“Buy my suit!” a mannequin in a window shouted as I walked.

“Buy me…” a sexbot whispered seductively from the depths of a pink bed.

“Win credits on the lottery!”

“Get drunk quicker and stay drunk longer than you ever imagined with SkunkDrunk, the intravenous alcohol drip!”

“Talk as you go—” That was it!

The holodisplay swirled with color and phone shapes. I punched my way through the commands until I found a portable phone small enough to fit in my shirt pocket. I poked coins into the money slot, then more credit notes for a lot of connection time in advance. Finally the screen lit up with a rainbow of light, a brass band played a short fanfare and a smarmy voice said, “Thanks good buddy-you’ve been a great customer!”

The phone finally rattled into the basket; I grabbed it up and left. To find a dark doorway to make my calls. I worked the directory until I got the right number, punched it in.

“Welcome to the galaxy famous Colosseo. Now featuring the incredible Bolshoi’s Big Top. If you wish to contact the box office for advance ticket sales press one. If you wish… ”

I pressed until my thumb was sore, working my way through menu after menu until I finally got the number I wanted. The phone rang a long time until a sleepy voice answered.

“Do you know what time of the night it is?”

“I do, Gar-and wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t an emergency. Your great-aunt Matilda is ill and at death’s door. For more information would you please call this number.. .” The silence stretched out-then he spoke.

“Wait a second, I have to find a stylo.”

Done! Gar Goyle was no longer in the Special Corps-but he hadn’t forgotten the Matilda code. And had responded with the Stylo countersign. It was simplicity itself. If an agent thought that a phone number had been compromised, tapped into or no longer safe, he would use a sentence with Matilda in it. After that the phone number would be given-with the last four numbers being one digit too high. If they were four, seven, zero, nine, the transcriber would write them down as five, eight, one, zero. Simple and foolproof. I rung off and started walking back to the warehouse.

Gar must have had as much trouble finding an unvandalized phone as I had had. I was almost back to the warehouse before the phone bleeped.

“Is that you, Marvell?”

“Yes. I am sure that a certain illegal party has bugged all the phones at the Colosseo-keep that in mind. Is Megalith Man back yet?”

“No. Should he be?”

“I’m not sure. He was safe when I left him, but we were out in the boonies and he had no transportation.” I looked at my watch. “Tell him to call me from a safe phone at noon. If he doesn’t return until after that, tell him to try again at midnight. And keep doing that until we make contact. Do you read?”

“I read, “ he said and hung up.

That was all that I could do. Bolivar in his Megalith Man outfit might find it more than a little difficult to get back to the circus. But as long as Chaise or the police hadn’t found him I knew that he could do it.

I hoped. “No-know he is safe and will get back!” I shouted out loud to build my morale a bit. Went and let myself back into the building. Igor was still out and still snoring. I pulled the blanket over my head and tried to emulate his good example.

I awoke cursing. My dimwit companion was kicking at the bed. Then he moved fast enough so my swinging fist missed him.

“Got orders. We gotta go. North, that’s good. Boss came by. This for you. Go north.” He almost smiled. I did not question him: I would find out soon enough why north was good. I picked up the package and read the label on the side.

MASK-A-RAID on one side. On the other, FOOL. YOUR FRIENDS. I opened it and looked at the’ face inside. It was no one I knew. Which, I imagine, was the whole idea. A mask of pseudoflesh with operating instructions. How to stick it to my face. How to keep it in working order. How to feed it. Apparently it lived on chicken soup rich with nutrients. A can of soup and a funnel were included in the package.

It worked a wonder. A different me stared back out of the cracked mirror. Well, at least I did not have to worry about the police anymore. Chaise was enough to keep my worrier going full time.

I had a bit of an appetite, but when I watched Igor chomp down two greasy servings of octopus nuggets, all thoughts of food vanished, And I wished, not for the first time, that I could do with a less disgusting roommate. I skipped breakfast.

We kicked our crew of robots to electronic life and rolled them aboard the truck. Then Igor added one item that I found very interesting. A portable battery charger that he plugged into the truck’s electrical system. Which meant that we would not be returning this night. I wondered just where in the north we would be.

We trundled through the morning traffic until we reached the tollway. This was filly automated and switched the truck over to autocontrol as soon as we left the slipway. We speeded up until we were exactly ten meters behind another truck. We stayed there with machinelike precision. With the tollway doing all the driving, Igor fell instantly asleep. I watched the dismal industrial landscape slide by—and timed the service areas. One appeared every half an hour. Very organized.

It was just ten minutes to noon when I killed the road control and turned off the tollway. A loud siren sounded; Igor woke in a panic and wrested back control of the truck. Pulled over and braked to a juddering stop.

“You try kill us!”

“No. I just wanted to stop.”

“Stop? Why stop?”

“Rest stop stop. Little boys’ room.”

“What little boy?”

“Pee, you moron.”

“Yeh, pee.” His eyes rolled up as he took a bladderpressure test. “Yeah.” We went inside.

I kept an eye on my watch, finished and exited the rest room before he did.

“Where you going?”

“Food. See you back at the truck.”

He was suspicious but there was nothing he could do about it. I waited until I saw him head for the parking area. Ten minutes to noon. Just enough time to punch in the vending machine for a kafinkola—I was still tired from the night before-and a high-energy beanwich. I sat in a booth in back, eating and slurping and watching the door.

My phone rang exactly at noon.

“Bolivar?”

“None other. “

“Tell me-no don’t!” Igor had suddenly appeared and was coming in the door. “Give me your number, be ready to take a call at midnight.”

I crouched down in the booth, put my finger in my drink and wrote his phone number out in wet figures of kafinkola on the tabletop. Had the phone back in my pocket an instant before my companion in crookery popped into sight.

“No time. Gotta go.”

“Go, go, here I come.” Memorizing the number as I stood up.

Things got better the farther north we went. The mills, mines and factories gave way to automated farms. It was nice to see a bit of greenery. Then trees, more and more of them until the road was cutting a wide swath through virgin forest. A tunnel ahead dived under rolling hills-to emerge above a coastal plain bordered by a blue sea. I was beginning to see why Igor thought the north was good.

The first of the homes appeared, most of them sprawling mansions. Even the verges of the payway were landscaped now.

“Bosses live here?” I asked.

The. answering grunt sounded positive. Top and bottom in this polarized society-with very little in the middle I was sure. We took the first exit, found a high-tech industrial estate hidden by trees from view of the road. Igor had obviously been here before. He worked his way through the numbered drives to the rear of an isolated unit. The sun shone warmly on a patch of grass and an umbrella-shaded table. And shone as well on Chaise, who was sipping from a frosted glass.

“You look disgusting,” he said when I swung down from the truck. He was right. My unshaven face was beginning to itch under the, living mask. My eyes were gritty and an interesting shade of red. After being soaked with rain my once fancy dress was not fancy at all.