happened.

  —Good night, old buddy.

  Lissa was crying softly to herself when he got into bed Tuesday night. He

  touched her arm and she pulled away from him. Afterward she told him she was

  sorry for being so unfriendly.

  On Wednesday morning, setting out for work, Macy thought he saw one of the Rehab

  Center minions who Gomez had said would be keeping watch over him. A squat,

  potbellied man standing at the entrance to the building across the street,

  holding a newspaper. An awkward exchange of guarded glances. From Macy a flicker

  of a smile. Me and my shadow. Right hand to left shoulder, hup! Left hand to

  right shoulder, hup! Hands clasped at back of neck, hup, hup, hup!

  That night he suggested that they go downtown to a sniffer palace, but Lissa

  didn’t want to. A quiet evening at home with Brahms and Shostakovich. Near

  bedtime Lissa said that she had figured out one way for him to get rid of

  Hamlin.

  “How?”

  “You could rape somebody and arrange to get caught. And blame it on him. The

  authorities would see to it that he was completely erased.”

  “He’d kill me if we were taken into custody,” Macy said. A crazy idea. A crazy

  girl. You could rape somebody and arrange to get caught. Within him Hamlin

  laughed. Lissa cried again that night, and when Macy asked her if he could help

  her in any way she made no reply.

  There wasn’t much for him to do at the network on Thursday—just a half-hour

  patch-job on a story he had taped the week before. He consumed the rest of the

  day in trying to look busy. Mainly, with another weekend coming up, he tried to

  think of things that would divert Lissa and perhaps yank her from the mood of

  withdrawal that was so frequently enveloping her lately.

  He sensed that he was losing her. That she was losing herself. Slipping away

  into some tepid shoreless sea blanketed by thick blue fog. She hadn’t left his

  apartment in three days. He suspected that she stayed in bed until noon, one in

  the afternoon, then sat around smoking, playing music, turning pages,

  daydreaming. Drifting. Floating. She seldom spoke anymore. Or even answered his

  questions: just a grunt or two. Last week Macy had felt hemmed in by other

  people, what with Lissa sharing his apartment and Hamlin sharing his brain; but

  now Lissa was spinning this cocoon about herself, and Hamlin too was withdrawn

  and remote. Macy was experienced in solitude but didn’t necessarily like it.

  This weekend, he decided, we will explore the wonders of the world beyond my

  door. Rent a car, drive up into the country, two hundred miles, three hundred,

  however far one must go to find uncluttered pastures. Picnic on the grass. A

  bosky dell. Romantic fornications beneath the boughs of murmuring fragrant pine

  trees. If there are any left. And we’ll go to fine restaurants. I’ll ask Hamlin

  to suggest a few. Hello, hello, are you there? And Saturday night at a Times

  Square sniffer palace, all glowlight and tinsel, we will inhale the most modern

  hallucinogens and enjoy two hours of earthy fantasy. Perhaps we will visit the

  aquarium so that Lissa can eavesdrop on the ponderous leathery reveries of the

  walruses and the whales. Oh, a fine zealous weekend! Recreation and invigoration

  and the restoration of our depleted souls!

  But when Macy reached his apartment that evening Lissa wasn’t there. A feeling

  ofdéja vu: she did this last Thursday too, didn’t she? A week gone by and

  nothing altered. But there is a difference this time, as his quick search of the

  closets reveals. She has taken her belongings with her. Cleared out for good.

  The easiest thing now was also the hardest. To sit tight, to forget her, to make

  a life without her. Nothing but trouble and turmoil, wasn’t she? The steamy

  feminine complexities, compounded and exponentialized by the inexplicabilities

  of telepathy. Let her go. Let her go. A high probability that she’ll come back,

  even as last time. But he couldn’t. Damnation. Must go looking for her. The most

  logical place. Her apartment.

  A sweet soft spring night.

  Stars on display beyond the towers’ tips. Peddlers of blurry dreams sauntering

  in the streets. Down we go into the tube. Whoosh whoosh whoosh. Transfer to East

  Side line. Double back on tracks. Her exit. The narrow streets, the decaying

  buildings, survivors of all the cultural upheavals. Scaly erections protruding

  from the corpus of the abolished past. Which of these houses is hers? They all

  look alike. Mysterious figures flitting in alleyways. A visit here is like a

  journey backward in time. A district of shady deeds and unfathomable espionage;

  an Istanbul, a Lisbon of the mind, embedded in the quivering fabric of New York.

  This looks like the right place. I’ll go in.

  Directory of residents? Don’t make me laugh!

  Macy squinted through the Jurassic dimness of the cavernous lobby. He caught

  sight of a figure far away, bent and distorted, which hobbled toward him as he

  proceeded warily inward. And then the shock of recognition: himself approaching.

  What he sees is the image of Paul Macy, reflected in a cracked and warped mirror

  occupying the nether wall. Laughter. Applause. On six levels of this hostelry

  holovision sets give forth their offerings with numbing simultaneity. Lissa?

  Lissa? She lived on the fifth floor, didn’t she? I’ll go up. Knock on her door,

  if I can find it. Or else ask the neighbors. Miss Moore, the red-haired girl,

  been away for a week or so? You seen her around here tonight? Not me, man,

  haven’t seen a thing. Up the stairs. Where else could she have fled but here?

  Her nest. Her hermitage.

  On the fourth landing he paused. Had the hirelings of Gomez followed him here?

  No doubt. Keeping close watch. Maybe creeping up the stairs behind him, not

  wanting to let him get out of sight. It was entirely possible that some orderly

  of the Rehab Center was at this moment a flight or two below him, frozen,

  waiting for him to resume his climb. And when I take a step he takes a step. And

  when I stop he stops. And so up and up and up. Gripping the banister, Macy swung

  his body halfway out over it and peered down the stairwell. In this darkness

  impossible to tell. Did somebody pull his head in fast, down there? Let’s check

  it. Wait a minute, then pop my head out again. There. Still not sure, though.

  Well, fuck it. I don’t care if they follow me or not. Up we go. Step. Step.Stop.

  Listen. That time I was sure I heard someone behind me. Comforting to know that

  they look after me where’er I go. Up.

  He halted again on the fifth-floor landing. Double row of doors receding into

  infinity. Lissa behind one of them, maybe. Perhaps it would be best to give her

  some warning that he had come for her. Perhaps then she’ll come out into the

  hall, I won’t have to go knocking on doors. A deep breath. Sending forth the

  most intense mental signal he could manage, hoping that it would be on her

  wavelength.Lissa. Lissa. It’s me, Paul, out by the stairs. I came to get you,

  baby. You hear me, Lissa?

  No response from anywhere.

  Okay. Now we look. He began strolling down the corridor, studying the faceless

  doors. In a hole like this you don’t put nameplates out. He couldn’t remember

  where her room was. At the far end of the hall, somewhere, away from the stairs,

  but there were dozens of doors down there. Here’s one that looks like it might

  be right. He started to knock, but held back. Shyness? Fear? These strange

  savage slum people here. Maybe they don’t even speak English. And me intruding

  on their shabby dinnertime. But yet if I don’t I’ll never find her.

  Again he started to knock. No. Holovision blasting away in there. Couldn’t be

  her. I’ll move on. Here? But they’re cooking something in this one. Curried

  squid. Spider patties.Lissa? Lissa? Where are you?

  Footsteps in the hall behind him.

  Someone running toward him.

  Mugger. Slasher. The shadowy pursuer on the stairs. Macy tried to swing around

  to face his attacker, but before he had completed half a turn the other was upon

  him, seizing his arms, pulling them up, pinioning him. A big man, as big as he

  was. They struggled silently in the dark, grunting. A knee rose and jammed

  itself into the small of Macy’s back. He ripped one arm free, clawed at the

  assailant, tried to get an ear, an eye, any kind of grip. Before the knife

  flashes. Before the stungun.

  Lurching, Macy managed to push the other up against the hallway wall, hard,

  ramming him with his shoulder, but then he felt his arm, the captive one, being

  bent back beyond its limits. Wild burst of pain. Desperately Macy banged the

  other again with his shoulder. Tried to knock his head against the other, hoping

  to drop him with a single stony smash. No use. No use. The fierce combat raged.

  Pointless even to call for help; who would open a door in a place like this?

  Slam and slam and slam. He was fully engaged in the task of defense. Such total

  concentration. Both of them breathing hard. Putting up more of a fight than he

  expected, I am! Stalemate. Lucky thing for me there’s only one of them. If I

  could just get my hand free, and bash his head against the hallway wall—

  And then. In the most frantic moment of the struggle. An inner convulsion.

  Hamlin.

  Making his move.

  Time fell to stasis, so that Macy could perceive each phase of the conquest in a

  leisurely, detached way. Hamlin, having collected his strength for some days

  now, was taking advantage of the hallway battle, of Macy’s full absorption in

  his difficulties, to seize the motor centers of their shared brain. Ripping out

  connections with both hands, replugging them under his own administration. Macy

  was tumbling through a timeless abyss. And Hamlin steadily and efficiently

  consummating what must have been a carefully planned takeover. Right leg. Left

  leg. Right arm. Left arm. Paralysis setting in, an unexpected summer freeze.

  Macy sinking and sinking and sinking. No way to defend himself; he had left his

  flank unguarded, and the enemy was pouring over the palisade. Down. Down. Down.

  Very cold now, very still. Where was Gomez’ surveillance? Right hand to left

  shoulder. Left hand to right shoulder. Extreme danger. Hah. Much good that would

  be. Macy realized that he and Gomez had completely forgotten to devise one

  important signal, the one that said,Help, he’s taking me over! Not that anybody

  was here to help him. Right hand to left shoulder. Left hand to right shoulder.

  Extreme danger. Down. Down. He has me.

  TWELVE

  HE was submerged in a sea of smooth green glass. Wholly engulfed, unable to

  break through to the surface: above his head a solid sheet, impermeable,

  infrangible, sealing him away from the air. Choking, lungs bursting, head

  throbbing. A dull pounding sensation in both his calves; swelling of the toes.

  Below his dangling feet a fathomless abyss, dark, dense. From far overhead came

  faint greenish-gold strands of light. Blurred, indistinct images of the upper

  world. All perceptions refracted and distorted and transformed. His hands

  pushing desperately at the glassy layer above him. Which would not yield. Oh,

  God, I must be in hell! How can I breathe? How did he do this to me? How will I

  get out of here? I must be sinking. Slowly down and down. Toothy fish to pick my

  bones. He could feel the surging of the currents, rivers in the sea buffeting

  him as they swept past. He shivered. Terror invaded him. So this is it. He has

  me. He has me. I am within him.

  Macy felt a sharp pang of loss, of displacement. It had been so good living in

  the world. The sunlight, the people, laughter, even the uncertainties, the

  tensions. To be alive, at least. And then to be overthrown, cast down, evicted,

  disinherited. He took it all away from me when I wasn’t ready to go. It wasn’t

  fair. And now? The pain of this place. The gasping. The choking. The fear.

  But he survived the first lurch of terror and discovered that there was no

  second one. He grew calm. Gradually Macy refined and clarified his awareness of

  his new condition. He realized that although he could not reach the air, neither

  would he sink any deeper, nor was the feeling that he was about to drown to be

  taken literally. In fact this was no sea. All the marine imagery, he understood

  now, was purely metaphorical. He was indeed submerged, he did indeed dangle

  between somewhere and somewhere, but he had become a mere electrochemical

  network spread thinly through the recesses of what he was forced at this stage

  to regard as the brain of Nat Hamlin. Hamlin was in charge, on top. Macy

  occupied some indefinable cranny or series of crannies. He could not see. He

  could not feel. He could not speak. He could not hear. He could not move. He was

  nothing but an abstraction, a disembodied identity. Whether he could properly be

  said to exist at all was questionable.

  Now that the first shock was past, he was startled that the loss of his

  independence brought no despair. Surprise, yes. Irritation and annoyance, yes.

  (How slickly Hamlin had outmaneuvered him!) Dismay, yes. (How strange it is to

  be trapped in here. How claustrophobic. Will I ever be able to get out again?)

  But not despair. Not even fear. Hamlin had once been in this very predicament

  himself, had he not, and he had endured it and mastered it and escaped. Then why

  not I? There was of course a great temptation to accept the situation

  complacently and passively. Telling oneself that one had never been entitled to

  a real existence anyway. That it would be best for everyone concerned, now that

  the upheaval of selves had come about, if he sat tight in this womblike place.

  Placidly letting Hamlin have the body to which he held the original birthright.

  But the temptation did not tempt Macy greatly. Easy though it might be to take

  up a vegetable existence, he preferred a more active life. A body of his own.

  The brief taste of living that he had had left him hungry for more.

  I never really began, after all. Just a few weeks on my own away from the

  Center. Withhim bothering me most of that. And now this. I’ll fight back. I’ll

  push him out as he pushed me. I may not have been born, but I was real and I

  wish to return to existence.

  Patiently he sought to examine his available options. Was it possible to

  establish sensory input? Let us see. Let us muster our powers of concentration.

  If we gather our energy—so—and direct it purposefully in a single

  direction—so—do we make contact with anything? No. No. Glassy darkness is all.

  And yet. Now. What do we have here? A node, a handle. Which we can seize. To

  which we can apply a subtle interior pressure. Yes! And we perceive. The

  inward-rushing flood of sensation. But what do we perceive? Our surroundings.

  Yes, just as Hamlin said, you arrive at a kind of percept-surrogate image of the

  brain you’re in. If only you had paid more attention, at the Center, when they

  were trying to teach you a little structural anatomy so that they could explain

  what they’d been doing to your head. The synaptic vesicles. The synaptic cleft.

  Dendritic spine. Axon terminal. Organelles, filaments, and tubules. Neural

  mitochondria. Corpus callosum. Anterior commissure. Limbic cortex.

  Centrencephlic system. Words. Words. This baffling torrent of referentless

  nouns. But somehow a little comprehension slides through. You poke around, you

  insinuate yourself, you learn a thing or two. And the darkness clears.

  Macy sent a tendril of himself down a narrow moist corridor and found, at the

  end of it, a pulsing pink wall on which a golden honeycomb-textured plate was

  mounted. The tip of the tendril went into one of the apertures of the honeycomb

  and a tiny explosion of light resulted. Progress, no? Now we subdivide the

  tendril, and poke one end of it in here, and one in here, and one in here. Flash

  flash and flash. Presto jingo, we get an input! A bright cluster of sensory

  data. As yet what comes in is undifferentiated; it might be sight, sound, touch,

  smell, anything. But at least there is an input. We will continue. Macy

  tirelessly probing. Seeking out new avenues of exploration. More honeycombs;

  more subdividing tendrils slipping into slots; more bursts of light.

  Will any sense ever come out of this? You are trying to tap a television image,

  and you can succeed in making contact only with widely scattered phosphors, a

  dot here and a dot there. Little spiky blurts of information, not enough for

  comprehension. Not yet. But no one is rushing you. You have no sense of the

  passage of time. Take an hour, a minute, a century, a year. Sooner or later

  you’ll have a good hookup. It’s just a matter of—what was that? A flash of