"He said what?" Angel nearly choked on her tea.

"He said that it would be quite a feather in my cap to be known as the woman who managed to land one of Paradigm City's most eligible bachelors," Dorothy repeated.

Angel was unable to contain her laughter. "One of Paradigm City's most clueless bachelors is more like it," she said. "I'm surprised you didn't hit him again. I would have."

"I must admit that I can't disagree," Norman came into the kitchen. "Can I get you some more tea, Miss Angel?"

"That would be lovely, Norman, thank you," Angel said. "Dorothy, you can't go into hiding like this! It isn't going to do any good."

"That's exactly what I've been saying," Norman seemed relieved to have found an ally. "Truly, Miss Dorothy, the best thing to do is simply go about your business."

"The church secretary said that too," Dorothy admitted, "and she wouldn't take the clothes." She lapsed into a sullen silence.

Norman busied himself at the counter, returning with a plate of dainty sandwiches and a fresh pot of tea. "If everyone you've spoken to is telling you the same thing, then surely there's a good reason for it," he said to Dorothy.

"Perhaps," Dorothy sounded unconvinced. "It's true that staying out of sight didn't help a bit when all this started. I don't know what I should do--I don't even understand why anyone would gossip about me! It's very confusing."

"Anyone would get confused in a situation like this," Angel said after taking a sandwich. "Still, if it didn't help the first time, it's unlikely to help now."

"I agree," Norman said. "The best thing to do now is to ignore the talk. It may take some time, but eventually, when nothing changes, people will get bored and find something more interesting to gossip about."

"I don't know," Dorothy shook her head.

"What about it is troubling you so?" Norman asked. "There was talk when you first came here, but it didn't seem to bother you at all."

"It wasn't quite so... personal," Dorothy said. "Most of the time it was just people being curious, and I could understand that. After pretty much everyone knew who I was, nobody said much."

"When did it change?" Angel asked.

"When you established a relationship with Colonel Dastun," Dorothy said.

"I see," said Angel, finishing off the her tea. She set the cup back down on the saucer with an air of determination. "Dorothy, I want you to change out of that hideous dress. I think today would be a good day to make some social calls."


"Sounds like a busy day," Dan said, massaging his wife's shoulders. It had become their custom to spend some time talking before turning on the television at the end of the day. Neither of them could remember who suggested it first, but since Jimmy had been born, it was a welcome guarantee they'd have at least a little time together.

"It was. Oh, that feels good," Angel sighed in relief as his hands eased a particularly uncomfortable knot. "I finally got the rest of it out of her when we were walking. Poor thing! She doesn't care about the personal opinions so much, although it's obviously not pleasant for her. No, what she's really worried about is the effect on the people around her. She doesn't want the Ladies Auxiliary to lose charitable donations, or for Roger to lose cases, or for Norman to get cheated at the market."

Dan nodded. "I can't say her worry is completely unfounded, although I doubt it will go that far. I assume she thinks that by removing herself from the equation, things will return to normal?"

"Whatever that is," Angel shrugged. "So we went to see the Honorable Mrs. Hathaway."

"Talk about taking the bull by the horns!" Dan chuckled. "And did the old harridan... err... that is, the good lady... receive you?"

"Of course she did," Angel said. "If only out of sheer curiosity!"

"Oh, to have been a fly on the wall." Dan started working on the muscles on the back of her neck.

"It was very cordial," Angel relaxed into his hands. "Dorothy can be perfectly charming when she wants to be. I believe Mrs. Hathaway was favorably impressed--she agreed to join us for lunch next week" She sighed. "Did I do the right thing?"

Dan was quick to put his arms around her--he knew she wasn't speaking of taking Dorothy to see Mrs. Hathaway. "You made the best choices you could," he said "That's all that anyone can ask." By unspoken agreement, he and Angel didn't discuss her role in the Event. It still gave her nightmares, although time was softening the edges. She'd said enough during and after those nightmares that Dan had a damn good idea of what had happened. He was surprised she hadn't gone insane--he doubted he could have handled the weight of all the memories of all the people who had ever lived in Paradigm City.

She leaned into his embrace. "I didn't want to change her," she said. "I didn't dare tinker. I would have made it easier on her if I could have."

"It was the right thing," Dan said firmly. If she started thinking about it too much, she'd have bad dreams for sure. "She wouldn't be the Dorothy we know and love if you'd tried. She's earned those memories."

"I think she paid too much for them," Angel's voice was barely a whisper.

"We all did," Dan said, his tone matter-of-fact. "But if I had to choose between remembering and forgetting, I would still choose to remember. I'll bet Dorothy feels the same." He patted her her shoulder gently. "You're falling asleep. Let's make it an early night, I'm tired too."

"I won't say no," Angel yawned. "Let me just check on Jimmy."

"I'll check on him and shut things down," Dan said. "You go ahead, you need your rest."

Although the day's final tasks only took ten minutes, Angel was already asleep when Dan came into the bedroom. Maybe she was simply exhausted, but he hoped she'd taken his words to heart. Either way, there were no nightmares.


"Roger, Norman asked me to remind you that the carpets are being cleaned first thing tomorrow," Dorothy emerged from the shadows on the balcony as Roger reached the top of the solarium stairs.

"Thank you, I'd entirely forgotten," Roger said, loosening his tie. She was, he was pleased to notice, wearing the clothes that she'd been planning to give away. "They're going to want to start up here first, aren't they?" He sighed. "I guess I'll have to set the alarm."

"Let me help you with that," Dorothy said, coming over to rescue Roger's sleeve from his vigorous attempts to unfasten his cufflink. "Hold still, there's a thread catching it."

"Thank you," Roger said when she handed him the cufflink.

"The buttonhole is a little frayed, I'll make sure it's repaired before it goes to the cleaners," Dorothy said. "Goodnight, Roger." She turned towards the stairway.

"Dorothy." She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. "About our negotiation...." He clasped his hands behind his back like a child at a candy store who didn't quite trust his ability to look but not touch.

She didn't look pleased. "What about it?"

"Have you considered it further?" He almost wished he hadn't said anything, but now that it had been brought up, there was no taking it back.

"I didn't know there was anything to consider," she said. "The terms haven't changed, and I have already told you they are not acceptable."

"What more can I offer you?" he forgot his resolve and reached for her hands. "Dorothy..."

"Please, Roger. You're making things unnecessarily difficult for both of us," she said. She freed herself from his grasp. "Even were I to accept your terms, I don't believe androids are allowed to marry." Before he could open his mouth to argue, she had fled down the stairs.


"I don't care what you heard. I got this directly from my brother-in-law, he was over there cleaning the carpets last week. He's up in the penthouse, she's got a nice little suite on the second floor near the old man's. Neat as a pin, of course, being as she's an android and all, but my brother-in-law said that you could tell she actually lived in it--all her things were there." Beck moved closer to the speakers under the guise of examining the window display of the junk shop more closely. "He said that there were no women's things upstairs at all, no men's things in her room other than a jacket with the sleeve pinned on top of her sewing box, and--here's the clincher--he said that she had plain nightgowns. She keeps them on a hook on her bathroom door, and they were ordinary white nighties, not the kind of thing a ladies' man like Roger Smith would want his girlfriend wearing! Oh! May I help you, sir?" Jason must have gotten too close, and the woman had noticed him.

"I was just looking at that little sculpture you have there," he said, mentally cursing his luck. Well, the sculpture was interesting, and Old Man Tate was always on the lookout for local talent. Not everyone could afford a one-of-a-kind Pre-Event masterpiece, and Tate frequently said that a large part of his success was due to always having a few pieces on hand that were accessible to nearly any pocketbook. The street sweeper who came in to get a nice little painting for his missus to hang over the mantel would think of Tate should he ever run across something of potential value, and Tate had acquired quite a few pieces that brought him a good profit through that kind of good will.

The woman brought the statue out from the window display and Jason inspected it closely, looking for signs of mass manufacture. "Seems like Roger Smith is a popular subject of conversation these days," he said, carefully keeping his tone non-committal. After seeing Old Man Tate in action with the varying dealers and private sellers he dealt with on a regular basis, Jason had learned to appreciate the value of setting a pleasant conversational hook without appearing over-eager.

To his delight, the shopkeeper took the bait. "That's just what I was saying to Annie here," she said. "It seems to me that there's entirely too many people sticking their noses in where they don't belong!" Jason murmured something that passed for agreement and continued to inspect the statue, which had a pleasantly solid heft to the hand despite the apparent delicacy of the work.

"I've heard some wild stories about them," he said after a few minutes. The statue really was a little gem, and unless everything Tate had been teaching him was wrong, it was definitely hand made.

"I don't think the stories are true," the shopkeeper said. "I see Dorothy all the time. She's quiet, but once you get to know her, she's really very nice. Helpful, too--I've seen her carry bags for an elderly lady or stop a child from running out into the street. She insisted on sweeping up the glass at Frank's store the day the shelf with the jars of pickles collapsed--told him it was much safer for her to do it since it wouldn't cut her like it would him. She even had the old man come by later with his tools to check the other shelves."

"Still, with them living together like that, it's bound to make people wonder," Jason shrugged. "How much do you want for this?"

"It's hard to say what their relationship was Before," the shopkeeper said, "but I was just telling Annie what my brother-in-law told me. He cleans carpets for some of the richest people in Paradigm, and he's seen his fair share of wild goings-on, without a doubt! But one of the reasons he has such a good business is that he does a really thorough job--he even does the closets if there's carpet in there. And he says that you can tell when people are trying to hide something--do you remember when the Parkesburg divorce was in all the papers? My brother-in-law wasn't the least bit surprised. Their crew was over there a few months before and found a pair of man's shoes under the au pair's bed when they moved it, and some very expensive pretties hanging in the bathroom to dry, much too expensive for the au pair to have purchased herself. He didn't say anything about it at the time--another reason he has so many clients is he knows how to be discreet--but when the news broke, he told us about what he'd seen. So if he says the rumors about Roger Smith and his android aren't true, I believe him." She paused for breath and then gave Jason a price for the statue that was so low that his jaw almost dropped.

Twenty dollars? Tate'd get a hundred for it, easy. "Do you know anything about where it came from?" he asked, all interest in Roger Smith deserting him in the sudden delight of what might be a significant find.

"Sure, my nephew made it," she said. "He's been bugging me for months to put some of his stuff in here, I kept telling him no, I'm no art dealer, but he wouldn't let it drop and I finally took one just to get him to stop nagging."

"Oh, he's an artist, then?" Jason asked.

"My nephew? God, no, you can't make a living being an artist," she said. "He's a welder, does this stuff at night as a hobby. His boss lets him take a bit of the scrap and cuttings from their job sites, so the materials don't cost him anything either."

Jason nodded, barely able to contain his excitement. "He did a good job, I'd never know this started as scrap," he said. "I'll give you fifteen for it."

Twenty minutes of serious bargaining later, Jason had his prize wrapped and bagged and he was on his way to Tate's gallery.


"I said you had a good eye," Tate said with satisfaction after examining the statue. "This is nice bit of work. Where did you get it?"

Jason told him the story, leaving out the reason he'd been looking at the display in the window. Tate nodded. "If he continues to produce work like this, he won't need the day job much longer. Have you had the chance to look at anything else?"

"Not yet," Beck said. "I wanted to show you first."

"I'm glad you did," Tate told him. "Since it's your find, you're going to be the one in charge of dealing with him, but we should discuss some of the different artist types you'll meet and the best ways to handle them." He went behind the counter and reached into the cash drawer. "You'd better get us a couple of coffees and half a dozen Danishes," he handed Jason some money. "It's an interesting thing, dealing with artists, but there's a lot to tell you about!"


Roger looked at his watch in shock. For the first time in nearly four years, the emergency signal was flashing. Fortunately, he'd just left a meeting with a client and had only just gotten into the Griffon. "Norman?" he hit the two-way switch.

The butler's face appeared on the dial. "Master Roger, I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, but there's a report of a megadeus three miles west of the river, parallel to the main dome."

A megadeus? A megadeus? He had a horrible sinking feeling as he turned the key and the Griffon's engine roared to life. "On my way," he said, flipping a switch to see the map. Good--the tunnels there were clear right up to where the tracks emerged above the ground. "I'll be at these coordinates in approximately six minutes," he said, sending his butler the precise location.

"Very good, sir," Norman said. He looked to one side, consulting his own screen. "He should be there a few seconds ahead of you."

"Right." Roger turned onto the highway and floored it.


Angel looked at Dorothy with concern. The two women had taken Jimmy to the park, and after a few hours of playing catch-the-toddler, the little boy had worn himself out sufficiently that he was now napping in his stroller. She and Dorothy had been talking about the next charity event the Ladies Auxiliary intended to sponsor when the android had stopped in midsentence. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"Big O." Dorothy's voice was so soft Angel could barely make out the words. "I've missed you, too."

Angel sank down onto a park bench, fighting off a wave of despair. Things were supposed to be stable now, she'd done everything in her power to make sure they would be. "I don't think I can handle this again," she whispered, a single tear sliding down her cheek.

Dorothy was looking off into the distance and didn't reply.


Jason heard the sirens, a large number of them. Something big must be going down. He hadn't heard this many since... he quickly closed down the thought. "I'm sorry, Mr. Tate, I missed what you just said," he said. "Must be a big fire or something."

"We probably should take a break until it quiets down," Tate agreed, his voice slightly hoarse from all the talking he'd been doing. "I think there's a couple of Danishes left from yesterday." He went into the back room and returned with the bag and the two men finished them in silence.

Jason found himself wondering how many other people remembered.


The controls were familiar in Roger's hands as he slid into the command chair and hit the activation sequence. Cast In The Name Of God Ye Not Guilty. The message scrolled across the display, and it was like no time had passed at all, although he sensed his companion was very glad to see him. It only took a moment to locate the other megadeus. As they moved towards it, Roger heard the distant sounds of sirens.

"I thought we'd seen the last of these," Roger muttered, and froze as a rush of information suddenly flooded his mind. "Thirteen hundred and twenty-six? Thirteen hundred and twenty-six?"

"At maximum." Big O's response carried a strong overtone of reassurance. "Assuming that someone were able to find the correct parts and had sufficient Memories to use them."

"Well, someone's managed to do it with one of them," Roger said. Thirteen hundred and twenty six potential megadeuses. It was enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The screen flashed with a schematic of the model of their opponent. It was, Roger observed, not as well-armed as his megadeus, but it had a couple of capabilities that might prove to be a problem if he didn't watch himself.

The enemy hadn't yet spotted them, so Roger took the time to run a full status check on Big O. To his satisfaction, everything checked out green, and he was well-supplied with missiles. "How should we play this?" he mused out loud. The sirens were getting louder, but to Roger's relief, they stopped about 500 yards behind him. He stomped down on the foot pedals. "Let's start by getting his attention."

...to be continued