Almost.

In the days before Oddity, Patty had devoured Victorian novels with their London slums, the poor waifs, and the quirky, grimy sense of realism. The Rox had the same d.i.c.kensian sense of gloom, the same chiaroscuro shades, but here the reality was harsher-edged. Makeshift dwellings clung like fungus to and between the decaying buildings of Ellis island; the lanes between them were muddy, rutted, and filthy under Patty's feet.

d.i.c.kens in h.e.l.l.

In the early morning the lanes were mostly empty. The few inhabitants she glimpsed told her that the Rox was Jokertown distilled, Jokertown boiled down to the raw, bitter dregs. The jokers Patty saw here were the most deformed, the ones just hanging on the edge of what might be called human.

"Where you gonna go, Pat? There ain't no place to hide." Blackhead and Kelly shouted behind her, their voices echoing between the shacks. They hadn't stayed down very long at all. [Your own fault. They're just kids; you didn't want to hurt them too badly.... ] Patty could hear the jumpers' pursuit. She turned left blindly, seeing the lights of Manhattan and the gleam of water through two drunken-angled buildings. A few lights were coming on around Patty as Blackhead and Kelly continued to fling taunts and warnings at her.

Turning the corner, she blundered into someone whose skin felt like soaked velvet. She caught a glimpse of yellow, faceted eyes. "Sorry" she said, and thrust herself away, her hands dripping with whatever oozed from that skin. Two heads leaned curiously from a nearby window, joined at the throat into one bull neck. Something without legs slithered across the lane in front of her, leaving behind a scent of lavender that suddenly turned sour and bitter. A voice roared from the darkness between two buildings, but the words were incomprehensible, hopelessly slurred.

A hand caught at her from behind and Patty screamed. The arm to which the hand was attached stretched like taffy, the hand-clawed like a dog's, but undeniably human still clutching her biceps. The arm stretched taut and as thin as a pencil, turning her; then the hand let go and she spun and almost fell from the shock of release.

Patty didn't look back to see what or who had tried to stop her. She kept running.

She'd been to Ellis, years ago. She remembered a U-shaped, tiny island, with docks along the central waterway. The administration building dominated one side of the island; the buildings used for holding detained aliens filled the other.

Patty could see the administration building on the far side. She could smell the bay. David's body was beginning to pant from the exertion now, but she seemed to have outdistanced the others.

She broke into the open, looking for a rowboat, a dinghy, anything. If she had to, she'd try swimming-she could swim, and this body was stronger than her own had been. Manhattan and New Jersey loomed achingly close.

"Bloat says to ask what good it will do you to be captured by the police patrols, Patty"

Patty stopped. A figure had stepped out between her and the bay. She squinted at it. It looked like a walking, man-sized roach. There were two others with him; jokers, armed with what looked like a shotgun and a small-caliber hunting rifle.

The roach-man held up a cheap plastic walkie-talkie. "Bloat sent me to get you."

From the shadows of the buildings, Blackhead and Kelly came panting out. "Hey-"

Blackhead shouted. Patty started to run. There was room. Maybe the insectlike joker would be unable to move quickly. Maybe the jokers with the guns might miss. Maybe she could dive into the water and be gone.

Maybe.

The roach's radio crackled. "Bloat says that the water's still very cold this time of year. You'll cramp up and drown before you get halfway there. He says he has a solution for you."

Blackhead and Kelly were very close. She had to move now.

"Bloat doesn't hurt jokers, Patty. He says to remember that you asked Evan not to waste his life." The roach's voice was almost a sigh, laced with a strange sadness.

The words were a slash, a mortal wound. Patty's intake of breath was half sob at the memory. And then it was too late. Blackhead grabbed her arm roughly; Kelly, dressed only in her jeans, blocked Patty's path, her eyes accusing, hurt, and cold.

"This is a jumper problem, Kafka," Blackhead said gruffly to the roach-man. The two jokers with Kafka stepped forward threateningly, but Kafka waved them back.

"Not anymore," Kafka answered, softly and almost shyly. "Bloat's seeing her. You want to continue to live on the Rox? Then think about what you want to do here.

You're renters; you're here only because you pay Bloat for the privilege."

"We don't take orders from Bloat," the jumper bl.u.s.tered.

Kafka just waited. Blackhead's hand dropped to his side.

What looked like a smile went across the inhuman face under the carapace. "Good.

We really don't need this unpleasantness. Please ... follow me," Kafka said. The joker guards took up escort positions around Patty and the others. Kafka nodded.

Scuttling ahead of them with a rustling sound, he led them to the administration building. And Bloat.

THE ROX CAN'T SINK; BLOAT FLOATS. THE GREAT WALL OF BLOAT. Patty'd seen those graffiti, too.

Patty's first thought was that Bloat resembled nothing more than a mountain of filthy, uncooked bread dough into which some irreverent child had stuck toothpicks. Bloat filled the vast foyer of the administration building.

Juryrigged steel supports jutted through the sagging floor alongside him; concrete pipes stabbed into that monstrous pile of flesh like gigantic IVs. The size of him was almost too much to comprehend; his shapeless flanks receded into darkness and back corridors. His head was a wart nearly lost on the ma.s.sive body. The shoulder and arms were almost vestigial, stick thin and too short, overwhelmed in the rolling hills of flesh. Bloat could not move, could not be moved.

And the stench. It was as if Patty had fallen headfirst into a midden. She gagged.

Bloat's eyes were black and amused.

"A mountain of uncooked dough. . ." he said. His voice was a thin, prep.u.b.escent squeak and the words tumbled out in a rush. His statement startled her. "I suppose that's kinder than most, Patty. But then you always considered yourself an understanding woman."

"You mean this one's a f.u.c.kin' c.u.n.t?" Blackhead guffawed behind her. "Hey, Kelly, you almost lost your cherry to a chick." Kafka motioned. One of the joker guards. .h.i.t Blackhead swiftly and casually in the stomach with the b.u.t.t of his shotgun. Blackhead groaned and threw up noisily on the tiIe floor.

"You should be quiet when the Governor's talking," Kafka said gently.

Blackhead spat. "Hey, f.u.c.k you, Roach."

Kafka looked at Bloat, who gestured. The guard hit Blackhead again. The youth went to his knees in the puddle of his vomit.

Bloat watched the violence greedily. His ludicrously small hands clenched and twitched and he smiled.

"Yes, I know he's just a child, but he's a vicious, dangerous one," Bloat said, and Patty's intake of breath was audible, for Bloat had once again spoken her thoughts. "For that matter, he's not much younger than me."

Bloat didn't stop talking, didn't stop to take a breath. His monologue rolled on like a freight train without brakes. "There are those who need reminding who controls things here. The Rox is still too anarchic. There's too little direction, too little real leadership. We have potential here, nearly unlimited potential and real power. David's group is just one example, even if they're wild and untamed. Still, I've been here less than a year."

The lecture spewed nonstop in Bloat's high voice. He spoke quickly, loudly, giving Patty almost no chance to interrupt the torrent of words.

"What-"

"Do I want from you?" Bloat interrupted, finishing the thought for her. "That's very simple. Oddity. I want the Oddity."

"I don't know where Oddity is."

Bloat's eyes closed. "I do. They're very close. They're coming here now" The eyes opened again and he smiled at Patty. "Such a childish image that puts in your head," he said, the words rushing past pasty lips. "The n.o.ble Rescue. The Happy Ending. But you haven't thought past that, have you? You haven't thought about what happens then. I have. A strength like the Oddity's could be useful.

Not essential, mind you, but I could utilize it. The Oddity has been a friend to Jokertown for years. I appreciate that; it makes us siblings."

"I doubt it."

He nodded, more to her thoughts than her words. "In the Rox, jokers try to help jokers. We do what's best for those the wild card has nearly destroyed."

"No matter who it hurts."

Bloat grimaced. "If nats or aces get hurt, I don't care. f.u.c.k them. If that's what it takes, I'll even encourage it. I have my own dreams, dreams of the Rox expanding. We've only this little island, twenty-seven lousy acres built on abandoned ship ballast that's filling up quickly. There's a bigger island I'd like to claim."

Bloat took a breath, and Patty plunged into the brief s.p.a.ce. "New York? That's impossible."

"Not impossible. Not at all. And spilling nat blood now will save a lot of joker blood later."

Patty saw the attendants listening attentively. Alongside her, Kafka was rapt.

Bloat continued. "The reprisals will be brutal, in any case. I have my dream every night, Patty. The dream tells me that the nats are destined to taste the fruits of their own hatred and bigotry. To fulfill that dream, I need more than the jokers and ragtag gangs. We already have a few renegade aces and jokers with useful powers in residence. We can use more. You have some sympathy with our cause, even if you don't agree with my tactics."

He wouldn't let her speak. The diatribe poured out from him, gasping. "Oh, yes, Patty, I hear your thoughts. 'The Oddity is different.' You're essentially lawful-you helped Hartmann, after all. You think that no one would want to endure the pain of being the Oddity"

Bloat grinned humorlessly. "They don't have to. David, the one whose body you're holding at the moment, our David and his jumpers can transfer people in and out, can't he?"

"Then why haven't you done it? Why haven't you left that." Patty gestured at the helpless, endless bulk behind him.

The head, so tiny against the body, wrinkled in a grimace. He didn't have to speak for Patty to know that he'd tried it, that it hadn't been successful.

Bloat's face suffused with remembered anger. When he spoke, his voice was sharp-edged. "I already know that one new person can be in Oddity and the body still functions. Perhaps two can be gone, or even all three. Perhaps not.

Perhaps at least one of the original components must always be in Oddity's mind.

I don't know. But I will find out. I'll find out in any way I have to."

[John, Evan, what do I do now?] The silence inside her head was mocking and Patty felt frightened and very alone. The isolation hurt more than anything she remembered from Oddity.

Bloat had paused. In the silence, a soft and prolonged squilching sound reverberated across the lobby, like someone rolling across a half-filled water bed. Gelid, dark ma.s.ses erupted from pores all along Bloat's body, which rippled around the large pipes impaling him. The black goo rolled, thickened, and then dropped from the slope of Bloat's flanks, leaving behind umber smears. The clumps piled around Bloat, and Patty saw that the tiles around the huge joker were hopelessly stained.

The horrid stench hit her a second later: the odor of concentrated raw sewage.

Patty nearly gagged; around her, Kafka and the others struggled to remain stoic.

Joker attendants wearing masks came from an alcove and scurried about removing the filth, shoveling it up and placing it in carts. Others toweled Bloat's side.

"They call it bloatblack," he told Patty, answering the question in her mind. "A body this large requires a corresponding amount of intake. The wild card has made it easier-I can digest anything organic. Anything at all. Kafka has made it simple; these pipes connect directly to the Rox's sewer system. But every body, no matter how efficient, has to excrete waste material."

Patty could not keep her thoughts hidden.

"You're disgusted," he said in his choirboy's tenor. "Don't be. It's what the wild card gave me. Is it my fault that this body needs so much, that I must take in everyone else's s.h.i.t and spew it out again?" The voice had gone strident. He looked at Patty. "Yes. I'm trapped, trapped the way you were trapped in the Oddity. And I don't need your f.u.c.king sympathy, you hear! I'll stuff it back down your f.u.c.king throat!"

Patty choked and forced the bile back down. She lifted her chin defiantly to the joker. "We won't run Oddity for you. Not me, not John or Evan. Not for what you want it for."

"We'll see, won't we? Maybe we don't need any of you. Serve, or be served,"

Bloat commented, and suddenly giggled.

" I won't do it," Patty said flatly. "None of us would." Again Bloat's lids flickered down over the satin pupils. "David's the key, not you. He's only interested in his own ego, but I can convince him. From what I sense of John, he might enjoy life on top for once and kicking some nat a.s.s. Evan ...Well, maybe your friends will be interested. After all, David and his people supply rapture."

"I don't know...."

"Show her," Bloat said, gesturing to one of the joker guards. He came forward; on the doglike face, Patty could see that the lips, gums, and nostrils were stained blue. The joker took out a small penknife. He snapped open the blade and Patty took an involuntary step backward. The joker ignored her, however. Holding out his left arm, he plunged the blade into his forearm to the hilt and as quickly wrenched it out again. Blood pulsed sluggishly from the deep wound.

The joker grinned. He leaned his head back and laughed.

Patty gasped.

"Rapture makes everything feel good," Bloat was saying as she stared at the joker. "You could cut your own hand off and it would feel like the most wonderful o.r.g.a.s.m. Every sensation is trans.m.u.ted into bliss, at least for a while. With long-term use, unfortunately, it finally dulls the senses completely, until it is hard to feel anything at all, but that's hardly a problem for a joker, is it? Imagine Oddity's pain transformed into a nearly s.e.xual pleasure, and then, slowly, slowly, deadened so you can't feel it at all.

Would that be something you might like, or if not you, John or Evan?"

Bloat laughed and smiled grimly at the expression on Patty's face. "Yes, you're thinking it, too. Evan wants out, and I can offer him freedom one way or the other. Are you so sure now, Patty? No, I thought not."

[Evan ... ]

"You're terrified, aren't you, Patty? You hate the separation from your lovers.

You listen and there's no one there. But you enjoy being alone, don't you? You wonder if you could stand being in Oddity once again. You wonder if you shouldn't do all you can to stay in David's body. Well, I tell you, you cant. I need David. But I'm not evil, Patty. I don't intend you harm at all. In fact, I've a gift for you. Kafka?"

Kafka nodded. Rustling, he scurried into an adjoining room and came back pushing a wheelchair. Seated in the chair was a teenager, dark-haired and rather pretty: Her eyes were open, but when Patty looked at her, it was like looking into the face of a dead girl. There was nothing behind her eyes, nothing at all. The body breathed, but whoever had once inhabited that sh.e.l.l was gone. Blackhead sniffed behind Patty; Runt gave a cry of recognition.

"I've been saving this," Bloat said. "The girl jumped a polar bear, which turned out to be an animated bar of soap. Unfortunate. But it has left us with an empty body."

Patty glanced at the body, at Bloat. She tried again to blank her thoughts, to make her mind as empty as the girl in front of her so Bloat couldn't steal her thoughts, but Bloat chuckled. [Evan, John ... I'm sorry, but ... ]

"It is tempting, isn't it? Our jumpers could do it for you. Presto! There you are, a woman again. By yourself. And young, too. You wouldn't be so old."

"I'm not old. I'm only forty."

Bloat chuckled. "So easily offended. Think about it, Patty. We can do it right now. I help you; you help me. Think about it."

Outside the milky, translucent body of Charon, the green depths of the bay were revealed. [John, those are bones out there! Dead people ... ] Down below, David only laughed. John didn't answer.

Oddity moaned. John had paid scant attention to Charon or the ride to Ellis, too intent on the interior struggle and the pain.

Evan could feel John tiring rapidly. Nothing of Oddity seemed to be Patty anymore. Her body was submerged and what remained seemed to hurt them more than ever before, as if they were both taking on the portion of the suffering that once was allotted to her. The boundaries between Dominant, Sub-Dominant, and Pa.s.sive were growing weak and tenuous. Worse, like some residue of the transfer process, parts of David's memory were drifting loose.

[The killing was a kick better than crack man all the nats running and screaming through Times Square.... ] [Evan, this is what he'd do to us. We can't let him take Oddity. ]

Evan wasn't listening to John but to David. [I can let you out Evan let you out and and free of Oddity I can do it.... ]

[What's he saying to you, Evan? He's trying to block me, but the shields are falling apart, too. I can almost hear him.]

Mockingly, more of David's reverie intruded. [With the priest I took the gun he had in his desk and made one of the nuns get down on her knees and suck his c.o.c.k until he shot his holy wad in her mouth then I made the other one take the barrel in her mouth like it was a d.i.c.k "make it come, too" I said and when it did it blew the whole f.u.c.king back of her head away and then I jumped when the cops broke the door down.... ]

[Just more of the same garbage. John, you have to listen to me. What if Patty doesn't want to come back in? What then, John? We can't keep David down forever.

When he's Dominant, he'll make us do something, something awful, and then he'll jump. He'll jump and leave us with someone else, someone who'll hate Oddity, someone we don't know or love or even like.]