Down And Dirty

The waitress brought the dessert tray and a pot of coffee. Kate, looking balefully at the desserts, pushed back her chair. "Time for a bathroom check. And then,"-she sighed-"I've got to get back to Statius and company."

The waitress moved the dessert tray to allow a customer to pass. The android recognized the nondescript brownheaded man who had been in the restaurant the day he'd spoken to Wall Walker. He nodded at the man but spoke to Kate.

"Thank you for joining me," he said."I kept expecting an emergency of some sort to interrupt the di

Kate looked surprised. "Oh. You hadn't heard about the ape?"

The android's heart began to sink. "No. I hadn't."

"He's not an ape anymore. He-"

Modular Man raised a hand. "Spare me."

The lanky brown-haired customer looked at them. "In fact," he said, "I'm the ape."

The android looked at him. The man held out a hand. "Jeremiah Strauss," he said. "Pleased to meet you."

The android allowed his hand to be shaken. "Hi," he said. " I don't do the ape anymore." Jeremiah Strauss seemed eager for company. "But I can still do Bogart. Watch this!" The ex-ape began to concentrate. His features slowly began to rearrange themselves. "I'm not go

"Very good," Modular Man said, appalled. "You wa

He looked at Kate, saw her glassy stare. "Maybe some other time."

Strauss seemed stricken. "Too eager, huh?" he said. "Sorry. I just haven't caught up yet. You think it was bad being dead for a year, man, trying being a giant ape for twenty. Jesus, last I heard, Ronald Reagan was an actor."

"Bathroom," Kate said. She looked at Strauss. "Nice to meet you."

She fled. Modular Man shook Strauss's hand and said good-bye.

The waitress pushed the cart back to the table and handed him his desserts. "We had a message for you a couple days ago," she said. She gave him a wink. "A call from California. I thought maybe it would be a bad idea to give it to you when you were with another lady, though." She reached into a pocket and gave the android a pink message slip. A longdistance number was written at the top.

Welcome back. New phone number. Call soon. Love, Cyndi. P.S. Got your heart on?

Modular Man memorized the number, smiled, crumpled the paper.

Cherish, he thought.

"Thank you," he said. "If the lady should call again, tell her the answer is yes."

He reached for his desserts.

New experiences were everywhere.

Blood Ties

VI

If the situation hadn't been so deadly, it could have been fu

"Well, at least we've got this one," he said timidly. "Bloody lot of good it does us! Well, I suppose I must treat him," Tach had muttered pettishly, and they had all returned to the clinic.

A few hours later and the mystery man's body temperature was returned to near normal. He lay blinking groggily in the hospital bed confined by restraints. Tachyon drew up a chair and stared into the handsome, insipid face.

"You've given us a devil of a time, you know that. Why on earth did you protect Croyd so desperately? You're directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of i

To Tachyon's chagrin the young man's face screwed up, and he began to cry. "I was just lookin' out for Croyd," he blubbered while Tach mopped at the tears with his handkerchief. "He's the only person who's ever been good to me. He gave me his doughnuts. He made me an ace."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Aren't you go

"I'm too tired and cranky to read your mind." Tachyon sensed that in some inexplicable way he had let the man down.

"I'm… was Snotman-but don't use that name-I'm an ace now."

"Snot…" Tachyon's voice trailed away, and he helplessly shook his head.

Memories like a stuttering slide show racheted through his mind. The horrible mucus-covered figure fleeing from the baseball-bat-wielding bouncer at Freakers… the Demon Princes tormenting the miserable joker until blood had mingled with the green mucus… the disgusting adenoidal sounds emerging from dumpsters where Snotman slept.

"Oh, ships and ancestors, he made you an ace and you were so grateful…" Words again failed him.

"What's going to happen to me?" asked Bill Lockwood. "I don't know."

There was a growing tumult in the hall: Troll bellowing like an outraged bull, and Tina's voice high and shrill. A name emerged from the cacophony… Tachyon's.

Modular Man was circling overhead with Croyd wrapped in a sheet like an outraged mummy. Tachyon and Troll tumbled into their suits, and the android thrust Croyd into the isolation chamber. Tachyon had prepared it weeks ago; prison security glass, a heavily reinforced steel door. They were ready.

Croyd punched his way through the glass in just under two minutes. And vanished beneath a pile of tackling bodies. Hours later the glass was replaced, and electrified mesh bolted to the wall.

Croyd punched through that in under a minute. Electricity seemed to act as a stimulant.

Troll looked up from where Croyd, bound hand and foot with steel shackles, lay beneath his nine-foot bulk. "Doc, I can't sit on him for the rest of my life."

They replaced the glass again. Tachyon discussed steel shutters with the security experts from Attica. They shrugged and pointed out that the walls would never bear the stress.

Then Fi

"Yes, but Croyd is a man, not a cow," Tachyon explained patiently.

"But he's very suggestible."

"How would you know?"

"I put him to sleep with brain wave entrainment and suggestion, remember?"

They hooked him up and tried the same trick again. This time it didn't work. So they painted bars on the window. And on the door.

Croyd was very docile after that.

As long as no one came in the room.

Please go to sleep. Please, Croyd, go to sleep.

Tachyon had made this prayer every day for the past four days, but there was no response from the nervously pacing albino beyond the painted glass of the isolation chamber.

Tachyon had tried to give nature a little push. After the failure of brain wave entrainment he had pumped sleep gas into the room, drugged Croyd's food. And Croyd remained stubbornly and infectiously awake. And each hour he was awake the virus continued to mutate.

Croyd was a walking holocaust. And a decision had to be made. Tachyon stared down at his hands. Remembered the buck of the gun as he killed Claude Bo

Ideal. I'm tired of dealing in death. Spare me, fathers, I don't want to do it again.

Peregrine smiled up at him from the hospital bed, then grimaced and bit down hard on her lip as another pain washed through her. Her blue eyes were overly bright, and her cheerful ma

He laid a gentle hand on the mound of her belly and felt the contraction shuddering through the muscles. "Cesarean might be easier on our boy."