Another jolt impales my skull! My back arches in spasms. Writhing, I feel wracked by a need to return.

But return where? How? And why is he doing this to me?

Suddenly I notice something through the pane of glass dividing Yosil’s lab. On the other side I see grayAlbert. The ditto who was captured at the Kaolin Estate on Monday. The one who was brought here, replenished and then used as a template to make me.

Each time this body of mine wrenches, so does the gray!

Is Maharal doing the same thing to us both, simultaneously? I see no big machine like this one aimed at the gray.

That means something else is happening. That ditto is somehow feeling what I feel! We must be — agh!

That was a bad one. I bit down so hard I might have broken a tooth, if I were real.

Got to speak. Before the next jolt.

“Rem — em — emo—”

“What is that, Albert? Are you trying to say something?”

Yosil’s ditto hovers near, offering faux sympathy. “Come on, Albert. You can do it!”

“Remo — tuh … Re-mote! Y-you’re t-tryin-ing to do r-r-r—”

“Remote-imprinting?” My captor chuckles. “You always guess the same thing. No, old friend. It’s nothing as mundane as that old dream. What I’m trying to achieve is much more ambitious. Phase-synchronizing the pseudo-quantum soul states of two related but spatially separated standing waves. Exploiting the deep entanglement of your Shared Observer Unification Locus. Does that mean anything to you?”

Shivering. Jaws chattering.

“Sh-shar-shared observ—”

“We talked about this before. The fact that each person helps to make the universe happen by acting as an observer, collapsing the probability amplitudes and … oh, never mind. Let’s just say that all copies of a Standing Wave remain entangled with the original version. Even yours, Albert, though you give your golems remarkable leeway.

“I want to use the connection! Ironically, that requires severing the original link, the only way it can be severed … by eliminating the template prototype.”

“Y-you k-killed—”

“The original Albert Morris, using a stolen missile? Of course. Didn’t we already cover that?”

“Yourself. You killed yourself!”

This time, the gray golem before me winces.

“Yes, well … that, too. And it wasn’t easy, believe me. But I had reasons.”

“R-reasons … ?”

“Had to act fast, too. Before I realized fully what I was up to. Even so, I nearly got away from me, speeding along that desert highway.”

It’s getting harder to talk … even to grind out single words … especially each time another spasm strikes. The relentless pummeling of the machine, plucking the chords of my Standing Wave with a sharp twang … makes me cry out to escape … to rush back for inloading … to a home brain that no longer exists.

Uhn! That was bad. How much worse can it get?

All right, think! Suppose the real me is gone. What about the gray in the next room? Can I dump this soul back into him? Without inloading apparatus to connect us, he might as well be on the Moon.

Unless …

… unless Maharal expects something else to happen. Something — uhn! — unconventional.

Can it … can it be that I’m expected to send something … some essence of me … across the room and through that glass wall to my gray, without any thick cryo-cables or any of the normal inloading junk connecting us?

Before I can even begin to ask, I sense another jolt gathering strength, a big one, readying to strike.

Damn, this one’s gonna hurt …

Damn. What was that?

Did I just imagine a wave of something, passing through me, like a hot wind?

I could be making it up. Strapped to a table, unable to move, sentenced to the worst fate possible.

Thinking.

Ever since Maharal made me imprint that little red-orange copy and left me here to stew, I’ve been trying to come up with a clever escape plan. Something all those other captive Alberts never tried before. Or, failing that, some way to get a message out to real-me. A warning about Yosil’s techno-horror show.

Yeah, I know. As if. But scheming, no matter how futile, helps pass the time.

Only now I’m getting surges of weird anxiety. Flickering almost-images, too brief to recall, like fragments of a dream. When I chase them using free association, all that comes to mind is a vast row of silent figures … like the statues of Easter Island. Or pieces on a giant chess-board.

Every few minutes, there’s another episode of wild, claustrophobic need. To leave this prison. To go home. To flee this stifling body I’m wearing and get back into the one that counts. One made of nearly immortal flesh.

And now, something like an ugly rumor whispers, There’s no me any longer to go home to anymore.

Dittotown? Sherds!

Departing the Temple of the Ephemerals, Palloid and I hurried down Fourth Avenue past dinobuses that bellowed and snorted, hauling in cheap factory laborers, round the clock. Truckbills and brontolorries grunted at each other, jostling to deliver their wares, while errand boys sprinted by on gangly legs, stepping over the bowed heads of stubby epsilons, who marched to underground workpits without a thought or care. Obsessive little dit-devils scurried about, sweeping up any debris or trash, keeping the street spotless. And striding imperiously amid all these disposables were lordly grays, ivories, and ebonies, carrying the most precious cargo of all — memories that real human beings may actually want to inload at day’s end.

Dittotown is part of modern life, so why did it feel so unfamiliar this time? Because of all I’ve learned as a frankie, at the ripe old age of almost two?

Ducking past the Teller Building, where Tuesday’s raid led poor Albert into troubles beyond his ability to cope, I hurried down a “shortcut” recommended by the little weasel-shaped fellow riding on my shoulder. Soon we left the commercial district with its bustling factories and offices, and plunged south into the backstreet area — a world of decaying structures, reckless whims, and short-term prospects.

The dittos that you’ll find in that area were sent on missions that have little to do with business or industry.

One flashing sign yelled E-VISCERAL! Touts stood outside, dyed in garish colors, beckoning passersby to enter for “the trip of your lives.” Through gutted walls I saw that a twenty-story building had been converted into one giant thrill ride … a wildly gyrating roller coaster without straps or safety backups, and with the added feature that many customers had guns — trading shots with those streaking past them in other cars. What fun.

Next came a row of mud-pimperies and d-brothels — with exaggerated holems of all kinds leering out of brightly curtained windows — for those who can’t afford to have their fantasies special-made and delivered to their door.

There followed some of the same soot-wracked battle lanes that I visited as a teen, still marked with flickertape risk warnings and cheap kiosks renting weapons to those who neglect to bring their own. Free head-collection, yammered one flasher-ad, as if any of these places would dare charge for the traditional service. Let Us Stage Your Gang Rumble! another yelled. Discounts for Birthday Parties!

You know. The usual ditritus. Embarrassing reminders of youth.

It was distracting for another reason. My skin had started shedding. The gray coating that had seemed so posh and high-class back at Kaolin Manor, when I got my renewal treatment for another day of life, was apparently no more than a cheap spray-on. Once it started peeling, the whole thing came away in strips, taking away the red-orange layer underneath. Rubbing away the itchy stuff, I found myself rapidly regaining this body’s original hue — utility green. Good for mowing the lawn and cleaning the bathroom. Not for playing detective.