“Turn left here, then right at the next intersection,” Palloid urged. His claws dug in. “But watch out for Capulets.”

“Watch out for what?”

I saw what he meant in a few minutes, rounding a corner, then stopping in surprise to stare down a street that had been expensively transformed since the last time I ventured this far into dittotown — an entire city block, meticulously rebuilt as a lost fragment of Renaissance Italy, from cobblestones all the way to a garish Brunelleschi fountain in the grand piazza, facing a romanesque church. Towering at both ends were two ornate fortress-mansions, their balconies festooned with the fluttering banners of competing noble houses. Multicolored bravos leaned from terraces to shout at those passing below, or swaggered on patrol, sporting flounces over gartered tights and bulging codpieces. Buxom females dragged around tents of ornate silken fabric, strolling past shopkeepers hawking tastefully archaic merchandise.

Such a lavishly expensive recreation seemed rather much for dittotown, where the whole thing might be wrecked the next time a nearby golemwar got out of hand, spilling bazookafire over the border. But I soon realized, risk was the very justification for its existence. The reason for its inditgenous population.

Shouting broke out near the fountain. One fellow in red and white stripes nudged another whose skin and clothes both featured polka-dot motifs … each the livery of a feuding house. Bright rapiers abruptly whistled, clanging like harsh bells, while a crowd gathered to cheer and wager in faux-Shakespearean lingo.

Ugh, I thought, getting it. One of them must be Romeo. I wonder if all members of the club take turns with the role, or if it’s a matter of seniority. Maybe they auction off the honor daily, to finance this place.

Unemployed and bored with cautious play-acting in the suburbs, these aficionados must get up early to send dittos here each crack of dawn, then spend all restless day at home, eagerly awaiting another headful of drama — whether dead or alive. Nothing they might legally experience in realflesh could match the vivid, alternate life they led here.

And I thought Irene was weird!

Easy, Albert, a part of me chided. You have a job and lots more. The real world has meaning to you. Others aren’t so lucky.

Oh yeah? answered another inner voice. Shut up, twit. I’m not Albert.

Several polka-dot bravos turned away from the duel to eye Palloid and me, as we passed under a nearby flowered colonnade. They glowered, hands drifting to pommels.

Must be Capulets, I realized, offering a quick, inoffensive bow and hurrying onward, with averted eyes.

Thanks, Pal. Some shortcut.

Some trend. I soon learned that whole sector of dittotown had been given over to simulations, whole stretches of abandoned buildings finding new life as imitation worlds. The next block had a Wild West theme, complete with sauntering gunslingers dyed in every shade of the Painted Desert. Another streetscape followed some glassy-metallic sci-fi scenario that I didn’t have time to figure out as we hustled by. The common touch was danger, of course. Oh sure, digital virtual reality offers an even wider range of weird locales, vividly rendered in the privacy of your own chador. But not even touchie attachments can make VR feel real. Not like this. No wonder the cyber realm is mostly for cyberfarts.

The next zone was the grandest of all, and most terrifying.

It spanned six whole blocks, with giant holo screens at both ends, fostering the illusion of an endless, sweeping cityscape. A cruel cityscape of dilapidated tenements and chilling familiarity. A world my parents used to describe to me. The Transition Perdition. That era of fear and war and rationing was nearly over by the time I was born, when the dittoboom began delivering its cornucopia, along with the purple wage. But mental scars from the Perdition still afflict my folks’ generation, even now.

Why? I wondered, while staring at the vast imitation. Why would anyone go to so much expense and care, trying to recreate a hell we so narrowly escaped? Even the air seemed hazy with something acrid that stung the eyes. “Smog,” I think it was called. Talk about verisimilitude.

“We’re almost there,” Palloid urged. “Third brownstone on the left. Then head upstairs.”

I followed his directions, taking the front steps of a run-down brick apartment building two at a time. The realistic lobby featured water dripping into a bucket and peeling, old-fashioned wallpaper. I’m sure I would have smelled urine, had I been equipped with full senses.

No one was out and about as I climbed three flights. But I heard noises behind closed doors — angry, eager, passionate, or violent sounds — even the yelling of children. Most of it is probably computer-generated, for realism, I thought. In order to make the place appear crowded to customers. Still, why would anyone want to experience such a life, even on a whim?

My companion pointed down a dingy hallway. “I rented one of these little flats a few months ago, to serve as a safehouse for special meetings. Best to have our rendezvous here, instead of my real home. Anyway, it’s closer.”

He aimed me to a door with the number 2-B spelled in flaking decals. I knocked.

“Enter!” a familiar voice shouted.

The knob turned under my hand — expensively machined metal parts, lavishly rusted to give a satisfying squeak. So did the hinges, as I pushed into a room decorated in Early Bachelor Shabby.

Several people stood when I entered, except of course the one I’d come to see. Pal’s life-support chair whirred as it rolled forward and lifted to two wheels, a modern techno-anomaly amid all this ersatz poverty.

“Gumby! I gave up on you — till I got that report of yours an hour ago. What an adventure! Fighting your way into Universal Kilns! A prion attack! Did you really see a Morris gray climb up the ass of a forklift?” He guffawed. “Then a face-off with Aeneas Kaolin. And I can’t wait to inload all that fun stuff at Irene’s!”

Pal’s burly hands reached for the ferretlike ditto, but Palloid suddenly went shy, backing around my neck to the other shoulder. “That can wait,” the littler version of my friend snapped. “First, why is Gadarene here, and who are these other guys?”

I had also recognized the golem-hating fundamentalist. His presence in dittotown was like the Pope coming to Gehenna. The poor fellow must be desperate and it showed on his real face.

A green stood opposite Gadarene and I figured it could only be Lum, the emancipation fanatic. This cheap clay visage bore only a passing resemblance to his wide-cheeked original, but it nodded with polite familiarity.

“So you made it out of UK, ditMorris! I was skeptical when Mr. Montmorillin urged us to hurry down here for a meeting. Naturally, I’d love to know how you got your extended lifespan. This could be a real boon to the oppressed!”

“Nice to see you, too,” I answered. “And explanations will come in due time. First, who is he?”

I pointed to Pal’s third guest. A golem dyed in mauve shades, with a risqué tan stripe spiraling around from the top of his head all the way down. The ditto’s chosen face was unfamiliar, but the smile gave me a sudden sense of worrisome familiarity.

“So we meet again, Morris,” the spiraled copy said, in a speech rhythm that scraped raw memories. “If our paths keep crossing, I’ll start to think you’re following me.”

“Yeah, right. And greetings to you too, Beta.” Much as I hated this guy, I sure needed to ask him some questions.

“I think it’s time we talk about Aeneas Kaolin.”