"Well, all right then." I busied myself with the books and journals on parallel dimension theory. There was a lot of great stuff; delightfully esoteric, and hotly contested besides. The initial articles viewed the whole concept as total bunk. Once Rushdie went ahead and demonstrated it, they began thinking up other ways he could have done what he did, since obviously he couldn't have actually done what he said he had. After his death, his journals vanished and no one has been able to duplicate his work, so they tend to dismiss it as a fluke ability of Rushdie's, some undetected variance or something like that. The one part of his work others had received well involved the encoding of information into crystalline lattices, which has since revolutionized data storage.
    I enjoyed the time; maybe because it didn't evoke any particular memories, as I half-thought it might, just a sense of purposeful quietude. I read everything and photocopied most of it, although a good bit of it was beyond me; I'll need to sit down with the math for a while when I have some more free time. Then I went back to base and told the guys about the meeting.
    "Ah, shit. I was going to break into his house tomorrow morning," Talon sighed.
    "You can do it tomorrow afternoon."
    "I guess I'll have to."
    Afterwards I went upstairs to write up the day's events, and found myself staring at the package that came while we were in Worcester. What the hell, I decided; going to have to open it eventually.
    I slit one end of the envelope carefully and spilled the contents out onto my bed to sort through the half dozen latest examples of Pierre's skill (I used to like nice clothes, and sometimes I wonder what happened; then, of course, I remember). Must also remember to send him a thank-you note for all his work; just because I never intended any of this is no reason to be rude. The skin-tight silver job with keyhole neckline I immediately set aside with a wince, but the others aren't too bad. Nice fabric, whatever it's called.
    Eventually I picked up the most likely-looking outfit, dark red with an occasional thread of silver in the weave. Feeling horribly self-conscious, I ducked toward the nearer of the two bathrooms, glad that Lucky wasn't in residence to hear my movements and ask questions. I don't have a mirror in my bedroom unless you want to count Marshall's sketch, which is purely metaphorical in function. I looked at myself for a while, doing the usual periodic catalog; everything was where I had left it, though I found myself wondering if I frown like that all the time.
    I wondered too, did I do the right thing with Neil? I hadn't even really thought about it, I've since realized; my reaction was close to reflex. I'd been enjoying myself—well kind of, given the circumstances—until I realized we were on a date, and suddenly there were totally different rules and expectations to worry about all the sudden, never mind the automatic paranoia. Crossed wires, indeed. And then I got annoyed at myself for taking so long to figure it out, for putting things off and probably making it worse, which didn't do anything to improve my opinion of the whole situation. I should make a New Years resolution about that procrastination thing. I think it's just that I usually feel like I don't understand why people act the way they do, what's really going on, what they want, which means I can pretty much be counted on to say or do the wrong thing in response.
    My frown intensified as I stared at my image in the mirror. Nothing awful, I suppose, but hardly worth a trip up from Providence. At any rate, he seems like a nice enough guy, but I'm pretty sure it would never have occurred to me to think about him as anything other than a prospective working partner. Maybe I'm just not used to thinking of people in any other way. Not used to thinking of myself in any other way. Maybe he's just not my type.
    I've spent several minutes in thought since I wrote that last sentence, and I've come to the conclusion that I have no idea what my type might be. Seems like a weird thing not to know about yourself. Or maybe not so weird in my case, I don't know. I mean, it's been something like four years since my last date, which puts us well into unreal territory, and Phil appears in my memories as a complete waste of oxygen. There was Travis, of course, but I don't know if I could stand to be around anyone who reminded me too much of him—too weird by half. What would I look for, if I was looking?
    
    Enough. This train of thought is going to get me nowhere but a foul mood if I keep it up any longer. Of course it was the right thing to do. What else could I have done? Gone to dinner, dodged more questions about my past, lied? Told the truth? I'm sure that would have gone over splendidly. Seven months; it's never far from my consciousness. It would be foolish to be too optimistic, and usually I'm very realistic about things, I think, and able to deal with all of it rather well, considering. Much better than I was a few months ago. I wish... hell. If wishes were horses Massachusetts would be carpeted with the critters.
    I can practically hear Trent shaking his head. However, I can't see myself discussing the situation with Mr. Tall Blonde and Dazzling, either—definitely not my type. Too much of a good thing. Plus his girlfriend would kill me.
    I tried to put the whole subject from my mind and changed clothes. The red turned out to be rather flattering. The neckline emphasizes my neck and collarbone, which I suppose are decent features, and the slightly clingy (not tight) fabric makes the rest of me look all right, I guess. There's a warm vest as well, black (intended, I think, to go with several of the outfits) with a lot of pockets. I wouldn't even need to buy new boots. I frowned at my hair, hesitated—still for some reason feeling self-conscious, alone in the bathroom—and tried pulling it up into a knot. It's just long enough to stay if I pinned it, I think.
    Not bad, really, but... I don't know. Guess I'll think about it.

[Aside: Scott]

November 3, 1987

I desperately need to sleep, and I can't. For one, the painkillers they gave me at the hospital don't seem to be working right, and I'm wired instead of dopey; add another to the list of weird drug interactions with my altered metabolism. For another, we have too much to do. For yet another, I'm literally shaking with fury. I don't think any of the others are in better shape than I am right now, and some of us are much worse off. For a moment yesterday I thought we'd lost Scott.
    Where did yesterday start? Oh right, the meeting.
    I wish it didn't hurt to breathe right now.
    Anyway, the meeting, where I made the first of several very bad mistakes in the past twenty-four hours. Dammit, I thought he would run.
    I flew over to the AMC building after warning the rest of the team to be on their toes, just in case these guys were actually behind Albert's disappearance. The guys took a taxi, so I got there before them. The same security guard was on duty; he seemed to have no recollection of who I was, but he did call on up to the office and point me to the correct elevator.
    "Should be on the 26th floor."
    I rode up alone, enduring the Muzak. Ding. The doors opened on the Agglomerated MegaPublishing offices. A middle-aged man approached, smiling.
    "Do you prefer Needle, or Ms. Banks?"
    "Call me Needle."
    "I'm Wendell Jenkins, we spoke on the phone the other day."
    "Nice to meet you."
    "If you'll come on in, the conference room's right over there."
    I scanned him; nothing unusual.
    "Peter!" he called to someone in the distance. "Peter, Needle's here."
    Peter waved back. "Just gotta hit the bathroom, I'll be in in a second."
    "Come right in; your partners are coming with you?" Jenkins inquired, leading the way.
    "They should be along any moment."
    "It's a pleasure to meet you for the first time."
    "Likewise."
    "I know that... let me say this now while he's not here. Peter can be overexuberant," Jenkins said carefully. "Almost dangerously overexuberant. But regardless of his exuberance, I just want to let you know that we here at Agglomerated MegaPublishing really do appreciate what you do, and it would be an honor if you would agree to sign on to this. It would be very important for me personally. I realize that you will make whatever decision you want," he continued before repeating, "but... it would be very important for me personally if you were to sign on."
    He was sweating, I noted, and his words seemed to have unusual force behind them, but I'd never met the man before, so I wasn't sure what was normal for him.
    "If you could just step in here." He gestured at the door to the conference room. A few moments later the rest of the team showed up; the secretary showed them in. Phoenix noticed that there were a lot of new security cameras since his last visit, and figured that they were a direct result of that visit; he had complained about their security....
    "We're just waiting for Peter to come out of the men's room and for someone from our legal department to show up," Wendell was saying. "Oh, I see your teammates are here. Come on in, gentlemen. Did Midge offer you anything?"
    "Yeah, she's on her way," Talon replied.
    "So. You had concerns?" Jenkins went on as everyone got settled. "I know I shouldn't be starting before Peter gets here, but I just wanted to let you know how much I have enjoyed working with you, and I'm really hoping we can work this out. I understand that there have been some problems, and I wanted to express my personal regrets vis a vis the Toy Man, scale model of Boston, imprisoning you scenario. I realize that it's important and critical, and I realize that you're upset, but I would hate to see the relationship that we've already developed crumble because of this incident."
    "I don't think we're going anywhere," Talon told him. "No worries on that."
    "Good."
    "However, we do need to talk," he added firmly. Just then a new man entered the room.
    "Oh, hi Michael. This is Michael, he's from our legal department." We all exchanged greetings; I scanned him. Normal.
    "Peter mentioned a card series that was coming out, to Needle yesterday?" Talon asked.
    "Oh, yes. I have some samples right here." Jenkins passed out some foil card packets. "I know that Peter said he was going to carry on this conversation with you, but... regarding the conversation you had with him the other day, regarding the Toy Man... there was no way to stop the initial print run."
    "So the Toy Man's in here?"
    "There are Toy Man cards in there," he confirmed. "For future sets...."
    "Well, I understand it'll take time to get him out of the plotline, but considering the events of the past few days, I think it's in very poor taste to leave him in. There'll be a transition period, I understand that."
    "Okay. So you have no problem with this?"
    The packets were a mix of news stills, sketches from the comic books, and posed photos of both the three of them (plus Tao) and various villains we've encountered. Phoenix Talon flipped the cards over and began assembling the larger picture that could be found on the back, and his expression darkened. It was a picture of him, facing the Toy Man—who got a much larger share of the scene, almost dwarfing his opponent.
    "This is going to be changed in the second print run, right?" he growled. I kept a close eye on him, lest he lose his temper.
    "The second print run has an entirely different image on it," Jenkins assured him hastily. "Each print run is going to have its own image."
    Talon simply nodded, surprising me. I didn't think he would take it that well. Little did I know that he was already planning to buy up as many of the sets as possible before they could get into the market. Midge came in with her tray of coffee things and pastries.
    "I just ran into Mr. Paulson outside, he said he wasn't feeling well," she told us. "He'll be in in a couple of minutes."
    Really, I thought. Hm.
    Jenkins rubbed his hands together. "Well, Peter's apparently not feeling well, so I guess we'll get things started without him. Why don't you run through the list of your concerns, and we'll see what we can do to resolve them?"
    "Well, the Toy Man is the first on mine, so that's more or less been dealt with."
    "Just the fact that you don't want him in... prominence."
    "Anything," Talon corrected. "He should be phased out."
    "Okay...." He didn't look happy. "We can do that. It'll require some rewrites, but... you're certain on this?"
    "Oh, yes."
    "He's been getting a very positive fan response," Jenkins said tentatively. "They really seem to like the idea that you have a plotting arch-nemesis."
    "There's plenty of real-world plotting arch-nemeses you could use," I shrugged. The Toy Man has been more what I would call an arch-irritant.
    Phoenix Talon was slowly crumpling the cards in his hand. "Just go with me on this one."

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