Sixteen Candles

by Stephen Leigh

Three blocks away from the Dime Museum, the clock tower of the Church of Christ the joker tolled midnight. "Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us. Happy birthday, dear Oddity, happy birthday to us."

The voice was off-key and cracked. "Look at the present I brought us," it said.

A fencing mask lent a shimmering distance to the heavy .38 cupped in Oddity's hand. Flecks of reflected light from the Jetboy diorama ran along the barrel and glimmered wildly from the mask's steel mesh. The interference shattered the harsh brilliance like a cheap spectroscope into pale, weak colors.

Evan could look at the gun and pretend the weapon was just a fantasy, something seen on television. He could almost imagine someone else was lifting it.

[Sixteen years. Sixteen years of pain in this monstrosity of a body, ] Evan said in his interior voice.

[Evan, please don't do this.] Patty's voice. She was Sub-Dominant at the moment, Oddity's eternal pain dampened slightly for her. [I'm asking you to please just let it go. I'll take Oddity for you until John's ready. You can be Passive and rest.]

Evan ignored her. Far below, she could hear John the third of the trio of personalities who were Oddity. John was Passive at the moment, down in the depths of the strangely-woven mind where Oddity's agony was a faint tidal wash. The passive personality could hear but couldn't intrude. Passive could open the torrent of his thoughts to the others or shield them; the others could listen or not as they wished. The fact that John made no effort to conceal his feelings now spoke more than the thoughts themselves.

[ ... goddamn asshole can't stand the pain like me no courage at all fucking artistic sensibilities Patty may like it but I'm damned tired of the complaining it hurts all of us not just him can't he see the power we wield ... ]

[No, John,] Evan sent down to him. [I don't see power, and I don't care. I want to be alone. Alone. I love you both, but being locked in here-]

Evan stopped. Oddity was sobbing with the emotional undercurrents. Evan raised Oddity's left hand. It was mostly John's, though past the lumpy interface the little finger looked to be Patty's and the thumb had Evan's coffee-and-cream coloring. The hand resisted him-Patty, trying to shove him from Dominant and take the body. Evan concentrated his will. The hand came up and slipped back the heavy cowl of Oddity's hood. As Oddity moaned, the fingers curled painfully with tendons crossed and overstretched, and lifted off the fencing mask.

The feathery touch of air-conditioning on Oddity's cheeks hurt, like everything else. The chill felt like ice water on a broken tooth. Without the mask, the gun in Oddity's other hand was very present, sinister and compelling all at once. It smelled of oil and cordite and violence.

Three hours past closing, the Jokertown Dime Museum was silent except in Oddity's head, and dark except in front of the Jetboy diorama, pinned in bright Fresnels with colored gels. Jetboy was caught in midstruggle. Evan had done most of the waxwork sculpture for that exhibit, working in those few hours when he was Dominant and both hands were mostly his own. Though Patty and John insisted it was all psychological, Evan couldn't work with Patty's hands or John's. They didn't have the touch.

Rare moments, those, when Evan could almost ignore Oddity's slow, continuous transformation as bits and pieces of their three merged bodies came and went, when he could almost believe he was one person again.

[Alone,] Patty echoed sympathetically. [I know, Evan. We'd all like that, but it can't be.]

Evan opened Oddity's mouth. The lips were thin and harsh: John's. Evan placed the barrel of the .38 there and closed John's mouth around it. The burnished metal was a sharp tang against the tongue.

Evan wondered what it would feel like to pull the trigger.

"Oddity-Evan. . ."

The voice was soft and came from behind Oddity. Evan ignored it and struggled to curl Oddity's finger around the forefinger. It wouldn't require but a fraction of Oddity's enhanced strength. Just the smallest tithe of it. Just the tiniest movement and Evan could find oblivion. Solitude.

[Evan, I love you. No matter what, remember that. I love you; John loves you, too.

"Evan, I think that's my gun you have. I bought it for protection, not this."

[ ... can't even pull the trigger, can't even do the one thing he really wants to do ... ]

Evan gave a heaving inner sob. Oddity's mouth opened. The hand holding the gun dropped to the side of the massive body.

Oddity turned to face Charles Dutton, who stood in the archway of the Jetboy room. Evan knew what the joker was seeing: the melted-wax cheeks, the patchwork,

lumpy face that was part Evan, part Patty, part John. The skin would be moving like a veil of cheesecloth laid over a mass of seething maggots. The face would be changing even as he watched, features collapsing and melting back into the pasty sagging flesh. The only unity to it at all would be that each and every one of those mismatched, overlaid parts would be twisted and taut with the torture of the slow, restless transformation.

Dutton didn't even blink. But then Dutton had to face his own living death's-head face in the mirror every single day.

"Dutton," Oddity gated out. Even the voice was harsh and shattered, like some B-movie creature. "It just hurts so much. . ."

Evan could feel moisture on the ruined cheeks. The left hand (Patty's entirely, now), came up and brushed at it.

"I know it does," the owner of the Dime Museum said. "I know and I sympathize. But I don't think you really believe this is the way. May I have my weapon back, please." The cadaverous joker held out his hand.

Oddity looked at the gun once more. Evan hesitated, playing with the control of the shifting, powerful muscles. He could still bring the gun up, place the muzzle against Oddity's horrific, deformed temple, and do it. He could. Patty tried to force him to give the gun to Dutton. Evan continued to hold it, though it remained at Oddity's side. Dutton shrugged.

"I saw the Atlanta diorama this evening," he said. "It's excellent work, especially what you did with the Hartmann figure. I like the hands even more than the face, the way the fingers grip the podium even though Hartmann's ignoring the carnage behind him. They lend a tension to the entire scene."

The hand that was Patty's twitched involuntarily. An elbow tore from Oddity's chest, ripping muscles and prodding the front of the cloak before subsiding again. "They broke him," Oddity's grating, slow voice declared. "They conspired against him. It wasn't the senator's fault. He wanted to help. He cared, he was just ... fragile, and they knew it. They did what they had to do to break him."

"Who, Evan?"

"I don't know!" Oddity's muscular arm swung wide. Dutton took a half step backward. A blow from that hand could kill. "Barnett, maybe. That Judas Tachyon, certainly."

"Maybe some conspiracy of the right-wing joker haters. I don't know. But they brought the senator down."

The gun beat against Oddity's thigh again. Dutton watched it. "There's nothing but pain, Dutton," Evan continued. "Every damn joker's life is nothing but unrelieved, bitter blackness. Jokertown bleeds and there's nothing and no one to bind the wounds. I-we-hate it."

"You're one of the few who have done any good, Evan-you and Patty and John."

Oddity gave a short, ironic laugh. "Yeah. We've done a lot of good." The weapon's barrel glinted as Oddity started to bring it up again, then let it drop once more. "Is this what Patty wants, or John?"

Oddity snorted. A glob of mucus spat from one nostril onto its cheek. "John's a martyr. He's almost delighted that Oddity suffers, since it makes us such a fucking noble figure. And Patty"-Oddity's voice softened, and the mouth almost seemed to smile for a moment "Patty holds on to hope. Maybe Tachyon will find a cure in between his sabotage of the jokers he claims to love. Maybe the virus will go into remission. Maybe there'll be another secondary outbreak like Croyd's to pull us apart again."

Oddity seemed to laugh, but there was no amusement in the sound at all. The gun beat against the heavy cloth of Oddity's thigh.

"It's all bullshit, Dutton. You know what the trouble is? There aren't any happy endings in Jokertown. No happy endings at all."

Oddity shuddered. The huge, misshapen figure brought the cowl up over the face before bending down to retrieve the fencing mask. Oddity placed the mask over its face and stared at the Jetboy diorama.

"It all started here. The hero's supposed to win. What a shame. What a horrible, awful shame."

Oddity seemed to notice the gun once more. The hand came up, held the weapon before the fencing mask. "I didn't finish Hartmann's figure," Evan said.

"He can wait. I've been contacted by a source who claims to have Carnifex's actual fighting suit from that night. If I can buy it. .." Dutton shrugged.

"You're ghoulish, Dutton."

Dutton almost smiled. "So is the public."

"A ghoul and a cynic," Oddity said, and its voice was higher and less raspy.

The hand holding the gun trembled, then reversed its grip. "Charles..."

Dutton reached with a thin, bony hand and placed the gun in his suit pocket.

"Thanks, Patty," he said. "Where's Evan?"

"Passive," Oddity replied. "We'll keep him down there for a few days if we can. He's tired, Charles, very tired." Shapes humped along Oddity's back and a soft moan came from behind the mask. Then Oddity sighed. "All of us are tired. But thank you for listening and for helping."

"I didn't want to lose my artist."

Oddity gave a dry, rasping chuckle. "I know better. And I think it's time to go. Evan probably won't be back for a while."

Shadows flowed over the black cloak as Oddity turned to leave.

"Patty?"

Steel mesh glinted; the head looked back to Dutton but they didn't speak. Oddity lurched heavily away. Dutton watched until she/it/they (Dutton was never sure which pronoun was appropriate) closed the door of the rear entrance. The joker looked back at the Jetboy exhibit, brilliant in the darkness.

"They're right, you know," he told Jetboy. "You were supposed to win and you fucked up."

Dutton turned off the exhibit's lights with a savage swipe of his hand and went back to his office.

He locked the gun in the museum safe.

It was a cool night for May. Oddity's heavy, black ankle-length velvet cloak was comfortable. A cold front had swept the late-spring humidity and smog out to sea.

The air was crisp and crystalline. Patty could see the light of the Manhattan towers between the older, lower, and far grubbier buildings of Jokertown.

May 14, 1973, had been a gorgeous night as well, in its own way.

Patty sighed with the orgasm, her eyes closed. "Yes. . ." Evan whispered in her ear, and John laughed in satisfaction, lower down. When the long, shuddering climax had passed, Patty hugged both of them to her.

"God, you two are lovely." Then, giggling, she flung

Evan aside and bounded from the bed. Naked, she padded across the room and flung open the doors to the balcony. A breeze lifted her hair, fragrant with a warm, sweet-tasting rain that was scrubbing the city clean. Twenty floors below, New York spread out in noisy brilliance. Patty opened her arms wide and let the night and the elements take her, joyous. Droplets shimmered like crystal in her hair, on her skin.

"Jesus, Patty, anyone could see us..." John came up behind her, also naked, hugging her. Evan stroked the two of them in passing and went to the railing. "It's wonder ful," he said. "Who cares what they see, John. We're happy."

Evan smiled at them all. They melded into a long triple embrace, kissing and touching as the rain slicked their bodies. When it seemed to be time, they went back inside and made love again....

They'd gone to sleep that night, but they'd never awakened. Not really. It was Oddity who had opened its eyes on the fifteenth. Oddity, the horror. Oddity, the wild card's mockery of their relationship. Oddity, the torturer. Gone forever were a social worker named Patty, a rising black artist named Evan, and an angry young lawyer named John. Like a thousand jokers before them, they disappeared into the warrens of Jokertown.

Oddity looked at the brilliant concrete spires of Manhattan and moaned, as much from the memory as the physical pain.

[At least in Jokertown it's harder to feel sorry for yourself, when every day we see the other horrors, the ones who are helpless. Oddity's body has strength to match that of the aces.] John.

[Bull shit, it's all bullshit rationalization.... ] Evan screamed back, down below. [It hurts, it hurts.... ] [Rest,] Patty told Evan. [Rest for a few days while you can. We'll be needing you to take over again soon enough.] John scoffed. [I'm not rationalizing. It's the truth-in Jokertown Oddity can do some good.] John especially seemed to enjoy the role of vigilante. Oddity: protector of jokers, the strong right arm of Hartmann.

Hartmann's defeat still hurt. John especially throbbed with bitterness. But John was strong; Evan wasn't. Patty sent her thoughts down to him.

[I understand, Evan. John does, too, when he takes the time to think about it. We understand. We do. We love you, Evan.]

[Thank you, I love you, too, Patty. ... ] Evan could have said it only to Patty, but he left himself open to both of them, deliberately.

John was surly; Patty knew he'd noted Evan's intentional snub. [He has a hell of a way of showing his affection, doesn't he?]

[John, please ... Evan needs the rest more than us. Have some compassion.]

[Compassion, hell. He almost killed us. I'm not ready to die, Patty. I don't give a shit how much it hurts.] [Evan doesn't really want to die either, or he would have gone ahead. I couldn't have stopped him, John. This was a gesture, a plea. He wants to be free of it. Sixteen years is a long time to be in a room you can't leave. I can't blame him for feeling that way.]

[He's come to hate me, Patty.]

[No.] But that was all she said. John scoffed at her. "Y'know, if you ignore the fact that there's three of us, we're almost staid," John said one night as they lay on the couch, sipping at glasses of cabernet. "We don't swing, we don't sleep with other people. Within the triangle, we're as monogamous and conservative as some married couple in Podunk, Iowa."

"You complaining, John?" Patty teased him, running a finger along his upper thigh and watching what that did to his face. "You getting tired of us?"

John groaned, and they all three laughed. "No," he said. "I don't think that's ever going to happen."

[Okay, maybe "hate" is a little strong,] John said. [But he doesn't love me or like me anymore. Not for a long time. Do you, Evan?]

[Damn egoist, no, I want out, I just want to be alone.... ] Then, the barest echo: [John I'm sorry I'm sorry. ... ] [This might have happened anyway,] Patty said to both of them. [Even without Oddity. Those were different times. Different moralities than now.]

[Sure. But there's no divorce from Oddity, is there?] [Which is all the more reason we all need empathy and understanding-all of us.]

[You always were the goddamn saint, Patty] [Fuck you, John.]

[I wish I could, Patty. God, I wish I could.]

Jokertown had always been a night town.

A little past midnight, the main Jokertown streets were still busy. Darkness hid or amplified deformities as needed. Night was the best mask of all.

Not many nats traveled to J-town in the last several months. Tourism was something done in daytime, if at all. The streets had become too unfashionably dangerous.

At night, Jokertown was left alone like a bad dream. Still, the locals were out and Oddity decided to keep to the plentiful back alleys. John might find some small enjoyment in being public, in the respect and sometimes outright adulation of the jokers, but Patty didn't. Patty could forgive John's egotism-it was little enough balm for the pain-but she didn't need it or want it herself, especially not tonight.

They were a few blocks from the ruins of the Crystal Palace, in the back alley where Gimli's inexplicably empty skin had been found. The Oddity stared at the stained concrete where Tom Miller's body had lain: another death, another nameless violence. Patty was certain Gimli had been assassinated by a rogue ace, Evan thought that maybe Gimli had been an early victim of the Croyd outbreak, John (always the skeptic) thought maybe Hartmann had arranged it. [And good riddance, too,] John added in counterpoint to Patty's thought.

The Oddity shuffled on, limping because one leg seemed to be mostly Patty's and was attached at a decided angle to the hip. Moving it hurt like hell. The Oddity moaned and moved on.

"Shit, man. She's just a toy. Ain't worth wasting time on taking."

"Yeah, but that cunt'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 prepubescent 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 hell alone!"

"Shit," Pimpleface said. "You gonna let a fucking 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 bastards. 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 massive 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 assaulted 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. "Goddamn, something's happened, man. David's screaming. Shit!"

"Fuck, 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 fucker'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 snatch the screaming David from control of Oddity's mind.

As John threw the jumper from the mental ramparts, Evan attempted to slide from Passive 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 assert 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 Passive and Sub-Dominant. Evan knew David in that instant, and he hated the mind he encountered. He could feel the jumper snatching 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 Passive. [John?]

[I've got Oddity, Evan. Just keep that bastard down in Passive. ]

Oddity looked around. "Shit. Shit!"

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 Passive.

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 scraped 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 fucker, 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. "Shit, 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, knobbed 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 penis. She could feel the cock, 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, assholes?" 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 assumed 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 MASSES-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 ashore in. Jersey or were found out in the bay.

Patty no longer felt pleased. Refuge or hell, the air of the Rox smelled of garbage and shit 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 bloody nose; a remnant of the fight with Oddity. His face and upper arms were scraped 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 breasts 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 fuck 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 sex. You'd be out. ]

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

[Alone. God, 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 fuckin' tied him up, Mol'. David's gonna be pissed if we have'ta fuck up his body."

"What makes you think David's coming back?" Patty asked. [God, 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, assholes: 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 hell 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. Hell, he probably knows already. Can you handle this?"

Blackhead scowled. "Shit," 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 bloody 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 Passive. Stuck him in the basement and locked the door. We can't hear the fucker 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 Passive 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 God-]

[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 assault 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.

"You know," she insisted, giggling. "To penetrate instead of being penetrated. To feel a woman's heat around your cock. To ejaculate. To have one short blinding spasm instead of a long extended one!"

"Is that what you're thinking about?" Evan pretended to be offended and Patty slapped his buttocks, rolling him over until she straddled him. She traced the tight black curls of hair on his dark chest. "So you want to be a man, eh, virile and masterful."

"To surrender my brain to a penis," she retorted. "C'mon, Evan, haven't you ever wondered what it feels like to be a woman?" Evan tried to shrug and she shook her head at him. "Come on now. Admit it!"

"Okay," he said. "Maybe a little. But there's no way to ever know, is there?"

But there was, now.

Moving an arm was ecstasy. Feeling the stubble on her cheek was glory The touch of jeans along her legs was a caress. The tepid beer that Blackhead gave her was a gastronomical delight. Despite all her worries about John and Evan, despite her fear of the Rox, Patty couldn't help but marvel at the wonder of being in this body. She'd forgotten how good it was. It didn't matter that she was male or that she very likely had a crack addiction or worse-she was free, able to walk alone and talk alone and not feel anyone else inside her.

[This body's wanted for questioning in New York, and that may not be the worst of it. What if he's got AIDS, what if the wild card has done other hidden things to him or if he's syphilitic or has cancer? What about sex? What if after a few experiments you find that you're still attracted only to males? What about John and Evan, trapped in Oddity with that punk?]

But the objections didn't totally convince. She was here, in David's teenage body, and Patty had to admit that she enjoyed the sensation. She drank again, savoring the coolness, the odor of the hops, the yeasty taste.

Kelly watched her, always, while Blackhead worried near the door.

"Why do you keep staring?" Patty asked, and the rich, deep voice was a joy.

Blackhead answered for her. "Kelly? She's new. She's got the hots for David but he ain't laid her. She'd love to go down on him, to have him spread her legs-"

Kelly whirled around, stabbing a forefinger at Blackhead. "You shut up, hear? You're just mad 'cause I won't do you."

Blackhead laughed. "Shit," he told Kelly. "That's crap. You'd sure lay down and spread 'em with a smile to get initiated. You ain't really part of us until you can jump, and you can't jump until you get laid by Prime, and that might not be for a while, since he don't get out here that often. So don't give me that shy virgin shit. Maybe it don't have to be Prime, Kelly. And you're wasting your time waiting for David. He can fuck anyone he wants. He don't need you. I'd do just fine."

"I want more than a pencil," Kelly spat. She huddled on the floor near Patty, arms around knees while Blackhead chortled near the entrance to the ramshackle room. "Son of a bitch," she muttered. Her face was flushed from anger and embarrassment.

"I was her age once .... I've been there too ."

"I'm sorry" Patty said softly to Kelly, and meant it. The girl thanked Patty with her eyes, and Patty had to smile again. But Blackhead's words had caused other reactions, too. "What's it feel like to be a man?" she'd asked Evan long ago. Now she knew part of it. There was a heat, and her jeans were suddenly tighter in the crotch. "You're very pretty" she said softly so that only Kelly could hear. Though the words sounded strange and awkward, Kelly gave a half smile at them.

Patty hated the rest of what she was going to do. "Kelly, I can give you David, if that's what you want." She whispered it so that Blackhead couldn't hear the words.

"You ain't David," she answered, but without anger. "No," Patty admitted. "But maybe when David comes back, his body will remember...."

"You were ugly. I saw the Oddity once in Jokertown. No one would go to bed with you the way you were."

"You're a gorgeous woman, Patricia," John said. It was the anniversary of the first time they'd made love as a trio. Their 'birthday,' they'd jokingly called it. Evan had made a cake. John decorated the apartment with balloons and crepe paper. They'd stuck a silly hat on her head and a champagne glass in her hand when she walked in. "A wonderful person. I can't imagine loving anyone else, and I know Evan feels the same way. We're both very lucky." Patty nodded, feeling the tears in her eyes and fighting them back. She could feel Kelly's gaze on her. "No," Patty said. "Not for a long time. A long time." Kelly's hand reached out and touched Patty/David's. There was a softness in her gaze, a sympathy that made Patty like Kelly despite the hard exterior she tried to maintain. She smiled at Patty and Patty smiled back, feeling the strangeness of David's face.

"Okay," Kelly whispered. "Maybe..."

Kelly rose to her feet and went over to the makeshift door of the hut. She spoke to Blackhead in an intense whisper. "I ain't leavin'," Blackhead said loudly.

"Where the hell is he gonna go? This is the Rox, asshole. You can stay outside if you want."

"Maybe I'll stay and watch, huh?"

"You can diddle yourself outside." Kelly shoved Blackhead, opening the door.

Blackhead snorted. He gestured with the pipe toward Patty. "I'll be right there. You stick your head out and I'll take it off." He looked from Patty to Kelly, laughed again, and left.

Kelly didn't look at her for a long time. She stayed by the piece of plywood that was the door, facing away. Then she seemed to sigh.

It was Patty who came to her, by the door. She opened her arms and hugged Kelly. It felt strange to be so much taller. Patty was very aware of Kelly, of the breasts pressing against David's chest, of the smell of her hair, of the way her hips pressed against her body. Kelly's hands came around Patty's head and brought it down to her.

They kissed, softly and tentatively, then Kelly's mouth opened. [Very strange ... ] Patty felt her [his] body responding. She leaned into Kelly, pulling her tight. Close. She could feel the unbidden erection aching to be loosed. [Ah, Evan, so very, very strange ... ]

"So urgent," she breathed. "Impatient."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"Nothing." She hugged Runt again.

There was an insistence to her arousal that differed from anything she'd known before. Maybe it was the years since she'd experienced desire, maybe she'd just forgotten, but this seemed more volatile and dangerous. It wasn't Kelly-Patty had never been particularly sexually attracted to women despite some minor experimentation. Patty shuddered as she ended the embrace, as she raised her head from Kelly's lips and held the girl at arm's length. She slipped the shirt over Kelly's head, unbuckled the jeans. Kelly was attractive, Patty thought clinically. Very pretty in a young way. Patty stroked her tentatively, then with more passion, her hands going from Kelly's breasts to the fleece between her legs as Kelly closed her eyes.

They sank together to the floor. Kelly's legs wrapped around Patty, her hands sought to unzip her jeans and pull out that odd hardness throbbing there.

Holding back was far, far more difficult than Patty had imagined it would be. Runt's lips and hand were insistent; she seemed to feel the heat coming from both of them. Patty wanted to do this, wanted to plunge her erection into Kelly's moist heat ....

"I'm sorry" she whispered. Rising up, Patty drove David's fist in a vicious cut across her chin. There was a lot of wiry strength in her new body. Her fist snapped against Kelly's jaw.

Kelly grunted; her eyes closed as blood drooled over cut lips. Her legs and arms went limp around Patty. Patty got to her feet. She called to Blackhead, outside the door. "Hey, man! How about joining us?"

The door opened; Blackhead stuck his head in and saw Kelly's naked body spread-eagled on the floor. He gaped.

Patty hit the kid in the back of the head with doubled, fisted hands. Blackhead staggered and doubled over, and Patty brought her knee up into his face. She heard the nose break.

As Blackhead fell, Patty pulled on the rope handle and flung open the door.

Patty darted through the opening and into the darkness of the Rox.

Ellis Island was a quarter mile from the shipyards of the Jersey shore and a little over a mile from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan Island.

But you couldn't get to Ellis from either of those places. Certainly some could (and had) tried, but they were invariably curious nats, and nats who went to the Rox were treated rudely, violently, and sometimes fatally. The authorities had passed control of Ellis like a legal hot potato from the National Park Service, to the New Jersey authorities, to the New York City police, who had given up any pretext of actual control of the island months ago.

Still, patrol boats vigilantly intercepted anyone trying to swim or boat to the Rox. The authorities might not be able to shut down the Rox itself, but they could and would control traffic to and from the island.

Those who went to the Rox knew that to get there safely you had to see Charon, and Charon could only be found on the East River, where the edge of Jokertown touched water.

Oddity could hear the waves slapping the pilings under the rotting wharf. They'd placed a kerosene lantern at the end of the dock-it hissed at their feet, the mesh filament gleaming erratically in the breeze off the river.

Inside, David yammered at Evan, shielding his mindvoice from John.

[Any fuckin' body you want man any fuckin' one just point at it and it's yours free at last just help me when we get to the Rox fast fast fast.... ]

[I don't see anything, ] John's usually powerful Dominant voice was weak, but it still drowned out the jumper's constant wheedling. [Maybe Dutton was wrong, Evan.]

[No not wrong Charon will come take us to the Rox that's where they'd've taken her. ... ] David whispered it to Evan alone.

[Charon will be here,] Evan told John. [Be patient.] Even as he said it, he knew how impossible it was. One way or another, this had to be resolved soon. Being Dominant was exhausting and John had only gone down to Passive the day before. It had been hard enough for Evan to move to Sub-Dominant with no rest. John wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. When that time came, Evan would have to take Dominant; if he couldn't or wouldn't hold it, David would. If that happened, they'd lost everything.

John knew it, too. His anger lashed at Evan.

[How can we be patient? God knows what's happened to Patty. If they've hurt her, I swear I'll kill every last one of them. ]

[They haven't hurt her, John. She's in David's bodythey'll be careful with it.] Then: [John, what if she wants to STAY?]

John wouldn't even consider that. Evan could hear mental doors slamming. [No. Patty wouldn't want that.] A boot scraped wood, a breath hushed in darkness. Oddity turned sharply, their heavy cloak swirling. Four youths came from behind a stack of crates. Jumpers. One, with a shock of orange-red hair, held an aluminum baseball bat. Another swung a chain softly at his side. The other two had knives-switchblades. "What the hell do you want?" Oddity growled.

"David?" Chains asked.

Oddity gave a laugh that was mostly grunt. "Dave's not here," the harsh voice said. The bitter laugh sounded again. "So fuck off before you get hurt."

Chains looked at Red, who shrugged. "David's been in there three, four hours," Chains said.

"Hell, that's a long time, ain't it?" Red grinned. He was missing teeth. "Almost as bad as jumping a bar of soap, huh?" He laughed.

Down in Passive, David struggled. [I wonder if Molly sent them or if they came on their own she might like me gone forever I'll fucking kill her if she did.... ]

"Hey, man, can David hear me?" Red asked Oddity. He slapped the end of the bat against his open palm. ""y?

"'Cause I thought I should tell him a few things. Things he'd like to know"

"So talk."

Red grinned. "Tell David there ain't no reason to go to the Rox, man. We're gonna take care of his body." The words sent a shock through Oddity, stunning them all. For a moment they felt nothing. "Now we came to take care of the rest, huh? Just to make sure."

With that, Red took a leaping step forward, swinging the bat like an outfielder swinging for the fences.

He hit the Oddity square in the side of the head. Oddity staggered and nearly fell. The pain was a burning lance. Oddity screamed, their throat tearing with the sound. John's control tottered, but neither Evan nor David could take advantage. Then John's fury took hold fully. As Red brought the bat back for the next blow and the other three closed in, Oddity forced himself up. A hand caught the bat as it began the downswing; a savage, powerful twist wrenched it from Red's hands-Red's wrist snapped and the kid howled.

Oddity swung now, the bat making an audible and sinister whuff through air. Only the fact that Red had crumpled to the ground saved the kid. Chains whipped his steel links in a dangerous arc; Oddity caught them and pulled, catapulting Chains into the pile of crates. The jumper didn't move again.

The remaining two had already fled. Red, cradling his hand to his waist, was limping after them. Oddity screamed again and flung the bat after Red. It clattered into darkness.

[They've killed her! They've killed Pattty!] John shouted inside, raving.

[No!] Evan shouted back. [No! I don't believe that. It had to be a bluff, a deception. John, please!]

A soft splash cut off any further discussion. A glowing apparition came up from the filthy water around the dock, garlanded with a bald tire, two green Hefty bags, and a used Pamper. Except for the garbage snagged around the body, it was almost pretty. The thing was a gelatinous hollow sphere eight feet in diameter, nearly transparent except for translucent bands of muscle. Ribbons of light rippled along jellyfish flesh, sparking soft green, yellow, and blue. Near the top of it were two very human eyes and a mouth. It bobbed in the slight swell.

Charon.

"Fee?" it croaked.

[Evan?] John's rage had not abated. It had merely gone cold and dangerous.

[Must find out ... ] David seemed stunned, bewildered. Frightened.

[All right, John,] Evan told him. [We won't know anything unless we go.]

Oddity picked up two shopping bags next to the lantern. Approaching Charon, they showed the joker that they were full of groceries and canned goods. "Fine," Charon said. "Put them inside."

Oddity shoved the bags into the slimy flesh between the muscle. The flesh was cold and wet; it yielded under their pressure, stretching until suddenly the skin parted and they could place the bags on the gellid "floor" of Charon. Underneath the flattened bottom of the joker, they could see hundreds of wriggling cilia.

"You want to go to the Rox? You're certain?" Charon asked.

"Yes."

"Then get in. " Charon paused. It snorted air from a blowhole atop the sphere and it bobbed lower in the water. "You've got David with you."

"How did you know that?" Oddity grunted.

"I can feel the child's black, wretched soul. Get in." Charon would say nothing else.

Oddity stepped forward, pushing their way into Charon's body and hating the feel of the clinging, damp flesh. They sat down inside the joker as it began to sink into the waters of the East River. On the muddy, garbage-strewn bottom, in the dim light of the creature, they could see the cilia stirring dark clouds as Charon began the long crawl.

Hidden and silent, they moved south and west into the bay toward Ellis Island and the Rox.

Movement was exhilaration. The running... Ah, the running...

The wind, the pounding in the lungs and chest, the racing heartbeat the joy was almost enough to make her forget a groggy Blackhead shouting alarm behind her and to erase the sight of the hovels of the Rox.

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 Dickensian 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.

Dickens in hell.

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 blustered.

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 massive 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, prepubescent 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 fuckin' cunt?" Blackhead guffawed behind her. "Hey, Kelly, you almost lost your cherry to a chick." Kafka motioned. One of the joker guards hit Blackhead swiftly and casually in the stomach with the butt 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, fuck 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 Noble 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. Fuck 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 space. "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 masses 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 shit 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 fucking sympathy, you hear! I'll stuff it back down your fucking 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 ass. 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 orgasm. Every sensation is transmuted 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 sexual 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 shell 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 Passive 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 cock 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 dick "make it come, too" I said and when it did it blew the whole fucking 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.]

With the thought, their attention was brought back to the outside world. Charon was moving through the sunken graveyard. Many of the bodies still had ribbons of clothing, shreds of flesh. Fish swarmed around the cages of ribs, nibbling and biting; eels swarmed in eye sockets and wriggled from open jaws like obscene tongues.

And something, someone was pushing at them, pressing Oddity's back against the cold, clammy wall of Charon's interior, the flesh beginning to stretch around their back as Charon continued its slow passage. An invisible hand was thrusting at their chest, refusing to let them go any farther even though Charon plodded on. Oddity struggled weakly, but it would not let them loose. [Bloat's Wall Bloat's Wall ... ] David yammered from Passive. [It's you Evan, it's you. ]

With the physical pressure, Evan could also feel a mental lassitude. He no longer wanted to go to the Rox. This quest was useless. Even if Patty were alive, it was futile. They could do no good there. John tried to force Oddity through the unseen barrier as they felt the cold waters through Charon's back, but Evan only watched from Sub-Dominant.

"Stop!" Oddity's broken voice shouted. Charon paid no attention.

[Dammit, Evan. Help me!] Charon's flesh was beginning to thin dangerously. The skeletons outside grinned mindlessly at them, waiting.

[This might be better, John. It would be over. Finished.] [No no no please Evan I'll get you out I will.... ] [You still want us dead. That's it, isn't it, Evan? That's what you're really saying.] Oddity struggled, took a step forward, but that barely made a difference. The back of their cloak was chill and damp. Charon's flesh bulged dangerously around them.

[You're just barely holding us together, John. I can't keep David back when you fall. He's strong and this time he'll be expecting the pain. He'll know that when it's too much for him, he can just jump. ]

[If we're on the Rox, he'll jump back to his own body, Evan. Which puts Patty back with us.]

[I'll have Oddity initiated make you all jumpers so you can get out.... ]

[Is that fair, John? Are you so possessive of her that you'd punish her like that when she's free? What's betterto let this bastard loose again or to make the sacrifice? We can keep Patty free and take the SOB out with us. What's better, John?]

[I'm Dominant] And with that there was a flailing resurgence of will. Oddity managed two lurching steps back toward the center of Charon. The chill receded. [I'll stay Dominant until we find Patty.]

[And what then, John? What then? It's been sixteen years, John. Long enough.]

[John I'll help you too just don't let him kill us.... ] David's panic loosed adrenaline. Oddity screamed as John forced them forward once more, trying to keep pace with Charon's slow movement. Fish swirled away from their grisly feast, disturbed by the movement inside Charon's body.

Suddenly they were through. Oddity stumbled and fell as the resistance vanished. Outside, the skeletons were behind them; ahead there were weedy mud flats and the beginnings of a rise. Charon moved between piles of discarded ship ballast as Oddity's lungs heaved and the agony of change lanced through them all. David tried to rise from Passive once more; John only barely managed to keep him down.

He said nothing to Evan. Evan said nothing to him. Charon hissed. Bubbles rose around them and the body began to rise alongside a rust-stained concrete pier. John forced Oddity to its feet and pushed his way through the body angrily, hating the feel of the wet, cold flesh. There were corroded steel rungs set in the concrete seawall. Oddity swung out of Charon and climbed to the top.

They were waiting for him, a ring of jokers armed with a ragged assortment of weapons. Oddity howled in frustration.

"What an interesting mind," Bloat commented, but his tiny face was pained and drawn. "The pain makes it unpleasant even for me. Still, the complexity of a shared consciousness is fascinating."

"Where's Patty?" Oddity grated out. Their voice was barely more than a whisper. Most of John's concentration was utilized in staying Dominant against David's mental pushing. They looked from the guards-standing well back from Oddity-to Bloat, gauging distances as the cloak humped and folded over their madly changing body. Bloat chuckled.

"Oh, by the time you got halfway to me, they'd have shot you dead, but then you've already figured that out, haven't you, John? It is John, isn't it?" Bloat shook his head. "You should lay down the burden for now, John. It's David I want to speak with."

"No!" Oddity tried to shout; it came out more grunt. "Not until we see Patty."

" I don't think that's a good idea." [It's a stalemate, John. You see?]

[You give up too easily.] John's ego weakened with each moment, his hold on Dominant crumbling. Desperation colored his thoughts. Oddity gave a tremulous sigh.

Underneath both of them but rising, rising, David whispered only to Evan. [Look at all the bodies here you can have any one of them no need to play goddamn hero just let me past let me take Oddity and I'll set you free I promise don't let us die.... ]

"We'll see her," Oddity said, "or we'll see how close we get to you. You kill us or you die. It really doesn't matter. One way we get what I want, the other way what Evan wants. Either way, you lose."

Bloat sighed. "Such a waste." He sighed, then gestured with one tiny hand. " I didn't care to show my hole card so quickly, but I suppose it can't be helped. Bring her in," he said, then nodded to Oddity. "You need to understand the situation. Can David hear me?"

The fencing mask nodded under the hood.

"Good. It's important he does. David, even if you can, don't jump back yet. Ah, here she is..." Somehow, thinking of Patty alone in one body had given them a vision of her as she once had been: dark brown hair swirling around her shoulders and wearing the denim skirt she liked so well with a blouse of unbleached cotton. But the person who stepped from the side doorway was in soiled Levi's and a leather jacket. The body was distinctly male, a youthful, handsome face topped with blond and unruly hair.

"John? Evan?" he [she?] said, and the voice was deep. " I love you both. I miss you."

Patty said the words, and felt the truth of them with the tears they set off in her eyes. Behind her, rubber wheels squeaked against tile. She glanced back at the joker pushing the wheelchair with a young jumper's body. The bait. The temptation.

[Yours. It can be yours.] The knowledge tore at her, and she looked back at Oddity, remembering the pain and the hurt and the feeling of being imprisoned.

"Patty?" Bloat said, and her gaze went grudgingly to the joker. "I need to know. Now. Will you cooperate with me? Do it for yourself. Do it for all jokers. Do it for the rapture. Help me."

Patty looked again at the young woman, at the empty, wonderful body. She also saw Oddity watching and she knew that John and Evan could guess her thoughts as well. Faintly, she saw the fencing mask that was Oddity's face nod, as if in forgiveness. [Go on,] she could almost hear John and Evan saying. [We understand.]

Patty reached out and stroked the girl's face with a yearning wistfulness. The skin felt soft and smooth. She knew she would remember that softness forever.

She turned, trying to remember it all. Trying to pack into these few seconds all the sensations of being alone, of being one.

She shook her head.

"No," she told Bloat, not caring that David's body was weeping openly now. "I hate Oddity, but I love Evan and John. You only want Oddity as a weapon, and I won't be a part of that. I'd rather be with my lovers again, as we were."

"I'd rather be with my lovers again, as we were." Patty's words startled all of them. Evan could feel the surprise loosen what little hold he had.

Oddity screamed.

All at once, everything inside the Oddity had become fluid. The mind barriers crumpled and went to dust. [John?]

[I've lost Oddity, Evan. You have to-]

The person in David's body was running to them, and his [her?] arms were around them, hugging them and not caring that the body was changing underneath the embrace. Oddity stood there, the arms half up as if unsure whether or not to return the embrace....

[Evan, hold David back.... ] [I'm trying, John.]

For a moment, Evan was in control of Oddity as Patty [David?] stared up into the bowl of the fencing mask. "My God, Patty. . ." he moaned. "We love you so much...."

"Evan? It's so lonely out here. I miss you, Evan, John. Please... I want back in." She was crying, clutching tighter to Oddity as the powerful, piebald arms went around her at last.

"But you're free," Oddity said, and the voice was slurred, confused. "I don't understand-"

[Hold him, Evan, hold him.... ]

[Now, Evan. Let me have Oddity] David insisted. David's will shoved at Evan's weak resistance. Laughing, David shoved past Evan and into the Dominant position. Immediately the Oddity groaned as the full impact of the pain hammered at the youth. Yet this time, prepared for the torture, David clung to Dominant.

Evan did nothing. Nothing.

He let David have Oddity without a struggle.

[You promised me,] he said to David. [Remember what you promised me.]

[Goddamn son of a bitch, Evan ... ] "Fucking Christ, Bloat, this hurts!"

"Davvd!" Bloat sounded pleased. "Good. Now that you control Oddity, I can say more." He looked down at Patty, who struggled in Oddity's grasp. "I'd continue to hold on to your body. I'd hate to see Patty damage it, which is what she's considering at the moment."

Patty cursed, glaring at Bloat.

Oddity's grip on Patty tightened. "Say it quick, Bloat. I know it ain't your style, but I ain't staying here long." Bloat smiled. "In a nutshell, then. It's time for us to organize. It's time for the jumpers to help the Rox." Oddity chuckled, then groaned as another shift in the mutable body racked them. "That's what you were telling Patty. So what? You upping the rent?"

Bloat shrugged, the tiny shoulders lifting helplessly in the immense body. "I imagine there are any number of jokers who would like to be aces, especially here in the Rox. A few judicious triple jumps ...Imagine what a dozen or so jokers-turned-aces might be able to accomplish."

"Especially with Bloat telling us what to do."

"Especially." Bloat smiled.

[Evan, you can't allow this.... ]

Evan ignored John's pleading. [David, you promised me. Right?]

[Hey, man. I keep promises. Don't worry.] [Then go ahead and jump. I'll take Dominant.] Patty struggled in their arms, biting and clawing uselessly against Oddity's compelling strength. "We'll talk, Bloat," Oddity said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's time to organize a little. But in a second, when I'm back in my own skin."

"What about Oddity?" Kafka interjected, looking worried.

"I agree with my counselor, David," Bloat said. "I thought Patty would help us control it. Perhaps Oddity's simply too dangerous."

[Evan?]

[Just give me a body, David. Like you promised.] "It'll be cool," David told them. "Don't worry about Oddity."

Inside Oddity, there was a moment of chilling vacancy [ ... Evan! ... ] and then Patty was back, stunned and falling almost immediately to Passive as John made a last desperate attempt to take Dominant.

Evan shoved him back contemptuously. David's eyes had closed. Now they opened again and looked up at Oddity and the hidden face behind the mesh. "Hey, man. You can let me go now."

[John? Patty? I love you both. I'm sorry.] [Evan-]

[We understand we do.... ]

Oddity's hands came up. One was Patty's now, one John's. In a swift movement they grasped either side of David's head.

With all of Oddity's power they twisted savagely. The snap of the neck breaking was very loud. Oddity let the body crumple to the floor. They spread their hands wide, closing their eyes for the last time and waiting for Bloat to give the order, waiting for the bullets to shred their shared body.

[Good-bye Patty, John. I do love you.] It never happened.

Bloat was staring at David's body. Kafka watched Bloat. The joker guards' weapons were pointing at them, ready.

Bloat only gave a brief sigh.

"David was my key. He was willing to listen to me, to share in my dream. If you were Golden Boy or Peregrine or just another ace, I wouldn't hesitate," he told them, still looking at David's body. "But not the Oddity. Not people who know the pain of being a joker."

The tiny head on the mounded body closed its eyes. The body rippled and more bloatblack oozed from the body. The smell of corruption was strong in the room.

"Get out," Bloat told them savagely. "Get out before I change my mind."

Dutton finally opened the back fire door and stood blinking into the Jokertown dawn. The noseless, living skull face yawned. He tugged the cord of his silk bathrobe tightly around his waist.

" Oddity." He sounded relieved. "I was worried. I'd called some people I knew--"

"We came to work."

"Evan?" Dutton glanced at the hands-for the most part, they were chocolate brown and long-fingered. Dutton stepped away from the door and let the cloaked figure enter, then shut and locked the door behind them. The museum seemed gloomy after the sunshine. "It's six in the morning. What happened? Where's Patty?"

"Here. Passive for the moment. John's with us, too. It's over, Charles. We--I-was wrong. We wanted to tell you."

"Wrong?"

"About endings. Maybe things do occasionally work out. The leader of the jumper gang's dead, Charles." Behind the mask, Oddity laughed, full and loud. The gaiety sounded very strange to Dutton. "It doesn't solve everything," Oddity continued. "Probably not much at all."

"But it's one little change for the good. A few less atrocities the nats will be able to blame on us, one less excuse they can use to oppress people affected by the wild card."

"And you? What about Oddity?"

"It still hurts. But one of us got out, at least for a bit. We can think of that and hope that maybe-someday-the rest will change."

Oddity sighed.

Under the heavy cloak, shapes came and went.

"You got any cake, Charles?" they said. "It's our birthday."