "Let's get something to eat," Pauley suggested. "The usual place, I think. It's a good test, since our old selves have been in there before—your old selves, anyway."
I nodded, then had a sudden thought. "What about my suitcase? It's got all my stuff in it!"
He sighed and looked at it. "You can't even lift it," hepointed out. "I'd say take what little you can in your purse and forget it." "Forget it hell! That's my life in there!" "Or it might be your life if you keep it," he shot back. I sighed and almost cried when I thought of the stuff I would be losing. But one thing I wouldn't abandon. I opened the thing and took out the mink jacket. It was a nice brown and would go with my dyed self.

"Wow!" Dory whistled. "Is that real?"
I nodded. I also took the jewelry case, opened it, and dumped it into my shoulder bag, along with the contents of the smaller purse I'd been going to use. The rest was really nice, and had some fond memories attached, but it could be more easily replaced. I looked at it sadly and shook my head, then sighed. "O.K. Let's go before I start bawling my head off." Stuart and I went first, dropping the key off and then going off arm-in-arm. It served to draw some attention away from me to him for having me on his arm, which was good psychology.
Dory and Dan followed a few minutes behind, and we met in a corner booth at the restaurant. At the end, after figuring the bill, we figured we still had about $120 and some change. That was only $30 apiece. Not very much at all. Not even enough for bus tickets.
"We'll have to split up and get out of town," Pauley told us. "I don't like it, but they'll be looking for groups. Ordinarily, I'd say Misty and Stuart were the ideal cou-ple, but not here. Putting our most recognizable people together would be a mistake. Better he and I—much less visibility that way, since they won't know me at all—and you and Dory."
I nodded. "Sounds O.K. to me."
"I'd still not travel around too close together while in Vegas," Pauley went on. "You've got to face it, Misty-, even in a city full of beautiful showgirls you get noticed, and that could cause them to put you and a smaller Indian woman together."
"We'll take it easy," I promised him. "Look—you two take care of yourselves and don't worry about us. I think we can handle ourselves in the city." "O.K., then. I'll leave it to you how to get out. Train, plane, and bus stations are bound to be watched closely, as will all rental car agencies." "They can plug right into the computers," Stuart put in. "Get a readout—and you'd have to use your right name and driver's license and credit cards." "I didn't say it would be easy—for any of us. I'd say bus is the best bet—it's the one thing we can probably get for the money we've got, although maybe not all the way. Take separate busses. Let's see . . . This is a Thurs-day. We'll meet in Los Angeles, at the Farmer's Market, at noon." "Tomorrow?" I asked.
"Every day until we all link up," he replied. "But don't give it too long. Anybody not there by, say, Monday, you have to write off. If I can get out of here and get a little money I'll check a safe house we have be-tween here and there. Maybe I can make contact."
"And if not?" Dory asked him.
He sighed. "Then we've got real big problems. Not insurmountable ones, but a lot harder. Look, I'd rather not go into that now. Better you don't know until you have to."
I saw what he meant.
The hot, bright, cheery look of Las Vegas was, some-how, suddenly more sinister. I began to feel the fear again, gnawing inside me. They're out there, I thought. Out there looking for me.

Suddenly it wasn't quite so much fun being Misty Carpenter.
Chapter Twelve
Dory and I paid our bills and left them there, then walked out onto the street. We didn't even look back to we where they went. It was better that way. And lonelier.
I took Dory's hand and squeezed it tight. She looked up at me and gave a confident smile, and I felt better.
I wasn't alone. It was the two of us against the world, at least, and while that wasn't much it was far better than just one. She looked down the bleak highway. "It's a ways down to the Strip and the bus station," she noted. "May as well start walking." Nobody walked in Las Vegas, not from this far away from the casinos. There wasn't even much provision for sidewalks, and the gleaming towers of the Strip looked ugly in the distance, set against the bright sun and dirty sand and hills. It should never be day here, I thought.
"We can't do it this way," I told her. The Strip was there, but it was a good mile away. A couple of hotels and casinos were closer, but they weren't where we had to be.
"Yeah," Dory agreed sourly. "My feet won't take this, and I'm sweating like a stuck pig."
"C'mon!" I urged. "I've got an idea!"
We ran across the street when traffic allowed, and stood there. "If I'm going to be a sex goddess," I told her, "I should be able to get us a ride."
And I did. As a matter of fact, the guy almost lost control of the car. I had a hot thumb.
He leaned over and opened the front door, and we both squeezed in. It wasn't a big car, but it was air conditioned and felt good. I was in the middle, so I put my arms behind the two.
"Where you girls heading?" the guy asked pleasantly. He didn't look like a gambler or tourist. More like a salesman, I thought. It took no effort at all to turn on Misty Carpenter's full charms. "Down to the Strip," I said in my best voice. "Going to look around for a while."
"I have to go over to the residential section," he replied, regret evident in his voice. "I'll run you down to the Frontier, though. That ought to put you in the center of things."
The trip by car was too short for many questions, and I made sure he didn't think of any. It was so easy, I thought. It amazed me, this power I had. Not just that it worked, but that it didn't have to be worked. It was there when needed. We got out, and I made his day by kissing him. Las Vegas at 2 P.M. isn't the world's most thrilling town. This place ran by night, came alive by night, although it was always open. I shifted my shoulder-purse, which seemed to weigh a ton—and no wonder.

Even after giving a little of my best jewels to Dan to pawn when he cleared town,
I had a lot in it. Mink was also warm at eighty-one degrees. "Well, we can't stand out and fry," I said with a lightness I didn't feel. "Let's go in where it's cool."
Once inside, with the clank of slot machines and the ringing bells and flashing lights, I felt nervous again. Everybody seemed to be looking at me, but instead of the admiring glances they probably were I saw each as a Harry Parch spy. I noticed Dory was staring at me. "What's the matter?" I said, suddenly concerned.
"I'm trying to figure out just what you do, how you do it," she replied. "Do what?" I asked.
"That's what I mean," she said sulkily. "The moves, the stance, the walk, everything."
"Oh," was all I could manage at first, relief sweeping over me. Then I added, "Besides, you're too young for that."
"Like hell," she retorted.
I remembered Stuart's words and frowned. We needed more money, certainly, and I could get it. It was here, available. Vicki Lee shouldn't need money at all. I looked at Dory, and she read my thoughts. "If you do it, I will, too," she said, teeth clenched. And that upset me for some reason I couldn't understand. "No," I said in the same tone. "You go ahead," she urged. "I'll watch. Then—well, I'll meet you in the L.A. bus depot, that's all. Don't worry. Remember, I'm twenty-five and this body's ready." She paused. "I go both ways now, you know."
I started to protest, to argue, then turned and walked away from her, towards the bar.
She was small, but she was a well-developed seventeen--year-old. They wouldn't have any problems believing her old enough, particularly with that manner and speech, and an experienced woman. Which, of course, she was.
Even this early in the afternoon, I didn't even have to sit down before I had to choose which John looked most promising. His name was John K. Jessup, he was about forty-five, paunchy and slightly gray, dressed in a brown tweed suit and matching tie. He was there for a convention, he was lonely, and he had the bread. He reminded me a lot of Victor Gonser. I wondered if the old Misty would have targeted him, or whether this was because of the resemblance. It was right out of the books and old movies. He was a machine tool salesman, of all things, from Iowa City, of all places, and he bought me some drinks until we both felt good, and he talked of his business and his life while I just gushed all over him.
It was simple. I just stopped thinking and it worked on impulse. Then we gambled a little, caught a nice little lounge act, danced a bit after—he really wasn't a bad dancer—and he had the time of his life. Everyone was looking at him, envious of him, wondering why they couldn't have such luck.

For that was my protection—in context, I was a cy-pher, a symbol, a thing, a
precious object that was coveted. But not a wanted human being, sought by certain people. Then a nice dinner, a few more drinks, and up to John, K. Jessup' s room, where he fulfilled his fantasies. It was a life I liked, would have gladly stuck with. But I was wanted in this town, I had a responsibility, and I had an appointment in L.A. He didn't want me to go, begged me to stay at least to breakfast, but I couldn't. I never once asked for money, I never once asked for anything. He slipped me some money; insisted I take it, and seemed slightly embarrassed by the action. I was in the elevator before I looked.
It was two hundred bucks.
That easy.
For having fun.
For giving somebody else a good time, too. I walked to the bus station, the hot night air feeling just great, me feeling just great.
There was a cop car parked around the corner from the bus station, and a suspicious-looking guy in sports shirt and slacks leaning on the wall near the door.
Suddenly I didn't feel so good anymore.
I was alone, all alone.
And Misty Carpenter feared that most of all. I backed away from the streetlights, back into the shadows and waited, barely daring to breathe. I was trembling slightly, and I turned and walked back down the street, back into the Strip, which somehow seemed now to be threatening; the garish lights and weird sounds loomed and swooped and pressed in at me.
I realized suddenly that I'd started to run, and slowed to a nervous pace. People passed me on the street, the heads turning as, always to look at me, only this time I didn't want them to look, didn't want them to notice. I felt like I was lit up, an advertising billboard, which, in a way, I was. I needed a drink and a place to sit down for a few minutes, and I turned into a small bar and slot machine parlor on the fringe of the Strip. It was crowded, and heads turned when I entered, men staring, gesturing. "Hey Babe! Lonely?" somebody yelled out, and I turned, pushing back out onto the street, that suddenly cold, lonely street. Misty was, in herself, a trap.
I reached an intersection turning off to a small, dark street. As I turned the corner, not thinking of where I would go, not thinking of anything but getting away from the lights, a figure suddenly loomed before me, strange and horrible. "A pretty flower for a pretty flower, both to glorify God?" piped a voice. It was one of the Redeemed, and I almost screamed, and pushed the poor creature out of the way.
There are no really bad sections of Las Vegas, but there are some not so well lit, not so garish, not so public, and I was in one of these now. I was cloaked in the darkness, and for a moment, it felt good.

Suddenly a man came out of the shadows, a bottle in his hand.
"Hey! Honey! Wanna drink?" he called out in a filthy, ugly voice as he reached for me. I almost screamed, but evaded him. He followed me, and I started running again.
Finally I came to a corner and rounded it. There was a house and some small trees watered by a sprinkler, and I quickly crouched down in their protective, dark shel-ter, and held my breath.
He came around the corner seconds later, and stood there for what seemed like forever, breathing hard and looking around. So this is what it's like, I thought. Is this what every woman feels and fears if she ventures out alone? Is every walk in a strange place a potential threat, a prom-ise that, perhaps, horror is lurking there? Victor Gonser wouldn't have hesitated in walking into that bar, down this street. Victor wouldn't be crouching, trembling in fear as some bastard stalked him. Men couldn't comprehend this terror, as I waited breathless, certain I would cough, or fall and give myself away to this man of the dark. He drained the bottle, and threw it into the yard. It hit the tree, and landed just a few inches from me.
I heard him mumbling something to himself, then he turned and walked slowly down the street toward the Strip. I remained there for some time, shaking terribly, realizing that while Victor Gonser hated being alone, I, Misty, could not survive alone. I heard a clock somewhere strike three. Three in the morning, and I was crouching in the darkness of somebody's front yard. Just as I could not turn Misty off physically, I could not shed her mentally, either. She was not cut out for this and she was terrified, out of her element com-pletely, overcome with that emotionalism that now worked against me. I shuddered, and forced myself to stop crying, to calm down. I took deep breaths, and tried to regain control.
Think, dammit, think! I told myself over and over.
Cautiously, I made my way back to the walk, and could see nothing, nobody but a few cars going to and fro.
Now the Strip was closed to me as well. He had gone that way, and I must go the other.
I walked, forcing myself to be slow and deliberate, afraid as I walked under every streetlight, more afraid of the darkness between. I was suddenly out of sidewalk and streetlights again, and walking on the sandy shoulder of what the sign said was State Route 6. How long or how fast I' d walked I didn't know. Over to the right of me I saw the start of an Interstate highway, and beyond it a cluster of lights in the darkness. Route 6 and the Interstate seemed to get further apart, so I cut overland, crossing the dark gulf between; desert grass and brush stung my feet, and I felt in total despair.
Then, suddenly, I was at the big highway, which was carrying a moderate amount of traffic. I looked over and saw that the lights I'd seen were not merely lights but a truck stop of some sort.

It was difficult crossing the highway, and there was a slope down the other
side which caused me to fall more than once, but I was over, and walking toward the bright lights.
Frankly, I was in a state of shock yet, had been since the man had almost caught up to me. I could just think of the lights, of people, lots of people, with no dark places.
The place smelled of diesel fuel and a young attendant rushed around checking green pumps, using extenders to wash the windshields of the big rigs. Even so, it was fairly new, and one of those complete types—a restaurant, complete with slot machine banks, and a trucker's store of sorts. I walked in and headed first for the women's bathroom, which was fairly diffi-cult to find. This was still mostly a man's world.
Once inside, the shock seemed to wear off a bit, and I almost collapsed, bracing myself against a sink. Slowly my head came up and I looked at myself in the mirror.
My God! I thought. I looked like hell, and even looking like hell I looked
sexy.
I straightened myself up and went into a stall. I sat there for several minutes on the toilet, trying to get ahold of myself. Now what? I asked myself, fearing that the answer was that I was doomed to wander forever like this, cut off and alone. Something within me seemed to snap. No! I told myself suddenly, and dried my flowing tears of hope-lessness.
I was back in control, tired but thinking once more. The terror wasn't gone, but it had been superceded by desperation. If the terror came, then it would come. I had to accept that. But, if that was all I could look forward to, I might as well slit my throat right here, now.
That's where Victor Gonser had been, back up on the trail, I realized. Thinking about jumping off a cliff, wasn't he? I fumbled in the big, cheap purse. Some makeup there, yes, a small towel, and about $230.00. All my worldly goods. I straightened myself up and went out over to the trucker's store. It was mostly men's stuff, but I found a cute straw cowboy hat that looked really nice, some hankies, deodorant, and other toiletries. Even a spare couple of shirts. They stuffed the bag to bulging, but it was much better. I went back into the john and used what I'd bought, carefully brushed my hair, cleaned up, got looking and smelling nice. Terror there might be, but I had a mind inside this body, and I had this body, too.
I walked into the restaurant. It was mostly empty except for a few truckers talking in a special area reserved for them, sipping coffee or eating hamburgers. The waitress came over, and I asked for coffee and some eggs, all I thought I could manage.
But I radiated, and I knew it. Nature abhors a vac-uum, and I had a vacuum on both sides of me, while nature was staring from the trucker's lounge. One of them, a tired-looking man in his mid-forties dressed somewhat

cowboy-style, a day or so's growth of beard giving him something of the rugged
look, called over.
"Hay!" he said loudly, in an accent that was strictly hillbilly. "Hay Sweet Thang! You lonesome? C'mon' over!"
I drank my coffee and pretended to ignore him. Fi-nally he got up, mostly, I think, at the whispered taunt-ing of two other drivers, and came over. "What's the matter, gal? Troubles?" he asked pleas-antly. "You look too sad sittin' here like that with that expression on yore face." I turned to him. "I'm stuck, if you want to know the truth. I used to dance at the Mauritania Lounge here, hut the boss decided he wanted to use me in another end of his business, and I quit. I've just been drifting around all night, trying to think about what to do next."
He seemed genuinely sympathetic. "I know what you mean, I think. Where y' all headin' now?"
I sighed. "I was thinking of getting a waitress's job or something," I told him. I had seen a sign near the front door. "Now, I don't know. I have a lot of friends, but they're all back in L.A., and I have no way to get there." He rubbed his chin, and looked about as sincere as I was. "Well, now," he thought. "No money?"
"Some," I replied, then told him about the encounter with the would-be rapist. I told it straight, sparing noth-ing except the fact that I was not about to go back into town for entirely different reasons than the fear of meet-ing him again. He nodded sympathetically, and there seemed real concern in his voice. "Look," he suggested, "I've just dropped a load at the air base here, and I'm deadheadin' back to Barstow. You're welcome as far as there. After that, well, I don't think we got a problem gettin' no ride into L.A. for a beaver pretty as you, ma'am."
And it was as simple as that.
He was a perfect gentleman all the way, and I slept the not so long ride to Barstow.
Once he got in C.B. range of the I-15, I-40 junction, he got on the radio and described me in incredible, somewhat colorful language, and explained my need. The others didn't believe him, and so I got on myself and asked for help. I hope I didn't cause a smash-up somewhere, but finally the man with the strongest radio got through the jam and we linked up. I kissed my savior good-bye, and changed trucks.
The new man was not as nice or as gentlemanly, but he seemed satisfied to pet and snuggle as best he could with fourteen gears to control, and damned if he didn't wind up driving miles out of his way to drop me at the Farmer's Market!
I had made it with two hours to spare, not costing me a thing, and I was dead tired but little else.
Meeting in the Farmer's Market, I found, was more difficult than anyone would think. It's a huge place, full of stalls selling just about everything, and crowds of people all about. I finally decided that I was too tired to hunt; if I was going to be a magnet, I might as well be one and let them find me.

I got a small bun from a Greek-style bakery stall, and some strong coffee and
sat down at one of the picnic tables that were spread all over the inside of the place.
People were all around, and I got the usual looks, but nobody bothered me. This kind of crowd, the tourists and the locals, was the kind I liked best right
now.
About 11:15, wandering around just looking at things, I heard a familiar voice shout "Misty!" and before I could move Dory was all over me, kissing and hugging. I finally calmed her down and we found a place that, while not exactly quiet, was at least out of the mainstream, and sat down. "Well," I said to her. "You don't look exactly worn down and away. Tell me what happened after we split up.
"Well," she echoed me, "after you went off with Mr. Middle America I stood around for a while, then walked into the bar—and immediately got challenged for my I.D.! I didn't believe it, but I had to leave, and they escorted me completely out of the casino.
"So, there I was, out on the streets with no place to go. I saw some of the Redeemed selling their flowers, and I wanted to get away from there." "I know," I responded with a slight shudder. "I saw some on the way here. It's a wonder they aren't all over here."
"They wouldn't allow it," Dory said flatly. "They're selling, so they'd have to have a stall." She twisted in her seat a bit, getting more comfortable. "So, anyway, I didn't want to be around those creeps, and so I headed for the bus station. I saw all the stakeouts, but I figured that if this getup wouldn't get me past them then I was gone anyway, and they gave me barely a glance!" I took a deep breath, thinking of my own fears and what that had led to, and said nothing.
"Well, there I was, so I bought the ticket and started to come here. They were pretty thorough—had somebody at the ticket counter and bus gate, too. Well, anyway, I passed, and got a seat, and a few minutes later this young black guy, a real cool sort, took the seat next to me. He tried to look disinterested, but I've been around. We got to talking, and he was very nice. "So we got in about a little after one in the morning, and we took a cab to his apartment—"
"Dory! You didn't!" I exclaimed.
She smiled. "C'mon, I said he was a nice guy. I spent the night there, he had a real nice place. A computer programmer, I think he said. He played some records—Man! Are they ever weird now!—and blew some smoke and had a real great night. He was gone to work when I got up, so I fixed myself some breakfast and came on over. You know, I heard they didn't have any busses in L.A., but they do—occasionally. I got here, and that's all there is to it. What about you?"
I hesitated, feeling a little funny. I didn't know exactly what I felt, or why I felt it, but it was a crazy sort of combination. Joy that she was here, and safe, and with-out any problems, some resentment that she'd done it all so easily after what I'd gone through, and, for some reason, a touch of possessive jealousy, strange

from some-one like me.
I tried to push it back and considered how much to tell her. In the end, I felt a little mad at myself and thought, hell, this is Dory, dammit. I told her everything, sparing nothing, and she listened in quiet concen-tration. When I was through, she sighed.
"You've had it rough, even though most of it was of your own making. After all, you had over two hundred bucks. Hell, you coulda taken a cab to L.A., at least to Barstow, anyway."
I was thunderstruck. It simply hadn't occurred to me. Now that she'd said it, I saw a dozen easy ways that a girl with money could have gone. Blind, dumb fear had done it to me.
I started to cry, and this upset her. "Now, don't do that, or I'll feel bad and we'll both be bawling," she said sharply. "Look, you just went through something that every woman grows up with, has to face. It's the real world. Men can sympathize, but they can never feel it, so they can't ever understand how limiting it is to be a woman."
There was nothing I could say. Once I'd written of my hatred and contempt for all restraints, for anything that limited choices. But there were some decisions you couldn't escape from. Unless you went Harry Parch's route, or The Associa-tion's, and gave up all choices.
I glanced over at a clock nearby, and gasped. "It's after twelve," I said suddenly.
We moved out into the mainstream again, got some drinks, and started staring at the increasing crowds of people milling about, eating, and going back and forth.
Over two hours later we were still waiting. I couldn't conceal my mounting agitation, and neither could Dory. Neither of us, though, would say it for some time more. When it got to be three o'clock, she finally uttered the unspeakable. "I don't think they're coming," she said softly. I sighed. "So what do we do now?"
"I think we take a bus and go shopping for some clothes with that money of yours, then find a place for the night," she responded. I nodded glumly. "Then?'
She shrugged. "We come back here tomorrow, same time. And the next day, and the next. If they don't show by then, I think we both go out and get jobs." Chapter Thirteen
A hundred bucks doesn't go far these days when you're shopping for clothes, but Dory was ever the practical one and it's surprising what you can get at big discount and drug stores.
For another forty we found a room at a cheap hotel, not the kind of place I really liked but the most we could afford in these days of $150 rooms. That left about $70 for food, transportation, and emergencies. It wouldn't last long, but it

only had to last until Monday, when, I hoped, I could find a pawn shop.
By early evening I was dead on my feet and just about passed out. I think I slept ten or eleven solid hours, but, despite a headache, I felt better than I had since I'd last been in Stuart's little chair at IMC. It was a little after ten on Saturday. Dory came into the room from the outside, newspapers in hand. "Well! Sleeping Beauty awaketh!" I managed a smile, and shook the sleep from me. I took a cool shower to get fully awake, then got dressed, sticking to the casual outfit. It was warmer in L.A. than I'd expected.
Trying to manage with the city's less-than-great mass transit system was a pain, but we couldn't afford cabs at today's prices, not now. We got to Farmer's Market just before noon, and I managed to get coffee, a danish, and some aspirin. We idly read the papers, thin for a Saturday, which contained little of interest to us, and waited.
Suddenly, thumbing through the inside back section, Dory let out a little gasp.
"What is it?"
"Listen. 'Man, Woman Die in Flaming Crash. Victor-ville, October 2. An unidentified man and woman were killed tonight when their car swerved to avoid a pedes-trian and rolled over, bursting into flame. The car had been reported stolen in Las Vegas hours earlier. High-way Patrol officers are investigating.' " She looked up at me, a pained expression on her face. "You don't suppose . . ." I managed, supposing ex-actly that. She nodded slowly. "Sure. It fits. Although it's almost certainly not the way it really happened."
I thought sadly of poor, gentle Stuart, and of the strange alien who called himself Dan Pauley. I couldn't bring myself to believe it, although, deep down, I knew it was true. Stuart, in particular ... The thought of a world without him was almost unbearable.
They were gone.
I fought back tears, not very successfully. "So it's over. The great expedition to save the world is over. Well, if anybody saves it, it won't be us, now." Dory nodded glumly. "No use hanging around here any more." "What do you want to do?"
"Get drunk, or stoned, or both. Then wait for the Sunday papers and see what's available."
"Like hell I will," I snapped, getting mad now. "Damn it, I'm through running. Where's a phone booth?" She looked at me strangely. "What ... ?" I stalked over to the booth, picked the receiver up, fed it a quarter, dialed and got the quarter back. "Operator? Give me Al Jordan, Stateline, Nevada. I don't know the area code but I know the number." I gave it to her. "Collect," I told her. "Tell him it's Misty Carpenter."
I listened for all the relays and operator-connected conversations. I was using Al's private number, though. If he were there—and he almost certainly was about this time, I'd get him.
"Hello! Misty! Good to hear from ya," he enthused.

"Listen, Al, don't give me that bullshit," I shot him. "You're a no-good son of
a bitch in the pocket of Harry Parch and I know it." "Hey! Wait a minute, Baby!"
"Just shut up and listen, Al. I know you can call Parch. He's in Vegas, most likely. You call him and tell him to call off his dogs. We surrender. We want to have normal lives. I want to open that club, All I want to pick up where I left off! And I don't want any Harry Parch or his type whiskin' me off anywhere in the dead of night. You tell him Dory and me'll keep quiet, we'll be good girls and he can check on us all he wants, but we've had it, we're through, all we want is to be left alone, as we are—as we are, Al—to live normal, decent lives. Y'hear me?" He was silent for a moment. Finally he said, "Jesus, you can get mad! O.K., O.K., I won't bullshit you. I can get ahold of Parch. But I dunno if he'll buy it—or if you can trust him if he says he'll buy it, Babe." "He's a skunk and a rat but I think he will buy it, Al. How long do you figure it'll take to get hold of him?"
He thought a moment. "Give me 'til eight tonight, at least. Call me back then or give me a number."
"Uh uh. I'll call. Talk to you later, then. And, Al . . ." "Yeah, Babe?"
"I can't do anything about Harry Parch or to him. But I wrote down a whole list of names and dates of some pretty big customers at Cougar over the years and I got it so it'll hit the papers if I disappear. You got that?" "Take it easy, Babe. I'll do what I can!" I hung up on him, feeling a lot better.
Dory, I found, was standing next to me, and she was staring at me, openmouthed. "Wow. I didn't think you had it in you." "Neither did I, but, damn it, I'm tired of being pushed, shoved, brain processed, chased, and all. We done what we could and that's that." "Your grammar slipped, you know," she noted. "You sounded like a whole different person, accent and all." I nodded. "Meet the real Misty Carpenter." "Think Parch'll buy it?"
"I think so," I told her honestly. "If we're in Vegas we're under his thumb, so to speak, and he has nothing to gain now. In his own way he's a reasonable man. We just don't matter any more, Dory."
"I hope you're right," she said sincerely. I wasn't about to call Al from the hotel, but we went back there to settle down and wait for the magic hour.
We didn't say much about the future, or the risks involved, nor did I, at least, dwell on them. I think I'd just been tensioned and pressured out. I was just too sick and tired of this to be scared any more. I'd had plenty of sleep, yet I felt completely worn out, inside and out.
There wasn't much on TV and we finally went through the papers, and, for a while, we just sat around list-lessly, letting it all wear off. Finally I said, "I think I' m going to take a shower and just wind down." Dory looked over and smiled. "Want company? We can save water and do