Strange Dark Alchemy

by Dark Mirage1

Not about making excuses for the Devil, but about the strange dark alchemy of the human heart.

2007-2008 Dark Alchemy103

"Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong; and a boy deprived of a father's care often develops, if he escapes the perils of youth, an independence and vigour of thought which may restore in after life the heavy loss of early days."

--Winston Spencer Churchill, The River War

2007

I had heard all the stories. Everyone had.

Before lunch on my first day at Genomex in 1992, I had already heard nearly a dozen bizarre stories about the grim, tense, perfectionist security chief of the facility. The stories didn't sound plausible at first hearing, and I started to believe the tale telling a joke played upon all new hires. I wasn't convinced such an individual existed until I saw his name printed in a company phone directory.

Injured mysteriously in an on-site accident in 1991, Eckhart was said to have no functionality left to his immune system, requiring him to be covered completely in a layer of biopolymer faux skin as a barrier to microorganisms. There were dark suggestions that someone still working at the facility had intentionally caused this 'accident'.

I was assured that when I finally met Eckhart, there wouldn't be any doubt because he wore a white wig and dressed only in black. I could not even imagine this. I was also told that he was cold, rude, and impossibly demanding.

I didn't believe these stories until saw the man myself. I listened to the tales, took them in, filed them away mentally. But I never added to the body of Mason Eckhart lore circulating through the labs of Genomex. Unlike others, I never had to look around carefully before speaking, lest the singular figure of Eckhart glide in quietly and overhear his manners, speech, and behavior mocked. I witnessed this happen to colleagues. Eckhart never said anything to them. He had no need of saying anything. The intensity of disapproval present in his glare was more than sufficient to chastise the speaker and warn them against future ill-considered commentary.

Such gossiping struck me as disloyal, but without doubt, Eckhart was different.

The inevitable black suits, black shirts, odd unnatural looking white hair and the carefully fitted black leather gloves he wore over the biopolymer covering every square inch of him presented a singular appearance. No one else in the organization dressed anything like this. They looked much as nerds and nerdettes do in most corporations: a little casual and a lot short of fashion sense.

Initially, I found Eckhart's appearance odd, oppressive, and threatening. As I watched the effect it had upon others I realized Eckhart's appearance was carefully calculated to be threatening. He was not tall or inherently imposing. Wearing more ordinary clothes, especially with his physical problems, Eckhart would probably appear weak. Besides the damage to his immune system, there was something wrong in the way he moved, something awkward, suggesting injury. In a grey suit and his natural hair color, which certainly wasn't white whatever it was, his ability to threaten and menace with a single word or a look would be diminished. Or worse, he would likely look silly trying to get his way with a dark glare.

No one ever commented upon his obvious manipulation, so I kept the realization to myself. If others were too unobservant or self-focused to realize something so obvious, I wasn't going to hand them undeserved help. After a while, secure with a positive reputation with Genomex, I tended to stand back and observe this dark spirit obtain what he wanted from people.

When I had been at the company slightly more than four weeks, my then-supervisor, Dr Michael Newman, finally got around to introducing me to Eckhart.

"I've put this off as long as possible, Dr Steyn. I'd like to spare you the experience of meeting Mason Eckhart, but we really should get this over with."

"How bad can it be?"

"You've heard the stories?" Already, I knew Newman well enough to know gossip was an important amusement and time waster for him. He maintained a network of gossips reaching into every segment of Genomex.

"I heard stories on my first day. How can one man be responsible for so many stories? He seems to generate stories the way cats shed hair."

Newman laughed. "Very apt. Some stories are true, some are complete fantasy, and some I believe he creates and spreads himself, just to keep us wondering what is real and what is false."

"Disinformation?"

Newman nodded. "Stay here long enough and you will understand what I mean. Of course, he wasn't always like this."

"No?" I had not heard this part.

"Before the accident, he seemed a decent enough guy. I never heard much about him. After recovery from the accident, which no one wants to talk about, he emerged from the room-sized glove bag like a hell-moth emerging from its chrysalis."

The office Newman and I entered was a modified clean room, not the glass and steel office overlooking Podding Operations which Eckhart later occupied. In those days, he did not have an armed guard standing outside the door. Once inside, I was struck by the stark austerity of the office: bare, stainless steel walls and floor, a plain, black steel desk, computer cables and power lines run through conduit, but then I recalled that his immune system was severely compromised. The bare surfaces would be easy to disinfect and easy to keep clean.

Eckhart took little notice of us upon arrival, although Dr Newman had been announced. By this time I was already convinced that Eckhart behaved purposefully and deliberately. Probably he disliked Newman as much as Newman disliked him, and his rudeness was a way of keeping Newman humbled. I could not imagine how he would treat me, so I decided no matter what ill manners he displayed, I would be polite and professional, and as always, highly observant.

"Mr Eckhart, if you could spare a moment, I would like to introduce you to one of our newest hires."

Eckhart looked up from a stack of typescript, moving with unexpected quickness. And his anger! He glared fiercely at Newman.

I was correct! He does not care for Dr Michael Newman! I wonder what that story is about? I'll probably never know.

As quickly as his expression flashed to anger, upon seeing me it changed again, to something I call The Corporate Smile, but curiously, in his case, I had the impression of some greater depth behind it. Maybe he likes everyone at first, and things slide downhill from there.

Mason Eckhart was not a technical person. It took months for me to put together just what his background was. I usually don't expect much from corporate security types, but Eckhart displayed signs of an active intelligence in his eyes. He probably could talk about more than the latest and greatest in motion sensors.

I smiled my version of The Corporate Smile, sincere, pleasant, mannered, but not promising too much, since some companies still harbored behavioral dinosaurs who believed themselves irresistible and who would probably agree with the notion that tearing the clothing from an attractive female subordinate was sexual harassment, conduct short of that, particularly when done by them, was in a fuzzy, ill-defined region.

Eckhart surprised me by extending his right hand in greeting. I knew he was understandably wary of human contact. "Welcome to Genomex, Dr Steyn."

His handshake was a shocker, not what I anticipated from a frail near invalid. I was more concerned that he knew my name, and did not know if that boded good or ill.

"I'm glad to be here, Mr Eckhart. I'm much impressed with the caliber of the people and the completeness of the instrumentation."

I wasn't gushing. Some companies skimped on people and equipment, refusing to pay for skilled people, and trying to get by with outmoded, worn-out instrumentation, and some tried to do both. Like everything else, you get what you pay for.

"And we're glad you're here. Dr Breedlove endeavors to hire the best he can recruit or pirate away from other organization, and according to your curriculum vitae, he did

well bringing you here."

Very nice. Where was the Hell-Moth? Had Eckhart neglected to take his Evil Pill that morning?

"Thank you."

"If you could both excuse me, I have a great deal to do prior to a meeting scheduled at 1 PM. Thank you for bringing Dr Steyn to meet me, Dr Newman."

"We'll let you return to your duties." Newman pasted on an insincere smile, then we turned and left.

Well down the corridor, well beyond hearing, I had to make a comment. "That did not seem so bad."

"You've never spoken to Eckhart before?"

"No. Not once."

"He's an odd character. I could not have predicted his civility to you. I've seen it before, but I can never predict it."

"He doesn't talk like a security/law enforcement kind of guy."

"He doesn't talk like anyone here. Even before the accident, he talked that way, as if he's smarter than the rest of us. Eckhart's arrogance is the most annoying thing about him."

Warnings went off all over my mind. I liked even the brief exposure to the way Eckhart used language, but obviously the corporate culture was hostile to such. I'd have to simplify my work vocabulary.

Well, Newman, he may intimidate you because he's smarter than you are, but I don't think he's smarter than I am.

Newman walked with me most of the way back to my lab. I wished he had returned with me, because he would have made it so much easier to deal with the waiting problem.

Adam was sitting at my desk, going through files on my computer.

"Are you about ready for lunch? There's a new Indian place over at the mall. I thought we could check that out."

Lunch? What lunch is he fantasizing about?

"Right now, Adam. Out of my chair." I was not amused by this presumptuous, pompous ass. Adam was well aware of his status as The Prince of Genomex, and how nearly all of the unattached women on site fantasized about becoming The Princess of Genomex.

Except for me. I'd made the error of having lunch with Adam a few weeks ago. He'd droned on interminably about starting college at twelve, about his patents, and about his research involving human mutants.

I wanted to ask him how work seeking cures for children with genetic afflictions had led him to create the pain-inducing subdermal governors, but he never allowed me a chance to get in a question. Adam did like himself.

He did not move from my chair. I noticed that the desk drawer where I kept my purse was ajar. I reached down, opened the drawer and extracted my wallet.

"Did you find what you were looking for in here, Adam?" I asked as I counted the cash in my wallet.

"What are you talking about, Becky?"

This was not the time or place to tell him that no one called me 'Becky' if they enjoyed life.

"You went through my desk and my purse."

"I was just looking for some lab results."

"In my purse? Adam, didn't your parents teach you anything about respecting the property and privacy of other people?" Not until much later would I understand the significance of that question.

Adam just laughed.

I picked up the phone and punched in the four digit 7777 security extension. "This is Dr Rebecca Steyn in East 1022. There is a man here going through my company computer files, and there is evidence he has been through my desk and purse. He refuses to leave. Could you send a team to remove him? Thank you."

Adam's silliness transformed to rage. "I can't believe you just did that."

"You're unbelievable yourself, Adam."

Security at Genomex was a non-trivial matter even in the early 1990s, although Eckhart did not arm his people in those years.

"Do you really want to do this?"

"Yes."

Adam was still sitting at my desk when three security people showed up. I pointed to Adam.

"He was going through confidential and personal material. He refuses to leave."

"But that's Adam," a well-fed looking fellow who easily topped six feet said meekly.

"And Adam's being an exceptionally bad boy. What do I have to do to get him out of here?"

"We'll have to involve Mr Eckhart."

I liked my job, I needed it, but if keeping my position meant Adam invading my desk at will, I could find another.

"Do it."

At that, Adam jumped from my chair and stomped out of my lab.

"Is he under psychiatric care?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

I sent a formal report of the incident to personnel and security. Years ago I had learned the hard way that giving people like Adam the benefit of the doubt served only to give them a free pass to make more trouble later. I sent my resume out quietly. Adam obviously enjoyed special protection at Genomex, which I, just as obviously did not.

Over time, I had no problems with Eckhart. Certainly, he was demanding, but my work was thorough and good. Unlike other employers, who attempted scientific work on the cheap, Eckhart blessed my budgets for instrumentation and consumables without protest. My written requests were well documented with benefits made clear. I never had difficulties getting good merit raises for my people, so I was able to keep the good ones. I said as much to my colleagues, who were generally loathe to say anything good about the man.

Something I never said to these colleagues –chiefly men—was that I found Eckhart extremely fair. Unlike a lot of men I have worked for, he respected my work and he respected me. I never made promises to him I could not keep, and if he asked the impossible, I would bluntly tell him as much, and succinctly explain why. He never argued further as he did with some other people; my reasons were solid.

I never defended him, either, which was cowardly of me. But I had to work with the others, and needed their cooperation. I passively listened to their stories and the cruel names (sometimes wildly inventive) they had for him.

There was another truth operating that I never shared with anyone. I felt fully as odd and peculiar as Eckhart. My oddness was not as overt and unsubtle as his. My peculiarities were buried deeply, out of sight, lost from view behind professional competence, a tailored, feminine appearance, the ability to be 'one of the boys', and the careful avoidance of any suggestion of weakness or dependence.

There was a great deal I liked about Eckhart: he was articulate, even playful with words. Somewhere along the way he had become unusually well educated. My colleagues, like most technical people, were only marginally literate and barely aware of anything outside of their specialties. They took pop culture seriously, describing movies with as much excitement as if they had lived the stories themselves. They swore freely in my presence. Eckhart, in contrast, conducted himself in an old-fashioned, courtly, almost patrician manner. He never made assumptions of familiarity. I liked all of this very much, but said nothing to the people around me, who used poor grammar and were commonly unable to frame a complete sentence without resorting to a four-letter word.

In a society growing coarser and more anti-intellectual yearly, Eckhart's conduct and manners were unfashionable, making him the butt of many jokes. But I never joked about him. I was certain jokes and stories were told about me, since I did not have a sewer mouth. Also, among all these nerds and nerdettes I was the only one not married or living with someone. I never spoke of seeing anyone, because I wasn't seeing anyone, and I wasn't looking, either.

A lot of them probably thought I had a secret life. That wasn't true. What I did have was a painful past of disastrous relationships with two men who had left me drained financially and emotionally, with an intolerance of being touched beyond the business-obligatory handshake, which I could not avoid. I might not be able to avoid the etiquette of the business world, but I could and did indulge myself in serious hand washing afterwards. Aside from this, I was not a 'clean nut'.

I considered my wounds beyond healing, so I made no effort to change. I would have liked to better fit in, but I also feared what I might do to the next individual who harmed me. I was not sure I could control myself within the bounds of the law. Too much had been taken from me, not just material things but my capacity for trust. I didn't much trust women, either.

I knew how bad people could be. My ex-husband used to tell people I was going to make him rich, and when I failed to do this, he tried to kill me, sabotaging my car. He probably thought he could recover something of his 'investment' in me by collecting the insurance policy on my life. Jeff had an interesting attitude towards life, which was that the material goodies in the world should be his, right now. He would become despondent with his lot in life because he did not own things men 25 years older in his profession possessed.

He did things to my animals, which taught me never to let another human know what I loved. Once Jeff knew what I loved, I had given him the power to destroy me. The monster singed a hole in my heart that never healed, would never heal, and was always floating just below the surface of my conscious thoughts.

There are people who do not understand grief following the death of an animal. Our relationships with animals tend to be 'purer' than those with people, since they are not freighted with disappointment or betrayal inevitable with people. My two cats Rosamund and Alboin had been with me all the way through graduate school. Jeff would never tell me what he did to them. I had no intention of enduring that kind of loss and pain again. Such cruelty is now properly perceived by law enforcement as a form of domestic abuse, but when it happened, there was nothing I could do about it since the animals were viewed within the law much as concrete blocks, or even less, since they had no monetary value.

I kept people at a safe emotional distance, for my well-being and theirs. I knew too well even the tamest and most charming of them could be a private creature of great selfishness and cruelty.

These experiences convinced me real evil does not proclaim itself, and provides no timely warnings of its approach or proximity. This insight convinced me that whatever Eckhart was, he wasn't evil incarnate. Much of what he did was stunning corporate theatre, intended to awe and coerce. I had never seen anyone glare with such sincere malevolence. Almost everyone, especially people who had known him prior to the accident, were utterly spooked by this glare. I was fascinated. I studied its delivery and application for a long while, then one day I had an opportunity to try using it myself, not at Genomex, naturally.

I was the only customer at the check out of a drugstore. It had been a long day, and I just wanted to pay for my multivitamins and go home. The cashier was enmeshed in organizing her social life on the phone. I considered walking out, then realized I had happened upon the perfect test case. I began glaring at the hapless kid-cashier, imagining myself a great and terrible shark, circling my prey, menacing, capable of tearing her in two with a mere nip of my many-toothed jaws.

The girl glanced my way, took in my Shark-Eye Glare, and mumbled to her phone buddy, "I gotta go now."

I paid for the vitamins, glaring all the while. She handed me my change, wished me a mumbled "good evening", to which I responded with a chilly, deep from the glacier, "Thank you."

I stalked out of the drugstore. As soon as the doors closed behind me, and I slipped into the darkness of the parking lot, I broke into a run, giggling as I went. I now understood The Glare: how it worked, why it worked, and most important, that it was chiefly bluff. If Mason Eckhart ever attempted to work The Glare upon me, I would likely break into a laugh.

However, even though I understood how much of what Eckhart did was manipulation and bluff, this changed nothing of substance, and it did not mean that he was a good man, just a clever one.

People who have had the good fortune to never suffer under the abuse of such creatures as Jeff tend to believe themselves superior beings who lack emotional scars because they are such superior creatures. They're not, of course; they're merely lucky. They have no idea how lucky they are. And weak. I might be crippled emotionally but I was not weak. Getting away from Jeff after I accidentally found Rosamund and Alboin's collars in the trash, and all the other lesser evils I survived left me incredibly strong. I kept those two little collars on top of my dresser as a daily reminder to myself how deceptive and destructive people were.

The monthly Projects meetings were a relic of the days when Dr Breedlove took an active role in running Genomex.

When Adam still worked here, the Projects meetings were weekly drains upon time (and patience) given over largely to the latest and greatest of Adam's insights. Adam must have spent four or five hours every week just putting together the slick, colorful presentations with which he bored all of us to intellectual numbness.

All of us became inventive in escaping attendance. Any medical or dental appointments were scheduled to provide relief, as were interviews with potential new hires. Breedlove eventually resorted to stocking the meeting room with juice, Danish, bagels, fruit, and a little later eggs, bacon, and sausage to coerce people to show up. Technical people are notorious about free food, and Breedlove was one of us. He knew how to bait his snares.

People whined about Eckhart's arrogance, but that was nothing compared to Adam's unbounded notions of self-worth. Eckhart was arrogant, but he was succinct and wasted little of anyone's time.

Adam would breathlessly report work and techniques which had been in the literature for years, even decades, as if they were breakthrough events. Adam must have believed none of us reviewed current scientific literature, or he never did himself. Certainly Dr Breedlove could not be aware of current developments, not the way he showered praise upon Adam. There was something queasy about the way Breedlove focused upon Adam and his work (some of which was useful and important). Dr Breedlove seemed more a doting parent around Adam than a superior.

After Adam left under peculiar circumstances, apparently after his moodiness and emotions triggered some sort of major hissy fit with Eckhart, the Projects meetings became monthly events. They were of far shorter duration. Attendees no longer had to be bribed with offers of breakfast, although this pleasant custom continued.

Mason Eckhart began attending these meetings shortly afterwards, insisting upon basic security measures such as keeping confidential work locked up after hours, not an unusual procedure. I believe initially he was also attempting to ferret out whether any of us, or any of our reports continued to have contact with Adam. I had few reasons to deal with Adam while he was still with Genomex, sending results to him via email, avoiding personal contact.

About a year after being chased from my desk, Adam once again assumed all he had to do to bump any of his work to the front of the queue was drop by with a request form and flash a smile. At me. With unwelcome promises of dinner and more. I bluntly told him I could not be bought through my gut. Adam then developed the annoying habit of dropping into my labs when he knew I would be away and attempting to bully my people into getting his work done first. He was not much loved among them, so I doubted anyone was delivering what he wanted.

After I not only proved immune to Adam's version of charm, Adam turned nasty. I repeatedly asked him why some of his requests were needed since they often did not support his goals. This angered him because nobody else dared question him, and since it exposed his lack of understanding of basics. Sometimes, the sheer volume of his work requests led to my questioning which samples represented new work. Had I not done this, Adam would have displaced most of the work from other submitters, which I couldn't allow.

While reviewing results from my technicians, I noticed some of the sample identifications were duplicated two, three, or more times.

Why would Adam submit the same sample more than once, especially if he gets the same result? Is he checking up on my people, trying to prove incompetence? Maybe. More likely, he's just being a pain. This place is crazy.

I carefully reviewed all calibrations, training, and method validation records, made copies and stuck them into a folder. I thought I might bore myself into a coma, but I was not going to be ambushed professionally by Adam.

Adam made a vague threat one morning of taking the matter to Breedlove, at which point I surprised him by gathering up a file folder, rising from my desk and hurrying off towards Breedlove's inner sanctum.

"By all means, let's talk to Dr Breedlove," I yelled behind me, Adam trailing in my wake, surprised and angry. I had prepared for this moment. The folder was packed with the statistics showing not only the disproportionate support Adam demanded, but detailed samples submitted multiple times. Adam would not be happy when he saw how ready I was for this confrontation.

There followed a nasty conference with Breedlove and Adam, with Adam getting louder and louder and more emotional, while I quietly pulled out annual summaries of sample submissions by task groups and made the argument that if my people were to serve the entire facility, and not just Adam, he would have to pare down the quantity of samples sent to my group.

Had Breedlove mandated that Adam's work receive priority treatment, I would have done that, and sent anyone unhappy with that arrangement to Dr Breedlove to share their unhappiness. Surprisingly, that isn't what happened at all.

By that time, Adam was screaming accusations of sabotage and personal grudges. He sounded irrational. He looked silly. He did not look like the smartest man in the world.

I was still calm. I had to be. To retain any credibility before Breedlove, I could not display so much as a single tear. Adam could scream, shout, punch holes in the wall (he did this), use obscenities and even weep, but if I showed any emotion, I would be perceived as a 'mere woman' and not believed at all.

Was this fair or reasonable? No. Corporate cultures are full of unrealistic expectations, however.

The hole Adam left in Dr Breedlove's office wall had not worked in Adam's favor. Dr Breedlove was becoming annoyed. I could tell because although his voice never changed, the furrows in his forehead were growing deeper.

"Adam, it's obvious to me that Rebecca is simply doing her job. Be reasonable. Submit only the samples you must have analyzed. We have a lot of people doing work here, and Rebecca's group is charged with supporting all of you."

Adam had probably anticipated absolute backing from Breedlove. When he failed to get that, he stomped out of Breedlove's office, slamming the door.

I gathered up my charts and tables, saying "Thank you," to Breedlove in nearly a

whisper.

"Adam is highly strung. I think he'll behave now." Breedlove smiled warmly, any kindliness in his manner accentuated by his grandfatherly demeanor.

Highly strung? Adam was more emotional than a spoilt teenage girl!

The stories about me began circulating soon afterward. I found out about them when Samihah Shah in Micro forwarded an email to me with the message: "FYI. I believe I was not supposed to receive this since I am not one for gossip. I thought you should know. Go to Dr Breedlove and put a stop to such insults."

Someone was introducing anonymous emails into the Genomex system, spreading slanderous lies about my professional and personal life. Someone had a good imagination, concerning what I did with myself after hours and they also knew just enough about my actual education to make the professional falsehoods seem plausible.

I had a good idea who was motivated to attack and who was capable of introducing email anonymously.

I was not happy. I did not go to Dr Breedlove, but to Dr Laura Varady, the company psychologist. I knew she'd probably go to Dr Breedlove afterward. I just didn't want to have another conference with him about another emotion-charged Adam problem since I was convinced I knew the source of the assault. I hadn't crossed anyone else at Genomex. I got positive comments for the degree to which I cooperated with other groups. These compliments were documented in writing in my permanent file in personnel, and I also kept photocopies at my condo.

What I did not anticipate was that Varady would first go to Mason Eckhart and confirm the source of the poison pen emails.

Varady was a grandmotherly figure and the only person on site who took any personal interest in Eckhart, dragging his dark, tense presence to company semi-social functions. She was infamous for hauling him from his office for the annual Christmas Caroling. There was even gambling based on what time Varady would show up at the punch and cookie table with Eckhart in tow, looking miserable and out of place in the middle of the festivities. All of her children were grown, so she took Eckhart on as special project.

Curiously, although Eckhart managed to get what he wanted from everyone else, he appeared powerless against the wiles of Laura Varady. After a few years of seeing him squirm at the company caroling, I started questioning this conclusion, and wondering if instead Eckhart would be disappointed if Laura Varady wasn't there to coax him from his office. No one else on site treated him like a human being. No one dared, or more likely, could imagine he was human.

The next morning when I checked my email, there was a brief, succinct message from Eckhart copied to everyone on site regarding the use of company resources to spread lies and slander, and how further abuse would result in dismissal. Below that was a statement signed by Breedlove affirming that my professional credentials were in order and in no way falsified and that my personal life was honest and honorable.

Everyone knew only one individual could survive being caught sinning against another employee in this fashion, and that was Adam. Breedlove's signature made clear that even Adam, the Prince of Genomex himself, could be fired.

I wondered if Adam had enough sense to learn from this experience.

Afterwards, Adam hardly spoke to me again. I liked that. I wasn't unhappy when he left, and I wasn't alone in not mourning his departure. Dr Breedlove was never the same, however. After Adam left in 1998, he took less and less interest in the daily work and spent more time dwelling upon the past. Rumor had it he was writing a book about his life in genetic research.

The Projects meetings continued after Adam's departure, in abbreviated format, with Mason Eckhart more and more often taking Breedlove's place at the head of the table.

The meetings were deadly dull, but they were mercifully brief. Dr Teuong would write notes—or something, perhaps recipes, perhaps letters—in Mandarin, Dr Harrison would mostly sit and twitch nervously, Dr Mayakovsky would pass notes to Dr Shah, and so it would go, down through the ranks of obligatory attendees.

Eckhart was certainly different, but he was always predictably focused. That's why I knew something was wrong when I looked up from my blank quadrille pad and saw his vacant gaze towards no one and nothing in particular.

In the next moment, he thrashed his head against the table's edge with such violence his faux skin was torn open. Then he sagged to the floor, striking the blue tile surface with another solid thump to the head.

I had seen seizures before and knew what had to be done. The others sat transfixed by the spectacle. No doubt some of them hoped he was dying.

I'm not an exceptionally strong woman, but by the time I got to him, the violence of the spasms had decreased. He wasn't a large man, anyway; I was able to drag him away from the furniture and hold him half-seated. I made sure he had not swallowed his tongue.

"Samihah, call medical and get someone here immediately."

The others, except for Samihah, who had three accident-prone sons, just sat and stared. Samihah dutifully called medical.

"Mr Eckhart's having some kind of seizure. Samihah, I will need your help, but it would be better if everyone else left the room."

Eckhart's tremors were subsiding, and I expected him to rejoin the world shortly. He'd be disoriented and confused, at best, and perhaps far worse, depending upon whatever injuries he had suffered.

Samihah came to work every other week with stories about sons' broken bones, scrapes, and near things, making her familiar with local emergency rooms. "Dr Hibbing is on the way," she said softly.

"Good."

I was relieved to see the others rise –reluctantly—from their chairs and filing towards the back door of the meeting room.

"Samihah…I think the worst is over, but if you would sit down in front of him and be ready to talk, I think it would help. He won't understand what is happening at first. He'll be disoriented. I had a cousin who had seizures."

Samihah was a calm, gentle presence, which would be of great value shortly. I could feel Eckhart regaining normal muscle tension and control. He was a proud man of considerable paranoia, fully justified paranoia. We were all certain that he went about Genomex armed. Well, I could feel confirmation of a sidearm through his jacket, and I wasn't going to let go of him until I had some notion of his mental state.

"His eyes are open," Samihah said.

"That's good."

He struggled weakly against the grip I still had on him; I was glad Samihah was there in his view.

"Mr Eckhart, you've had a seizure. Everything is under control. Dr Hibbing is coming to help you. Rebecca and I will not leave you."

"I don't understand," he said.

"You lost consciousness and hit your head on the table. But you are safe." I tried to sound like I was sure.

"Safe?"

"Yes. I pulled you away from the furniture."

I felt him relax.

"Do you think you can sit up without my holding you?" I asked.

"Yes."

I let go of him, and slid backwards on the smooth tiles—an inelegant move in a skirt but I wanted to be well clear of him. His dislike and revulsion regarding human contact was legendary at Genomex. I understood that distaste only too well.

He turned about and looked at me, but said nothing.

Dr Hibbing appeared in the doorway, followed by two guys commandeered from the autoclave group, dragging a stretcher into the meeting room.

"Has anything like this happened before?" Hibbing asked Eckhart.

"Never."

Samihah rose from the cold tiles, relieved to leave the problem with professionals. "I will talk to you at lunch, Rebecca."

Shortly after, I scrambled to my feet as well, feeling a peculiar blend of pride and embarrassment over my involvement in the situation.

"Dr Steyn, you saw what happened?" Hibbing asked.

"Yes. Mr Eckhart lost conscious control, hit the edge of the table with his head, and then the floor with great force. I've seen people have seizures before, so I got him away from the furniture, and made sure he hadn't swallowed his tongue."

Eckhart would be horrified by that data point, but given his medical condition, Hibbing needed to know so he could select an appropriate course of antibiotics. I wasn't surprised to see him visibly twitch when I reported that to Hibbing. I would have liked to tell him I regretted the intrusion, but I couldn't say anything like that in front of anyone else. He would have been further embarrassed.

"I've got to get you back to medical." Hibbing pointed to the stretcher.

"I believe I'm fine now. I can walk there."

"You probably are just fine, but I'm not taking any chances with you."

Eckhart wanted no part of the stretcher. I knew he went to great lengths never to show weakness in front of employees.

"You're going to insist, aren't you?"

"If you whacked your head half as hard as Dr Steyn described, I'd still insist."

As it was, he needed help rising only onto the stretcher. When I saw him having difficulty, I turned away and walked back towards the table so he could tell himself the lie that I had not noticed.

I gathered up my blank quadrille pad, and went back to my labs, where I stood and washed my hands for some time. Perhaps I should consider antibiotics. Eckhart's condition doubtless left him with some unusual mouth and gut flora. I washed my hands some more. Maybe when I got home, I would be able to do a soak in Betadine or bleach or both.

Samihah already had some stories by lunchtime.

"I think there are some disappointed people at Genomex," Samihah said. "The story making the rounds is that Eckhart nearly died, but that a pair of softhearted women saved him."

"Vultures."

"Yes, but brace yourself for the merciless comments."

"That's already started. You should see my email. Some of it is wickedly funny, some of it is simply cruel. Not everyone we work with is civilized."

"Definitely not. Some even less than others." Samihah rolled her eyes at Dr Harrison sliding past with a laden tray. "Well, you did the right thing, the only thing. They'll find something else to talk about by next week."

After lunch, I sat down at my desk, and lost myself in composing and emailing final reports to a number of submitters. They wouldn't be able to do much with the reports on a Friday afternoon, but they would be able to plan their work for Monday.

Around 4.30 my phone rang. I dreaded these calls. Crises always arose after 3 PM on Friday, demanding heroic fixes.

I was surprised and relieved to hear Dr Hibbing's voice, summoning me to the medical department.

"Dr Hibbing, should I be starting a round of antibiotics?"

"You?"

"Yes, since only God knows what that man is growing in his mouth."

Hibbing laughed. I was annoyed. I had done the right thing, but health workers wore gloves for good reasons. How dare this silly man laugh at my concern?

"I'm serious."

"Don't worry. Mr Eckhart's mouth flora is the most normal flora he grows."

I hung up the phone, and walked to medical. I was confused why I was still part of this adventure.

"As well as I can determine, this was a one-time event, precipitated by a change in medication, a mistake that won't be repeated. That's the good news."

"And the bad?"

"Mr Eckhart does have a concussion, and a slight memory loss. That's not unusual, and he'll probably regain that memory in a day or so. That is the typical pattern."

"And why am I here?"

"He wants to thank you personally for doing what you did. You've been here long enough to know how he is. He's convinced that if you had not been there, he might have died. I think that's the head injury talking, but humor him. It can't hurt."

I knew the politics of Genomex better than Hibbing. I swam in the waters with these sharks. Samihah was a decent woman, but she was a foreign-born widow with three sons and the rest of her family overseas; she would not back me openly against the predators, and I did not hold that against her.

Should the sharks perceive me as seeking and receiving special favor, especially from a man as despised as Mason Eckhart, it would not be good for me. I could quickly bec0me hated, and my ability to perform my duties undermined.

Most people loathed Eckhart; slimy Dr Harrison, for example. Some of them wished him dead. They would gather and discuss Eckhart's dying, what natural causes to which he would be most vulnerable, what injuries would be most debilitating. On my way to borrowing or returning equipment I walked into these sessions. These guys would be laughing, but they were among the most ambitious people at Genomex and among the most astute politically. Ken Harrison made no effort to hide his dislike of Eckhart. He did not even stop making comments and 'jokes' upon my entry into a lab or office but continued talking. I don't know if he considered me harmless, witless, or believed I also hated Eckhart. After today, he had to wonder, didn't he?

I said nothing of this to Dr Hibbing. I had the queasy feeling that my life was about to become vastly more complicated.

"Where is he?" I wanted to get this over with, log off my computer, lock up my lab notebook, and bolt for the parking lot…and forget Genomex for two days.

Hibbing rose. "I'll see if he's dressed, and send him in here."

More delay. I was becoming annoyed.

I studied the clutter of Hibbing's office, the family photos, and then reviewed it all once more. His daughter looked just like him, which for her was not good.

"I want to thank you for helping me."

I hadn't heard Eckhart coming. He could be very quiet. I really was not surprised. He closed the door and took the other chair.

The faux skin of his face was freshly replaced, and the disorientation was gone from his eyes. I was glad of this, because I found a confused, disoriented Eckhart surprisingly disturbing. I did not know what to do with the genuine and sincere smile. I had never seen that before, just the almost queasy-making smirk. I had not heard of the possibility of a genuine smile before, not from Mason Eckhart, an aloof, almost alien creature who never seemed honestly fond of anyone or anything, only barely tolerant of circumstances.

"Well, I could do no less," I said. My cousin Gary had seizures. When we were kids my brother Steve and I knew what to do for Gary if there weren't any adults around."

"A roomful of people did less than you."

He expects decency and kindness from no one. Exactly as I expect decency and kindness from no one.

"How is your head?" I asked. "You made an awful sound when your skull hit the edge of the table."

"Throbbing. Painful. Don't tell Dr Hibbing. He wants to admit me to a hospital. I cannot go there—too much infection. Serious pain medication seems a far wiser choice."

He was probably correct. Hospitals were dangerous places, fraught with risk of infection for the immune-compromised. The Genomex medical facilities were unusually well-equipped specifically to avoid the necessity of Eckhart passing through the doors of a hospital. They would probably be at a loss to understand how best to treat him, anyway.

"Why does he want you admitted?"

"He wants someone to wake me every two hours, to be sure that I will wake up again. I understand that is standard practice since there is a chance of a coma."

I surprised myself by what I said next. "I could do that here."

I knew he rarely left the complex, and that he slept somewhere in the building. I imagined a cot in a converted closet, or perhaps set up in his office. With Eckhart, anything was possible and speculation a waste of time. Perhaps he slept on the desktop curled up like a cat; I certainly never saw anything on that desktop.

But wouldn't he knock a monitor into the floor in his sleep?

Maybe he slept under the desk.

"You could? I am sure that would satisfy Dr Hibbing." He weighed it all for a moment. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

No. Well, yes, I'm sure I want to go home. But how can I withdraw the offer now with any degree of grace and manners?

Internally, my panic levels built, and grew, but I couldn't retract the offer now. Where had that come from? What price will I pay for this?

"That's extremely kind of you." He left Hibbing's office before my look of dismay could register.

You're being a great fool. You know that. You had a quiet evening planned, your perfect choice of evening, planned and mapped out. All you had to do was go home and live it. Now, that's all gone. You're going to throw that all away and stay at Genomex. Don't even think about comp-time.

Dr Hibbing re-entered the office. I rolled my eyes at him when Eckhart turned his back to me.

"You do understand, that if you cannot wake him, you need to call me and he'll have to go to a hospital immediately."

Hibbing wrote down his home phone number on the back of a business card. "And if you cannot reach me, Dr DiCecco is one of Mr Eckhart's specialists who will available this weekend. I'm putting down his phone numbers as well."

"Thanks."

"Don't hesitate to call if you have any difficulty waking him."

"I understand that."

"Good luck." Out of Eckhart's line of sight, Dr Hibbing rolled his eyes at me.

Now I really felt the fool, with Hibbing letting me know what supreme silliness I was getting into.

I had confidence in my competence and fortitude in coping with frightening, dreadful events without panicking. But I could not deal at all with feeling foolish. It did not matter that somewhere down within the layers of motivation I felt sorry for Eckhart, pity for him that not only was no one concerned about his well-being but that so many were sharply disappointed he was still alive. I couldn't escape feeling the fool.

Half-aware of my surroundings, I followed Hibbing and Eckhart out into the corridor, and watched Hibbing, fortunate man, hurry off to the parking lot. I wished I could run after him.

"You know where my quarters are, don't you?" Eckhart asked.

Quarters? I had no inkling that any such place existed. Imagined images flashed through my mind of the interior of an oversized stainless steel cube with a stainless steel shelf for sleeping molded into the wall.

"No idea."

He seemed surprised by that. Nothing in Genomex mythology dealt with Eckhart personal space other than his office.

"I have to set security in my office, and then I'll come by your labs."

I nodded. This was beginning to feel very strange.

I had been in my clothes since 5 AM, which was long enough. I went to a locker room and changed into a pair of old jeans and shirt, which I kept at work in case of needing to tear apart instrumentation.

Laboratory instrumentation looks slick and high tech, but such equipment breeds dust and dirt on the power cords and computer cables. Even the surfaces of monitors tend to accumulate a thin black layer distributed across the screen. Working around instrumentation could be nasty. If cables needed to be shifted, modules broken apart, or if I just needed to go crawling about behind instruments with a water and isopropanol mixture to check for gas leaks, I wasn't going to do it in a skirt.

I was typically the first person through the door in the mornings. I told people I could not stand driving in traffic but the truth was I preferred working alone. Alone in my labs I could imagine I had the whole complex to myself, which factually was nearly true. The security people were always around, but they never had names so they hardly counted. The cafeteria staff were critical, of course, but they were off in a semi-detached building.

The only other person in my building at my usual arrival time of 5-5.30 AM was Eckhart, and he never came near me.

I liked working alone. I liked the quiet, the lack of intrusions, the predictability, the control.

I was relieved to discover that all of my people had left. None of them would witness Eckhart dropping by and none would jokingly ask for an explanation on Monday. For this, I was boundlessly grateful.

I was relieved. Maybe I would get lucky and never have to explain to anyone what I was doing, if Dr Hibbing could keep his mouth shut. I collected a small timer from the lab, and slipped it into my purse, logged off my computer, and waited…but not for long.

Eckhart seemed surprised by my change into jeans, but said nothing.

Perhaps he never changes his clothes.

"No bodyguard?" I asked.

Eckhart rarely strayed far from his office without a bodyguard in attendance. This was not paranoia on his part; security was breached several times that I knew about, reportedly by Adam and the lost-soul mutants he recruited as his followers, people unaware of his role in creating them.

"Even my GSA bodyguards have gone home. No one's left except the cleaning crews and exterior security."

The outer door to his quarters was in fact close to his office. I had few reasons to ever be in that part of the building, and did not recall noticing this particular door before. This part of the building was full of high-tech entries, and at Genomex I made a habit of not asking too many questions, but to listen very carefully. Genomex supported many "black" projects that weren't even supposed to exist. I did not want to find out what they were and I did not wish to create the impression that I was curious about any of them.

Such projects might in fact involve fascinating science, but one just is not nosy about these things. As peculiar as it might sound to anyone on the outside, manufacturers of consumer products had similar concerns and procedures. Successful industrial espionage could steal decades of painstaking, creative research and development, and destroy potentials for market share and well-deserved profit.

"The entry is set up like an air lock, with a small chamber past this door from which the outside air will be flushed. The interior is kept under constant positive pressure so that any seepage is outward, not in. Entry and exit are keyed to my retinas, my right thumbprint and mine alone."

The first door closed behind us. I am claustrophobic. I could feel myself beginning to sweat beneath my shirt.

"Hmm…how to say this…I'm claustrophobic. Very claustrophobic."

"As am I. We're nearly through."

"If you lapse into a coma, how am I supposed to get you out?"

"There is a manual override…but only on the inside. I'll show you."

Which he did, upon entry. Having this only on the inside prevented an easy invasion of his quarters.

"The manual override immediately opens outer and inner doors. Before taking that drastic step, you can see who, if anyone, is outside waiting for you; the temperatures of the floor and ceiling, and whether the fire alarms and sprinklers are activated anywhere onsite. If you use that override, and upon the opening of both doors decide you've made a mistake, you can close the doors once more. Quickly."

"What about the floors, ceiling, and walls in here?"

The question surprised him. Good.

"Steel. Many inches of it."

"Oxygen?"

"There are tanks within the steel cube to deliver breathing air if the exterior intakes are blocked or sabotaged."

"This is a stronghold."

"Yes."

I had expected a cot in a corner. There were actually several rooms, small, austere rooms heavy on polished stainless steel and glass. The clear intention was to provide as few surfaces as possible for dust and bacteria spores to settle and collect.

Whole walls were given over to disks and books shelved behind glass. Museum reproduction, miniatures of course, sat on the shelves in front of the disks.

"Not what you expected?" he asked.

"No."

"I have more time than most for reading."

"I rarely come across anyone else who actually reads books."

He laughed. "With all the doctorate degrees that work here?"

"They read technical journals. Most of them have not read a book since undergraduate school. They only read those because they were required." The bulk of the titles were histories. "And they certainly don't read history, which I do…the way a lot of people read novels."

"But certainly not military history."

"I've always read military history. I started as a teenager. My tastes and inclinations have always been eclectic. I've never concerned myself much with what I was supposed to like."

I'd lost myself in the discussion of books and history, walking close to the wall to read the book titles. I had always loved to read. While I know people online who read as much and as widely as I did, meeting someone like that was a rare event. I had thousands of books at my condominium. Hardly anyone knew that because of the way I preferred admitting no one to my private universe. I especially enjoyed history and biography. Then I stopped myself, horrified that I had let my guard down and simply spoken my thoughts. Had I made a fool of myself? I suddenly turned about and faced him.

Eckhart looked mildly amused…or pleased. I could not be sure which.

"Did I just make a fool of myself?" I've always been very direct.

"Not at all. You just gained a lot of respect."

I did not know what to make of that, but I did not doubt his sincerity. I returned to my examination of the shelf contents.

"Frequently it is difficult to know what to tell of oneself, especially in an anti-intellectual age. Say too much, and you get yourself branded as 'thinking yourself superior'…as if being superior was a bad thing. I've learned to mostly keep my mouth shut. People don't like it when they have no notion what you are talking about."

"Even when what you are talking about was common knowledge among educated people two generations ago," he said.

"Yes. What was common knowledge has become arcane. But that attitude cuts across more than academics. Some basic skills known in every household 40 years ago, such as making a pie crust, are mostly forgotten. People are steeped in the minutiae of pop culture, but baffled by planting a flower see or making brownies."

"I don't know what can be done about that unfortunate attitude. I'm trying to make certain my children don't grow up to be one-dimensional technicians."

He had anticipated my surprise, in fact had watched me carefully.

"Well before I became this, Dr Steyn, I had a surprisingly normal adult life. I know some people believe I am something Dr Breedlove created, like Dr Frankenstein, but that's not true, although it might be true of Adam."

He paused. I knew there was bad blood between them. Everyone knew that. No one seemed to know all the details. Over my years at Genomex I accumulated many stories—and versions of stories—but I was to learn how much both of them kept secret.

"What did you think of Adam?" he asked.

The opportunity to answer honestly was more than I could resist.

"I thought Adam was a pompous, pampered jackass, and that on days when he was feeling humble and subdued."

Eckhart laughed.

"Why didn't Breedlove make him mind like a good boy?" I asked, smiling.

"In absolute truth, I do not know. I only have theories. Paul really may have created Adam in a sub-basement of Genomex, using some of his own DNA as a partial base. Adam has no past. Quite possibly, he may be a machine."

"You're joking."

"I'm not," he answered. "I've never come across anyone who recalls Adam relating a childhood memory, as if Adam had no childhood to recall. More telling than that, I've never come across any record of Adam as a child, no birth record, no school records. About a year prior to admission to Stanford, he makes his first appearance, taking his SATs in 1970."

"I hadn't thought of Adam as an android."

"Paul Breedlove was full of surprises."

"Most of us are."

"Some, more than others. Paul Breedlove qualifies as a supreme generator of surprises. I wonder sometimes if Eleanor had any idea who he was."

"Tell me about your children."

"My Grey is the oldest. Grey is a family name…my middle name…it goes back to General Grey, CSA. Grey's in college. The twins, Deirdre and Michelle, are high school juniors."

"Twins?"

"Yes. As I once was. Marc drowned when I was eight."

"I've never heard anything about your having a family. Why doesn't anyone know about them?" Blunt little me, asking why Genomex mythology relates none of this.

"They're safer this way. If hardly anyone knows about them, and I never say anything about them, then I have left the impression I do not care about them. If the people who hate you know what you love, they will attempt destruction of those people or things."

Yes, they will. How well I know.

"You're talking about Adam."

"Yes. I knew you were quick but that is perceptive. Most people think of him as harmless hot air, even now, as he shelters a felon and attempts to transfer the responsibility for his own ill-conceived actions to others."

To you.

"Harmless hot air does not set out to slander and destroy reputations."

"No."

"What does Adam love?"

"Only Adam. I once believed he cared about the mutants he created, but I think they are important only as extensions of his own will. He uses them. I believe he continues to experiment upon them. No doubt he assures them what he does is completely safe, all the while he carries on his work and heightens the chances their fragile physiological balance will free fall into oblivion."

Eckhart had told me quite a lot. I was not sure why he was doing this, and guessed the explanation was somewhere between the head injury and having no one to tell any of these things for years.

"I'm not going to repeat anything you've told me."

"I did not think you would. Anymore than I'll repeat anything you've told me."

Eckhart completed the tour of his safe, sealed space.

"If it's a clear enough night, perhaps we can go up on the roof and put my telescope through its paces."

"Telescope?"

"It's perfect. I don't sleep well. Some nights I prowl around the building. I think I know most of the secrets of this facility. I've burrowed into places locked and sealed for 30 or 40 years. Other nights, I spend on the roof. Nobody knows it's there except the people who installed it, and now you."

I smiled and laughed. "By now, I'll guess you have no fear of the dark."

"None," he laughed. "How did you know?"

"Before coming here, I worked as the overnight shift chemist at a recklessly run chemical plant. Every time I drove to work I expected to find a half-mile wide crater where the production facility used to be."

"Morale must have been sky-high," he said sarcastically.

"Oh, it was. I called the plant 'Hell'. Some nights I never sat down. Mind you, these were twelve-hour shifts. Others, I had time to wander around the mostly abandoned fifteen acre site, by myself, in all kinds of weather. I found all kinds of things tucked away in obscure corners. Night became the same as day for me."

"You have some surprises of your own."

"At the time, working there was a miserable experience, but it left me strong, independent, and not afraid of the dark. I'm not afraid of much of anything any longer."

"Not even me?"

"I've never been afraid of you."

"That makes you possibly unique."

"I do my job. I don't make trouble. Why should I be afraid of you?"

"You shouldn't. Tell me, what do you think of my stronghold?"

"Most of the people here have never considered that you have somewhere to sleep."

"What do they think I do?"

"Many of them believe you're always awake."

"I've pushed the possibilities of my life since the 'accident'. If I had not, I'd still be confined to an oversized glovebox. Breedlove wanted to keep me in the lab. Adam just wanted me to die."

I had not missed the special attention he had given 'accident', implying that it was anything but an accident. "What exactly happened to you?"

"I'm forbidden to tell the specifics to anyone, but simply put, Adam happened to me. I think I was crazy for months after 'X'. Between the sedatives Breedlove fed me, and the dire outlook described when I was aware and alert, I should have stayed crazy, except that I knew Grey and the girls needed me. Every time I felt myself sinking into despair or infection, I thought about them, and rallied myself to keep fighting."

"What about their mother?" I wasn't sure I should have asked that, but he hadn't made those children by himself.

"Adam again. He persuaded her to leave me, so he could make her the Princess of Genomex. As he does with most things, however, Adam quickly moved on from Jackie."

"I'm sorry. I didn't have any of that in mind when I asked." I felt as if I had stumbled upon evidence of family shame, carefully hidden. Nothing in Genomex lore hinted at this.

"I know you didn't. But I wanted to tell you." I knew that was true when he said it. But I could not imagine why he would want to tell me.

"There are people at Genomex who are convinced hatred of Adam and of mutants is all you live for."

Eckhart smirked. "Good. That is the lie I want them to believe. Oh, I do loathe Adam, but if that was all I held in my heart, my descent into madness would have been steady, certain, and swift, and I would not have been able to fight off my demons."

I believed him. As destructive as Adam had been in Eckhart's life –and I did not yet know the whole of it—Adam's comeuppance was no reason for living. I knew from the way he talked about his children where the roots of his heart were lodged.

There was a large, comfortable chair facing the only window. I claimed it and began reading one of the photocopied papers I had brought with me about ion chromatography. The paper served only to put me to sleep. Most technical writing serves well to induce sleep. When I awoke, it was fully dark outside, and a blanket had been draped over me.

I checked the time, and cursed silently, following the light to Eckhart's bedroom.

I was relieved to find him sitting up in bed, wide awake, papers spread out in front of him.

"Well! Some watchdog!" But he smiled, and I knew he was being playful. There was no hint of sarcasm in his voice. Had I known twenty-four hours before that this man could be playful? Had any of the Genomex lore suggested it?

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You volunteered to lose a lot of sleep tonight. Waking you would have been cruel."

He gathered up the papers. "Deirdre and Michelle think they should go to different colleges and develop independent selves. It's a good idea, but I'm not sure they're ready for it. They're inseparable now."

"How often do you communicate with them?" I imagined a phone call on weekends.

"Almost daily. We all have web cams."

"You're closer to them than I imagined."

"Some evenings I help them with their homework."

"Thank goodness for technology."

"Yes. It's not ideal, but it works surprisingly well. They know my health is difficult to maintain. I believe they understand."

At first I thought he was still dressed, but as I looked more closely, he clearly wasn't.

"Where did you find black pinstripe pajamas?"

"I had them custom-made. One day I overheard Mayakovsky telling his rude joke about me probably sleeping in black pinstripes. The next time you come within hearing of that joke, laugh, because you'll be laughing with me. Yes, I've noted for some time that you aren't one of the people who laugh at me. I know who laughs at the rude jokes and who doesn't."

"Mayakovsky is a barbarian who knows a lot about molecular biology."

"Which is good, since his competence extends nowhere else."

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"My head hurts a great deal." He felt his forehead, obscured by his 'hair'. "Which it should, since there is quite a swelling there. I still have no memory of being at that meeting."

"That might take a little time to return. The swelling will have to go down first. Do you think you can sleep?"

"Maybe."

"Good." I pointed to the timer around my neck. "I'm going to set it for two and a half hours." I turned and left.

Two and a half hours I came back, and woke him.

"What is my name?"

"Rebecca Steyn."

"Nicely done. I'll be back in two hours."

"Cruel."

"Necessary."

Two hours later I had enough trouble waking him that I began to worry, enough to start digging through my pockets for the phone numbers Hibbing had given me.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Mason."

"Very good. You were deeply asleep. You came close to taking a trip to a hospital."

"O, no."

"O, yes."

Some time after that, but not a full two hours, he woke me, then sat in the floor in front of the chair where I was curled up. The suite of rooms was very chilly. He was wrapped in a blanket.

"I've been thinking, Dr Steyn," he said, face barely illuminated by the faint light.

"Always a dangerous thing to do," I said, adopting his own tone of mock seriousness. "A risky habit to cultivate. Do you have any idea how much trouble one can get into merely by thinking?"

"I know. But it occurred to me that while you now know all kinds of things about me, I know very little more about you than I did yesterday."

"What would you like to know?" I asked.

"How is it you are free tonight to sit and watch that I do not slip into the infinite sleep? Why aren't you home with a family, the two kids, the dog, the cat, and the spouse. I know I am being rude. I am a rude man. I do not pretend otherwise."

"Bluntly put, why am I unattached?"

"Yes."

"I was attached once. Being alone is much preferable to being attached to the wrong person. Getting free of him required a small fortune. Now, I believe I'm that way because men don't like me. Not because I don't like them. Not because I like women."

"That's hard to believe."

"I believe it. I live by it. So do most of my women friends. Hardly any of them are married or attached."

"But that doesn't make sense."

"Yes, it does. Men don't generally like smart women. I'm very smart, very competitive, and in to win. I won't flatter and I won't play dumb. I will not 'settle'. I enjoy my own company a great deal."

"Not every man wants stupid company. Not this man."

I laughed softly. "You are well known for your intolerance of fools. It is one of the central themes of Genomex mythology."

"My mission is a serious one. I have to get the best out of my people for their own good as well as mine. Do you intend living behind your walls the rest of your life?"

"Walls?"

"Walls. I'm a wall-builder myself. I plainly see what you are doing. I cannot be fooled."

"Is that your head injury talking?"

"No," he said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Mostly sure."

"I was married for four years to someone who morphed into a monster, and did some very bad things to me. Non-trivial bad things, including a murder attempt. I would require unusual motivation to consider changing my ways. My scars have scars. Parts of me have never healed and never will. I don't dwell upon those years, but I'd be a silly woman to learn nothing from them."

I had told these things to hardly anyone, ever, and in my present life, only Samihah knew. She had known her share of grief and pain. Neither of us reflected frequently upon our past bad days, but we understood one another better than anyone who was comparatively unscathed and unscarred by their lives.

Is that why I'm telling these things to Mason Eckhart, of all people? Because I sense his emotional damage at least matches his physical damage? Because I believe he might understand? Why does it matter that he understand? It hasn't mattered since 1992.

"I'm always amazed when I come upon people whose lives have been greased glides across glass. They never seem to be very hardy. How does the quote from Dune go? 'There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to

develop psychic muscles'."

I smiled weakly. "I don't know if I could survive developing any more psychic musculature. I haven't become crazy, mean, or destructive. For that I am thankful. I've just gone into hiding."

"I wish I could say that, but I have a good idea just how nasty I've become." He nearly smiled. "I'm not fishing for a contradiction. I know how I am. But I haven't always been this way."

"I believe you."

"If I came and called to you from outside those walls, would you at least listen to what I was saying? Or would you ignore me, pretend I wasn't there, and wait for me to go away?"

"I would listen to you."

I was surprised with my answer, and what it implied. I had lied to myself from the beginning of this indescribable evening. How is it possible to deceive oneself? But I had done so. I was where I wanted to be and in the company of whom I wished.

Run, Rebecca.

"I know the law. If I say anything more, I run the risk of finding myself in a courtroom. Aside from that, you volunteered your time to do a kind thing, and few people do me kindnesses. I don't wish to repay that by making you uncomfortable. Whatever your reasons, I know it wasn't about fawning over me for special favor. I don't think you would know how to fawn. Do you wish me to stop?"

Yes, I'm terrified.

"No. The only attorneys I ever want to talk to again are my cousins Mike and Gary."

"You won't sue me or Genomex if I continue?"

So cautious.

"No."

"Modern life is so full of pitfalls and minefields."

"I appreciate that."

"If you wish me to stop at any time, I will do so. You're on my ground here; the advantage is mine. That's unfair to you and I do not wish to be unfair."

"Strange that words should have such power over us, but they do. If I can't listen to anymore, most likely it is due to my past history, not you. My scars have scars."

"As do mine." He hesitated. "I noticed you soon after Breedlove hired you."

Fifteen years ago.

"You did?" This revelation was a shocker.

"Yes. I don't believe I was the only one."

I shrugged in the near darkness. "I'm not aware of anything like that. I could have been invisible, as far as I could tell. I've always been invisible wherever I go, whatever I'm doing. I assume that I am invisible, that no one will notice me or anything I do. I certainly don't expect anyone to notice I'm a woman, except in the case of professional jealousy. There are a lot of dinosaurs roaming through the corridors of corporations."

"Well, you're not invisible. Not to me. Not to others. I don't know how this notion of invisibility arose, but I assure you, it is false. Even if you did not perceive it, I was aware of the interest other men had in you. I noticed something else as well: your inherent kindness and decency. Most people are myopically self-focused. The way you took Dr Shah under your wing when her husband died was extraordinary."

"I strive to do the right and just thing. I always have. Good old reliable Rebecca."

"That's clear. The self I present outside these sealed doors is a carefully constructed persona intended to inspire fear and maintain discipline. Genomex isn't an ordinary corporation; I'm fighting a kind of secret war. When people look at me, they see a monster, a cold, aloof man with hardly any humanity left."

"Better for the Prince to be feared than loved," I said.

"Exactly so."

"I read the same book." I smiled; he smiled back. "And you do it so well."

"Is that a compliment?" he asked.

"From me, yes."

"But you weren't taken in, were you? You saw something other than a monster before today. What did you see that others missed?"

"I study people constantly, wherever I am. I heard stories about you before lunch my first day at Genomex. I did not believe such a person could exist. When I learned you were real, I studied you with great care. I write fiction. I have to understand motivation. I have to understand people."

"Does this mean we'll all end up in a novel?"

"No. People always fret that they will find themselves in print that way, but that isn't the way it's done. My characters are all synthesized, wholly new."

"That's a relief. So what did you see in me that compelled you to help me in front of those people? I know some of them would like me dead. I know some are actively scheming against me. You might have done the same for a stranger, but I'm not a stranger, and I work hard at being forbidding and unapproachable."

"If the persona you presented was your genuine self, you would have to be insane. But your performance is not flawless. Your lapses, if one was quick enough and astute enough to perceive them, revealed a human buried safe and deep. There is a whole body of near-legend about you and your inhumanity."

"I can imagine."

"The stories say nothing about the possibility of a human being inside somewhere, but I found one anyway, and liked what I found. Even your warm and fuzzy persona has many admirable qualities."

Eckhart laughed at my last comment. "You are insightful. I watch people carefully, and must, for my own survival. But you haven't created an extreme persona to keep people at a safe distance. I cannot imagine indifference to you."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to make this difficult for you. I'm not handling this well at all. You're not the only one protecting yourself behind a professional veneer."

"If I resigned Monday morning, removing myself from influence upon your career, your attitude towards me would not change, would it?"

"No." I was surprised by the question.

"There have been women drawn to my power, who either wanted to share that power, or they wanted me to advance their careers.

"I'd be more comfortable if one of us worked somewhere else."

"That makes sense. There have been women drawn to my persona, women who liked the cruelty they perceived. I will not allow myself to be used or manipulated. My job…this secret war…sometimes demands harsh, brutal conduct. I have the resolve and the stomach for those tasks, but I derive no perverse pleasure from them. I do not desire the company of anyone who delights in the suffering of others."

"They misperceived you, and their perceptions were not flattering."

"Exactly so. I am a good deal more complicated than my persona."

"You must have confused them," I said.

"They weren't around for long."

"I'm not scheming for career advancement. My ambitions and inclinations are not within the sphere of GSA functions." I smiled, but the statement was one I wanted him to understand with unshaded, absolute clarity.

"I know that. Although you'd be good at it, with your high levels of rationality, subtlety, powers of observation and broad education."

"That's a compliment, yes?"

"Very much so," he said.

"Cloak and dagger is not my style."

"Are you sure? You've spent years quietly, patiently, unobtrusively collecting Genomex mythology, sifting it, sorting it. And what do you do in your labs, putting your instruments through their paces? You solve puzzles, don't you? Solving puzzles is no small part of what I do. My puzzles involve people."

"That's true," I realized.

"I try to discern patterns and rules in human conduct. You've noted I'm a formal personality?"

"Yes. I like that. Casual attitudes and presumptuous familiarity make people crude and banal."

"I do not care for presumptuous people and I presume very little. I dislike anyone entering my personal space, setting bare hands on my things, and I abhor being touched. None of this applies to you, but I will not presume you share a reciprocal level of comfort."

"How did you know I dislike being touched?" I asked. I thought I had been subtle .

"I've watched you avoid contact with people."

"I thought no one noticed. People take offense once they understand you're avoiding their touch."

"Don't worry. You do well. I am far worse about it than you. I do not want to be touched through my clothes or even on the gloves, with two barriers between the other and me."

"It's all about maintaining a safe distance," I offered. "How do other people do these things so easily?" I asked. "I've watched them carefully and never understood."

"I don't believe you can be hurt unless you had an emotional investment. The people who never make such investments never get hurt badly and never scar. Once the scars are inflicted, everything becomes difficult."

"Perhaps the truth is that simple."

He reached out to me with his biopolymer shielded, black glove covered right hand.

I started to stretch out my hand to him, but hesitated.

"On my honor, I swear I will never intentionally harm you."

"I believe you."

"Have some small measure of faith. Even I have that."

"I believe that, too." I grasped the dark gloved hand.

"How were you able to help me if you're this afraid of people?"

"I did not have time to think. I understood what was happening to you and I did what I had to do for my cousin Gary when there weren't any adults around. I haven't always been this way."

"None of us has. Life changes us. The people who happen to us change us.'

"Yes," I said softly.

"The temperature in here is programmed to be coldest in the middle of the night. The principle of discouraging microbial growth is sound, but I'm never comfortable Aren't you cold here? I am."

"Yes. Do you have at least one other blanket you could throw over me?"

"I do, but listen: the forced air system always generates a draft." He hesitated, uncertain of how, or whether to proceed. "Dr Steyn, we should keep talking before one or both of us retreats behind the walls we've built. I know exactly what this sounds like, but on my honor, it is not: we'd both be a lot warmer under several blankets in the other room."

I was stunned. "Together?"

"Yes. Listen to me. Trust is fragile and rare. I will not squander the possibility of your trust before I've had a chance to earn it."

I felt trapped. I panicked and let go of his gloved hand.

"Oh, no. I've frightened you. Maybe worse, maybe done you more harm. That was not my intent."

"No," I shook my head. "Not you. Other people have beat me up emotionally. You don't need to know the details. My most useful response has proven to be flight."

"I can have you through those doors in 90 seconds."

"No. I'm sorry I'm like this."

I felt lost and confused, and I did not like the feeling.

"I am not afraid of you, Mr Eckhart. You have qualities I admire. I like you. You're rational. You're fair. You respect me and my work."

"I'm not accustomed to praise."

"Everything I said, I meant. It's true."

"I'm a proud man, and a thoroughly chilled one. I may never be this brave again. I may never whack my head that hard again. Please." He held out his hand again.

I panicked. "I don't know." I was remembering Rosamund and Alboin's empty little collars.

"I cannot beg."

"I would not expect that, not from you."

Eckhart stood up, and draped the second blanket around me. "Sleep well, Dr Steyn. See you in two hours."

"It's not you. Really it isn't. I am sorry."

"As am I. I do understand. I'm deeply damaged myself." He turned away from me in the darkness, gliding silently.

When he had left the room, it felt suddenly empty, and I surprised myself by finding the emptiness intolerable. I wasn't sure what I could do to change anything. I gathered the two blankets around me, and followed him.

I startled him, which wasn't easily done.

"Are you leaving?" he asked, setting aside a book.

"No." I spread the blankets out on top of the bed and crawled beneath the covers.

"I gave up hope on you," he said.

"Surprise."

"Yes."

I was fully dressed, of course, but he wasn't exaggerating the chill of the place. He was seated upright with his book. I snuggled up next to him. I could see his eyes.

"I feel silly," I said. "You look worried."

"I am. Don't think any of this is easy for me."

I was surprised to discover that he was warm. I had not anticipated that, expecting something more reptilian. The thought came u nbidden, and seemed very unfair. He closed the book, and set it and his glasses aside, then slid down beside me.

"I'm not much one for optimism, and I cannot promise I will never hurt you, because I'm too imperfect."

"My ability to trust is nearly gone. That's why I prefer working with numbers and things that are easily quantified, things that don't change and aren't unreliable, like people."

"Whoever did this to you needs killing." He wasn't joking. He was serious.

"The world would be a better place with him out of it. It sounds funny now, but someone I believed was a thoroughly decent person offered to put me in touch with a bad biker type who would do the job for fifty dollars plus gas money."

"People can be so surprising. Were you tempted?"

"No. I just wanted to be away from him and be free."

"Commendable of you."

"I don't hurt people back because they've hurt me. I just remove myself to a safe place."

"Yet you're here."

"Is this a safe place?"

"Safer than you can imagine, Dr Steyn."

"No," I interrupted him. "Please don't call me that. It's the middle of the night, and I'm in your bed. Call me Rebecca. As much as I understand and appreciate your formality and lack of presumption, in some settings only the familiar will do."

"Rebecca."

"Much better."

"Rebecca, I don't want to make any mistakes. I've made enough of those. What I want to do is court you."

This sounded old-fashioned or strange or both. I didn't know what to say. No one talked like this. Was he making cruel fun of me after all? No good deed goes unpunished. I was deeply suspicious of everyone but especially so of men. Too much had happened to me. Too many things had happened to female friends and coworkers, among whom I counted no less than three who had survived murder attempts by husbands or boyfriends. And there were those two little empty collars sitting on top of my dresser.

"Rebecca?"

I realized I had been silent a long time, and that I was near to panic. I should be home, safe behind several locks. And I had forgotten to set my VCR. I was angry with myself, several different ways. I did not tolerate fools any better than Eckhart did, especially when I was the fool.

"Rebecca?" Mason sounded panicky himself. How long had I been lost in my own thoughts?

"Mason, I'm sorry. I was lost in some memories, bad ones. I've lived a long time in an emotional wilderness. I do my work as well I know to do, but outside of the time I spend with Samihah, I've become reclusive and feral. I've never been important to anyone except for the work I could perform or the paycheck I could turn over to them for 'joint' savings that turned out not to include me. Time and again I've been beaten up emotionally."

"So have I. I could easily decide all women were faithless, fickle users, but I don't believe you're that way. Hence, the importance of trust, which is difficult to come by and easy to destroy."

I'd never forget the utterly convincing story Jeff told about Alboin and Rosamund sleeping in their favorite window that morning when he left for work. Or how badly he felt for my loss, because he knew how much I loved those cats. I believed every word.

I wanted to believe every word. When I found the collars in the trash just a few minutes later, I knew everything Jeff said to me could be a lie. I didn't confront him with the collars, because he'd only confabulate some more. There were a lot more lies left for me to discover. This was just the begining.

"What is it, Rebecca?"

"The past returning, unbidden."

"The past has a way of doing that. What kind of flowers do you like?"

"Carnations."

"You shall have them."

"No one ever asks what I want."

"That's about to change."

Mason was trying very hard and I wasn't helping. No matter how I tried to remain focused upon the present, my past kept intruding.

Nevertheless, I knew the last thing I wanted to do was hurt Mason. "Should I even be here?" I asked. I was easily the greatest source of infection in the room.

"My doctors disagree on my tolerance for infection. Some of them believe the hours I spend outside of these quarters will kill me. Others say I'm actually building tolerance. I have evidence that the optimists are correct that I have not shared with them."

I surprised myself by sleeping through until morning. I never did that. Typically I awake several times and listen carefully. Some nights I even got out of bed and inspected the exterior doors. Waking up was more than a little disorienting, because the setting was unfamiliar and I wasn't alone. I had slept alone for years, ever since breaking up with an engineer who told me he was doing me a favor by dating me. Who needs that kind of favor? I realized I enjoyed my own company more than that of the wrong person. Then I noted that I was fully dressed.

Then it all came back: I had never gone home. I was still at work. I turned and looked at Mason.

With all the tension gone from his face, Mason looked different. Younger. Certainly not menacing. I could look at him and believe the things I'd learned about him during the last sixteen hours represented the authentic Mason, the one hidden deeply from nearly everyone.

I was pleased, greatly pleased, with the way events had turned. Nevertheless, I was nagged by the oddness of everything. Who would believe it?

Why do the odd things happen to me? And the odd people? Am I somehow seeking them out?

I surprised myself thinking such thoughts about Mason, who, after all, had never done anything to bring harm to me in all the years I had worked for him, and who had taken some serious emotional chances overnight. I felt cruel and disloyal.

But Mason is odd. And so am I.

Nevertheless, no one wants to be peculiar. Even an eccentric like me did not want oddness to pervade every aspect of my life, I concluded. And I knew that this was going to be odd, bizarre, strange, and if trends continued, sweet.

I can still bolt now, and retreat to perfect safety.

How could I be so brave about things that deeply frightened other women, yet readily stampeded by others?

Repetitive conditioning, I answered myself. I come by my attitudes honestly. I endured a lot of years getting beat up, until I built walls high enough and thick enough to keep out anything. Well, I may have come by my emotions honestly, but that made them no less annoying. Or inconsistent.

Save yourself. Nothing good can come of this. You function with apparent flawlessness on the job. Nobody has any inkling what a fragile, damaged tangle you are inside. How much more can you take?

Arguing with myself made me even more annoyed.

So, I decided there was only one thing to do, and that was to start the day over. Go back to sleep and wake up later so it would feel like a different day. I wouldn't be reflecting upon my doubts if I went back to sleep. Everything might look better the next time I wake up.

If that weird white hair is a wig, how is it that it hasn't moved a millimeter? Can that really be hair, no matter what company lore indicates?

I decided to give him something to think about. I snuggled very close and put an arm about him. And fell back asleep.

"I'll be back. Fear not." I smiled.

Mason didn't look convinced. He looked worried.

"Mason, I never make promises I don't fully intend to keep. I don't say things because I believe people want to hear them. There are things I must take care of at home."

"Very well." He tried to wear a smile over his doubts, but the effort fell short of intentions.

I hadn't given him reason to doubt me, but he was correct in emphasizing the need for developing trust. I had given him plenty of reasons to think my fears might overcome my rational intent and sincerity. How did Irulan say it? "A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate of care that the balances are correct."

I didn't want to make any mistakes, especially of the self-sabotaging sort. Many times people will choose a familiar pain instead of a possible solution in the unfamiliar.

Mentally I calculated how long I would require for chores and errands, and told Mason when I thought I would return.

I did have things to do at home. I left Genomex fully intending to return promptly, but events did not happen that way.

My answering machine was loaded. Some of the messages could be dealt with later, but not the one from my sister-in-law Sherri. Sherri never said anything in twenty words that could be expanded to two hundred, or even more dramatically, to two thousand. Her message might be important, judging by her breathless tone, but from past experience it was not. Still, you never know…

I steeled myself to the chore of talking to this woman. Sherri was bright but unfocused. Nothing in Sherri's life had required her develop focus.

As I had suspected, the matter was less than life and death. My brother Steve had been promoted, and they were about to move, again, this time to some place in Ohio near Columbus. Sherri was already thinking ahead to a bigger house and the joys of decorating.

Sherri thought I was strange because my walls were lined with bookshelves, different styles and sizes acquired at various stages in my life. Sherri was most appalled by my collection of video and audio electronic toys, all stacked on commercial grade metal shelving.

She did not have to say out loud how hideous she found this arrangement. I was just being my pragmatic Rebecca-self. After spending a lot of money on equipment, I wasn't going to trust it to flimsy but nice to look at shelving. The open backs of the metal shelves helped dissipate heat. Sherri's eyes glazed over when I talked about dissipating heat. If she fried out a piece of electronics, she put it in the trash and bought a replacement.

Sherri could not have set up a VCR with the threat of someone holding a sharp stick to her jugular, and neither could any of her women friends, but she didn't know any men who had some of the toys I had. One day I tried to explain the difference between a DVD and a VCD to Sherri. Well, to be fair, Steve didn't know, either, and I had come across people at Radio Shack who had never heard of VCDs.

Sherri thought it was very unnatural for a woman to know all of these things. I just thought it was fun.

She had never heard of a woman who had three computers, all in working order, including one (Sherri-shudder) in my bedroom.

Sherri and I were almost different species.

I assured her that the natives in Ohio were friendly and mostly wore shoes now, and that her American plastic money would be enthusiastically welcomed there in the malls. Yes, they even had shopping malls in Ohio now.

I had to return Samihah's phone call, and that took some time as well. Samihah wasn't a problem like Sherri, however, since she was organized and direct. Samihah had no time to waste. Samihah wanted to give a birthday party for Ali, no, Alan, she had changed all of her son's names to sound home-grown so they would fit in better at their schools. Her sons were all home grown, and very American, but Samihah was taking no chances, given recent history.

She hadn't told the family back in the old country about changing the boys' names or about how she was attending a Unitarian church. Sometimes distance is a good thing.

The birthday was about a month away, and she wanted the party to be perfectly, thoroughly American, not just for Alan's friends, but to leave an assuring impression with their parents as well.

We discussed fancy cakes and ice cream. I did not notice how much time passed as Samihah put together her project plan for the party. I told her I'd help with the party itself. I frequently did things with Samihah and her boys. I was fond of Samihah and this also allowed me opportunity to vicariously experience family living.

When I was done at the condo, I had to pick up a package at the post office that required a signature, but it turned out to actually be sitting in a second post office. More time burned. More obscure electronic toys acquired.

All of this consumed a good deal more time than I had estimated. Temperamentally, I am compelled to be early; I was raised to believe making people wait for you was rude.

I did not know how Mason would take my late return. If he lapsed into his Handmaiden-of-Satan persona used with people who failed him, demanding compliance at any cost, I was going to wish him well with his concussion and leave, without further discussion. Forever. I was not going to tolerate bad behavior from anyone. Then, I would somehow talk my way into spending the balance of the day with Samihah, and do my best to banish Mason –and disappointment—from my mind. I always have a plan.

I was relieved to see that he did not wear a black suit on weekends. He was instead wearing, surprise, black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Another perennial Genomex mystery solved, but I could not tell anyone.

"I didn't think you were coming back."

He sounded lost, not angry. Other men might have said this to make me feel guilty, but from Mason at this moment, it was all about raw hurt.

"I am sorry. I had to chase a package through two post offices, call my Planet Fluffbrain sister-in-law, and hear about their next move in excruciating detail, and call Samihah to plan Alan's birthday party."

"Alan?"

"Her middle son. You might remember him as Ali. He's now Alan."

"Ah."

"I do a lot of things with Samihah and her boys."

"I was concerned. You are habitually punctual."

"I'm here now. I did not have the extension here, or I would have called. Calling 7777 Security seemed unwise."

I knew about his mother's suicide and about how his wife cleaned out their house while he was at work. He expected women to abandon him.

"Yes."

"Try not to read anything into the way things worked. No meaning was intended."

"I don't think you'd lie to me." He tried to smile.

"How is your head feeling?"

"Tender."

"You hit the table edge with great force." I reached out my right hand but stopped short of touching him. "May I?"

"Go ahead."

I found the swelling without difficulty. And I noticed something else.

"I still have no recollection of that meeting," he said.

"Well, it was a very boring meeting. You might want to substitute a one-page memo from each of us, copied to all. The swelling may have to go down before your memory is restored. Shouldn't you be putting ice on this?"

"Too messy."

"I could go to a drugstore and get a gel-pack. I should have looked at this before I left."

He looked astonished.

"And I will come back. Promptly." I smiled.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind."

"I don't. But first, a question: that's hair growing out of your head, isn't it?"

"Yes," he laughed. "I think you're the first one to notice."

"Genomex mythology says it's a wig."

"Up until about a year ago, it was a wig. Then my own hair started growing back, except that it was unpigmented. My doctors could not explain hair growing again any more than they could explain why I am now making some red and white blood cells. I've been told for years that my condition was permanent and that there was no possibility of improvement."

"Are they tracking these data? Do the data indicate a trend towards improvement?"

"So far. I'm trying not to think about it overmuch. Living this way is a drain. I don't know how well I could cope if indicators changed and I started to backslide. That would be like crawling partway out of deep pit, only to fall all the way back to the bottom."

"Maybe you need new doctors, ones who aren't locked into earlier conclusions and who will think in terms of possibilities."

"You're probably correct. The difficulty lies in how I describe the 'accident' adequately enough to help anyone unfamiliar with my condition without divulging classified information. Breedlove was insistent about that. The technology involved is still classified, and I am still bound by security agreements."

"But that's hardly fair to you, not if there is a chance of enhancing and hastening your improvement."

"You're very partisan, aren't you?"

"My loyalties, once given, are personal and not easily broken. People have told me I was the best friend they ever had."

"And?" He noted the tone of my voice.

"That didn't stop them from doing bad things to me later."

"I'm none of those people, Rebecca."

"No, you're not."

"Give me a chance."

Fortunately, there was a drug store a few blocks past the Genomex gate. Unfortunately, as I was re-entering the building, Dr Mayakovsky was exiting.

Joe Mayakovsky really wasn't a bad guy. He did some highly original work, gave proper credit to his technicians, was utterly honest, and avoided corporate politics, although he was an infamous gossip. He was also loud, coarse, fond of childish practical jokes, and lonely. Naturally, he was drawn to petite, shy, soft-spoken Dr Shah. Samihah found him unsubtle, and incapable of taking a hint.

"Good Morning, Rebecca!"

"Good Morning, Joe."

"No rest for the wicked, eh?"

"A watched autosampler never fails. Turn your back on them for too long, however, and out come the gremlins. I'm just making sure a 68 sample run goes to completion."

That wasn't a lie, but I wasn't going directly to that instrument, and ordinarily I would not have returned until Sunday morning, when even fewer people were likely to be around.

"I've been here for hours. I'm going to get lunch, and come back and push back the frontiers of science." He grinned.

Mayakovsky could be funny and amusing when he talked like this, but from past experience I knew the conversation had the potential of taking an unexpected swerve and making a powered dive into bathroom humor.

"Well, do have a nice lunch. I must get going, Joe."

"Thanks. I'll drop by your office later."

I hadn't considered the conclusions which some might draw from my comings and goings at odd hours into the complex. I did have a habit of checking automated operations on weekends. Expensive instrumentation is great when it is working and maddening when it fails. But I didn't do this every weekend.

The people I worked with knew my car. If they saw it in the parking lot all the time, they would start telling me I was working too hard. Then they'd think I was up to no good, possibly doing corporate espionage for a biotech competitor. Corporate espionage is real. Mason would find himself listening to Concerned Employees offering up abundant speculation about my activities. Messy. I don't like messy.

"There! I was not gone long, was I?"

"You were not." Mason almost purred. I did not recall ever hearing quite that tone from him.

"Let's get these chilling. You have two gel packs, one to use and one to be cooling down."

"Thank you, Rebecca."

"I try to do the right thing."

"You do very well."

"Not everyone would agree," I said.

I tossed the gel packs into the refrigerator, which brought to mind another problem that my typically thorough, problem solving mind typically detected easily. I did not eat much, but I was going to want to eat something and I had no idea how I was going to manage that here.

Mason had followed me to the fridge—which had cute little magnets shaped from halves of a 25 mm Gelman syringe filters—and was standing right behind me. I turned about to face him.

I smiled. "Do you own any clothes that are not black?"

"A few. Some old things from a previous life. I used to wear perfectly ordinary clothes. I used to want to give the impression of being completely ordinary."

"I have difficulty imagining you other than the way you are now."

"That's all you've ever seen. I worked hard at trying to be ordinary, trying to be part of a family, to have what I didn't have growing up. Were you part of a close family?"

"No. We weren't a touchy-feely kind of family. Truth be told, I never have been able to figure out what my parents were doing married to each other. They barely spoke to one another. They weren't hateful or unpleasant, but they shared the same space without being together in it."

"Well, they must have shared more than the same space at least twice."

"Reality does imply that much, doesn't it?" I laughed. "Until I was about thirteen years old, I used to hunt for 'my' adoption papers if I was left home by myself. About then it was obvious I shared facial features of both of them, and I gave up the search. I was crushed by the realization. Am I correct in thinking that we could have been in this very same place years ago?"

That was daring of me, but I would not have asked without believing there was a good chance of it being true.

"Yes. Despite my skills in getting what I must from people—how dreadful that sounds—I could never think of a ruse to reach you that did not risk a lawsuit or worse, making a f0ol of myself. I did leave some…hmm…tokens on your desk last Valentine's Day."

"Tokens?"

"The candy hearts with phrases."

"That was you?"

"Yes. I went through several dishes in accounting to find the specific ones I left."

"I didn't know what to think. I assume that I am invisible. I thought maybe the cleaning crew had picked them up from the floor and had not quite gotten around to throwing them away."

"Oh, no."

"That's what I thought then, but it doesn't make good sense, does it? The self-protective lies we tell ourselves are the worst of all. But I kept them. The hearts."

"You did?"

"They're in a vial in my desk. I wanted them to be more meaningful than something picked up off the floor, but I could not imagine how they could be otherwise."

Seeing Mason this way, so vulnerable and human after the years of dealing with the grim, formidable persona was a revelation. Except for the first few weeks after being introduced to him, when I believed his forbidding exterior perhaps might be who he was, I strongly suspected a human lurked deep inside, well-hidden, safely protected. But I never hatched fantasies about the possibility of that person being sentimental, even, dare I say it, sweet?

Everyone holds all kinds of surprises, aspects of ourselves we rarely reveal, not because we carry a burden of shameful secrets but because nearly all of us are fearful of appearing silly in the eyes of other people. We have a horror of ridicule.

Mason Eckhart was one of the proudest, most dignified individuals I had known. Admitting that not only had he left the hearts but had painstakingly selected those specific hearts was for him a daring risk since he did not know me well at all. I might not be the woman he thought I was or wished for me to be.

I might have been a degreed barbarian: competent, superficially sophisticated, self-focused…and crude. I had worked with a number of technical women who fit this description, and many, many more technical men.

I was not that kind of human, however. Mason's revelation of self did not make me think he was weak or silly, but that his human self had a wider range of possibilities and expression than I had dared hope. I also found it lent me the courage to make a confession of my own, sure now of not being humiliated. Or nearly certain.

"I have an admission of my own. Last month, you should have found a chocolate rabbit in your company mailbox.

For several moments he said nothing, and I was left to wonder if I had been misinterpreting him, missing essential data, or simply deluding myself. People had done such hurtful things to me I always doubted my ability to reliably evaluate them. Panic began to edge into the fringes of my thoughts. Except when I was alone, and in full control of events, panic was always lurking.

Or had someone simply swiped the bunny before he could find it?

"The Portentous Choco-Bunny of Mystery was from you?"

"Yes. I saw it at Lenzotti's and decided you had to have it. Please take this the right way: it reminded me of you."

"That's what Dr Varady said. She said it was me as a bunny."

"You've discussed the bunny with Laura Varady?"

"At length. I showed it to her, too. I could not imagine who would give me a chocolate rabbit. From all appearances, no one here much likes me except Varady. I've made certain of that. I've worked hard at making things so."

And succeeded.

He continued. "We had more than one discussion of the bunny. I was bedeviled by the mystery. Several nights I wandered all over the facility, considering personalities and individuals, and trying to match one of them with the rabbit."

"I didn't mean for you to lose sleep."

"Of course you didn't. I wanted badly to link you with it, but there wasn't any evidence to support what I had to dismiss as wishful thinking. I wanted you to be the bunny-bringer, but you were so angry with me every time I made you attend one of those absurd Communicate with the Community Dinners."

I rolled my eyes. "The food was indescribable and the content of the presentations mostly lies. I don't know how Thomasina can speak so many untruths without embarrassing herself."

"I know. But I wanted to see you, and I had the authority to compel you to attend…so I selfishly abused that power."

"You could have asked me to lunch."

"And risked rejection and ridicule, a possible lawsuit, or perhaps all three? No."

"That's what Samihah told me the awful dinners were about."

"You've discussed me with Dr Shah?"

"Only in terms of the horrible dinners. She's my closest girl-buddy. Women talk like this to each other, Mason. She doesn't know about the rabbit. I couldn't admit anything about that to anyone, not even Samihah."

"Isn't it unfortunate that when we do something kind we are so afraid of appearing foolish?"

"Frequently, Mason, that is exactly how things work out. The world is full of cruel people who will inflict an emotional scar that endures a lifetime, just to generate brief laughter."

"Who did that to you?"

"My father."

"Can't go on blaming parents indefinitely."

"I don't. I worked hard at getting past my raising by wolves. But my dread of looking foolish is deeply etched. That's why I'm such a recluse."

"You never seemed unhappy about it."

"I like my own company." Which was true.

"Do you like mine?"

"Very much. But I suspect you're perfectly at peace all by yourself as well."

"I am."

"That's not a bad way to be, Mason."

Well, what do you do on a Saturday afternoon in a nearly sterile chamber sealed away from the rest of the world? You talk. You listen. The circumstances were peculiar, the solution highly rational. We already knew each other, but we didn't, not really. I'm a very direct person. I don't like to waste my time or anyone else's. I brought along a small collection of photos and mementos, because I did not want to spend time in pointless small talk. Pragmatic Mason like the idea. We exchanged lives. We still liked each other at day's end.

Late in the evening, the GSA phone rang. Mason muted his baroque music before cursing and taking the call. I watched years return to his face while he listened to what was obviously unwelcome news.

"The Prince of Genomex and his children are stirring tonight, so I must go and stir with them. I'm sorry. I cannot delegate this."

"I'll be here," I assured him.

"You will?"

"That was my plan. I may not be awake, but I will be here."

He seemed to like that a lot. "In the case you need to come and go, I'll re-key the door to your thumbprint and irises."

"That's a good idea. It's been a long time since I ate anything. I'll leave with you, but when you get back, I'll be here."

Mason's adventures with Adam took a long time. I wasn't bored. I'm never bored if I have something to read or write. On one level, I was angry at Adam for dragging Mason away from me, but on another I was nagged by fears that Something Bad had happened, and from the latter I launched into entertaining fantasy scenarios in which I hunted down Adam and his miserably deluded mutant superkids and captured them all to face Justice for their crimes against Mason. In some of these fantasies, I indulged in less civilized but more emotionally satisfying revenge. Fortunately, in my own life I never troubled with revenge because I believed God Kept Good Notes.

When someone treated me badly, I just wanted to get away from them. I assumed that eventually they would cross the path of someone more rotten than themselves and suffer greater pain and loss than I could ever imagine inflicting.

After hurting Adam eight different and enjoyable ways, I took a shower and changed into a nightgown and bathrobe.

And no, I did not Dress for Undressing. Neither the nightgown nor the bathrobe were shabby—they were in fact nearly new—but they were hardly seductive.

Well, Mason was odd, I was odd (Hadn't people told me all my life, "Rebecca is strange"?) and already the relationship was…odd. Could anything other than odd ever happen to me? Unlikely.

Emotionally and intellectually, I knew I was going to require a high level of trust in Mason before confusing unresolved doubts with the admixture of sex, which in the case of Mason was a mystery. For him, I had no idea what that meant. Genomex mythology indicated he had no choice but celibacy, but he had certainly implied otherwise last night, hadn't he? Hadn't he?

Odd things had a way of weaving themselves into the texture of my life, but surely this 'courtship' was not intended to lead to a lifetime of gazing at one another from an immunologically safe distance, was it? That's too bizarre even to befall me. I hope.

I could not think of a way of asking Mason to clarify matters without embarrassing both of us. We were both intensely proud people. I decided to set the matter aside temporarily, assuming additional data would come my way.

I returned to amusing thoughts of using a force-lance on Adam, or of finding him alone, on foot, in the middle of a vast, grassy steppe, beneath steel-grey clouds…the look of terror on Adam's face as he recognized mine as I clamped my heels into the ribs of my little grey war-mare who eagerly leapt into a dead run gallop, closing the space between us and the fleeing Adam, with fluid, ground-covering stride…I unsheathed the sword I carried on my back…

I wonder how healthy this is? Am I really thinking about weaselly Adam, or is he just standing in for Jeff?

I didn't give much thought to Jeff any longer, although he had an unpleasant way of making me miserable all over again in my dreams.

I feel that protective of Mason?

Today, I'd heard the story of how Mason came to be injured, intentionally, by Adam. Mason never made any attempt to charm or present himself falsely, which Adam certainly did. More than anyone left alive, Mason knew what a fraud Adam was, and I was learning.

For years, Genomex mythology indicated Mason's health was balanced on a knife-edge. Yes, I probably am that protective, knowing now his vulnerabilities are not exaggerated.

I fell asleep thinking these thoughts in the chair facing out Mason's only window.

How much time passed I don't know. The night was overcast, so I could not gauge time from the stars.

I did not waken when the outer doors sealed behind Mason, but I did hear him walk to the bedroom, stop, and not move on for several moments. I wasn't fully awake, but I did hear him remove his coat and hang it in the closet. The lighting was dim inside the suite, and when he came to stand in front of the window, he did not see me curled up in the chair. He stared out into the darkness, into a world in which he lived but could never belong.

Then it struck me: he believes I've gone home. There weren't any other places I could be in his compact, personal world.

"Mason?"

He spun about, obviously startled. "I thought you left."

"No. I said I'd be here." I pulled myself upright in the chair. "What time is it?"

"3.45. I am exhausted. Adam and his kiddies like to conduct their business late at night in noisy bars…fortunately, I can sit at the center of my web and send agents into those places. I don't handle crowds well at all. Never have."

"Mason, what is it?" Even in poor light, something in the eyes, something in the voice…

"I expected you to be gone. I expected to be abandoned."

"I'm not in the habit of making promises I do not intend keeping."

"I know that. I'm stunned that you're here. And I'm surprised how much of myself I've already…invested."

"Are you scared by that?" I asked.

"Yes."

"We're even."

Late in the morning on Monday, I was called to the front desk for a package delivery. I hadn't ordered anything that would not come UPS or truck, and thus, be deposited on the dock, so I was surprised when the receptionist smiled broadly and handed a large bunch of carnations to me.

I had forgotten about Mason's promise, but he hadn't.

I trimmed the stems and placed the carnations in several 1000 mL Erlenmeyer flasks.

Samihah came by my lab just prior to lunch, which she frequently did, especially if the autoclaves near her lab were venting and reeking.

I was putting an autoinjector tower back together at my desk when she walked in, and saw the carnations.

"Oh, Rebecca. Very nice." She studied them a moment longer, waiting until I turned to face her. Then she smiled slyly, and asked, "Nicely done?"

"You're not guessing, are you?"

"Of course not. I told you before what I believed."

"Let's go to lunch."

"This has no parallel in Genomex mythology, Rebecca!"

"I can believe that."

"You are blushing! How charming. Too many American women would not blush at anything. I told you he was human." She looked back at the carnations as we left my lab. "Very human."

I rolled my eyes. Thankfully, Samihah would not say anything to anyone else.

"You're not saying much, Dr Steyn. You are pleased, yes?"

"Yes."

"I hear something more. Some doubt?"

'Not doubt. It just feels peculiar."

"The individual or the attention?"

"Both. I want to run away and hide."

"Don't we all! Rebecca, don't overanalyze things just yet. You do that, you know."

"So many odd things have happened to me."

"This 'Odd Thing' may just suit you perfectly."

"Yes? Go on."

"You're a good deal alike," she laughed.

"Now, most of the people here would take that as the quintessential Genomex insult."

"True! You are both perfectionists, articulate, intolerant of fools…"

"Very true."

"Who else on site could handle the other?" Samihah was having a good time, giggling like a kid.

"A match made in Genomex," I said.

"Are you going to name your first daughter after me?"

"Things have not progressed to that level."

"No? Good, you have some sense. When are you going to see him again?"

"Tonight."

"Tonight! Oh, Monday evening socializing. Oh, my you cannot be without the other's company!"

"Say anything to anyone and I will contaminate all of your cell lines." I was being playful, of course; I knew I could trust Samihah with anything.

"My lips are sealed. But you knew that."

After work, I drove to my condo (collect my mail, pack a few things, check my answering machine, make sure my building was still there…) and over a gourmet nuked single dish dinner, I reflected upon the lunacy of recent days (Days? This was so new it could still be counted off in hours.) and how I had gone from misanthropic recluse to…well, what was I to Mason, and he to me? There was no good answer. If I thought about this for too long, I would become annoyed with myself.

What am I doing? I have no idea.

When I returned to Genomex, I called Mason to warn him I had returned. (Remember, he was always armed, and always prepared in his mind for an attack. I did not wish to be confused for that attack when I came through that door.) then I sat in the silence of the nearly empty parking lot for several moments, wondering once more what I was doing. I still had no answer.

This is so odd.

Mason had already changed into his black pinstripe jimmies with a heavy robe over those.

"Good evening, Rebecca."

He is still surprised to see me come back to him. What will be required to get past that?

We had not seen or talked to one another all day.

"The carnations are lovely, Mason. Thank you."

"You didn't think I'd remember, did you?"

"People don't typically remember me." I smiled.

"I'm not anyone typical."

"No. You're not."

I showered and put on my jimmies and bathrobe, and dried my hair as best I could with a towel.

I've got to talk to him about the temperature in here. This is not at all the social even Samihah imagines. Or that anyone could imagine.

Three steps back into the main living area, Mason ambushed me with a glass of…champagne.

"We're celebrating?" I asked.

"Not exactly."

I took a good look at what he had given me: champagne in a plastic glass.

"Stylish crystal pattern, Mason."

He smirked. "Orrefors custom work."

I rolled my eyes and took a sip. "Are you feeding me ethanol in the hope of a fortuitous outcome?" I was being playful. I walked over to the window, taking in the dark green waters of the lake.

Mason picked up his glass and followed me. "Well, no, but I'll keep the thought in mind." He stood behind me, gently gathering me close by folding his arms across me, just below my shoulders.

I was surprised but I did not flinch.

"No, the champagne is for me. I'm trying to find courage."

"Courage? You?"

"There are serious things I must tell you. I'm fearful of losing you once you hear them."

"That bad?"

"Yes. I thought about it all day…not telling you, or telling you any later, would be neither right nor fair."

He put his head on my right shoulder, face pointed away from me. He wasn't expecting anything good from this. I could hear it in his voice and feel it in the way he was holding me.

"I'm stronger than you might realize."

"I recognize your strength. I admire it. It's your inherent goodness that concerns me."

"I've done a few interesting things just to survive, Mason. Things I don't like to remember or talk about."

'I don't doubt it. You could not begin to understand me if you did not know what crossing over the lines was like. But you've never done anything akin to what I've done. He released me. "Wait here." He retrieved the bottle of champagne.

"Most men resent my strength," I said.

Mason returned to the window, and sat down in the floor. I sat down facing him.

"I know. I've seen it. They resent you because they're invertebrate weaklings and you're not, never have been and never will be. I just hope you're strong enough to cope with what I'm going to tell you." He refilled our glasses.

"I've done many terrible things, Rebecca. I'm fearful that if you knew the whole of them…you would care for me no more, that no one could."

I tried to lighten the moment. "I don't have any illusions about the nature of what you do, Mason. I've known for some time that more went on at Genomex than the annual report implied. I've watched and listened carefully since my first day. I've pieced together quite a lot since 1992."

What would his enemies have thought if they saw him at that moment, full of self-doubt? Probably none of them could imagine Mason questioning himself.

"You don't know everything I've done. Some days I think that Genomex must screen to selectively hire gossips."

"I've probably heard the stories."

"You have not heard these. I've buried them with care. You may have heard suspicions of them. That's why I would prefer telling you now than have you discover the truth later."

"Mason, I know where a lot of bodies are buried. I'm not a gossip. People tend to confide in me because I can keep my mouth shut and not tell tales. Sometimes they tell me things I wish I had never heard. I once went shopping with a woman friend of mine. I worked with her husband, and had known them both for years. I liked them both. I envied them for having what seemed to be a solid relationship. This shopping expedition turned into an extended confession. For hours, she went on about the affair she was having, in great detail. By telling me any of it, she made me part of the deception of her husband."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. I treated the conversation as if it had never happened, except that my estimation of her was never the same, and I felt badly for her husband. I never told anyone. She never mentioned it again; I was grateful for that. Some things should remain secrets."

"I don't want you to hear these things from anyone else. Better for me to tell you willingly, freely, rather than have you piece together rumors, whispers, and lies."

"Then tell me."

"Paul Breedlove saved my life after the 'accident' many times. He may have been an old Nazi, and his lax attitude towards Adam may have made Adam what he is, but without Breedlove's genius and creativity, I would be dead. Do you remember the talk I gave after the Archives section burned to the ground?"

"Yes, of course."

"The talk was a lie, a fraud. Breedlove was murdered by a Genomex-created mutant. That part is true. However, he was one of my agents, and the deed was done at my direction, in my presence."

He was watching my face carefully, trying to determine my reaction. Fortunately, I had schooled myself to a degree of control nearly the equal of his own. Breedlove had not been a friend of mine, but he had hired me, and treated me fairly most of the time. Mason's confession was stunning.

"Mason, why?"

"Do you hate me now?"

"No." I reached out and stroked the strange white hair and the biopolymer covered side of his face. "But I do need to hear your explanation."

"I'm not proud of this, Rebecca. I am not a nice man. But there are tasks for which nice men are not suited, and the job I do is one of them."

I harbored no illusions about Mason Eckhart. He was brilliant, complex, layered, and very damaged emotionally. I could not abandon him now, just as he opened his heart.

"You would not hurt me, would you? Or Grey? Or Deirdre and Michelle?"

He didn't hesitate to answer. "I would protect my children or you with my life."

"I know." I knew the truth of it as I said it, even though it hadn't occurred to me before.

"As long as Paul was actively involved in the daily operations of Genomex, I don't believe he reflected on the nature or implications of the work he did with Adam. As he withdrew and left more and more of the decisions to me, he had more time to think, and the conclusions he reached were not pleasant."

"Go on about Breedlove. I need to know the why of this. There must be a why."

Mason controlled his emotions carefully. Observing him casually, one could conclude that he had none. In a society ever more bland and accepting of anything, many people had no strong beliefs because they honestly believed all things equal. Not Mason. Whatever he believed right or true, he held deeply and passionately. The mask of his persona hid a highly emotional nature. More than most people, mason knew exactly who he was and what he felt and believed.

"After a lifetime at or beyond the ethical boundaries of human medicine, Breedlove's guilt began to overwhelm him. He planned to go to the press and make public everything that had been done at Genomex. The whole world would have known of the existence of mutants, their powers, their misuse of those powers, and the long-term genetic implications."

"There would have been an uproar," I said. "Panic in the streets. People are irrational about genetic manipulation. Shipments of genetically engineered food have been refused by starving nations. People would have been hurt or killed if they were suspected of being mutants."

"Yes," he nodded.

"Did you try to talk him out of it?"

"Of course. By this time, Paul's accumulated guilt outweighed any rationality. By telling the world of his sins and misdeeds, he could feel some slight virtue, but the rest of us, the people charged with cleaning up his mess would have been a nightmarish task. Unfortunately, there was no dissuading him of this public revelation."

"So you decided to kill him?"

"I had a particularly violent bodyguard at the time. The initial idea came from him. He was a telekinetic. I never saw anyone enjoy hurting people as much as Frank Thorne. A very sick man. He did the actual killing, but I was standing a few feet away. Thorne was so crazy he would have done the deed himself, but I decided that if I was going to order a man killed, I was going to have the stomach to stand there and watch."

"And the fire was set to cover up the crime?"

"Yes. I started the fire."

I sat silently. Telling the story of Breedlove's murder, Mason had lightened the burden he carried, and passed along some of the poison to me, where it would lodge forever in my heart. I was disturbed by his grim revelation.

"Rebecca. Say something. Please."

"I won't pretend that I approve of it or like it, but your secret's safe with me. As you are, though I'm not much one for darkness."

Mason sighed. I had not run away, but I knew more was coming. I could tell he was bracing himself for the telling.

"I'm not done. There is more. Another killing."

"Tell me."

"I had a man working for me, a canine feral. Things went very wrong. I was vexed. I poisoned him. He collapsed on the floor in front of me within seconds."

"How badly had he fouled up?"

"Not that badly. I was at fault as much as anyone. I wasn't thinking clearly."

"Why did you poison him?"

"As near as I can sort it out, I did it because I could."

More dark poison for the heart, concentrated sticky, guilty darkness to cling to the soul forever. Now it belonged to me as well.

"Mason, that's horrible." I wasn't going to lie to him.

"Yes. It was."

"Does anyone else know?" I asked.

"No."

"This secret is mine alone?"

He nodded.

"Is there any more?" Please, God, let this be the limit of these obscenities.

"No."

I was glad of that.

"I believe you are essentially a good man to whom terrible things have happened. I believe you have dedicated your life to a demanding and noble cause. But along the way, you've become a little lost."

"Sometimes I believe this job is destroying me. Between the duties and the people, sometimes I know I'm lost. I'm not making excuses for myself."

"I know you're not. I've never listened to such confessions. More than most of the people I work with, I have a good idea what really goes on here. My work supports the 'black' projects, too. I review summarized data from the entire site and some of the satellite facilities. But I'm not sure I could handle any more darkness."

I'm not sure you could, either, Mason. The strain of telling was obvious.

"Then there won't be any." He sounded certain.

"Are you sure?"

"I swear it."

"Have you considered leaving Genomex and the GSA?"

"Many times. My medical requirements could be met elsewhere, at a different federal agency. Or, with money from the settlement and accumulated pay –I have few expenses—I could duplicate this habitat privately."

"Why do you continue?"

"I don't believe anyone else would pursue this task with the seriousness and dedication it deserves. Many people have difficulty planning for the next week. Imagining humanity in fifteen generations, facing extinction, is beyond the capacity of all but a few specialists."

"Yes. I can understand that." He was correct. Long range thinking was not a commonplace habit.

"Explaining the implications to a post-literate, technologically ignorant society is all but impossible. They are unreasoning about genetically modified tomatoes."

"So, you feel compelled to take up the task yourself. I'm not mocking you. I find it admirable, virtuous, ambitious—and unreasonable."

"You are the only person on earth who perceives me in the terms I perceive myself."

"You're no monster."

"Even after what I've told you?"

"You are no monster. Better the Prince to be feared than loved, Mason, but generate that fear non-lethally."

Mask removed, Mason gave the impression of profound remorse and regret.

"I find it hard to believe you're still here listening to me."

"Why?" I asked.

"Spoken out loud, my sins sound so much worse."

"I'm horrified and disturbed by what you've told me. Breedlove's killing, well, that makes a desperate kind of sense. However…poisoning the other does not. You've made me part of that now. But I don't think you would have told me if you did not have some trust and faith that I would listen carefully, and afterwards, be strong enough not to abandon you."

"That's true. You're very strong and tough, and I mean that in a flattering way, not to imply you are masculine or coarse, because you are neither."

"You did the right thing to tell me." Fleetingly, I wondered if this knowledge put me at risk. From Mason. Then I dismissed the thought as quickly as it came to me.

"Unburdening myself this way was selfish, but if you found out any other way, you would feel deceived, betrayed, and duped."

"Trust is everything."

"Yes." He took up my right hand, kissed the back of it lightly, then lifted my hand to my face, gently pressing it against my lips before releasing it. "I will try to be worthy of your trust, Rebecca. I know what it is like to have one's trust and faith shattered."

"There is much about you to like and admire. Why did you have to murder this man? You cannot murder people because they displease you. Mason, if you had to, how would you explain this to Grey?"

He thought for a moment. "There is no 'explanation'. What I did was wrong." He wore his pain transparently.

What would his enemies have thought of him at this moment, repentant, striving to build trust with another person?

"Am I going to lose you over this," he asked.

"No. My concern is being taken for granted. You've seen my work for years. I'm reliable and dependable. I have to be to live up to my own standards. One thing I have never understood about people is the way people like me tend to be taken for granted, while the erratic ones, the ones who may or may not deliver, tend to get all the attention. Mason, I never take good people for granted. They are too rare. You must never take me for granted, although I don't believe you would do that."

"I cannot imagine anyone taking you for granted."

I shrugged. "Some people believe they are owed special consideration without doing anything to earn it."

No one who had ever received Mason's infamous shark-eye glares would have believed it possible, but he looked…vulnerable. I wished I felt free enough to gather him up and hold, to assure him he would not lose me over confessed sins of the past, but only over a hypothetical act against me, a betrayal, a deception, a calculating use of me. I lacked the courage to take that risk.

Mason then almost smirked. "The least-deserving frequently possess the most grandiose expectations."

"Do you think I would be here if I did not find your companionship special? I enjoy my own company very much. I prefer being by myself to being in ordinary, predictable company. Steve and I are eight years apart; it's as if we're both onlies. I've been alone all my life, Mason. I am choosing to be here."

"But you were married for four years."

I shook my head. "I was never more alone. Jeff had a pleasant façade and nothing inside. That's the abridged version…and all I care to remember at present."

Jeff was not a story I often chose to relive. Mostly I tried to forget we shared the same planet. My sister-in-law Sherri still schemed to get us back together. Sherri watched too much television.

"No one's ever stood up for you and protected you, have they?"

"Professionally, yes. Personally, never."

"With your permission, I would change that."

How easy to sit safely at a distance and say I was wrong to linger with him but that is all too glib.

I'm not excusing Mason's murder of Aldous Berkeley. There is no excusing the act. But Mason had been through enough personal hells…and so had I. I wasn't going to compound the misery.

"I'm not going anywhere, Mason."

I don't think he expected that. He looked surprised.

"No?"

"Not tonight. Probably not ever."

Outside, night had fully fallen.

I was exhausted. Careful listening could be hard work. I turned from Mason, and leaned against the glass, and closed my eyes.

"You look tired."

"Suddenly, I've come up empty. And you?"

"I cannot believe I've done the telling."

"And lightning failed to strike."

There was a gap between my question and his reply.

'Yes."

"I was surprised by the sound of his voice, because it was so much closer than I had anticipated. I flicked my eyes open briefly, confirming what I already knew. Noiselessly, he had moved, sliding next to me, nearly touching.

"Where did you learn to be so quiet?"

"Prowling around this place late at night."

"That must be really creepy."

"It is. Breedlove –and Adam—were both afraid of the light. They burrowed several levels down, hiding their work as far as they could from the sunlight."

"How much of this material is still in existence?" I asked.

"Most of it, except for the…human remains. Breedlove and Adam left them there like garbage. I consulted with a Roman Catholic priest, and others, then had the remains cremated, and buried decently."

"I'd like to see what's left."

"It's spooky, but safe enough. I'll show you."

"Someone besides you needs to see it."

"True enough. I've copied the key documents, scanned them into assorted hard drives, and hidden both copies and hard drives behind these walls…and in other places. Someday, not today, the truth will need to be widely known. I've taken great care to preserve it."

"Could you try not to look so grim?"

In a more perfect world, I would have been properly horrified by the story of Aldous Berkeley's poisoning, broken off with Mason, found another job, and gone to the police and divulged what I knew about a murder.

The world is far from perfect. I had good reason to believe Mason had covered his involvement carefully so that there was no linking him to the poisoning. There may not have been a body or even a record of a person called Aldous Berkeley.

This line of thought implies that I acted out of fear of Mason, which is false.

Mostly, I acted to protect him. I've never been afraid of him.

Neither of us were trusting people, for good reasons from our pasts. If anything, Mason was more damaged than me, since I did not have the physical problems that burdened his daily routine. I hadn't trusted another human being for years and neither had Mason. We had built up a fragile, tentative trust. If that was destroyed, I might trust again some distant day, but I knew Mason never would, and he would be justified.

So, within the imperfections of the real world, I stayed on.

Absolutely everyone believed that Mason never left Genomex save in the company of several armed GSA agents. There was no reason to believe otherwise.

So, one Saturday morning when he announced, "I need to do shopping for Deirdre and Michelle," I assumed he meant shopping of the online sort. I was wrong.

When he emerged after a clothing change, in worn blue jeans, wire rim glasses, and a dark brown, shorter hair wig, the transformation was complete.

"You look surprised," he said.

"I am."

"Good. This possibility is not hinted at in the company lore, is it?" he asked.

"Definitely not."

"Listen carefully: if I am seen like this inside Genomex, I identify myself as Martin Ertel. I carry Genomex ID confirming that. Martin even has a lab in an obscure corner of the facility, a name by the door, and an email account. I've made him as real as possible. If someone sees you with 'Martin Ertel', that's who you say you were with."

"Does Ertel get his own paycheck, too?"

"Directly deposited. Since Ertel reports to me, no one questions anything about him. If he seems never to be in his lab, he is assumed to be in the field. For the benefit of anyone watching me, Martin and I communicate a lot by email."

"Nicely done."

Mason laughed.

For the twins' birthday, he wanted to personally select presents, not buy something out of a catalogue.

The girls were too young at the time of Incident X to have any memory of their father. All of their ideas about him had been gleaned from email and a webcam image. They knew his voice. They knew what he looked like now. I'd seen him spend hours every week with both of them.

They were aware of his health problems, naturally, but how strange it must be to know your father only electronically.

The arrangement seemed less awkward over time. Mason spent more hours with the twins than most of the guys I worked with spent with their children.

How was it this man could do murder? The poisoning of Aldous Berkeley still haunted me.

Upon returning to Genomex, I noted Dr Mayakovsky across the parking lot returning to his car.

Mason laughed. "By 10.30 Monday, nearly everyone in R & D will know you were seen entering the building with an unknown man. We should get your story organized. As soon as Mayakovsky tells him, Dr Harrison will come flittering into my office about a possible security breach. I'll pull up the keycard records, and Ertel's name, and assure him that you and Ertel both have legitimate reasons for being in the facility on weekends. Harrison will be deeply annoyed that there is no cause for concern, and bound back to Mayakovsky bearing Ertel's name. By 1 PM, be ready for rude questions from the unmannered."

"Mayakovsky is a pig."

"You're too kind to him." Mason smirked.

"Interesting menagerie Breedlove assembled here when he hired all of us. Do you have many more secrets akin to this alter ego?"

"Not many…a few more small secrets. This site hides quite a history."

"What would you like to do about Adam?"

"Interesting question…given all of my wishes, public disgrace would be a good beginning, not just for his ill-conceived science but for the way he has used individuals from the Genomex program to further his goals. I'm certain the current Mutant X 'team' has never been told that Adam fielded earlier 'teams' under different names, and that those individuals all disappeared from sight, with no explanation offered. Adam has the financial resources to support a 'team' three or four times the current four mutants. This would make much sense in terms of cross-training. But with a small group, it is easier to control memory of the past. Adam can tell these people anything, and they will believe him. If he had 12-16 people in his group, they would be far more prone to question him and recall the past."

"Adam's approach sounds suspiciously like a cult."

"His recruits are selected on the basis of emotional dependence upon him. Adam requires people who will drink the Kool-Aid without thinking."

"Where does Adam get his money? He never struck me as pragmatic enough to accumulate much cash."

"I could never find proof that would hold up in a trial, but I am convinced that he embezzled some of the money. Breedlove always defended Adam. I found irregularities which pointed to Adam going back into the 1980s but Paul always discouraged my looking too closely. Adam could do very little wrong in Paul's eyes. Breedlove's relationship with Adam was more that of father and son than of professional colleagues. Or more like creator and creation. Paul protected Adam several times when the same behavior would have brought about anyone else's dismissal."

"Perhaps that explains Adam's affinity for the felon in his group."

"Perhaps it does. I hadn't thought of that. Good catch."

"What is Adam going to do when he runs out of money? Just keeping the Double Helix aloft is pricey; it must drink gallons per mile."

"Good question. If he did not come by the money legitimately, there is no reason to believe the flow of cash can continue. I also have suspicions about a handful of people in finance. I have watched their careers and think they are likely to be mutants. They have obscured their original identifies, but with Adam's contacts, he could find them no matter how well they hid themselves. I think he receives "donations" from them to maintain the so-called safe houses and support Adam's daily operations. Such "donations" are little more than blackmail."

"Adam didn't fool many people here."

"No. But as long as Breedlove backed him, that did not matter. Very frustrating, watching Adam get away with uncounted sins and Breedlove overlooking nearly all of them. Adam and Breedlove must have had some connection that none of us understands yet. Whatever the explanation might be, I'd still like to know if Adam is human…or otherwise."

Mason was correct about the gossip mill. Once again, Samihah informed me what was going on at the edges of my universe.

"FYI. I'm not forwarding this to anyone but you. I thought you should know."

Mayakovsky had been a busy boy. Samihah's email forward contained the basic story—not much of a story—of my being recognized taking an unknown man into Genomex.

I forwarded the email to Mason, who replied almost immediately. As he predicted, Harrison had reported a security breach and seemed disappointed when shown keycard data identifying the 'security breach' involved a long-term Genomex employee. Mason said he thanked Mayakovsky by email for being observant and concerned.

At that point I sent Samihah email with the story about 'Ertel's' car being in a body shop and that I had given him a ride to the facility. I doubted she would pass that back to Mayakovsky unless asked directly, but it was best to leave a trail which matched the one Mason had made.

I was surprised to realize how much I was enjoying the subterfuge and deception. Perhaps Mason was correct about my talents.

In late morning, one of Mayakovsky's assistants dropped by my office to discuss some samples.

Melinda Schlachter found Mayakovsky professionally capable, but personally a buffoon. As she filled out the request form, she giggled, and said, "Dr M was convinced he had dirt on you this morning. He even talked Harrison into seeing Eckhart about it."

"What?"

"He saw you admitting someone he didn't recognize into the building. He was crushed when he found out the guy was another employee."

"Martin Ertel. His car was being worked on and he needed to check on some things in his lab, so he asked me for a ride."

"Dr M must have burned an hour trying to find someone who had talked to Ertel, someone who knew him."

"I think he travels a lot," I said.

"Who's his boss?"

"He reports directly to Eckhart."

"Lucky man." She rolled her eyes.

"Well, Mayakovsky has to know everything about everybody. He was damn curious. It was entertaining to watch him frustrated."

"Maybe sometime you should ask him what he knows about Adam."

"Wow, where did that come from?" Melinda flashed a wide, surprised smile.

Everyone knew the subject of Adam was a sensitive one with Mason, so Adam's name was rarely spoken. Most employees protected themselves by never mentioning Adam's name at all. Saying anything might have been a mistake, but maybe Mayakovsky could be useful. He had been at Genomex almost as long as Mason and he had to know a lot about Adam.

"Ever worked with anybody else who had only a first name?" I asked.

"You have a point. Mentioning Adam within these walls is touchy business. Eckhart is nutty on the subject of Adam, probably with good reason."

Like a lot of people who used to work with him, Melinda was not a fan of Adam.

"I've heard the same stories. I just wonder if you boss knows something he hasn't gotten around to sharing. Mayakovsky was here in the "old days" when Adam and Eckhart were supposedly friends."

Melinda giggled. "I'll try. But I'll have to be careful. I don't want to draw Eckhart's attention."

Drawing Eckhart's attention at Genomex was almost always a negative. Melinda was a good worker and didn't have anything to worry about. Stories were told about Mason turning wrathful at the mention of Adam's name. I understood Melinda's caution. I nodded in silent agreement.

Melinda continued. "I had a one on one conference with him three years ago about a proposed project. Two hours and forty minutes alone with Eckhart. Well, he's very intelligent and if you stick to business, surprisingly polite, but he creeped me out. He's just a little too strange."

Well, Melinda, what would you think of my sharing the man's bed nightly? Willingly. Joyfully.

"He's different." I did not trust myself to say anything more.

"This entire outfit is peculiar." Melinda giggled. "It's been that way since I started here."

I laughed. What she said was true. "Some of the oddest people I've ever known I've met as coworkers in labs. Most of the rest were assigned roommates during my undergraduate days. Sometimes I wonder what became of those people, such as the nursing student who believed in astrology but not science."

Melinda shook her head. "If I find out anything about Adam, I'll be sure to share."

"Thanks."

The topic of Adam came up much sooner than I anticipated.

Adam and his pitiful little band of pathetic followers had invaded the Genomex facilities in the past, but my labs were well removed from areas that held their interest. Nothing my section did was of much interest to him.

After a morning of mind-melding with chromatography software, I needed to get up and walk around. I created the mental excuse of needed more quadrille pads from supplies. Pads in hand, I took the long route back, which had the attraction of offering ceiling to floor windows. Sometimes I just needed to see the outside world.

I nearly collided with Adam. He was wearing sunglasses indoors, as if that was an effective disguise.

"Rebecca."

We had not spoken in years.

"Returning to the scene of your crimes, Adam?"

His smile evaporated. While I worked with Adam, I took great care never to step outside my corporate persona. He had known me to be blandly businesslike. My question, with its implied knowledge was a surprise. I was not only older now, but more confident, with Mason's attitude towards Adam internalized and made my own.

"So quiet Rebecca harbors an attitude after all."

There weren't any offices nearby. How was I going to report this invasion?

"You're very tiresome," I said. I turned and tried to casually walk away.

"I can't let you wander off now. You're going to have to come with me." He grabbed my right arm.

"Are you threatening me?" I managed my best glare.

"You've become quite the handful. I had no idea you had this in you."

"You have a lot to learn about a lot of things," I told him.

Adam twisted my right arm. The pain was intense, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he was hurting me.

"Ever the gentleman, aren't you? You can inflict pain on a woman. I'm impressed."

"You're beginning to sound like someone else I know. Time to get moving, Rebecca. You've wasted too much of my time already."

A tall man affecting the dress of the young while on the threshold of turning to fat sauntered towards us. I recognized Adam's not so bright electrical mutant follower.

"Who's this?" the tall, dull-eyed mutant asked.

"Someone who knows me from the old days at Genomex," Adam said.

"Someone who knows you for the dishonest sleaze you are, personally and professionally, someone always less than awed by you professionally and personally.."

Brennan Mulwray looked stunned. Probably he was accustomed to hearing only fawning worship of Adam.

We would be passing close to a fire alarm. I ceased my struggle against Adam, hoping that he would relax his grip…if I was quick enough, I might be able to activate the alarm, which in turn would activate cameras in this area, and bring security.

"You always were a pain, Rebecca."

"I think you mean I've always been honest. I had a job to do supporting all of R&D, not just you. Interesting that Breedlove back me and not you."

"He was well on the way to becoming an old fool."

"Adam, why is it that anyone who disagrees with you is a fool or a sociopath?"

"You have been talking to the wrong people. I heard about your little medical adventure with Mason Eckhart. You need to learn to exercise greater selectivity in the people you help. A lot of people would have been pleased to see him die. You should have allowed him to thrash against the furniture. He could have had multiple concussions from the description I was given, but Rebecca had to meddle. Mason's a sad little damaged man who should have died years ago. You had to give him another extension to his miserable life."

I wrenched half-free of Adam, gaining just enough freedom of movement to pull the fire alarm and set all kinds of things in motion.

Adam was predictably enraged. He pulled me back from the wall, wrenching my arm in the process.

"Shouldn't have done that, Rebecca." Clearly he was unaccustomed to people acting against his wishes.

With my free hand, I swiped at Adam, connecting with his lower chin. I keep my nails short, but they are thin and very sharp. I was pleased to see that I had drawn blood, which meant I had scraped a layer of skin under my nails.

"Nasty!" Adam pushed me to the floor. "Zap her, Brennan!"

Brennan followed his master's bidding, and zapped me with an electrical charge that threw me several yards down the corridor, until I glanced off a concrete wall. For a moment, I tried to move, but the main was too intense. I lay there still as I could.

Adam and Brennan ran off. I listened to their footsteps fade away, and then to the approach of many more people, probably security. I hurt far too badly to turn my head and watch their approach.

I was starting to ache all over, probably because the immediate threat had passed. I knew help was coming, so I simply lay there quietly, hoping I wasn't bleeding to death internally too quickly for medical attention to make a difference.

Armed security reached me first, then a group of office workers. I'm not sure which group summoned the paramedics, but I heard a man make the phone call. Dr Hibbing arrived soon afterward.

Mason's office was some distance from this corridor. He was the only person I wanted to see besides Dr Hibbing or Samihah.

I heard Mason before I saw him. The gathering crowd parted before him, without him saying a word. He had that effect upon people. He did not care to be touched by most people, and most people did not wish to be touched by him.

He kneeled next to me where I could see him. "You must have pulled the fire alarm."

"Yes."

"I watched what happened afterward."

I could read him now, right through the exterior persona. He was horrified. I wondered how bad I looked.

I stretched out my left hand. "The blood and tissue under my nails belong to Adam. I thought you would find this an interesting sample."

"Gathered at what cost to you?"

"Remove it before it's contaminated."

The fallen quadrille pads were scattered close by. He took one sheet, and folded it to form a sharp-edged tool, scraping tissue from beneath my nails, also giving him a plausible reason to be holding my hand in front of a gathering crowd of employees.

"The answers might be interesting but he's a volatile, emotional creature. You took a dangerous risk," Mason said.

He folded the gathered sample carefully inside of another sheet of paper, tucking that carefully into a pocket. He took up my hand again.

You're betraying yourself in front of all these people. Is that wise? Hmm. People see what they expect to see. These people won't see the obvious.

"Asking how you feel seems pointless," he said.

"Everything, everywhere hurts. I scared. I hit that wall fast and hard."

"I saw it."

"I'm afraid I'm bleeding internally."

"Adam has reached a new low point in his conduct. I did not think it possible." Mason sounded restrained, but I could tell he was deeply angry. He turned to Dr Hibbing.

Hibbing shook his head. "The best thing is get you to an emergency room. I see not external bleeding, no indication of serious injury."

I wondered if he was just trying to keep up my spirits, but no, he wouldn't be less than fully honest in front of Mason.

I managed a weak smile. "I want Adam's teeth for cufflinks. Brennan's, too. Could you get them for me?"

Mason smirked, fleetingly, then looked up and saw the paramedics arriving.

"I'll certainly try. I have to seal my office but I'll be along shortly. I have to get out of the way of the paramedics."

"Could you retrieve my wallet from my desk, and lock my office?"

"Yes. Two agents are going with you now. Adam is unbalanced. I'm not going to gamble and assume that he's gone until the entire site is scoured."

The paramedics moved quickly , securing me to a stretcher, on the way out the door and into an emergency room.

The good news was that I was bruised in a lot of places and my muscles ached from Brennan's electrical discharge. Fortunately my injuries were assumed to be the result of a lab accident, and I did not have to describe the actions of the shocking Brennan Mulwray.

I was propped up in a hospital bed, feeling all soft and fuzzy from strong painkillers. Everything, from my pillow to the bed railing to Mason's gloved hand felt soft and indistinct.

"Do you really think you should be here, Mason, now that you know I'm not going to croak?"

"Ashamed of me?" Mostly, he was playing, but a fraction of the question was firmly rooted in his insecurity.

"I'm concerned some hospital Bacillus from Hell will find you. Hospitals breed virulence."

He was always surprised when anyone showed any personal consideration for his well-being. With me, at least, he was not suspicious of my motivations.

"No one dragged me here. I'm where I want to be. Dr Shah is very worried about you. She was relieved when I explained the nature of your injuries."

"And where's Adam?"

"Gone to ground." Mason sounded annoyed. "He's making this very personal."

"Why was he in the building? Does anyone know?"

"No. I'm concerned. I have no idea what he was after."

"How did he get away?"

"In his very own VTOL stealth aircraft. He can come and go almost anywhere at will. I'm surprised he has never tried bombing Genomex."

"So he has to be caught on the ground?"

"Even full of painkillers, you still have the mind for this. Yes, he and his followers have to be seized on the ground."

"Consider baiting a trap for him with a temptation he could not dismiss or ignore."

"And what would that be?"

"You know him."

"Bait that Adam could not resist…"

"Buried deceptively deep. Make it look easy to steal."

"Adam can be very lazy. He makes his followers work hard, while asking next to nothing of himself."

"If he's going to send in surrogates, then they can lead you back to the place where Adam hides. There has to be a way. Heat signatures from an infrared satellite. There has to be a way, or ways."

"You really want those cufflinks, don't you?" he asked, smirking.

"Very much so. Adam's made things very personal for me."

After a lot of imaging and after being nearly sucked dry of blood, I was finally released.

Mason had sent his agents home hours before, (What kinds of places did guys like that call home, anyway? Was there a strange kind of boardinghouse that catered to them? Did they have a barracks somewhere? And where did one recruit these guys? And could any of them speak?) leaving behind one of the black Isuzus.

None of them questioned whether Mason had a driver's license. Recall that he was believed to never leave Genomex without plenty of armed company. I knew he had one (and so did Martin Ertel) because I'd been with him when he renewed it.

After today, some of the assumptions people held about Mason would come into question. He had displayed concern for another human being, something he was believed never to do. Worse, he had shown concern for a woman, and that made him look human. The gossips would have no lack of fodder tomorrow, or even tonight, since they could be trading personal email and making phone calls.

"I'm concerned," I said, buckling myself in. "I'm sure a lot of people went home today trying hard to recall what comments about you they had made in my presence and whether or not they would still have a job by week's end."

"You haven't been ratting out these disloyal snakes all along?"

He was playing.

"I've been there when you walked in on tale-telling, and I never heard of anything coming of your hearing."

"All I needed to do was throw them a threatening glare. If one chooses to rule by fear, one should expect also to be the subject of stories. Plenty of stories. Some created and encouraged by me."

"Well, I am now on the periphery of that. I keep confidences. I don't pass along gossip. Up until today, I believe I had the reputation of being honest and trustworthy. People will wonder now how much, if anything, I funneled your way, and how much, if any, influence I have with you. I will go from being Good Old Reliable Rebecca to Still Waters Run Deep Rebecca With An Unexpected Ally."

"Enjoy the intrigue. Carry on as always."

"I will. But there is more. How will employee perceptions of you change after today? What effect that will have upon your control of the organization?"

"I will have to be extra tough on everyone…take a lot of strolls through Mayakovsky's section, for example. Make sure he gets something done. I've sold Dr Harrison's division. I've looked forward to sealing the deal and telling Harrison he has one hour to remove himself from my sight forever."

"You've shown you're human. Tossing a few fraught-with-meaning glares at slackers will not set the clock back 24 hours."

"There is something else to think about, which is that you will now be under scrutiny. Mayakovsky and his ilk will figure out that your car is always in the parking lot not only before dawn, but way before dawn, since the previous evening."

"That, too."

"Association with me makes you a target, not just of gossips, but of Adam."

"You are accustomed to acting freely without considering anyone else. Can you change? That's always been a strength, an invulnerability."

"I'll have to change how I think and how I conduct myself. Now you know why I pretend to have no contact with my children. For several minutes this afternoon, I learned what I would feel if you were taken from me. When I left my office, I thought you were dead."

"Moving hurt too much. Some pain is punching right through the painkillers." I tried to smile.

"I think we should marry."

"Shall I presume you mean to each other?" I was playing, but Mason looked serious.

"Of course." He wasn't playing.

"Terrifying prospect." I wasn't playing.

"I cannot see how I am like anyone else who left scars upon you in the past."

His self-assessment was completely correct.

"You're serious."

"Absolutely serious. I can easily invoke more protection for a wife, justify your training at the GSA range, and license for you to carry."

"Very romantic. Right now, my thoughts are so soft and fluffy I would not trust myself to drive. I would not trust myself to push a shopping cart. The medication will have to wear off before I can think."

"Fair enough."

"But even with my thoughts gone all fluffy and indistinct, I'm inclined to be brave and try."

"Really?" Mason was playing.

I avoid prescription medication except in circumstances of obvious need, so they seem to affect me strongly. I felt and sounded far away, not my usual self.

"Yeah. But I want those cufflinks for a wedding present."

"Sounds a little ghoulish to me," he laughed.

"Oh, it's definitely not in the best of taste. Are you familiar with the story of Rosamund and Alboin?"

"No."

"Well, it's a warm and fuzzy tale about Alboin, King of the Lombards, who conquers Rosamund's country, killing her father, the old king of the Gepidae."

"The Gepidae and the Lombards are real enough, but this story is very obscure."

"Absolutely it is. It's the subject of a poem by Algernon Swinburne but told memorably in a Jack Palance movie called "Sword of the Conqueror", which I saw when I was seventeen and never forgot. I've never been able to find a copy of it, and I have looked."

"And you remembered it all this time," he smirked. 'Go on."

"Well, Alboin has some misgivings about Rosamund's loyalty, so he has her drink from a cup made from a skull! A wedding-present skull-cup!"

"Tasteful."

"But that's not the best part! Halfway through, Alboin tells Rosamund that the skull is her father's!"

"Tell me she whacks Alboin over the head with it. Please."

"O, no. Much better than that. She looks Alboin in the eye, and says, "I know". So you see, cufflinks made from Adam's teeth are tame by comparison."

Mason smiled. My brain was packed floor to ceiling with bizarre stories like that of Rosamund and Alboin, and Mason was one of the few people on earth who appreciated them.

"There's a line in the poem that you should put up all over Genomex to shut up all the whiners and complainers. Most of those people have no idea how well-off they are."

"And the line?"

"Let none make moan."

"Do you have any idea how silly the painkillers are making you?"

"Absolutely."

"Are you too silly to look at rings?"

"No. I know what I want. Nothing ordinary."

"Well, of course not! I would expect no ordinary wishes from Rebecca."

I always found diamond engagement rings gaudy. Diamonds aren't rare, anyway, just marketed well. I wanted an emerald.

Afterwards, when the industrial strength opiates had been flushed from my system, it occurred to me that Mason and I must have made a pretty pair. Mason looked bizarre anyway, but I was bruised, my clothes were dirty, and I was bandaged in a few places. Fortunately, we went to a shop where Mason bought good jewelry for the twins and was already known.

I took a few days off after the Adam incident. I stayed in Mason's cave and slept as much as I wanted. My physically and electrically bruised tissue was stiff and sore.

Mason enjoyed fussing over me. No human being had personally depended upon him in more than fifteen years. I enjoyed being fussed over.

"Dr Shah asked about you. She knows precisely where you are, but she never admits it and has great fun talking all around the truth. 'Mr Eckhart, do you know how Rebecca is feeling? I have called her condo repeatedly but she never picks up the phone.' She never breaks into a full smile saying any of this, but her eyes give her away."

"Samihah's a kind, sweet woman. She's also funny. What do you tell her?"

"That I have been told you will be back in your lab in two to three days."

"Which you deliver with a grim, serious demeanor."

"Of course. People would notice if I did things differently."

I was initially self-conscious about wearing my emerald, but since it wasn't a diamond, no one said anything. I was almost disappointed. I realized how much I had wanted someone to notice, which seemed perverse. Only Samihah knew. Samihah knew everything.

Dr Varady wanted to talk to me at the end of my first day back in my lab. Talking to Laura Varady was easy, since her concern was genuine.

"How was it, being back?" she asked.

"I always felt safe here before. I'll never feel safe here again."

"Understandable. What are you going to do about that?"

"Besides indulging in fantasies leaving Adam a bloody heap on the floor, I'm not sure what I can do. Mason has me scheduled for instruction at the GSA range, and issuance of a GSA firearm when I'm qualified. He believes Adam will be back."

I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as I'd called him 'Mason'; I could see it in Varady's eyes. I could also see she wasn't surprised, but she was an astute, observant woman who knew Mason for a long time. I wasn't worried about Laura Varady but about making the same error in front of people who could do some damage.

"Adam's had an amazing run of luck," she said.

"Adam leads a charmed life," I said.

"That comes from being something of a con artist."

"Putting it bluntly."

"Why did Breedlove cut Adam so much slack? He certainly did not assist Adam's personal growth."

Dr Varady laughed at the sarcasm. "The exact nature of the relationship between Adam and Paul was never clear, but it had elements of parent and child. There may have been a biological basis for this, but I have no better information than anyone else. Mason has shared his speculation that Adam might be part human, part machine."

"Adam was antagonistic towards me almost from the start. I never knew why. I was never a threat to his position. I'm a physical scientist, not a life scientist. I've always functioned in a support capacity, not directly in research. The only way I can advance myself beyond the position I hold now would require leaving Genomex."

Varady smiled. "You really don't know, do you?"

"No idea. I just know I started here, and not much later Adam went crazy trying to undermine me. I avoided him. I left him alone. Nothing changed. Adam's craziness continued unabated. To this day, I believe when I caught him going through my desk and purse, I think he took money out of my wallet."

"Is that something Jeff would have done?"

"Yes. A lot of men like to steal things from women. They believe they are owed." I really hadn't wanted to go down this old path. "I could never figure out what Adam wanted to steal from me, except whatever he removed from that wallet."

"You won't ever forget that, will you?"

"No. I should have had the gumption to confront him. He might have been so shocked he might have handed back the cash."

"Adam was making $65,000 in 1992. Do you honestly believe he would take cash from you?"

"It's the thought that counts. For some men, taking $5 from a woman is a trophy. It's the same behavior as pets stealing food from the dinner table. If the same food was offered to them, they probably wouldn't eat it, but when it's stolen, it's desirable."

"Rebecca, Adam was peculiar, but I don't think he was looking for money. He was looking for information about you."

"Why would he do that?" I asked.

"Because you ignored him. Adam, Prince of Genomex, Paul's Obvious Successor, the Smartest Man in the World, Polymath, finally meets a woman worthy of his wonderful self, and she is unimpressed! Adam wasn't used to anyone ignoring him for any reason. After all, why do you think people called him the Prince of Genomex?"

"I must have missed a few chapters, Dr Varady. I don't remember any of that. Men ignore me."

"I don't think you see them paying attention to you. People other than me certainly saw what Adam was doing. When he couldn't get your attention in a positive manner, he tried negativity. And you did notice. Think back to the social customs of thirteen year olds."

"Kid stuff? From Adam?"

"Very much so. But remember whom we're talking about. Adam spent his adolescence in college studying, not in the company of other thirteen year olds. He missed that stage. Would you have behaved differently towards him, had you known?"

"No. I never thought much of Adam personally or professionally. I found him boring, tedious and self-absorbed."

"Don't think he did not realize that. Adam expected worship from all. Your behavior confused and puzzled him. There were lots of women who would cheerfully have become the Princess of Genomex, but they lacked your intellect, character, and l0oks. No one else came close. Adam went through the possible candidates and they came up wanting. Then, in you walked, but you wanted none of him! The gossip mills ground away for months about this. The subject still comes up among the old timers. Seeing Adam not get his way was exhilarating. You cannot imagine how many of us were cheering you on."

Dr Varady found the memory amusing and apparently thought I would be entertained as well, but I merely found it disturbing.

"Hearing this makes me want to stay in my labs and never come out again, except to shower and change clothes."

"Don't hide. You haven't done anything wrong and you're too good of a person to hide. Mason needs you badly."

"Then, why do I want to run away?"

"Fear. A perfectly good reason. Most of us have enough sense to avoid repeating disasters. Some of us prevent repeating mistakes by doing nothing."

"I've had enough pain for the balance of my life. The next person who betrays my trust, well, I try not to think about what might happen. I'm not inclined towards violence or cruelty, but I've had animals murdered and property stolen, all within the bounds of the legal system in this country. None of this will happen again. I will not allow it."

"You've told Mason?"

"Yes."

"Mason is the most rational individual I've ever known. Nothing else could have gotten him through the life he's led. I hope you understand how vulnerable he is. Mason trusts me slightly because I knew him well before the 'accident'. Mason has not invested trust in another human for over fifteen years."

"I've known my share of hurt. I try not to create any fresh pain for anyone."

"I've seen that. You've made all the difference for Samihah Shah since she became widowed. You're a kind, decent woman despite your misfortunes. You could have become something else, you know."

"I chose to become a pleasant semi-recluse."

"But not any longer. Mason has a lot of enemies. Some here, some elsewhere. Some very powerful. They'll become your enemies."

"We've talked about that. I suspect some of them already were my enemies."

"This won't be easy."

"No. If I think too much about what I'm doing, I'll bolt."

"Don't do that."

"What surprises me is that I want another chance at Adam. No one has ever done anything like that to me. I want badly to get the better of Adam. I've never felt this way towards anyone."

I was beginning to understand the loathing Mason felt for Adam. And people thought Mason was arrogant. Adam's ego was boundless.

"Be very careful. Adam probably wants another chance to do ill to you. Adam has years of practice doing violence."

"I want to hurt him. I've never wanted to hurt another human being, Dr Varady. When I knew I had to get away from my ex-husband, after he murdered my cats, I just wanted to get away from him."

"With so much pain in the world, I am always amazed by the willingness of some people to create unnecessary agonies."

The tissues from the face gouging were worked up carefully, and turned out to be highly unusual. There was DNA in common with Paul Breedlove, indicating kinship, but the balance was a puzzle.

"I wonder if Paul Breedlove put something together using bits and chunks of his own DNA and some completely new material?" I had read the report carefully, and was frustrated by the lack of definitive conclusion.

Mason had waited for my comments. "Paul was capable of trying anything. Perhaps Adam isn't quite a machine, but a human based upon natural and synthetic DNA, created the way some extinct species have been brought back using the egg cells of related species."

Several experts independent of Genomex had studied the results and all were puzzled. They agreed the sample reflected some human manipulation, which lent support to the possibility of Adam being an android.

"Given the way he created mutants, doesn't it make sense that Breedlove created other Adams as well?" I asked.

"Other Adams?" Mason clearly had not considered this possibility. "Scary, and distasteful, but plausible."

"Breedlove may have created some Eves as well."

"Breedlove's medical empire extended well beyond Genomex. Lots of surprises could be waiting out there."

I had written a short notice, a very short notice, of our marriage for inclusion in the small-print column of births, deaths, and marriages among Genomex employees and retirees that appeared in the monthly Genomex newsletter mailed to all employees. We had done nothing shameful or wicked, and the prospect of telling employees in a low-key, small print, can-this-be-real-or-is-it-a-joke fashion appealed to Mason's sense of humor and mine. I hand-carried the draft to Mason's office for his approval.

As soon as the door to Mason's office opened, I should have had the presence of mind to turn and run. Instead, I hesitated, trying to make sense of the odd spectacle of Dr Harrison and others whom I did not recognize gloating over Mason, held and pinned up on the glass wall of his office.

Mason looked terrified.

I lingered too long.

In the time that I did not run, the large man with Dr Harrison turned to face me. He knew who I was by reading Mason's mind when the door opened, and in the next moment he forced his way into my mind. Mason had not been able to resist him, not with all his will and strength of mind, and only a formidable telepath could do that.

I don't remember you, but it's enough that you have meaning to him.

Gabriel Ashlocke.

Yes, you know about me.

He telekinetically dragged me through the door, and just into the office, pinning me against the wall.

You cannot save yourself from me, pitiful little human.

Perhaps I cannot, but I'm glad not to be a damned, doomed, diseased freak like you.

In that moment, through Ashlocke's mind, I was linked tenuously with Mason.

Rebecca, he's insane. Don't argue with him. You cannot imagine what he can do.

Listen to Mason. No one on earth can stop me.

I knew the truth of that as soon as he 'said' it.

The two women half-dragged, half-floated Mason down from the wall and out of the office, followed by Dr Harrison.

Shouldn't have thought such bad thoughts about Dr Harrison. He helped make this possible. Ashlocke came and stood over me. You're quite a surprise. I did not think Mason liked anyone anymore. You are full of surprises, Rebecca! You don't even know about this one! You have no idea you're pregnant, do you?

Impossible. I'm too old and Mason's sterile.

That's not the case, but I can undo it.

What do you mean?

You won't have a son much longer. I'll be sure to tell Mason. Ashlocke smirked and left.

At first I believed Ashlocke had been raving. Mental contact with him had been jarring, chaotic, disorderly, without a hint of discipline or conscience. He had somehow left me adhering to the wall. Then suddenly I did not feel so good. As soon as I could pry free of the wall, I made my way to Mason's desk and paged Samihah, and sat down in one of the chairs before the desk. She must have come running, or I blacked out for a time.

"Something is very wrong, Samihah. I want to go to a hospital and I want you to come with me."

Samihah picked up the phone, and bypassed the front desk, summoning emergency services directly. Then she started to half-carry me out of Mason's office. She was a very tough, strong little woman.

"Where is Mr Eckhart?"

"There were some people here with Dr Harrison—mutants—they took Mason prisoner."

"That does not sound good. I've heard stories about Harrison questioning Mr Eckhart's authority. I never did like that odd botanist."

"No."

We made our way to the front entrance, leaving behind a trail of my blood.

Dr Harrison was there, chatting with the receptionist.

"What's this?" he asked, summoning his most imperious air while blocking our path.

"Dr Steyn has taken ill and is going to an emergency room." Typically quiet and compliant Samihah had turned protective. She sounded prepared to claw Ken Harrison's eyes out.

"No one is to leave Genomex without my permission," he insisted.

"She's bleeding, and I don't know why, Dr Harrison. She's going with the EMTs when they get here, and I'm going with her."

Samihah could be very fierce. I had seen this side of her when she made her boys behave, but Dr Harrison had not and was clearly stunned. He turned to me and noted the red trail on the floor.

"Dr Harrison, I have no intention of bleeding to death in the lobby of Genomex. I don't feel so good right now, but I am prepared to do whatever I must to get past you. If I do hemorrhage to death here, I want you know I come from a family full of attorneys who will see you charged with something, and left penniless."

Harrison was an odd character. Mason peddled the division Harrison ran for a long time, just to get rid of him, before finding a buyer willing to pay what the botanical group was worth. Mason wanted to be rid of the Rafflesia flowers and the carnivorous plants. Harrison fed the carnivores live insects; Mason had seen him do it, confirming company lore. There were plenty of other rumors about him as well, more difficult to confirm, about which I did not wish to know any more.

Harrison backed off, cowed and intimidated by a pair of determined women.

My memory of the balance of that day is confused. I remember being carried into an ambulance, Samihah's presence, and being told at the emergency room that I had suffered a miscarriage of an unusually painful, bloody, and spectacular nature.

Not long afterward I fell asleep for hours. I must have been medicated. I awoke to the unexpected sight of my brother Steve and his wife Sherri. I must have given someone their phone number, but I didn't remember doing that.

"We've come to take you home," Steve announced.

I was atypically passive about everything. My apathy was probably a combination of the medication and the confusion of the last 24 hours. Calls the hospital staff placed to Mason's Genomex numbers, all of them, went unreturned. I began to believe he was dead.

Steve and Sherri hauled me off to their home, many hours distant. Sometime while I was sleeping they had collected my car from the Genomex parking lot, and my purse and wallet from my desk.

I told Steve the truth of what had happened to me, but I'm not sure how much he believed. If you've never seen mutants levitate objects and people, then the notion is not very credible. I had never mentioned anything before about Genomex being involved with anything this outrageous before, and I'd never mentioned Mason Eckhart's name before. Just what Steve believed I cannot be sure, but he did care about me.

I had already sold my condominium and most of my things had gone into storage about a week before. Transferring them closer to Steve and Sherri was not a problem.

I was lost for a few weeks. I hardly knew what to think. None of the old Genomex numbers worked, and neither did Samihah's home or cell numbers.

I wanted to drive back there and see for myself what had happened, but Steven and Sherri said I'd been saying all kinds of bizarre things while under sedation and they believed Genomex was the last place on earth I should ever go once more.

Memories of the last few weeks became increasingly dreamlike and unreal. I found myself craving reality. I found another job without much trouble, and buried myself in that. Mason always insisted hard work could be healing.

My jewelry had been removed and locked up when I was admitted to the hospital. I was without my emerald and wedding ring when Steve and Sherri saw me.

I probably should have told them as soon as Mason and I married, but I dreaded Sherri's inevitable interrogation. There was so much about him that could not be easily explained.

What does he do? (Oh, Mason tracks down mutants—you didn't know there were mutants?—and plunks them into stasis pods—oh, you've never heard of stasis pods?)

Where did you meet him? (I've worked with him for 15 years.)

What does he like? (Reading. Classical music. There really are people like that, Sherri. Not just me.)

What kind of house does he have? (He lives at the plant. He cannot leave the site for long because of health reasons. His immune system is nearly nonfunctional.)

Does he have AIDS? (No, Sherri.)

What does he look like? (Oh, fairly bizarre, and that's for work. He wears only black, black suit, black shirt, and out of fashion black glasses. Longish white hair, also decades out of fashion, --yes, Sherri, white hair— no, he's not really old, and his entire body is covered by a layer of biopolymer. Yes, Sherri, this is different.)

How…? (Don't ask that, Sherri.)

When will we meet him? (I don't know.)

That was just what I could imagine her asking, and it was more than I could cope with. I was even less inclined to deal with it once I had regained some emotional equilibrium.

Steve and Sherri meant well. Since I did not mention the name of the father of the son I lost, they assumed I wasn't interested in him any longer. The truth was, I thought Mason was dead and I was in deep mourning.

For a while, Steve and Sherri did everything they could to introduce me to unattached men of Steve's acquaintance. They were nice enough men, most of them. They were presentable, reasonably intelligent, and they all made more money than I did, which Steve seemed to think was really important.

Mildly annoyed with Steve, not feeling constructive, and uncertain whether or not I should be in mourning, I made a point of turning conversation around to matters which absorbed Mason and me, matters of geopolitics and the long term perils of transhumanism for humankind whenever Steve coaxed one of these fellows to the house for dinner.

I knew exactly what I was doing. Puzzled by my intelligence (none of them approached me), confused by my conversation topics, they had no idea what to make of me. The feeling was mutual. I found their golf games and sports fixations equally incomprehensible and mind-numbingly dull, duller even than Adam's self-absorption

One of them, someone who owed nothing to Steve, but who made an obscene amount of money, had the nerve to tell me how odd I was, how out of place intelligence was in a woman and what a bad idea it was to educate women. I had to laugh in the face of this primitive, who boasted that he only hired women at the lowest levels of his company.

"We should come with ownership papers, like the deed to a house or the title of a car," I chuckled.

Amusingly, this fellow did not understand my sarcasm, and thought it was a good idea. After he finally left, I cornered my brother.

"In what century did you find that one, Steve, the ninth or the tenth?"

"He makes a lot of money."

"Doing what? Running re-education camps for lobotomized women?'

Steve almost threw me out of his house over my handling of this masculine paragon. At this point I realized how far apart Steve and I had grown.

Sherri remained curious. After a prolonged period of her dropping hints, I finally sat down with her, determined to tell her everything and be done with it. I did not expect her to believe much of it.

"Genomex, the place I worked all those years? They were deeply involved in arcane biotech work involving human genetics gone badly wrong years before I was ever recruited. I thought I was signing on as a chemist, but in fact I was joining a kind of secret army. There were skirmishes between Genomex staff and certain outside renegade elements."

"How does any of that relate to you?" she asked. Sherri was already suspicious. My story sounded like bad television, and not the kind of bad tv Sherri preferred.

"Years ago, in the early 1990s, I antagonized the renegade leader when he was still at Genomex, and had not organized an opposition."

"You treated him like the guys we had over at the house?"

"Something like that." Sherri could be surprisingly perceptive.

"Was he cute?"

I thought I had run through all the possibilities before talking to Sherri, but her capacity to surprise was boundless. For a moment, I thought I had gone back to junior high.

"Adam was a pompous ass, and very well-connected. He could do no wrong. Teflon Adam. I became something of a target."

"What antagonized him?"

"Two things. One, I ignored him, and two, I would not give his work preference before anyone else's. Some women did think he was cute, but I couldn't stomach him."

I was confusing Sherri a lot.

"Remember the phone call you got from Samihah Shah last spring when I was in the hospital the first time?"

"The laboratory accident?" Sherri nodded. Good. She was paying close attention.

"Well, that was no accident. That was the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Adam invaded the facility, and turned one of his hooligans on me in the corridors of Genomex. The guy tossed me several yards into a wall." I decided this was probably not the time to go into Brennan Mulwray's ability to eject lightning bolts from his hands. What I was telling Sherri was difficult enough for her to chew and digest.

"But what about your miscarriage?"

"At the time, I was involved with the director of Genomex."

"And you didn't tell Steve or me! But that sounds wonderful."

Note that the only data she had was Mason's job title. He could have been married with twelve children aged one to twenty-one at home, but all she reeled in was his title and imagined pay stub. O, Sherri. Why do I bother?

"Only Samihah knew about this. He had some unusual health problems, requiring him to live on site."

I could tell by Sherri's eyes that she was dubious about my story. She was perhaps now imagining a married man with twelve children at home…

"What was wrong with him?" She was very dubious.

"His immune system had collapsed."

"He had AIDS?"

"No. There was an industrial accident, or as Mason was convinced, Adam intentionally inflicted damage to destroy his immune system."

"This is the same Adam you were talking about before?"

"The very same. The one and only Adam."

"Mason required daily specialized medical care just to stay alive. A few days after Adam's invasion, Mason and I took a long lunch and were married in a civil ceremony."

I could always count on Sherri to ask the really important questions.

"But where's your ring?"

I removed a small velvet bag from a pocket, and extracted the emerald and the wide wedding ring. Sherri knew jewelry and knew she wasn't looking at junk. She was impressed. And now she believed part of the story. Progress.

"But you don't wear them."

"They raise too many questions. I never would have been hired where I'm working now if people thought I had a life elsewhere. Just looking at them upsets me." I replaced them in the pouch. I hadn't looked at them in long while, and sight brought back too much grief.

"What happened to him?"

"A few days after we were married, another renegade, not Adam, took Mason prisoner and did something to me to make me spontaneously abort. I didn't even know I was pregnant."

"Why was this such a surprise? Had you been trying to become pregnant?"

"No. Not at all. I thought my time had passed, and Mason's doctors told him for the last sixteen years that he was sterile. Obviously, something changed."

"And where is he now?"

"That is the hard part. Sherri, I don't know if Mason is dead or worse than dead. I cannot get phone calls through to anyone I know there. Samihah does not seem to have a home phone anymore."

"Rebecca, that's a crazy story."

"I knew you would think so. But it's the only story I have, and it's true. I even omitted some of the crazier details."

"It has to be true. The rings are real."

Thanks, Sherri.

"After Jeffrey, Steve and I thought you might have sworn off men. You didn't talk about anyone and you never said anything about looking for someone. When any of my girlfriends were still single, they made no secret of the fact that they were looking."

How well I remember. Emotionally needy women, desperate to acquire the one thing they believed would make them whole and transform their desolate lives into something meaningful and real. If I was a man, I would run like blazes from such hollow hearts.

"Well, I hadn't resolved to be celibate, but I knew I wasn't going to 'settle' for someone not worthy of me, the way I did with Jeff."

I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I said that. Sherri liked Jeff.

Jeff had been charming, socially glib, superficially presentable, and he made a lot of money. Jeff had also been a pathological liar, financially irresponsible, and he never wearied of telling me how fortunate I was to have him. He also had some personal flaws that I did not care to share with my sister-in-law, such as an aversion to routine soap and water developed in the last years we were together, and sexual inertness making him a brother rather than a lover. He insisted there was something wrong with me for bathing daily and for not appreciating him in a sisterly fashion. Above all other factors, however, was that intellectually, Jeff could not begin to keep up with me.

"Settle?"

"Yes, 'settle'. Jeff was pure charm devoid of any detectable substance."

"He was nice-looking, Becky."

I hated it when people called me 'Becky'. Did Sherri know that?

"Of which Jeff was very much aware."

Too bad there was nothing past that face but a pathetic gelding.

"Was this fellow at Genomex good-looking?"

"I doubt most women would have found him attractive. The initial impression he made is most charitably described as forbidding. Some people called him 'Mr Creepy'."

Sherri made a face. "Oh, Becky, tell me he wasn't balding, fat, or ugly."

"None of the above."

"Ah, good. What was it about him that you liked?"

"He was brilliant and we could talk about anything."

"Ivy League?"

"West Point."

"Oh."

Sherri sounded so disappointed, and looked so perplexed. The more she knew, the less she understood. Sherri was convinced anyone associated with the US military had to be a poor to lower middle class expendable barbarian, fit to die for her in some distant location, but unworthy of her thoughts or attention.

"Becky, the more you tell me, the less I feel I know. I'm only trying to understand. Steve and I want you to be happy. We don't want you to be alone."

Now I felt cruel and wicked for thinking ill of her. She sincerely wished me happiness, whatever else she thought of me.

"Thank you. That's very kind."

"I just cannot think of anyone who wouldn't be intimidated by you. You're so smart, well-read, and strong."

"I've had to be strong, just to survive the things Jeff did to me."

Jeffrey would be reduced to tears and screaming as he scampered off into the sunset had he happened upon the woman I had become, leaving behind him and his greasy, oily, unwashed self: competitive, tough, and self-assured. Mason could have reduced Jeff to unreasoning panic with a well-aimed glare.

I amused myself with fantasies of Mason catching up with the oh-so-charming Jeff, and bluntly telling him what a pathetic fraud of a man he was, a disgrace and embarrassment to his sex.

Possibly I was the only person who had ever told Jeff he was less than dazzling, charming perfection. He needed to hear this from another man, preferably the one who believed whoever had damaged me needed killing.

As daydreams go, this one was unusually satisfying.

"Jeffrey's remarried, you know."

"To a woman?"

Sherri looked shocked. "Yes, of course."

"Did he import some desperate woman from a third-world country?"

"She's from Russia. How did you know?"

"Jeff needs someone to match his socks and keep an eye on him to make sure he does not burn his house down around him. Jeff has no sense, Sherri. He just knows how to smile and con people into believing he cares about them."

Very rarely was I able to influence Sherri, but I could tell from her eyes I had said something that connected a lot of dots for her. I had hinted at these things for years but never bluntly spoken them.

"Rebecca, you're right. What an ass he is."

"Yes."

Perhaps for the eighth or ninth time in the years I had known Sherri, I had said something that gained her respect.

"But what about Mason?'

"I don't know, Sherri. The very last I saw of him, he was a prisoner of some scary people. He was fighting a kind of secret war. I may never know what happened."

"If he was alive and free, wouldn't he find you?"

"Yes, he would." Wouldn't he? Was there any possible reason for Mason to allow me to wander away from him? I can think of none. Most likely, he's dead.

What did his children think had happened? Suddenly the emails stop and the webcam is dead. I knew his accountant sent a check automatically every month. I did not have their email addresses and I did not know the surname Jackie was using. His children must believe the worst as well.

Sherri had at least a dozen of her best buddies at the house once a month or more often. Usually she scheduled these hoe-downs on evenings when Steve was out of town. I tried spending an evening with these women –once—and found their company unendurable.

They were all about my age and Sherri's but there was nothing we could talk about, although observing them did have a certain fascination.

Each and every one of them was pampered and spoilt. They had highly paid husbands. Not one of them had made their own way in the world. They all drove expensive, fashionable cars and SUVs. By the time they all showed up I estimated that the driveway and overflow on the street contained a half-million dollars worth of vehicles. They all wore expensive, fashionable clothes, even when they walked their dogs. Each of them had been to college, and most had graduated, obtaining degrees which I found difficult to believe were even real: Emotional Ecology, Women's Studies, Urban Anthropology, Literature of the Post-Literate Age, and so much more besides.

While living in dormitories, I had a vague idea there were people studying such things, studying out there somewhere. Actually meeting women who spent four years and a good deal of money thinking about such fripperies was a shock. Naturally, these women considered such matters with great seriousness, since they believed their scholarly endeavors indicated their inclusion in a thoughtful, educated, intellectual elite.

The evening one of them asked me where I had gone to college and I confessed to not only having a doctorate in chemistry, but that I dirtied my hands working in the field and actually supported myself, I was dismissed immediately as some sort of lower form of human, obviously incapable of the kind of exquisitely trained sensitivity and good taste as these very superior women.

I found them boring, pompous, and highly unoriginal. They thought much alike, and seemed shocked at the introduction of any idea contradicting their own surprisingly uniform ideas.

I think my existence embarrassed Sherri. I came in late from work one evening with social frenzy in full bloom. I was still in a suit and carrying some work papers. Sherri's friends saw me come in. I'm guessing that this was like having the sister-in-law come in from the fields, sunburnt, dirty, smelly…but I've never found anything shameful about honest work.

So when Sherri invited the Haughty Hens over for an evening of confirming one another's superiority, I beat an early retreat to the second floor where I would not be subjected to their vacuous chatter.

It was an early spring evening, one of the first with Daylight Savings Time in effect. I was already in my jammies and bathrobe. I was settling into my new job and getting serious about buying another condo locally.

Steve knew me well enough to realize I was still fragile emotionally and probably needed to be around other people. He also knew as soon as I moved into my own place, I would only emerge to go to work. My brother was a good man that way. However, I could tell Sherri wanted me gone and out of her house. Sherri wasn't a bad or wicked woman but she could never begin to understand me.

I heard the doorbell ring because I was sitting in the window seat in the upstairs hallway watching the sun go down over one of the fairways meandering through Hidden Spring Meadows (why do construction firms give their developments names which could double as cemetery names?). Why anyone would want strangers on the move at the edge of one's property eluded me, but this was one of the first things Sherri told anyone about her house.

Sherri dispatched one of her buddies to the door, since she was occupied with some task of great importance, making strawberry daiquiris or some similar concern. This group liked alcohol a lot.

I assumed this was a late-arriving Hen. These women wore watches, expensive watches, and they expected their cleaning women to report on time. They had no sense of personal time, however, being too self-focused and absorbed to consider the effect of their late arrivals upon anyone else.

Instead of the giggly greeting of equally exalted intellectuals, I heard a male voice, and I thought I heard, "I would like to speak to Dr Rebecca Steyn."

There was a time lag between the request and reply. The request was that difficult?

"Who? Oh, that must be Sherri's sister-in-law. Sherri, there's somebody here looking for your sister-in-law."

The vapid chatter downstairs ceased. These women never shut up for anything.

I could hear Sherri going to the door, and listening to the same request.

"She's upstairs. I'll go and see if she's still awake. Come inside and wait."

Sherri would resent being dragged from the Haughty Hens and having her social evening disrupted. I could hear her ascending the staircase. I braced for whatever comment she would make.

She saw me sitting in the window seat, but instead of talking to me from the top of the staircase, she walked all the way up to me, and whispered, "Rebecca, there's an odd-looking man downstairs wanting to see you. He dressed well enough, but he's strange."

"Strange? How so?" Most nerds were just a little strange. So was I.

"Black suit, tinted glasses, and white hair. I don't think the hair is real. I know Steve and I encouraged you to get out and socialize, and meet some decent men, but…"

I got up out of the window seat and headed for the stairs.

"You can't go downstairs like that," she said.

"Why not? The only way I could be more modestly dressed would be to wear a chador."

The Haughty Hens were still roosting in silence with a full view of the foyer. They were all pretending not to be intensely curious about the man standing just inside the door.

Sherri was stalking me, just a few steps behind, horrified that I was about to bring Shame and Embarrassment to the household (that is, to her), appearing in my bathrobe and slippers from Wal-Mart while conversing with the Odd Man before the Exalted Haughty Hens. Nothing could have prepared her for what followed, with the entire flock observing.

"Mason?"

I bounded down the last few steps, as well as one can bound in slippers. We embraced with the familiarity that made obvious what we were to one another.

"Rebecca, I've had agents looking for you for months. Your next-of-kin information led nowhere."

"It was probably ten years out of date. I thought you were dead."

"Not dead." He shook his head. "I was in stasis for several months, and released by one of Adam's people. I thought Ashlocke murdered you. He told me what he did to you. I had no idea."

"Neither did I."

"I've been searching phone listings online every week. I found this number this afternoon but I reached your answering machine, and the message sounded like you. Where have you been?"

"Here. All along. The phone was installed about ten days ago."

"I came to bring you home, if you were really you. The company plane will be refueled by the time we get to the airport. I paid for its use tonight."

We were not whispering. Sherri and her hen friends could hear every word, every crazy word. I doubted much of it made sense to them. Neither of us much cared. We weren't being lewd, crude, or obscene.

"You look different." I touched his polymer-protected face. "It's subtle, but you look different."

"My time in stasis changed me for the better. I hardly need transfusions and my need for antibiotics has been scaled back."

"Nobody predicted this." I had never dared hope for news this good.

"I'll never be as I was, but I'm able to live a nearly normal life with only a handful of extraordinary measures required to keep me alive."

"That's wonderful."

"Let's go home, Rebecca."

"Mason, I can't travel like this. First, I'm going to change into some clothes and toss some more into a suitcase."

"Don't bring much. Let movers worry about moving."

"Only a minimum," I assured him. "I won't take long."

I pulled away from him, and turned to see Sherri on the bottom step, shocked, mortified, and appalled. I liked the way all of that looked on her.

"Mason, this is my sister-in-law, Sherri Steyn. Sherri, this is my husband, Mason Eckhart."

The hens heard that, too. They were very quiet.

I ran back upstairs, leaving the two of them exchanging empty niceties. For a man who could be exquisitely, devastatingly rude, Mason could also be astonishingly, disarmingly polite and mannered.

The first thing I did was put my rings back on, and got dressed in a pair of jeans and sweater. Then I dragged a lightweight suitcase from my closet.

I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and looked up to see Sherri enter my room.

"Rebecca, could you explain what is going on?"

I wasn't taking much, only the essentials for civilized living. I've never required much time for hitting the road, because I can travel light.

"That's Mason. I told you about him."

"What?"

"It's a long, convoluted story, and I haven't even heard all of it myself. As I told you, I thought he was dead, and he thought I was dead, but we're both alive, and I'm going home."

Home.

"You didn't tell me how he looked. Why does he look like that?"

I looked up from my half-filled suitcase into Sherri's puzzled eyes, and had one of those moments of insight into my sister-in-law's character (or lack of character) and how she viewed other people.

Yes, Sherri was a very special, sensitive individual, not like barbarian Rebecca the nerdette.

"That's just how he looks, Sherri. He was in an industrial accident nearly 20 years ago, which nearly killed him and left him looking as he is now. He requires daily specialized medical treatment just to stay alive. I've seen the way he looks for so long I'm accustomed to it. I had forgotten how striking that appearance can be at first."

"I don't know how I will explain this to Steve," Sherri said.

"I will call tomorrow. He'll be back in his office tomorrow afternoon, won't he?"

"Yes."

"I don't know how I'm going to explain this to everyone downstairs."

"Is that what's really bothering you? Life is stranger than most of us realize, Sherri." I tossed my bank records into the suitcase.

"Are you sure everything is okay?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"He's not kidnapping you or anything like that, is he?"

"Hardly. Although he's armed, and probably left at least two armed agents outside."

"I don't like guns. I don't want them in my house. What kind of company is this, anyway?"

"They do some work for the federal government. Some of it is bizarre, and very, very 'black'. Genomex is a good deal more than a biotech company."

"It certainly sounds different."

I secured the suitcase.

"Sherri, you and Steve have been wonderful to me." This was no exaggeration. Temperamentally and intellectually, Sherri and I may have been hopelessly ill-matched, but she had been very kind to me. "I have to go to where I belong, which is with that very odd-looking man."

"He seems so formal."

"He is."

"I'm having trouble putting you together with him."

"Mason is definitely an acquired preference. He's been very good to me, Sherri. Tell Steve."

She brightened when I said that.

"I'm going to stay here for a few minutes until you've left. This is a lot for me to think over. I think I'll be able to handle the girls better that way."

I picked up my suitcase and put my purse on my right shoulder.

"Is Steve going to call tonight?"

"Sometime between 10.30 and 11."

"Tell him everything's okay. In fact, I don't remember the last time when everything was this right."

When I came back downstairs, there was some muted clucking among the hens. Even the novelty of Mason Eckhart was not enough to keep this flock silent for long.

"I did not dawdle," I said.

"You never do. Let me take that."

"Thank you."

Mason took my suitcase, and we stepped out into the evening.

"How did Ashlocke do it?"

"He had help. He turned my agent Morgan Fortier, and he promised Dr Harrison a significant role in running Genomex, that horrible little snake of a man."

"What happened to Ashlocke?" I asked.

"As all of Breedlove's and Adam's creations were and are, Ashlocke was flawed and doomed from the beginning. Ashlocke was not only the first and most talented, he was also the most imperfect. He's dead."

"Who stopped him?"

"No one. No one could stop him. His time ran out when his body failed him. I'm told it was spectacular and frightening to see. Well, you could say Breedlove's unholy science stopped him, since the genetic manipulations he was born with brought about his end. He did not last long out of stasis."

We got into the back seat of a bland looking light blue metallic rental car. Two of the biggest, grimmest looking GSA I'd ever seen were sitting up front.

"Call ahead to the airport and tell the crew we're on our way."

"Back to Ashlocke," I said.

"He just came apart. He was in Adam's Zen tranquility hideaway. Adam was foolish enough to try to save him at the end."

"Why would Adam do that?"

"Why Adam does most things: to feed his curiosity and more importantly, his unfettered ego. Adam has no concern for the well-being of humanity. Had Ashlocke organized and motivated enough destructive mutants, he could have destroyed human society."

"Have you determined yet exactly what Adam is?"

Eckhart smiled faintly and shook his head. "No. Unless I have possession of his body when he dies and have an autopsy done by doctors I trust, I doubt if I'll ever know the truth of Adam."

"Adam always gave me the creeps."

Mason smirked and reached across the seat to take my hand. "You have no idea how much that vexed the Prince of Genomex."

"Yes, I do. Dr Varady told me. But for that, I never would have known."

"I had to hunt for Dr Varady, too. Dr Harrison dosed her with drugs that mimicked psychosis, and had her committed under a false name."

"Nice man. How is she now?"

"Perfectly fine. She's back at Genomex, looking forward to seeing you."

"I think Adam's an android," I said.

"So do I, but I cannot prove it. Rebecca, I don't think your sister-in-law approves of you."

"Of course Sherri doesn't approve of me. I'm a barbarian. I work in a technical field and dirty my hands for money. Did you know you can get a degree in Urban Anthropology?"

"In what?"

"Urban Anthropology. Or Literature of the Post-Literate Age?"

"What does one do with such?"

"Feel superior to insensitive peasants with science degrees," I laughed. "And graduates of West Point."

Returning the rental car took longer than the drive to the airport. Darkness had fallen fully when we boarded the GSA Citation CJ2.

Mason and I sat in the back of the small, darkened cabin, the drone of the engines offering the closest approach to privacy we'd had. Mason slipped the black leather glove from his left hand, and took up my right hand in his. Neither of us was inclined to make a public display of affection. The presence of the flight crew and the GSA agents made the setting public.

"How did you get free?"

"One of Adam's people, a telempath, came to 'view' me in stasis. Ashlocke set up my stasis pod as a tourist attraction among mutants. Too bad he did not set up a guest book. That would have made interesting reading. I allowed this telempath to 'read' my memories of Adam. I don't know of any way to deceive a telempath during a 'read' and neither did she. The truth was enough to change her mind about Adam and about me. She works for me now; so does her husband. Emma is possibly the most dangerous mutant Adam had among his followers, yet he underestimated her and under-valued her capabilities. I do not."

"Emma?" Mason's use of her first name was meaningful for him.

"They're nice kids. Circumstances developed a lot of trust between us. Emma asked me to give away the bride at their wedding."

"And did you?"

"Yes."

"Are you dropping some of your barriers?"

"With some people. Rebecca, Ashlocke told me what he did to you. I've been living with the fear you might hate me."

"No. The worst of it was I had no idea what was happening to me. Ashlocke 'said' some crazy-sounding things in my head, but I didn't believe him until I began leaving a trail of blood. Samihah helped me to the front lobby and went with me to the hospital."

"That sounds scary." He said it simply enough, but his manner was grave.

"It was."

"I am so sorry. As far anyone knew, I was sterile. That's what my doctors told me for 17 years."

"The loss haunts me. I've been having dreams about it."

"When I was in stasis, I had time to think about everything and everyone who's been taken from me, but especially this son. I've lost too much."

"I don't know what I want to do about it."

"You don't have to decide tonight."

"Explaining things to Steve was awkward."

"I can imagine."

"Steve's been very good to me, but I know he found my story hard to believe. I've never told him tales before, so I know he did not dismiss it outright."

"We can fix all of that now. Things are different at Genomex. With the exception of Dr Varady, the staff is new."

"What about Samihah?"

"She was carefully placed in a new position, in a new city. I can put you in contact with her, but for her safety and that of her sons, this was the best option. The mission of the GSA has been modified. In return for a promise not to have children and pass their doomed DNA on to another generation, I am mainstreaming the sane and productive mutants, pursuing only the criminals and insane."

"That's a major shift." I was stunned.

"It's working surprisingly well. I was wrong before, much too heavy-handed, and there are just too many of them."

"That took guts to recognize you've been doing the wrong thing and to change course. It's so much easier to keep making the same mistake. Nicely done."

"Thank you."

"This new plan must make Adam more than a little annoyed," I said.

"Adam's power base is nearly gone. He is marginalized now, the protector of criminals and crazies."

"He must be livid."

"Adam lives on the edge of rationality, ready to jump over the side at any moment. That's how he fools people; one moment he's talking science and next he's over the cliff, talking pure emotions. Most people don't catch the transitions."

"I caught them from the beginning."

Mason smirked. "That's part of what endeared you to Adam and made you such a special favorite of his. The truth is that anyone who understands Adam is a threat."

"You don't believe you're done with him, do you?" I asked.

"No. Adam does not have the sense to stop." Mason sounded disgusted. "Or possibly, he is programmed not to stop."

"You've destroyed the reason for his following. The adoration of the people whose lives he compromised was one of the primary foundations of his life. He must be consumed with loss."

"He still has Mulwray with him. I wasn't intending to get into this tonight, but I suppose I must. Mulwray stormed into Genomex last month with a gang hired from drug dealers. They slaughtered some of my people, injured others, and took me prisoner. Adam tried to kill me inducing infection. Emma and Jesse came, got me out, and Ms Fox left with us. Adam transported drugs as the price of hiring on his 'army'. His crossing over into blatant criminal activities has attracted the attention of several federal law enforcement agencies."

"So Adam has ever more reason to love you."

"And you as well," Mason said. "You've become part of any 'sin' Adam imagines I commit against him.

"Adam's financial resources must be tenuous at best. And he must have abandoned Sanctuary."

"Yes and yes. But he has other allies, with deep pockets. And for all of his protestations of innocence and lack of knowledge about the application of his work and railing against the GSA, Adam has maintained extensive contacts within the federal government. He has protectors there who even now trade services with him."

"What do you think Adam tells himself at night so he can sleep?"

"The same thing he has told himself all along: that he is uniquely superior and qualified to decide what is right and proper."

"How are you going to stop Adam?" I asked.

"Fortunately, that's not my mission. My mission is containment of the long term problem of the Genomex mutants. My concern with Adam is chiefly defensive, no matter what Adam might think, or what might please me personally."

"Too bad Adam could not have been kept at Genomex where he could be watched."

"He could see ahead. His ego demanded more scope than being the Prince of Genomex."

"Adam's allies inside the federal government—could any of them or all of them together establish and fund another mutant-creating program, completely hidden from public view, completely 'black', unlike Genomex?"

"I've carefully tracked all the former Genomex employees, watching for employer and geographic concentrations of key workers. I have suspicions, but nothing concrete has been revealed. I'll keep watching these people and the placement lists of the best graduate schools, certain headhunters, and applicable foreign talent brought into this country. If the puzzle pieces fall together, I'll know early on."

"The implications are unsettling."

"Most nights I'm glad I sleep where I do, but even that was designed as a semi-sterile space. As a fortress, it has limitations."

"My presence defeats the semi-sterile intent, doesn't it?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

"I've never understood why you admitted me into that space, knowing what you believed the risks were."

"An irrational decision on my part."

"And mine."