In a small, extremely secure room, Dr. Neborra frowned at the screen as he watched the hall of OSI after the group had left Oscar Goldman's office. His robot was functioning perfectly, flawless design if he did say so himself. But that man - the other man, the one who had come out of the inner office at the last moment. Who was he? He had been staring at the robot with a peculiar fixation.

Neborra turned to Dr. Mark Blankenship, the real Blankenship, that is, who was tied firmly into a chair. "Who was that? The one in the background at the end?"

"I have no idea. I never saw him before," Blankenship replied. "You'll never get away with this, you know."

"Oh, but I will. Just a few days of access to the OSI lab, with my robot recording everything and transmitting it and tapes kept back here, and I'll have enough classified information to sell that I'll be rich beyond my dreams. Then, of course, you will simply defect. Everything will be blamed on you by both sides."

"That thing can't keep the pretense up among scientists," Blankenship insisted.

"Why not, at least for a while? I downloaded your memories into him while you were so helpfully under pentothal. He's just as good as you were."

Blankenship shook his head. "Factual knowledge isn't the same as the feel for how to put it together and use it."

"He is perfect," Neborra insisted. "And I only need to keep up the pretense for a few days while I gather information. In fact, I probably should have already killed you, but just in case something goes electronically wrong, I didn't quite want to eliminate my source for those memories yet. But that man. Something was odd there. He was the only one looking at the robot like he was unusual." Making up his mind, Neborra entered a stream of data on the keyboard in front of him.

On screen, they saw the robot turn toward the escort as they drove through Washington toward the apartment. "Who was that man in Goldman's office?" the robot asked. "The one leaning against the doorframe."

"Oh, that's Colonel Austin. Steve Austin," the security man driving said. "He's a favorite of Goldman's, and he's around quite a bit. You'll probably bump into him again if you spend enough time here. He was an astronaut."

Neborra, who had been trying mentally to place that name, snapped his fingers. He typed another line on the keyboard.

"Oh, that's it," the robot replied. "I thought he looked familiar."

The car swept on through the city in the night, and back in his room, Neborra chewed his lower lip in thought.

(SMD)

"How's Steve?" Oscar asked. "Is he doing any better this morning?"

Rudy looked up from his lab printouts. "No, actually he's a bit worse. His fever is up to 103.6 now, and he feels awful. Headache, sore throat, aching all over. I had to really fish to get all that when I saw him a few minutes ago, understand, but under pressure, he admitted it. But -" Rudy tapped the paperwork - "I've got at least part of the reason for all this now."

"So it's not just a virus? It's something you can fix?"

"Partially." Rudy sighed. "Unfortunately, it is a virus, and there's not much treatment you can do for them other than symptomatic. But his blood work turned up a lot of other little things wrong. It's not an infection; white count is normal. His electrolytes and chemistries are somewhat out of whack, though. Looking at these tests, it's obvious that he is completely exhausted and run down, and I'm sure that's why the virus hit him so hard. We can at least fix some of that. So I just started an IV, and we'll get some of this straightened out with fluids and supplements. Won't get rid of the virus, but it might help a little in how he feels."

Oscar shook his head. "I really wasn't aware of how much I'd been asking him to do lately, Rudy. I'll make a note to watch that more from now on."

Rudy had had enough time since last night to expand his targets of annoyance. "It wasn't all your fault, Oscar. I could kick myself. His last checkup was three weeks ago, and there was that relay circuit in his leg that was going wrong and took us a bit to track it down. Remember?" Oscar nodded. "Well, looking back at my notes, I got so involved chasing that down that I didn't run any blood work at all in that exam. I was totally focused on the bionic side because of that problem. I might have been able to cut this off at the pass if I'd just been paying more attention. And besides that, there is the fact that Steve definitely knew that he was worn out and hitting the limit, and he never said anything."

"Plenty of blame to go around," Oscar agreed, but he still made a private vow to keep a better eye on things, speaking for himself. "Thank God this really got a hold of him in my office and not while he was out on a mission."

"He was back a little early, wasn't he?" Rudy asked.

"Yes, he was," Oscar confirmed. "Do you think that was intentional? Subconsciously, anyway?"

"Might well be. He knew for the last day or two that he was getting sick, even if he didn't want to admit it. I imagine he picked up the pace then on finishing his work. Then once he got back to a location he felt safe, the wheels all fell off at that point."

"He's going to be all right, though, isn't he?" Oscar asked.

"Given time. I can't find anything else wrong with him besides exhaustion. The virus will just have to run its course. Oh, and he does have bruised ribs on the right side, like he said, but they aren't fractured. All he needs at the moment is mainly rest. According to the aide I left here last night to keep an eye on him, he did sleep most of the rest of the night, but he was restless even when he was asleep."

"Well, if he's awake now, I'll go see him for a minute." Oscar started to turn away.

Rudy put down his paperwork and followed him. "Oh, one more thing, Oscar." Oscar stopped, looking back inquiringly. Rudy sighed and took his glasses off, putting them in his lab coat pocket. "There's one subject that you need to totally avoid."

"Blankenship." Oscar filled in the blank quickly. "He's still on that kick?"

"He brought it up himself when I was trying to get symptoms out of him. Just as fired up as he was last night. He refuses to accept that what he saw was caused by the illness."

"I won't mention him," Oscar promised, "and thankfully, he's going to be working in another part of the lab, so no reason Steve should bump into him again."

The two men crossed headed through another hallway and into a larger room with several instruments and equipment stations and with a few smaller rooms off of it with windows opening onto the larger area. Steve was in one of these observation rooms with the blinds half closed, enough to give some privacy while still letting someone from the outer area look in to check on him if they got close enough and at the right angle to the window. The head of the bed was propped up, and someone had brought him some breakfast on a tray, but he wasn't eating much of it. He looked up as Oscar and Rudy entered.

"Hey, pal. How are you feeling?" Oscar asked.

"Still like I've got a bug." Steve raised his left arm, which now had the IV inserted in it, and spoke to Rudy. "You said this would make me feel better."

"In several hours, not in 30 minutes," Rudy corrected. "It should be fixing some things by tonight. We can't correct the virus, though; I'm afraid you're just going to have to fight that out yourself."

Steve shook his head. "You can give me new legs and an arm and an eye, make me see in the dark and run 60 miles an hour, and you can't knock out a simple bug?"

"I'm afraid not." Rudy grinned. "Doctors and scientists all over the world have been asking that question for a while, how we haven't cured simple things already given all of our technology. We're still trying, but we aren't there yet."

"Meanwhile," Oscar said, "you just get some rest, and that will help. And you can decide where you want to go on vacation after you get well. You'll get a nice break from work, whatever you want to do."

"Speaking of work," Steve said, "you need to watch Dr. Blankenship." Oscar and Rudy sighed in unison. "Oscar, there is something wrong with that man. It's not just me being sick. Be careful what you give him access to."

"Steve," Oscar said, "he could probably give us some lessons. The man is a brilliant scientist, and his credentials and history are perfect. His country is a long-standing ally, and we've done work exchanges dozens of times with their people. He's a friend."

Steve shook his head. "There's something strange about him. I've never seen anything like that before, and it was just him. Nothing else."

Oscar looked at his watch. "I've got to get off into the day's work. You just take it easy and get well, pal. Everything's going to be better soon." He turned and left, and Rudy came across to rest a hand against Steve's forehead, checking the fever.

"Not going down yet. Sleep is the best thing for you, Steve, but eat some more of that first if you can."

"I'm not hallucinating," Steve insisted.

Rudy put a hand on his arm. "I don't think you are. The interface just isn't working totally right at the moment, which is completely understandable. I'll leave you alone to rest now. The IV should start to make some difference by tonight." He left the room.

Steve lay in bed for several minutes, ignoring breakfast, his mind spinning. Neither of his friends believed him; that was clear. But he was certain something was wrong with Blankenship. He'd never seen anything like that before, sick or well, not with anyone. Not even with anyone else last night after the fever hit. Not even today with the fever a little higher. If the eye was malfunctioning, why would it pick only one person to malfunction on?

Blankenship would be arriving to start work. He was here in the same building, in the same lab. Steve considered, then moved the tray aside and reached over to unhook the IV tubing. He was going to go find the man and have a second look for himself, just to verify. With an effort, he hauled himself out of bed, then walked carefully to the window. He peeked out through the blinds. A few people were around, but everyone was busy, focused on their work. Nobody was facing this room at the moment. Seizing his opportunity, he opened the door and edged out.