"Mr. Stake?" He looked up to see a woman approaching him, smiling. She wore something like the same blazer the students wore, but with a skirt of matching solid black. Stake felt embarrassed, as though the woman had caught him luxuriating in this churning sea of teenage femininity. "I'm Janice Poole," she introduced herself, as she briskly clicked closer.

He stood and extended his hand. "Thanks for meeting with me."

She shook his hand. Her grip was strong. "I know John Fukuda; a very pleasant and charming man. He allows me to tour my biology students through his facility every year. I told him I'd be happy to cooperate in any way. Yuki is one of my favorite students-a very dear girl. I hate to see her upset like this. I really don't want her work to suffer as a result."

"Mr. Fukuda recommended you as someone I could talk with discreetly, so I thought I might ask you some questions about a classmate of Yuki's, who she mentioned is also in your biology class. A girl named Krimson?"

Janice Poole gave an odd smile. "Krimson. Yes. Well, we could go back inside to my office, Mr. Stake-the school will be open another hour before it locks up for the day. Or would you rather go to your office, or a cafe nearby?"

His office. He didn't have one. His flat was all he needed, and he never met with his clients there. "Do you know a good cafe?"

"Sure. Care to take my car? And I can drop you back here afterwards."

"Certainly; thanks."

As they drove in her sporty new hovercar, Stake stole glances at the woman beside him. He liked Janice Poole's profile of strong pointed nose and pointed chin. He liked that she had not dyed the gray that prematurely and attractively threaded her shortish, shaggy dark hair. He judged her to be older than himself, in her late thirties. Her skin was very white, her figure inside her sharp uniform apparently full and womanly, and she was nearly the same height he was. She seemed confident. Sure of her place in the world. That always intimidated him about people a little. Or maybe it just mystified him. In that regard, a human could sometimes be more alien to him than a nonhuman being.

They seated themselves at a small table in an upscale cafe; their young waitress sported a pixel tattoo that covered her entire face, making of it a movie screen. She could probably play any number of film loops across its surface, but right now it showed a close-up of the shifting and glistening feathers of a peacock's tail. "Terrible," Stake muttered, watching her move away to submit their order. "She'd be beautiful without that thing, as far as I can tell."

"Beauty is subjective," Janice chuckled. "My nephew has one of those on his face; he plays vids of his favorite music groups. I saw a man on the street who was playing porn vids on his." A smile. It had a kind of open suggestiveness to it. In that moment, Stake thought: she's been to bed with John Fukuda. A "pleasant and charming man."

"I just don't understand people defacing their faces," he said.

"It's a fad. They'll have them removed, and go on to something else." She leaned her elbows forward on the table. "So… Krimson."

"Yes. Yuki told me she disappeared about a week ago-the same time that Yuki's doll vanished from her locker. She tells me the girl is hostile toward her. Since you know both girls, I was wondering what you thought the chances are of this girl taking the doll-maybe for its monetary value-and running away from home. Yuki said she has an older boyfriend."

"I don't know about any boyfriend, but I suspect I know why this girl might be hostile toward Yuki. Her name is Krimson Tableau, and her father owns a company here in Punktown that raises and harvests battery animals. Tableau Meats."

"Ah. yes."

"Fukuda Bioforms recently purchased and assimilated the old Alvine Products company. So now they're direct competitors in the same market, in the same city."

"Well, then my hunch seems valid. But there's a complication. Yuki said one of Krimson's friends has heard Krimson on her Ouija phone. Which, if true, would indicate that Krimson hasn't run away, but is dead. And at her young age, dead could very well mean murdered."

"Hm." Janice nodded absent-mindedly to the waitress as she placed their coffees in front of them. The girl's face was now a soundlessly pounding ocean surf. "Well, there are some bogus Ouija phone services. And the fragments of voices the kids hear on those things are wide open to interpretation. So I don't know how reliable that theory would be."

"I know. I'm not too trusting of that source, myself, though I have to admit I know little about those phones. Please don't repeat this to Mr. Fukuda, but Yuki even swears she's heard her own mother on one of them."

"Really? That's rather spooky. Speaking of murdered: did you know that Yuki's mother was murdered? And please do me a favor, too, and don't tell him I told you that. I don't know that he cares to have people discuss it."

Stake set down his mug and looked at Janice intently. "Murdered? No, I didn't know that. She only told me her mom died when she was a baby."

"When she was a baby? I thought I'd heard it was more recent than that, like four years ago or something. Maybe Yuki told you that to hide the more painful reality. Anyway, yes, her mom was killed. I guess they never found out who did it. My knowledge is pretty limited, so it might be unfair of me to bring it up at all."

"Huh." Stake stared into her face, lost in thought. She was watching him very intently herself, and it was as though he could see himself reflected in her eyes. Before he realized what was happening, so distracted was he by this string of revelations, he saw Janice's expression become one of surprise.

"Oh my God-you're a changeling! A chameleon!"

Instantly, violently, he looked away. But she reached over and took his hand.

"I'm sorry; I don't mean to make you self-conscious. Please look at me again."

"I'd rather let this pass." How much did he look like her already? The long pointed nose? The pointed chin? Maybe even gray threads through his short dark hair? Maybe even his somewhat olive skin gone ivory white?

She squeezed his hand to reassure him. "It's remarkable. Really, I'm not repulsed. I'm fascinated."

"Well, you are a biologist."

"I didn't mean it that way. Maybe a little. So, were you genetically designed for this, or-"

"No," he said, a little too harshly. He looked at her again. "I'm not a belf." It was a derisive slang for bio-engineered life form. "I'm a mutant." But was that much better than being a belf?

"Yes, I see. Ah, Caro-"

"…turbida," he finished.

"Restless flesh."

"Confused flesh."

She still held his hand. "Please don't be offended. Do I look like it bothers me?"

"No. But it bothers me." That was too frank. Women brought that out in him. Especially those he found attractive. As long as he was spilling his guts, he went on, "I was born in Tin Town. The mutie slums. My father was normal, but my mother was a mutant. She died when I was a kid."

"Very sorry. So your dad raised you."

"Not really. He sort of lost himself in drugs after that. He loved her a lot, see; he didn't care what she was. So I pretty much grew up on the streets. I avoided the gang thing, and I ended up enlisting in the military as soon as I could, to get out of Tin Town the best way I knew how."

"Was your Mom a. could she change like this, too?"

"No. She had physical deformities. But no 'gifts,' if you want to call it that."

"Wow." Janice digested all this. "I appreciate your candor, Mr. Stake. Can I ask your first name?"

"Jeremy."

"Jeremy," she repeated, staring at him so raptly that he couldn't stop himself from flicking looks at her eyes again and again, despite how much he had trained himself.