"Yeah, but that c.u.n.t'd be nice and tight, wouldn't it?" Voices stopped suddenly as the Oddity turned a corner into another alley. There were three of them, all male, none of them looking more than sixteen or seventeen and dressed in grimy leathers. One was prep.u.b.escent and childlike; another had a blotchy face peppered with angry blackhead acne. But it was the kid in the_ middle that made Oddity hesitate for a moment. He was tall and fair-skinned. Under the torn leathers and dirty Levi's he had a fighter's body, lean and hard-muscled. The youth was handsome in a feral way, with intense light eyes half-hidden behind straggling blond bangs. He was almost pretty, until they noticed the bloodshot eyes and the fidgety restlessness. The kid was pumped up, high and dangerous.

The joker Oddity knew as Barbie was sobbing on the ground between the three-a perfectly formed woman with adult features but barely two feet tall. Her face was caught in a perpetual smile. She saw Oddity; her mouth grinned incongruously, but the blue china eyes were pleading.

A quick anger raged through John; Patty could feel its red heat. "Hey!" Oddity shouted, their huge fists knotting. "Leave her the h.e.l.l alone!"

"s.h.i.t," Pimpleface said. "You gonna let a f.u.c.king joker talk to us like that, David? Maybe it'd be fun, too. Big enough, ain't it? Maybe it's strong, too."

The leader-David-regarded the Oddity, hands on hips. Patty felt John trying to take control. [Just charge the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Beat the kid's head in before he decides to move. ]

Patty didn't need much encouragement. Oddity moved, roaring and lumbering toward the trio like a banshee. The gang suddenly flashed steel. Seeing the knives, Oddity screamed and tore a No PARKING sign from the asphalt. They swung the pole like a flail, it made a deep rumble as it whipped through the air.

There was nothing subtle about their attack. The ma.s.sive body plowed into the gang like a careening truck. The sign caught Pimpleface and slammed him back against a wall; whipping it around again, they held the other two back. "Get out of here! Now!" Oddity barked at Barbie. The doll-like joker struggled to her feet. She ran, taking staggering, tiny baby steps.

Oddity spun to find David, figuring that if they took out the leader, the others would crumple. They launched themselves at the leering kid.

They were far too late. David's body slumped as if struck. Blackhead caught him before he fell.

[Patty... ?]

At the same moment John and Evan felt Patty's presence ripped away from the Oddity. In place of her was someone cool, sinister, and smug: David. For just a second he was Dominant, crowing his triumph inwardly. Then the pain hit him.

Oddity screamed, loud and long and tormented. The sign and the twisted pole dropped from their hands, clanging on the pavement like an alarm.

John and Evan had had sixteen years to learn the neural mazes of Oddity's odd group mind. They knew all too well the searing agony that a.s.saulted this intruder. Their shared response was almost instinctive: John sent his will surging to the high place they thought of as Dominant, pushing aside the screaming, frightened ego of David.

(Hands grasped at Oddity and a blade ripped cloth: Blackhead, attacking again after shaking off the first blow. Intent on the interior struggle, Oddity simply howled and flung the punk aside once more. The voices of reality seemed to be distant. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, something's happened, man. David's screaming. s.h.i.t!"

"f.u.c.k, it's gone wrong, it's gone wrong.."

Blackhead grabbed at their sleeve. Oddity roared and whirled; he heard a body fall hard on the concrete. ("The f.u.c.ker's too strong! Grab David's body. Let's get back to the Rox.") They knew it was wrong, John and Evan. "Patty!" they cried together, and the fury gave John enough mental strength to s.n.a.t.c.h the screaming David from control of Oddity's mind.

As John threw the jumper from the mental ramparts, Evan attempted to slide from Pa.s.sive to Sub-Dominant. That was more difficult. David could feel himself losing control, and as Oddity's pain became more distant, his will began to a.s.sert itself once more.

For a moment both Evan's and David's minds were entirely open to each other as they moved, caught somewhere in the limbo between Pa.s.sive and Sub-Dominant. Evan knew David in that instant, and he hated the mind he encountered. He could feel the jumper s.n.a.t.c.hing at his emotions, his thoughts, his memories, and the feeling of violation gave Evan the power to throw David down again.

Evan screamed with David, thrusting himself past until the jumper tumbled down to helpless Pa.s.sive. [John?]

[I've got Oddity, Evan. Just keep that b.a.s.t.a.r.d down in Pa.s.sive. ]

Oddity looked around. "s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t!"

The kids were gone. They couldn't even hear the sound of their retreating footsteps. The interior battle might have taken minutes-it was impossible to tell.

[Patty?] Evan queried softly, hopefully, into the matrix of Oddity.

There was no answer but soft, mocking laughter from Pa.s.sive.

Oddity howled in the darkness of the alley.

She didn't hurt. That was the first thing she noticed. For sixteen years there had been constant pain. For sixteen years there had been tearing agony as ligaments shifted, muscles were stretched to their limit, and bones sc.r.a.ped against each other in the cage of Oddity's flesh. She didn't hurt. And she was alone.

There were the six or seven kids-nats, as far as she could tell-in the filthy room with her, but she was alone in a single body.

The others were arguing, but she paid little attention to the words.

"Hey, man, what you're describing is the Oddity. So the Oddity took David. He's gone, man."

"You don't mean that, Molly."

" I don't? Well, he sure couldn't control the f.u.c.ker, could he?"

"If David's gone, everything's up for grabs. And there's gonna be some people who like that idea. You remember that, Molly. In fact, I'll bet you're thinking the same, too." There was rough laughter, footsteps, a slamming door.

The voices were outside. There were no voices in Patty's head.

[Evan? John?] No answer-only silence and her own thoughts.

Patty brought her hands up to her face and marveled. "s.h.i.t, she ain't supposed to be able to do that." Blackhead stared at her with an expression caught somewhere between fear and hatred on his pimply face. Patty ignored him, concentrating on the hands and wiggling the fingers, turning them around to see the calluses.

These weren't the hands she dimly remembered from the early seventies. But neither were they the patchwork, marbled, k.n.o.bbed things at the end of Oddity's arms. The fingers were long, with dirt snagged under the chewed nails and callused hard tips on the left hand that told her the jumper played guitar, for Patty had once had similar calluses.

She could smell the body's own rank sweat, and the dirty, knee-torn Levi's were tight at her crotch. She looked down and saw the bulge of a p.e.n.i.s. She could feel the c.o.c.k, part of her. She could make it twitch.

She laughed because that startled her, and her voice was deep and very male.

"What's the matter, a.s.sholes?" she said with a bravado she didn't feel. "Weren't expecting me to wake up?"

She'd heard the news reports. Everything that had happened tonight added up to the same conclusion: The kids were jumpers. The jumpers' victims had all said the same thing: For the duration of the jump, they'd been in a coma. Patty a.s.sumed the jumper's companions had guarded the body until the jumper returned and transferred back. Certainly the transfer was a horrible shock to the victim; it was undoubtedly what drove them into unconciousness.

Patty had felt very little of it. Patty was used to existing in a strange body; she was familiar with the sensation of her awareness shifting place. She'd recovered quickly and she knew exactly where she was. Even though the journey here had seemed fantasy (was there really a living, gelatinous globe in which they rode?), she knew where they'd taken her.

Ellis Island. The Rox.

The remembrance sobered her quickly. Depending on who you listened to, the Rox was a refuge where jokers helped one another, or it was a gaping sore, a dangerous seeping wound where the worst of those touched by the wild card had gathered.

YOU HAVE TO DIE TO GO TO THE Box. Patty had seen that spray-painted in garish colors on the walls of J-town. SEND US YOUR HUDDLED Ma.s.sES-WE NEED THE FOOD.

Slogans of the Rox had appeared by the hundreds in the past few months. From what she'd heard, death was common and varied here. The bodies floated ash.o.r.e in. Jersey or were found out in the bay.

Patty no longer felt pleased. Refuge or h.e.l.l, the air of the Rox smelled of garbage and s.h.i.t and corruption. [My loves ... ] And she was alone. That was worst of all.

The room itself was a hovel, as bad or worse than anything she'd seen in her years with Welfare Services: corrugated aluminum sides that looked like they'd been pieced together from old awnings, a stained concrete floor, the only light a bare bulb hanging from a frayed extension cord. The door was a piece of warped plywood with a rope handle. Patty was sitting in the one piece of furniture in the room: a Laz-E-Boy recliner, the black Naugahyde hopelessly shredded and soiled with nameless stains.

Patty tried standing. Despite the dirt, despite the neglect, despite the halitosis and the crud in the lungs and the leftover crack buzz, this was a gorgeous body: sleek and powerful and lean. Still, it was an effort. Her knees wobbled and she sat again quickly. Patty forced herself to smile, to look as smug and arrogant as this guy had appeared to be.

The punks stood on either side of the exit, scowling. There were three now; the others seemed to have left. She recognized the one who had been with David.

Blackhead had a huge welt on his leg and a b.l.o.o.d.y nose; a remnant of the fight with Oddity. His face and upper arms were sc.r.a.ped raw and the left side of his head was puffy and discolored. Standing next to him was a slight and pretty girl who looked to be at the most thirteen, with b.r.e.a.s.t.s just budding under the tank top she wore. The girl stared wide-eyed at Patty. Her face was round, with a fragile attractiveness. Blackhead had his arm around her; his fingers stroked her right nipple. She scowled at him and moved out from under his arm. She continued to gaze strangely at Patty.

The last of the group was a young woman with a scowl on her face, her arms akimbo over a dirty T-shirt. The way Blackhead looked at her, it was obvious he deferred to her. "Who the f.u.c.k are you?" she said.

Patty found that she didn't want them to know she was a woman. "Part of Oddity"

she said at last. "You can call me ... Pat." She laughed mockingly again at that, hearing the strain in the sound. [Ah, Evan, too bad it wasn't you who was Dominant. You'd have to put up with being a honky, but at least you'd be the right s.e.x. You'd be out. ]

She was almost startled that there was no answer in her head.

[Alone. G.o.d, it feels so strange.]

"Molly, we gotta tell Bloat," Blackhead said.

"Not yet. Not yet, man. Maybe David'll be back." She didn't look that pleased at the prospect, but she shrugged. "He knows where we went, huh? He'll come here."

Patty stood again, and this time stayed up. Blackhead blinked hard, scowling at Patty with his right hand fisted around a piece of iron pipe. "We shoulda f.u.c.kin' tied him up, Mol'. David's gonna be p.i.s.sed if we have'ta f.u.c.k up his body."

"What makes you think David's coming back?" Patty asked. [G.o.d, such a rich voice. A politician would die for it. What do you think, John?] Then: [I have to stop this. There's no one there.] "Hey, I have two other friends in Oddity, a.s.sholes: Looked to me like they were in charge when you punks ran, not David."

It was a bluff. Patty had seen the battle for control raging in Oddity after the jump. There hadn't been anyone Dominant; Oddity had simply been flailing wildly, out of control. The kids had grabbed her and run before the fight had been won one way or the other. Patty had no doubt John was strong enough to be Dominant quickly, but poor Evan-- She didn't know what might have happened. If David had won, then Oddity could be in J-town at the moment, doing things she'd rather not think about.

[There's nothing you can do about it. Just stay alive. Try to get out of here. ]

"He'll be back, and you're strain' till he does," Blackhead said nervously, licking his lips and looking at Molly for confirmation. The girl beside him was still staring, silent. "You don't know David. He gets what he wants. He's strong. He's got ways. And you-you're in the Rox. You're meat."

"David doesn't know what he hit in Oddity," Patty bluffed. "He may never get out. I rather like this body." Blackhead glanced at Molly. The other girl stared. "What?" Patty asked. "What's the problem?"

Molly just shrugged, but Blackhead snorted. "He's never been away for more'n a few hours. No one's sure what happens when you stay in someone else's body too long."

"Maybe Bloat'd know," Blackhead said.

Molly scoffed. "And why the h.e.l.l would you think that? You think Bloat jumps?"

"He reads minds, don't he?"

Molly just scowled harder. "This ain't got nothin' to do with Bloat."

"Everything in the Rox has to do with Bloat," Blackhead insisted. The kid sniffed and wiped his arm, across the back of his nose. Snot mixed with the blood on his cheek.

Molly sighed. "All right. Maybe we should let Bloat know what's going on. h.e.l.l, he probably knows already. Can you handle this?"

Blackhead scowled. "s.h.i.t," he said. "Sure. Me'n Kelly'll stay here and take care a'things."

Kelly's intense gaze had never left Patty. Her eyes were somewhere between blue and gray, and very open.

"You see how she's watching you?" she whispered teasingly to Evan, giggling with the wine. John's fundraising party for Gregg Hartmann's first senatorial campaign was a noisy swirl around them. "The willowy one with too much makeup, over in the corner by your sculpture. She hasn't taken her eyes off you since she came in :"

"Jesus, Patty, you have a filthy mind. That's the Salchows' daughter. She's still in high school. I sold her father two paintings last month."

"I was her age once, too. That's a teenage crush if I ever saw one. I've been there, too. The hormones just run away with your mind. How about it, Evan? She's young, rich, probably willing if a bit inexperienced. White and curious about how it'd be with a big black stud like you. "

"Patty-"

Patty laughed and kissed Evan. The girl's face had gone almost angry as she turned away....

Patty gave Runt a half smile. The girl seemed startled; then slowly, behind Blackhead, she smiled back, almost shyly.

[Have to get out of here. Have to find John and Evan. ]

Patty knew in that moment how to escape. She hated herself for the knowledge, but she knew.

[You want out I know you do I can feel it and I can do it for you I have the key but it has to be soon I can take you to the Rox but SOON.... ]

They were standing in front of the Dime Museum. A poster was stapled inside a case next to the door, a garish drawing of the Syrian exhibit. A waxen Senator Hartmann was gesturing for the others to retreat, his jacket b.l.o.o.d.y from the gunshot wound. Guards with Uzis gazed at the dais where the Kahina slit the throat of her brother the Nur al-Allah. Braun glowed in a golden spotlight; Carnifex gleamed in his white fighting suit; Tachyon clutched his head and crumpled on the ground.

John wasn't sure how they'd ended up there. For most of the last hour, they'd reeled through the streets of J-town blindly, trying to find the punks and slowly realizing that the quest was useless.

Their fists clenched and unclenched-the right hand Evan's and the left John's.

There wasn't much of Patty surfaced in Oddity at all. It seemed that her body had become sluggish since the loss of her presence.

[We've got to go get her, John. David says they'd've taken her to the Rox. He says we have to find Patty quickly. He's afraid. I can feel it. He's scared of what might happen if he's out of his own body for too long. Patty might be trapped.]

[I don't hear him, Evan. We smashed him down to Pa.s.sive. Stuck him in the bas.e.m.e.nt and locked the door. We can't hear the f.u.c.ker at all.]

[Don't tell him Evan I can get you out I can give you the release you want just help me out of here quick I know you I know you.. . . ]

David broadcast the plea desperately, constantly. Evan knew the truth. John was tiring already; Evan knew that his own will could not hold David down alone if John fell from Dominant. The jumper knew that, too. Since then, Evan had heard David's voice. Constantly. At Sub-Dominant, Oddity's eternal purgatory sluiced over Evan's soul, and he could hear the words promising a salvation.

[You want out I know you.... ] Yes, David knew Evan's weaknesses. He knew too well how Evan kept listening and wondering.

A violent shudder racked their body; they could see the right arm shorten and change color as they watched. The torment was worse than either John or Evan remembered, as if they had also taken Patty's share of the agony. The fingers curled with pain, the nails digging into the palm. When the fists opened again, the hand was a piebald mixture of John and Evan.

[How long can you stay Dominant?] Evan gasped with the transformation. [John, the only thing that's kept any of us sane was being able to go down to Pa.s.sive and rest. Even Sub-Dominant hurts too much. John ... please ... ]

[I'll jump someone else someone you'll loathe some- one neither you or John can stomach at all and you'll be left in the body with them without Patty without any chance of ever getting out at all unless you help me NOW ...]

[Patty's in the Rox,] Evan said. [In the Rox. My G.o.d-]

[We haven't any plan. We don't know what we're running into or how to handle it once we do find her.] [Let's just get there. Now, John. Before it's too late.]

Oddity moaned. The pain redoubled as the body shifted again. Oddity screamed this time, grasping the fire hydrant in front of the museum and wrenching upward as if they could drive away the torture with violence. The top of the hydrant gave way under their a.s.sault with a metallic shriek. Water cannoned in a gushing, two-story-high fountain, soaking their black cloak and turning the gutters into dark, trash-filled rapids. Water cascaded over the front of the Dime Museum.

Underneath, David laughed and whispered to Evan. [When we get there I can do it I can give you the body you want whatever you want just help me.... ]

"What's it feel like to be a man?"

"Huh?"

Patty kissed Evan and pulled him deeper into her with her hands, wrapping her legs around his back. Next to them, John snored, asleep.