"That's not a problem if you have money, and now I do. Oh, and your stake."

He passed Edwin two fifties. "You remember at NIH that first day, Ed-when I told you I might just give you a parcel of the power?"

Edwin stared at him across the glossy low-slung roof of the sports car. He looked utterly horrified. "You wouldn't really, would you? You haven't already begun, with that invisibility?"

"No, no-that was just a tiny loan, very temporary! I wanted to say that you were right that day, with the arm wrestling. People don't have to be equal.

Diversity is a strength. I could never have done this alone. I needed your insight. It took the two of us, together, to get this going."

Edwin blushed visibly under his tan and ducked into the car. "Don't let's get excited till we see how it works out, okay? We're still only assuming that you can control the 'leak' at all. Have you thought about how you'll do it?"

"No," Rob admitted. "I'm going to have to experiment with it. That's why I think we should simplify things today. No more James Bond stuff. If I cash in every time I'm ahead a couple grand, I'll never be holding a flashy mountain of chips. And I'll modify the tarnhelm trick a little, and just tell everyone in the entire building they don't recognize either of us.

That should cover us completely. No more veiled confrontations with the management. You won't have to slink around like a ghost."

"Aw, that was kind of fun." Edwin shook his head in mock disappointment.

"And the laptop?"

"They won't recognize that either. If anyone asks you, say it's jewelry."

"Did you learn to be such a great liar?" Edwin asked laughing. "You sure have me beat! Or is it a gift?"

"I, I learned it," Rob said, flushing with shame. "In New York."

With the pressure from the casino management removed, and the novelty of blackjack worn off, it was a calm day. Rob spent a lot of his time at the tables in a brown study, fumbling for control. Images, he thought. For me the weirdness is image and metaphor-as if it's too big, or too strange, for a regular person to fully understand. I have to choose the right picture and impose it on the power.

At last he settled on the idea of a laser. This thing has been like a light bulb, shooting out energy all over, Rob thought. I've tried lampshades and wimpy stuff like that as it's gotten stronger and brighter. Now I want to contain and focus the light, shoot it out in one direction only. It was the first time he'd ever tried to apply his own template to the situation. He realized the only lasers he'd ever seen were on TV and in movies. He'd have to read up on them at the library to get a detailed idea of how they worked.

At the end of the day, however, Rob felt he had made a little progress.

"Only twelve thousand-some dollars," he reported with pride as they walked to the car.

"That might just be within statistical variation," Edwin said. "We have to crunch the numbers some."

"I want to tinker with your software in there. It's just the standard spreadsheet, right?"

Edwin handed him the laptop. "Mess with it while I drive home. It'll be good to get back to the lab."

"Next time I'll come by myself, Ed-now that you've got me started."

"You think this'll really do it?"

"I don't know, but ..." Rob found he was grinning like an idiot through his beard as he got into the car. "I think I have a chance!"

"That's great!"

"And I think I'll have to move out of the Open Door Center. It'd be dumb to live in a homeless shelter with more than twenty grand stuffed in my duffel bag. I'll rent a room someplace."

"I knew you'd turn around," Edwin said happily. "We'll stop for dinner in Delaware to celebrate!" He pushed the buttons on the CD player, and Gwen Verdon began to sing songs from "Sweet Charity."

It was a nippy evening for October, frosty-clear and smelling of snow.

Traffic east on Route 40 was moderate. Thinking about the future, Rob felt the approaching malice only at the very last instant. "Ed!" he shouted.

Edwin jumped. "What?"

There was no time to explain, no time to even grab the wheel of the Mazda.

Rob resorted to his Kmart remote trick. He shoved Edwin out of the saddle of his brain and seized control of his hands and feet. The sports car rocketed forward as Edwin's foot pushed the gas pedal, and Rob made his hands spin the wheel. The Mazda screamed across all four lanes of the highway, right into oncoming traffic. The headlights were blinding. Horns blared and tires screeched before the Mazda went roaring back again. A crash came as a side rear window shattered. The winter wind suddenly shrieked through the interior.

"Don't lose control, Ed," Rob snapped, twisting around in his seat. "I'm letting you have yourself back."

The Mazda jerked and slowed as Edwin took charge of it again. "What the heck are you doing, Rob? What's happened to the window?"

"Someone's shooting at us," Rob said furiously, looking back. Their assailants' car had dropped well behind, hiding in traffic. "Give me a second to get onto them . . . Oh damn it, am I stupid! I forgot they'd recognize your car! They noticed it in the casino lot and followed us."

"But they can't know we did anything!"

"They knew we were doing something, and why bother to analyze it? Just pump a few rounds of automatic rifle fire into the car and the problem goes away." Rob was so angry he could hardly see. But he had a hold of them now, the driver and the gunman in the attacking car. "I'll fix them," he said between his teeth.

"Oh my God!" Edwin gasped. The car came zooming up from behind with headlights glaring. It swept past at eighty miles an hour, the engine howling in protest. "Rob, what are you doing?"

"An accident." Rob smiled a small savage smile as he turned around again and sat back. "Excessive speed and spin out, right through the rail of that overpass up there."

"You're going to kill them?" The Mazda lurched as Edwin pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped. "Rob, no!"

"They were going to do us." Coldly Rob watched the tail-lights wink out of sight ahead.

Edwin gripped his arm, the strong fingers digging in hard. "No, Rob! Are you insane? You can't murder them!"

Rob wrenched free. In an icy whisper he said, "You dare?"

Edwin hesitated for only a fraction of a second. Then he glared back, bristling. "Of course I dare! Who else is going to tell you this is wrong?"

"You idiot!" Rob's vision suddenly seemed to clear as he said the words.

With a sharp exhalation of breath he relaxed. "Okay . . . they're off the hook."

"Oh, Jesus." Edwin leaned on the steering wheel, gulping. "You wouldn't have really done it?"

"Oh sure. I-I got mad, I guess . . . Thanks for stopping me. I'm sorry."

Rob leaned back, shaken and sick.

"You can be one terrifying dude, Rob, you know that?" With unsteady hands Edwin put the car in gear again.

"I'm sorry," Rob repeated unhappily.

Edwin drove on, well below the speed limit. Incongruous Broadway show music filled the silence. A mile up the road the headlights picked out the other car slewed sideways in the median. The driver and passenger were barely visible in the bushes beside the car. "They're begging the Virgin Mary for mercy," Rob reported as they drove past.

"They have the right idea. Look, Rob, you try as hard as any man I know to be a decent human being. But you can't save yourself. You need help."

"I know it."

"There are answers. You want me to tell you about them?"