" You can't change the past, Hiram," Jack said. "You can maybe make the future a little better. We've done that, I think, with what we've done in the last week."

"Hiram." The joker was looking at them with his blank eye sockets. Jack had the uneasy feeling he was being scrutinized. "It's time to go."

"Yes. Of course." Hiram was panting for breath, as if the conversation had somehow exhausted him.

"See you around, maybe," Jack said.

Hiram turned without a word and headed back to pick up the suitcase. Either it held nothing, or Hiram had made it light.

A giddy wave of paranoia struck Jack at the sight of Hiram hefting the huge suitcase and heading for the big revolving doors. Suppose Blaise…

But no. The suitcase was big, Jack realized, but not big enough to hold a teenage boy.

The events of the last few days had made him jumpy.

Even with the medication, Puppetman could feel Tony Calderone's pain. It tasted spicy. He tweaked it, just for the pleasure. Tony grimaced and jumped slightly in his bed, joggling the laptop on his food tray. His face went visibly pale. "You okay?" Gregg asked, ignoring Puppetman's interior laughter.

"Just a twinge, Senator. No big deal." His denial was belied by the sweat on his forehead. Puppetman giggled. Now leave him alone. We have to work.

No problem, Greggie. It just feels so good to be free again. We've put it all together. It's all ours now.

"I've been thinking about the speech, Senator," Tony was saying. "I think I've come up with the catch phrase we've been looking for. I was looking through all the old speeches. You remember what you said in Roosevelt Park when you declared that you were running?"

That brought back memories-it hadn't been long after that speech that he'd had Kahina killed in front of Chrysalis and Downs to guarantee their silence about his ace. That certainly worked well, Gregg thought ironically.

But it did, Puppetman insisted. It kept things quiet through the campaign. Tachyon found out too late. It's all taken care of now.

I suppose… "What phrase where you thinking of, Tony?" Gregg asked the speechwriter.

Tony punched a key and read the words on the LCD screen. "`There are other masks than those Jokertown has made famous.' Your own line, too, if I recall, and a good one. `Behind that mask is an infection that's all too human… I want to rip the mask off and expose the true ugliness behind, the ugliness of hatred."' Tony tapped the screen. "That's a powerful image. I think it's time we built on it."

"Sounds fine to me. What have you got in mind?"

"I've been working along those lines since last night. And I've had another thought." Tony grinned, and Gregg felt an upwelling of pulsing yellow-Tony was proud of this one. He pushed the laptop aside and sat up straighter in the bed. His fingertips drummed on his thigh in excitement.

"What if we had everyone wearing masks: you, Jesse, everyone on stage and all our delegates out in the audience? Jokers, aces, and nats, every last one masked so you can't tell the difference. Then, when you hit the right line-" Tony closed his eyes, thinking. "I don't know, something along the lines of, `It's time for all of us to remove our masks, the masks of prejudice, of hatred, of intolerance' but stronger, much stronger, and with a lot of buildup. And just as you say it, boom, everyone rips off their mask and tosses it in the air." Gregg chuckled. He turned the scene over in his mind. " I like it. I think I like it a lot."

"It's hot. It's a guaranteed spot on every channel. Can you see it, all those masks in the air? Man, you talk about an image. It rivets the wild card issue in every voter's mind, and Bush is going to have a hell of a time getting drama like that at the Republican Convention."

Gregg slapped the bed sheets and stood up. "We'll run with it. You start working on the speech; I'll get together with Amy, John, and Devaughn and get this coordinated with our people. Tony, this is good. When you have a full draft, send it up to Ellen's room. I've got the modem on the Compaq set up."

"You got it, Senator," Tony grinned.

"The public's never going to forget what happens tonight, Tony. Get cracking; we don't have much time."

Gregg was grinning as he left the room. Tachyon was out of the picture, the nomination was wrapped up, and now the perfect image for the coming campaign. He was so pleased he didn't even listen to Puppetman's whining for just one last taste of Tony's pain.

"Although there was a small portion of the carpus remaining, I chose to amputate a few inches farther back on the radius."

Dr. Robert Benson's method of delivery was dry in the extreme. No bedside manner at all, thought Tachyon, staring with sick horror at the ungainly lump of bandages swathing his right arm. Perhaps he thinks I can take it being a physician myself… Well, he's wrong.

His arm throbbed in time to the beating of his heart. Tach glanced up at the IV mechanically clicking fluids into his body. They had inserted the needle into the big vein on the back of his left hand. Good, they noticed I was right-handed… no stupid, no right hand to put it in. He gagged.

"Feeling nauseous?" Benson held a basin under his chin. "That's natural, the aftereffects of the anesthesia."

"I… know. How… long… what time?"

"Oh, time. A little after three on Sunday."

"So… long."

"Yes, physically you're very run down, and the massive shock and blood loss," he shrugged.

"I'm hurting."

"I'll send in a nurse with another shot."

"I'm very allergic to codeine. Use morphine or-"

"Doctors make the worst patients. Always trying to take over their own treatment." But Benson smiled as he made a notation on the record. "Go back to sleep."

Tach felt his lower lip trembling. "My hand."

"From what I've seen of the news clips you're lucky to have gotten off so lightly."

"Doctor." Benson paused at the door, looked back. "Don't tell them."

Benson scratched his chin. "About the virus, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I won't."

Eyes closed, Tachyon evaluated his condition. The painful throat from the endotrachial tube, the overall sense of disorientation from the anesthesia, a painfully distended bladder, and, overriding all, the thundering pain from his mangled arm. The phantom fingers of his right hand twitched convulsively.

If he were at home, he could have a hand regrown in a matter of weeks. But would the wild card virus now twined lovingly in his DNA permit a normal growth? Or would it place some horror at the end of his arm?

It seemed the final and ultimate irony that he, who had killed his own kin attempting to prevent the release of the virus and spent forty years laboring among its victims as a means of atonement, should be forced to suffer so much.

"Just manifest and get it over with!" he cried aloud. Tears ran hotly into the hair at his temples, and matted in his sideburns.

The virus maintained its smug silence.