"I authorized the monitoring of that execution down in Mississippi."

There were ten stunned faces around the conference table. Since the failure of the initial research, the monitoring of an actual death, on Deutsch's specific personal instructions, had been the most taboo act in all of Combined Media. That Deutsch himself should have secretly authorized such a thing was unthinkable.

"You look surprised. Did you think that, just because Jonas went insane, the whole subject of humanity's greatest mystery should be shelved forever? I waited until I was confident that the dust had settled sufficiently and then I made my move. It is, after all, the ultimate curiosity. Did you really think that I would resist it?"

It was Charlotte Estes who asked the obvious question. "Have you experienced the recording?"

Deutsch shook his head. "Not yet. I have never seen myself as a human guinea pig. There is another set of convicts who are, as we speak, being exposed to the experience. If no harmful effects are revealed, I will experience the recording myself. After that, I will decide on our next move."

Renfield leaned back in his chair. "Is that the announcement?"

Deutsch laughed. "Oh, no, Madison. That was just a minor confession. My announcement is something else again."

BY THE TIME THEY HAD REACHED THE foyer, it had all become very brisk. Wanda-Jean, the other three Dreamroad contestants, and Bobby Priest were surrounded on all sides by a loose phalanx of aides, network bodyguards, and hotel security. Wanda-Jean felt as though she was riding on a wave of nervous excitement. She wasn't sure whether her nerves or her excitement were the stronger. On one hand she was about to go through the tension and thoroughly degrading exposure of another show. On the other, being in the middle of this small, urgent crowd of men in dark suits and uniforms made her feel wanted and important.

Heads turned as they came out of the elevators. The entourage closed up as they made their way past the long reception desk, the deep armchairs, the hanging plants, and the small fountain. Although people stared there was no other response inside the hotel. The customers of the Sanyo Hyatt had too much credit to get in an uproar over TV celebrities. Outside on the street, however, it was a whole different thing. Cops and more hotel security men were holding back a milling, pushing mob that filled the entire pavement in front of the hotel.

The "Wildest Dreams" party hesitated just inside the automatic glass doors of the hotel. Two limousines drew up outside. The cops had their clubs out, and were only with difficulty keeping the crowd off the cars. Wanda-Jean stared at the surging crush in horror. For the first time since she had been involved with the game show, she was physically frightened. She looked at the nearest security man in some alarm.

"Why don't they take us out through the back way? Won't it save all this trouble and fuss?"

"I think they like the fuss, sweetheart. They figure it's good for business."

A police sergeant, just outside the glass doors, signaled to the squad inside. The doors opened, and everyone moved out. The first few steps were slow and tentative. Then they hit the air and it started in earnest. The security formed into a flying wedge. They were off and running, hands clutched. She was swamped by the noise of the crowd but, at the same time, couldn't make out a word they were saying. She couldn't even judge their mood. Did they hate her or love her? Were they grabbing at her to show their affection or tear her apart? The fingers were clawed, the faces were distorted. They slammed into the cops with furious, violent determination to get through. They seemed unwilling to give up, even when the cops moved in with clubs swinging.

There was a brief moment when Wanda-Jean thought they were going to get to her. Then the broad back of a network man moved into her line of vision as he put himself in the way of the rush. A middle-aged woman, with two-tone orange and pink hair and inch-thick makeup, howled something before a cop grabbed her and swung her bodily away. Absurdly, Wanda-Jean had a picture of her open mouth imprinted, almost photographically, on her memory. There had been flecks of orange lipstick on her teeth.

They were almost to the cars and out of the worst of it. A teenage girl tried to duck under a cop's arm. He seized her by the hair but, in so doing, left a space for a short chubby figure of undecided sex to force its way through. It had thick, moist, sagging lips set in a bland, doughy, piggy-eyed face.

It held a plastic spiral-bound book in its hands. It opened this as though offering it to Wanda-Jean for inspection and dropped to its knees. Wanda-Jean had to stop dead to keep herself from falling over it. For a fleeting instant, she had a good look at the inside of the book. It was crammed with pictures of her, pictures of Wanda-Jean, presumably taken from a TV set. They showed her in the most contorted, obscene, and humiliating poses.

Wanda-Jean knew there must be people who did bizarre obsessive things because of some celebrity fixation. It just seemed incredible it could be done to her. She was totally spooked for a second. What else were people doing? She jerked away and collided with a bodyguard. She was lifted off her feet and virtually thrown in the back of one of the waiting cars. She fell in a heap on Brigitte and another contestant. The door slammed. She saw the kneeling figure bowled over by a headlong rush. Both he and his book of pictures were trampled underfoot. Hands beat on the windows and roof of the car. The driver gunned it away. Everyone was jerked into the back of the seats. They were wrapped in the smell of old leather. Almost miraculously they broke free of the crowd. Ahead of them a police car with three sets of sirens broke up the downtown traffic.

Wanda-Jean pulled herself up and peered out of the car window. People on the sidewalk were stopping to stare at them as they raced past with their police escort. At least she was going to the show in style.

RALPH WAS HURLED BODILY AGAINST A plate glass window; it didn't shatter. Right in front of him a man was being clubbed to the ground. The woman in the blue coat had vanished. The CRAC squad was out of their van, employing the only answer they had to any kind of disturbance, which was to break heads. On the other side of the glass, rich folk were drinking cocktails and eating an early dinner before taking in a show. They stared in blank amazement at the violence on the sidewalk. Ralph was only two feet from a fat woman who had frozen in shock with a forkful of creamcake halfway to her mouth. There was only the shock of the unexpected in the drinkers' and diners' faces. There was no real concern or outrage. What was going on beyond the glass might as well have been happening to another species on another world.

Ralph slid along the window toward a doorway that would afford a minimal protection. He rolled into it. The violence was streaming past him. People were running, shrieking, doing anything to get away from the clubs of the police. Two CRAC officers grabbed a woman and dragged her off to the van. The only mercy was that, so far, they hadn't used gas. Suddenly there was a helmeted, gas-masked cop in front of his doorway. Seeing Ralph, he raised his club.

Ralph cringed. "Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!"

The cop paused and lowered the club. "Get out of there!"

Ralph ducked past the cop, who shoved him roughly. Ralph started running. He didn't look back. He ran blindly with the rest, sharing their terror. There were cops in front of the RT station-there would be no refuge in there. Then he was in the atrium, along with a number of others. He looked back. There were no cops in sight. He spotted the woman in the blue coat. She was walking around in a daze. There was blood on her face from a cut forehead. Ralph hurried over to her.