My old friend Pal had a philosophy: "When you lack understanding, or subtlety, you can still get your argument across with a monkey wrench."

A simplistic, often foolish credo, but right now rather compelling. If I disrupt things enough, Clara and her friends may have time to find out about this place. They'll come do the rest ... sort it all out. So, whatever the h.e.l.l is going on, just find a way to interfere. If I disrupt things enough, Clara and her friends may have time to find out about this place. They'll come do the rest ... sort it all out. So, whatever the h.e.l.l is going on, just find a way to interfere.

Even a futile resolve is something to cling to. As nausea worsened with each downward step, I pictured the AI-XIX computer ... and a metal folding chair that stood nearby. Just the thing, in lieu of a monkey wrench. a.s.suming I could still lift furniture when I got there.

Which seemed doubtful as my symptoms worsened. Halfway down those rickety stairs I felt surrounded by nasty invisible creatures with stingers and claws, leaving flesh quivering after each phantom slash. Figments, Figments, I diagnosed. I diagnosed. Your brain is making up stories to explain unpleasant signals from a dying body, Keep moving. Your brain is making up stories to explain unpleasant signals from a dying body, Keep moving.

Fine. But two steps later the imaginary pests were joined by unsettling bursts of vivid recollection -- sensory waves that made me stagger on the stairs.

The unmistakable floral aroma of Chavez Avenue Park.

Spears and shields displayed above a dead man's open coffin.

Ritu in tears, consoled by a figure with skin like luminous tin.

Sneaking past a trio of boys tormenting each other in a yard -- -- then turning to see a gun in the hand of grinning ghost ...

These unsorted memories didn't rise from personal experience, or any ditto I recall inloading. They had to be delusions. Yet their deja vu familiarity was hurtfully intense, like the first time I ever rolled my Standing Wave in clay, or witnessed a scene from several points of view, or looked directly into my own eyes without a camera or mirror.

Awakening trapped in a liquid-filled vessel.

Viewing cuneiform tablets and Venus figurines -- -- and pain liked I never imagined, machine-generated, amplifying my soul-undertone, while rubbing to erase everything else about me -- Stumbling under this barrage of frenzied images, I could also hear people yelling across the room. Beta and Ritu for sure, and maybe others, all of them sounding so-slow as time seemed to creep more gradually with each pa.s.sing second. Few of their frantic words were clear. Anyway, their pa.s.sions seemed immaterial as I paused on the bottommost stair, a foot wavering above the laboratory floor.

Somehow I knew that one more step would make things even worse. Glancing left, I saw that I was almost lined up with the gray and red golems -- spreadeagled across from each other while the pendulum crisscrossed slowly between them. The nearest ditto -- dark gray -- turned its head quarter-profile toward me, looking almost familiar to my bleary eyes.

Then, unexpected and unbeckoned, quavering words entered my head.

What was that? Another symptom?

No distractions, I vowed. Got to keep my rendezvous with a folding chair, just meters away.

Taking another step dropped me down those final inches to the floor -- -- completing the alignment.

And suddenly the sky seemed to crash on me! The intruding voice went ba.s.so profundo, filling my head with urgent-compulsive commentary in present tense: Is realAlbert Dying?

Will He Perish Soon? What If My Organic "Anchor" Suddenly Lets Go During These Final Moments Before the Glazier Peaks?

Estimating ...

It Seems the Death Whiplash Could Give My Waveform a Boost Against Yosil. It Might Even Hurl His Obnoxious Specter out of Here!

What the h.e.l.l? Stabbing pain shot through my parietal lobes. I swayed from the bizarre thoughts pouring through me. It felt like ditto-inloading, only far more intense and alien.

My Foe's Attacks Grow More Desperate with Each Pendulum Swing. No Compromise. If He Can't Have the Prize No One Will!

Yosil and I May Annihilate Each Other, Spewing the Glazier Forth Unguided, Rampaging on a Plane of Reality That Society's Defenses Aren't Even Equipped to Detect. All Those Doomed People in the City, About to Suffer Writhing Deaths ... I Can't Let Them Be Sacrificed in Vain.

Daunted by the sheer size of this ent.i.ty, by its booming thoughts, I wondered, How could it have anything to do with me?

Then again, how could it not? You don't read the minds of other people. Only different versions of yourself.

He's Dying Anyway. When He Sees What's at Stake, He'll Do the Right Thing.

How Fitting If My Creator Joins Me the Very Moment When It Will Do the Most Good!

That thundering narration, like foam on a tidal wave, was only the surface layer of a mammoth inloading. I cried out, clutching my head as events of several days flooded my battered brain across a link that was unbuffered, unprotected. Coalescing from the raucous clamor were key data -- -- what became of my graydit that went missing at Kaolin Manor, back on Tuesday. Enhanced and multiplied a million-fold, it now stood as part of a great machine whose terrifying purpose was starting to dawn on me -- -- and who torched my house and garden, a rogue ditto who murdered its own rig. The very one now riding that pendulum, screaming its head off. In a fraction of a second, I grasped why ... and what it means to be an "anchor" -- -- and what I was being offered ...

-- and the cost.

Our Patterns Mesh. Despite a Befuddled Brain, realAl Partakes ofMy New Vision. With Growing Awe, He Perceives the Soulscape in Its Fallow Beauty, Barely Touched by Some Algae Flecks Along the Sh.o.r.e. Fallow Beauty, Barely Touched by Some Algae Flecks Along the Sh.o.r.e.

Look Deeper, Albert. See How the Soulscape Emerged from the Limitless Inherent Potentialities of the Dirac Sea. Dormant for Ten Billion Years, It Awaits an Ent.i.ty Who Can Observe. Someone Able to Collapse Allthe Quantum Probabilities with a Finesse Never Imagined by Theorists ...

Stop!

All That Techn.o.babble Comes from ditYosil! While His Specter SlicesThrough the Standing Wave, He Keeps Trying to Impose His Viewpoint on the Divine. on the Divine.

How Many More Cycles Before Our Conflict Shatters Everything?

Resolution Depends on realAlbert.

Decide! I Tell the Small Organic Man That I Once Was. Decide Now!

Our thoughts weren't in synch. Time operated differently for that altered and amplified version of "me," its voice surging and then muting in waves. I needed several intense seconds of instruction before my slower organic mind grasped the outlines -- the elegant discovery made by Ritu's genius father. And his plan to fulfill the life arc of a species.

How many times have I scorned those fringe mystics who took the word "soulistics" literally? Beyond our ba.n.a.l power to live parallel lives, they saw implicit hope -- or tacit dread -- that humanity had crossed a line, embarking on a new destiny. And here I was, being offered a key role in the greatest thing since the Big Bang!

To earn it, all I must do was die.

Isn't That Happening Anyway? Just Hasten It by a Few Minutes, I felt urged. I felt urged.

Grab Any Tool. A Bludgeon Will Do.

Wavering on my feet, I spotted a sharp pencil on a nearby console.

Before even willing it -- and maybe I didn't -- the slender thing was in my hand, the tip approaching my right eye.

One hard shove and a new age would be born.

"Oh G.o.d," I groaned.

And my own voice came right back, emerging from my mouth with a reply.

"Yes. I Am Here. And Be a.s.sured, This Will Serve Me Well."

63.

Catch the Conscience ... ... five fateful seconds ...

Lying on a cold stone floor as chilly dawn broke through an open window, I hefted my sole weapon -- the bent and baked leg that I wrenched from my own body.

I'd have one chance to hurl it right.

Clickety went the missile launcher while a screen glowed READY. went the missile launcher while a screen glowed READY.

The meddlesome voice that had guided me here was gone. I kind of missed having an audience for my effort.

Here goes, I thought. My one functioning limb -- a hand and arm -- throbbed with all its might as I threw ... I thought. My one functioning limb -- a hand and arm -- throbbed with all its might as I threw ...

64.

... of the King ... and another twenty ...

The pencil tip approached my eye. Groaning an oath, I felt quick encouragement from the nearby G.o.d-machine. One good shove and a new age would be born, fulfilling a myriad forlorn dreams.

Anyway, I've slain myself many times, ever since I turned sixteen, right?

But those were dittos.

My org-body org-body protested against the plan. It bawled to survive! protested against the plan. It bawled to survive!

The same clash with instinct repelled realMaharal from his own project a week ago, fleeing recklessly across the desert night.

"But You're Made of Sterner Stuff," my own mouth answered. my own mouth answered. "Unite with Me. It Will Be Just Like Inloading." "Unite with Me. It Will Be Just Like Inloading."

A day is enough for a ditto, when it knows it will rejoin a larger self. Wasn't this the same sort of thing? Saints walked into ovens with less a.s.surance than I was being offered.

Okay, I thought, as determination flowed into my arm. I thought, as determination flowed into my arm.

The pencil tip trembled -- Suddenly a flare of amber warning lights erupted nearby, drawing my reflex gaze.

WARNING! WARNING!.

MISSILE LAUNCHER MALFUNCTION.

FIRING SEQUENCE INTERRUPTED.

Holo diagnostics zoomed toward an awkward-looking foreign object, obstructing a tilted ramp. News of this sabotage provoked sharp resonance between the gray, the red, and all their virtual copies.

Why Aren't the Rockets Flying?

Ah, Here's the Cause -- Another Me!

Tuesday's Green, Made for Cleaning Toilets and Mowing Lawns ... the Dull Thing Shouldn't Even Exist Anymore!

A green? The one who called himself a "frankie," then sauntered off to seek self-fulfillment? I wondered. How could it be here?

The AI-XIX screen displayed new letters: REPAIRS INITIATED.

"Ignore the Distraction," my own voice muttered. my own voice muttered. "The Launcher Will Repair Itself. Get Back to the Business at Hand." "The Launcher Will Repair Itself. Get Back to the Business at Hand."

The business in in my hand -- achieving immortality the way Escher and Einstein did, with a pencil. Adrenaline surged and my heartbeat pounded. Reptile, primate, cave dweller, and urban man all tried to mutiny. But now spiritual resolve felt much stronger than instinct. my hand -- achieving immortality the way Escher and Einstein did, with a pencil. Adrenaline surged and my heartbeat pounded. Reptile, primate, cave dweller, and urban man all tried to mutiny. But now spiritual resolve felt much stronger than instinct.

It would be just like inloading, I thought, gathering strength.

Only another another diversion yanked the makeshift weapon back again. diversion yanked the makeshift weapon back again.

This time it was pain. Brilliant, dazzling, coruscating pain.

Yosil Has Seen My Plan -- How realAlbert's Death Whiplash May Eject Him!

Yosil Reacts, Channeling a Blast of Refined Agony to Knock Albert out of Alignment.

Poor Albert Moans at Sudden Images of Fire and Brimstone. h.e.l.lish Pangs Abet the Animal Portions That Always Come Embedded in Trueflesh, Rousing Them to Flee or Fight.

Now Yosil's Golem Shouts from His Swinging Perch, Calling for His Daughter to Rush Downstairs -- for Her to Push Albert Aside and Take His Place in the Beam!

This Will Keep Their Agreement, He Vows. But She Must Hurry.

With Seconds Left, I Must Draw Albert Back into Focus. Show Him That Pain Is an Illusion.

"Pain Is an Illusion," my own voice soothed. The mouth spoke words from outside the brain. my own voice soothed. The mouth spoke words from outside the brain. "Pain Is a Mirage Compared to the Hyper-Reality of the Great Soulscape. "Pain Is a Mirage Compared to the Hyper-Reality of the Great Soulscape.

"Gaze upon It Now, Albert.

"Behold!"

All at once, the panorama of that vast new realm spread open before me, wider and more gorgeous than any Earthly horizon, beckoning me away from a h.e.l.lish abyss, replacing it with appealing cross sections from every "heaven" ever imagined.