"The next floor is the last, c.o.c.kley's floor. If you could take vibra-pistols behind their barricades, teleport to their rear-"

"We can."

Nimron smiled, ordered two of the guards to hand over their pistols, leaving them with stunners only. "Good luck," he said to Mike.

"We have to find an aura-a departure point," Mike said.

They searched the rooms, stepping over sleeping executives and gore-covered guards, opening every door and peeking around every corner. They finally found a lounge with three chairs. They flipped one on. Both of them squeezed into the multicolored haze that was the aura. They made their wishes.

One moment, there was light...

One moment, darkness...

And a swirling of all imaginable colors, blending into one another, separating into weird shapes that pulsated and flowed.

Ocher, lapis lazuli, crimson, maroon...

An infinity of golden squares, concentric, popped up before them and was swimming all about them as they plunged down the very center toward a pinpoint of shimmering sunlight.

One moment, there were voices that moaned and screamed.

Then darkness and no voices...

Then light and a room...

c.o.c.kley's office. Mike moved quickly from the chair to stand upon the familiar carpet. There were two men working at a table, a guard by the door, and c.o.c.kley at his desk. No one had noticed them, as the chair rested in a shaded corner.

Lisa was at his side.

Mike raised his pistol, smashed the guard up against the wall and held the beam on him until the spattering of blood and flesh grew great. One of the young men at the table went for something to throw. Mike swiveled, ruptured both the boys' stomachs. Lisa choked.

Then there was only c.o.c.kley, sitting at his desk with his mouth hanging open and his eyes more than a bit wide. "Malone-"

"No. Not Malone."

"Mike. Mike Jorgova. Plastic surgery. You should have checked my fingerprints against those in your files, c.o.c.kley."

The man looked very old now. The air of youth had dissipated; the air of self-a.s.surance had gone stale. His eyes were filled with the horrors and weariness of decades -too many decades. His chin was quivering. Mike was suddenly able to understand why c.o.c.kley was cowering instead of leaping and attempting to kill him. Now there was no chance that the old man would be given to his metal surgeons and repaired. If he was killed this time, there would be no coming back from the dead. This would be final and everlasting. And c.o.c.kley was afraid.

Mike dropped the gun, kicked it behind for Lisa to pick up. He began practicing what he had been taught. He began to allow his hatred to bubble upward. He pictured c.o.c.kley not as the sniveling thing he was now, but as the arrogant and ruthless man he had once been. "I'm going to kill you," he said quite evenly.

c.o.c.kley stood, swayed from side to side. His flesh was the color of a dead gull lying in the backwash of the sea.

"I'm going to shred you into pieces and toss you down the incinerator shaft where all garbage goes," Mike continued.

"Stay away!" c.o.c.kley said gruffly, gritting his teeth.

Mike smiled. "That won't work. You can't fool me this time. You're scared stiff. If you weren't-if you had been self-a.s.sured like the old Anaxemander c.o.c.kley-you would have jumped that desk and beaten me to a pulp. But you have no courage left. If you get killed this time, there will be no new organs for you. You won't be able to continue living off other people's bodies. Your vampire days are over. And that scares you."

c.o.c.kley fumbled in a desk drawer, came out with a hand weapon.

Mike brought up a foot, twisted sideways, connected with the pistol and sent it clattering across the room to lie in a corner, a useless toy.

"Stay away!"

He leaped, brought c.o.c.kley to the floor. Putting all of his force behind the blow, the old man struck upward with his fist, aiming for his opponent's nose. Mike was able to fend off the blow without any real difficulty. He brought back his own fist, smashed it across c.o.c.kley's jaw. Blood trickled out of the wrinkled corner of the mouth, seeping like brown sewer water. Then the hand with the metal plate came up. And down. Up, down, up, down, updown. Something snapped in c.o.c.kley's neck. He went limp, a rag man now. His eyes rolled up and his tongue out. There was stillness and quiet in him. Mike's hatred went limp too. There was nothing in him now but disgust, disgust for all that Show stood for and for all it had done. In the end, it had fallen easily when struck at the heart. It had taken only a few men who were not satisfied. Show's power, unlike that of any previous government, had not lain in the citizens' willingness to defend it but in the unwillingness of the people to fight against it. It was a subtle but important difference. It was that thin line of difference that had toppled the entire thing.

He lifted the body, shoved it through the trash disposal slot and waited until he heard it strike the grating below.

There was the hissing sound of juices spluttering under the lick of the hot tongues.

When he was very sure that the body was beyond reconst.i.tution, he put his arm around Lisa's waist, punched the b.u.t.ton that would override the block on the elevators that kept them from reaching this final floor. There was the sound of fighting outside, gradually diminishing to a scuffling noise and heavy breathing. They opened the door to the hallway, stepped out.

Victory was theirs.

Chapter Ten.

Hi again! Me, Society. That is what I'll soon be called instead of Zombie. In a way, it will be a blessing. You see, all it took in this Household world Show had created was one dissident member. The closer a society, the more possible damage one man can do if he tries. In a way, I'll be glad to be Society again. But, oh, those G.o.dd.a.m.n birth pains!

Chapter Eleven.

"And so," Mike was saying to Nimron, "evidently the hundred percent experience tubes were just a little too effective. More and more people started going Empathist more quickly. Sometimes within minutes. And Fetters, the psychiatrist, thinks the voices we hear as we travel through the nether world are not voices at all but the thoughts of those viewers who went Empathist and are trapped in there forever. Fetters says it is a rebirth of G.o.d, more or less. A returning to the collective mind. It seems a h.e.l.lishly ineffective G.o.d, however."

"Hasn't He always been h.e.l.lishly ineffective?" Nimron asked.

"Perhaps."

Nimron changed positions in the soft, velveteen-covered seat. "But why didn't you and Lisa lose your minds when you entered this nether world?"

"The report from your doctors and physicists will explain it better than I can. We have only theory to go on. The Empathist, we believe, is funneling inward, thousands upon thousands of them occupying the same portion of this other dimension, this thought world. In a Fade Out, however, the Performer is flashing outward toward an aura, not inward from an aura."

"And the ghost bodies you left behind?"

"Merely a thought configuration, our minds carrying on in a tape loop sort of way while our physical selves are gone. It is sustained by the energy web of the cone that picks up the thoughts and broadcasts them."

"It's difficult to buy all of this."

"But it is a start. Maybe we will find it's all something else," Mike said enthusiastically. "But we have theories to prove or disprove, a place to begin. And we have teleportation. Once forced into the other dimension by the power buildup, your body's electrical pattern is altered so that you need only an aura to step from place to place. Who knows, we may find out that repeated use of the dimension enables us to pop in and out of it without even the aid of an aura."

"The thought of teleportation makes me shiver," Nimron said, shivering to prove his point. "It can't be developed and released for some time-for one h.e.l.luva long time. We have to rebuild the world before we can revolutionize it again."

"All of you shut up," a voice said behind them. Andrew Flaxen leaned over their shoulders. "If you are quiet, we can begin the evening's entertainment."

"If you set the machine up," Nimron said, "then we'll have to wait for someone to come and fix it anyhow."

"You're just jealous because you aren't mechanically inclined. Now, eyes straight ahead."

He went back to the machine; he darkened the room.

Ahead of them, there were lights and there were people.

Twentieth Century Fox, giant letters proclaimed in golden splendor.

There was music and colors.

They all gasped. They were all fascinated, all of them in that little shelter room in the belly of the mountain which had given birth to a new world.

The scene changed. They gasped again.

Mike thought how different it was from Show-this thing called the Motion Picture. You could not really tell what the Performer was thinking. It was a challenge to understand him, to figure him out from his facial expressions and his surface conversation. You could not get close to him at all.

And that was nice. There had been so much of being close. It was wonderful to be distant from everyone. Almost everyone. In the darkness, he raised an arm, drew her to him. Together they ohhed ohhed and they and they ahhed ahhed.