"All right. Do we have any proof of this?"
    "We could probably get some fairly easily," I told her resignedly.
    "This is what we need to keep those two poor women out of jail. If their drugs contained this, then they weren't responsible for their actions, right?"
    "Right," Scott agreed.
    "I have to admit, it holds together," Winters admitted, shaking her head. "That means that there's people out there, with injectable Javelin that's going to make them try and kill Berault, right? In theory."
    "In theory," I told her. "Watch him very carefully. This person is probably in something resembling a psychotic state in which they won't know what they're doing, or care if they get shot."
    "If it's his personality in there he won't give a damn, because he knows it's not his body. Have you talked with this guy yet?" she asked.
    "Javelin? Not yet."
    "You planning on it?"
    "Yes."
    "I want to come down with you."
    "OK." I shrugged. Her presence probably wouldn't hurt anything, especially if Scott was determined that she know all.
    "Let me just radio the people who are watching Berault, because this is going to throw everything...."
    "By all means, warn them."
    She let the men know about what they would be facing, and that they should if it all possible not kill the person who showed up to make the attempt.
    "You realize you're gonna have to do that blood test?" Scott asked me.
    "Presumably I'll have to go down to Lancaster. It would be fastest if I just fly down." Given the distance and no need to follow the highway's curves, I could make it there in a few hours.
    "Well, I mean we'll have to do ones on Javelin to find out if he's the baseline," Winters remarked--blithely ignorant of what we were actually discussing.
    "That, too," I agreed.
    "How'm I getting there?" the detective asked.
    "Take one of the bikes, they're easy."
    "Are we going to keep up this ongoing dodge?" Scott inquired more privately as we headed outside. He's picking up on humanity way too fast for my liking. "Should I finish this, or do you want to?"
    "Not... not yet," I decided, feeling ever-so-slightly desperate.
    "OK," he said with what sounded remarkably like a sigh.
    Albert stepped around the corner to meet us. "I can't believe you're going to deal with a mental patient and you're not bringing me," he remarked grandly. "My steed, M. L'automaton?"
    Albert's joining the party was accepted without question. He's been so quiet, sometimes I forget he's still around. Working on his masterwork, one assumes. "When we go in, I have certain degrees of questions as to exactly how many people are who they look like," Scott told him.
    "I will be aware of any such states of flux within the people who staff the sanitarium," Albert assured us.
    "Of course they might be the psychologists they look like, but not be the people we think."
    "What you're trying to suggest is that this place is staffed with SysGen people, or ex-SysGen people?" I said, trying to follow his somewhat convoluted phrasing as we all got airborne.
    "Or, other people who worked for the ultimate employers of SysGen."
    That one caught Winters' attention. "Whoah, who are the ultimate employers of SysGen? What's going on?"
    I shot Scott a dark look. "SysGen was working on a project for the World Crime League."
    Quiet for a moment. "I see." Another pause. "They had the Easter Bunny in their employ, too?"
    This time I paused. "No." Somewhat frostily. Sometimes I forget that not even most police believe these people exist. I don't have that option.
    We got there without further incident or conversation, and Albert arranged for a conference room where we could meet with Felix. It contained a table and some chairs, was painted in soothing colors. Security cameras in the corners covered us unobtrusively. We waited there until an orderly escorted Felix into the room and then departed, closing the door quietly. He was dressed in loose hospital clothing, no restraints, and moved in a hunched posture as he crossed to the nearest chair and sat down.
    "Yeah? What?" he said expectantly, looking from one of us to another.
    "Bonjour, Monsieur. Parlez-vous francais?"
    "What?"
    "He was just hoping you spoke French," Scott piped up helpfully. "We'd like to talk to you about your last employer."
    "What do you want to know?" He smiled, a little nervously, I thought. "I'll be perfectly helpful. Th-this is the place out in-in California, right?"
    "Yes."
    "They were doing some bad things, yes they were."
    "Would you like to tell us about them?" I asked carefully, my heart going just a little bit too fast for comfort.
    "I had to go. 'Cause they were doing bad things."
    "And what were those bad things?" Albert asked, leaning forward to capture Felix's slightly blank gaze. I've never seen him work on this level, and it was somewhat impressive; he held Javelin's attention effortlessly. Every once in a while his eyes would try to move toward one of us as he answered a question, only to be drawn back to that intense stare.
    "They were making people."
    I almost broke my pencil.
    "Making memories. Couldn't have that."
    "Why not?" Scott asked quietly.
    "Couldn't. Wrong. Wrong for them to do it."
    "Making more than just memories, weren't they."
    "Making memories. People. I was part of it. I admit that, it was wrong, I was part of it. So I got away from it. I probably shouldn't have done some of the things I did there, but I did them, I'm not... not proud but I did them. What do you need to know?" He suddenly seemed to surface into lucidity again.
    "The details, if you please," I invited, my mouth dry.
    "I wasn't there for very long."
    "What were you doing when you got there?" Albert asked patiently. "How long were you there?"
    "Eighteen months. They needed me, because I'd had experience with other attempts at this, other companies had been trying to do it, other people."
    "The synthetic memories?" I said.
    "And I had been part of the project for a little while, out in Transbialka, briefly, but I don't know where they got it from and I couldn't stay there, either. So I left there. And then after the angels burned the building down I left here."
    "'The angels burned the building down?'" Winters said, quietly disbelieving.
    "Yeah, yeah, angels burned the building down."
    "Which building?" I asked, at about the same time Scott asked, "When was that?"

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