The other presented in far more abstract form: an only vaguely human figure, the space where its head should have been was coronaed in a cyclical and on-going explosion of blood and matter, as though a sniper's victim, in the instant of impact, had been recorded and looped. The halo of blood and brains flickered, never quite attaining a steady state. Beneath it, an open mouth, white teeth exposed in a permanent, silent scream. The rest, except for the hands, clawed as in agony around the gleaming arms of the chair, seemed constantly to be dissolving in some terrible fiery wind. Rydell thought of black-and-white footage, ground zero, atomic hurricane.

'Mr. Rydell, said the one with the hat, 'thank you for coming. You may call me Klaus. This, and he gestured with a pale, papery-looking hand, which immediately returned to his lap, 'is the Rooster.

The one called the Rooster didn't move at all when it spoke, but the open mouth flickered in and out of focus. Its voice was either the sound collage from Tong's or another like it. 'Listen to me, Rydell. You are now responsible for something of the utmost importance, the greatest possible value. Where is it?

'I don't know who you are, Rydell said. 'I'm not telling you anything.

Neither responded, and then Klaus coughed dryly. 'The only proper answer. You would be wise to maintain that position. Indeed, you have no idea who we are, and if we were to reappear to you at some later time, you would have no way of knowing that we were, in fact, us.

'Then why should I listen to you?

'In your situation, said the Rooster, and its voice, just then, seemed composed primarily of the sound of breaking glass, modulated into the semblance of human speech, 'you might be advised to listen to anyone who cares to address you.

'But whether or not you choose to believe what you are told is another matter, said Klaus, fussily adjusting his shirt cuffs and refolding his hands.

'You're hackers, Rydell said.

'Actually, said Klaus, 'we might better be described as envoys. We represent, he paused, 'another country.

'Though not, of course, said the perpetually disintegrating Rooster, 'in any obsolete sense of the merely geopolitical-

''Hacker, ' interrupted Klaus, 'has certain criminal connotations-

'Which we do not accept, the Rooster cut in, 'having long since established an autonomous reality in which-

'Quiet, said Klaus, and Rydell had no doubt where the greater authority lay. 'Mr. Rydell, your employer, Mr. Laney, has become, for want of a better term, an ally of ours. He has brought a certain situation to our attention, and it is clearly to our advantage to come to his aid.

'What situation is that?

'That is difficult to explain, Klaus said. He cleared his throat. 'If indeed possible. Mr. Laney is possessed of a most peculiar talent, one which he has very satisfactorily demonstrated to us. We are here to assure you, Mr. Rydell, that the resources of the Walled City will be at your disposal in the coming crisis.

'What city, Rydell asked, 'what crisis?

'The nodal point, the Rooster said, its voice like the trickle of water far down in some unseen cistern.

'Mr. Rydell, said Klaus, 'you must keep the projector with you at all times. We advise you to use it at the earliest opportunity. Familiarize yourself with her.

'With who?

'We are concerned, Klaus went on, 'that Mr. Laney, for reasons of health, will be unable to continue. We number among us some who are possessed of his talent, but none to such an extraordinary extent. Should Laney be lost to us, Mr. Rydell, we fear that little can be done.

'Jesus, said Rydell, 'you think I know what you're talking about?

'I'm not being deliberately gnomic, Mr. Rydell, I assure you. There is no time for explanations now, and for some things, it seems, there may actually be no explanations. Simply remember what we have told you, and that we are here for you, at this address. And now you must return, immediately, to wherever you have left the projector.

And they were gone, and the black courtyard with them, compacted into a sphere of pink and green fractal neon that left residuals on Rydell's retinas, as it shrank and vanished in the dark behind the Brazilian sunglasses.

FONTAINE had spent most of the late afternoon on the phone, trying to lay Clarisse's creepy Japanese baby dolls off on a decreasingly likely list of specialist dealers.

He knew it wasn't the thing to do, in terms of realizing optimum cash, but dolls weren't one of his areas of expertise; besides, they gave him the horrors, these Another One replicas.

Specialist dealers wanted low wholesale, basically, so they could whip the big markup to collectors. If you were a collector, Fontaine figured, specialist dealers were nature's way of telling you you had too much money to begin with. But there was always a chance he'd find one who knew somebody, one specific buyer, to go to. That was what Fontaine had been hoping for when he'd started dialing.

But now it was eight calls later, and he was reduced to talking to this Elliot, in Biscayne Bay, Florida, who he knew had once been put under electronic house arrest for something involving counterfeit Barbies. That was a federal rap, and Fontaine ordinarily avoided people like that, but Elliot did seem to have a line on a buyer. Although he was, as you'd naturally expect, cagey about it.

'Condition, Elliot said. 'The three salient points here are condition, condition, and condition.

'Elliot, they look great to me.

' 'Great' is not on the NAADC grading scale, Fontaine.

Fontaine wasn't sure, but he thought that might be the National Association of Animatronic Doll Collectors. 'Elliot, you know I don't know how to rate condition on these things. They've got all their fingers and toes, right? I mean, the fucking things look alive, okay?

Fontaine heard Elliot sigh. He'd never met the man. 'My client, said Elliot, speaking slowly, for stress, 'is a condition queen. He wants them minty. He wants them mintier than minty. He wants them mint in box. He wants them new old stock.

'Hey, look, Fontaine said, remembering what Clarisse had said, 'you don't get these things unused, right? The grandparents bought them as, like, surrogate offspring, right? They were big-ticket items. They got used.

'Not always, said Elliot. 'The most desirable pieces, and my client owns several, are replicas ordered just prior to the unexpected death of the grandchild.

Fontaine took the phone from his ear, looking at it as though it were something dirty. 'Fucking hell, Fontaine said, under his breath.

'What's that? Elliot asked. 'What?

'Sorry, Elliot, Fontaine said, putting the phone back to his ear, 'gotta take one on the other line. I'll get back to you. Fontaine broke the connection.

He was perched on a tall stool behind the counter. He leaned sideways to look at the Another One dolls in their bag. They looked horrible. They were horrible. Elliot was horrible. Clarisse was horrible too, but now Fontaine lapsed into a brief but intensely erotic fantasy involving none other, with whom he had not been conjugal in some while. That this fantasy literally involved Clarisse exclusively, he took to be significant. That it produced an actual erectile response, he took to be even more significant. He sighed. Adjusted his trousers.

Life, he reflected, was rough as a cob.

Through the sound of rain sluicing down around his shop (he'd rigged gutters) he could hear a faint but rapid clicking from the back room and noted its peculiar regularity. Each one of those clicks, he knew, represented another watch. He'd shown the boy how to call up auctions on the notebook, not Christie's or Antiquorum, but the living messy scrum of the net auctions. He'd shown him how to bookmark too, because he thought that picking what he liked might be fun.