From my occasional visits to greenhouses in Toronto — Allan Gardens was my favorite — I was used to moving along slowly, quietly, almost like when visiting a museum, going from placard to placard. But walking on the moon was different. I'd seen historical footage of Apollo astronauts bouncing around as they walked — and they'd been wearing spacesuits that massed as much as the astronauts themselves did. Malcolm and I, in gym shorts and loose T-shirts, couldn't help but fly up with each step. It doubtless looked comical, but I wasn't in a fun mood.

"So what's up?" asked Malcolm. "Why the long face?"

"They've found a cure for my condition," I said, looking at a cluster of vines.

"Really? That's wonderful!"

"It is, but…"

"But what? You should be jumping up and down." He smiled. "Well, all right, you do have quite a spring in your step, but you don't sound very happy."

"Oh, I'm happy about the cure. You don't know what it's been like, all these years.

But, well, I spoke to Brian Hades."

"Yes?" said Malcolm. "And what did the pony-tailed one have to say?"

"He won't let me go home, even after I'm cured."

We bounced along for several paces. Malcolm's arms flew out from time to time to steady himself, but his face was drawn, and he was clearly carefully considering what to say next. Finally, he spoke: "You are home, Jake."

"Christ, you too? The conditions under which I agreed to come here have changed. I know contract law isn't your specialty, but there must be something I can do."

"Like what? Like go back to Earth? You're still there; the new version of you is there, living in your house, going on with your life."

"But I'm the original. I'm more important."

Malcolm shook his head. "The Two Jakes," he said.

I looked at him, as he batted some overhanging foliage out of his way. "What?"

"Ever see it? It's the sequel to Chinatown, one of my favorite films. The original was fabulous, but The Two Jakes is a lousy movie."

I didn't hide my irritation. "What are you talking about?"

"Just that there are two Jakes now, see? And maybe you're right: maybe the original is more important than the sequel. But you're going to have a hard time proving it to anyone except you and me."

"Can't you help me — you know, in your professional capacity?"

"A lawyer's only any use within an infrastructure that supports litigation. This is the Old West; this is the frontier. No police, no courts, no judges, no jails. Your replacement down on Earth might be able to change things — not that I can see any reason why he'd want to — but there's nothing you can do up here."

"But I'm going to live for decades now."

Malcolm shrugged. "So am I. We'll have some great times together." He gestured at the garden surrounding us. "It really is a wonderful place, you know."

"But … but there's someone, down on Earth. A woman. Things are different now — or they will be, once I have the operation. I have to get out of here; I have to go home — home to her."

We walked along some more. "Greensboro," said Malcolm, softly, almost to himself.

I was still irritated. "Another movie no one ever saw?"

"Not a movie. History. My people's history. In the southern U.S., it used to be that facilities were segregated, and, of course, the good facilities were for whites only.

Well, in 1960, four black college students sat down in the whites-only section of the lunch counter at Woolworth's — that was a department store — and asked to be served. They were refused, and told to leave the store. They didn't; they started a sit-in, and it spread to other whites-only lunch counters all over the South."

"And?"

Malcolm sighed, appalled at my ignorance, I guess. "They won through peaceful protest. The lunch counters were de-segregated, and blacks were given the same rights that other people had had all along. The boycotters forced the people in power to recognize that you can't push someone around just because of their skin. Well, you are nothing but a skin, my friend — a shed skin. And maybe you do deserve rights. But, like those brave young men, if you want them, you're going to have to demand them."

"How?"

"Find some place to occupy, and refuse to budge until you get what you want."

"You think that'd work?" I asked.

"It's worked before. Of course, don't do anything violent."

"Me? Never in a million years."

Karen and I spent four days in Georgia, seeing the sights, and then we flew north to Detroit, so that Karen could take care of a few things.

Detroit. Hardly where you'd expect to find a wealthy novelist who could make her home anywhere. In the previous century, most Canadians lived as close as possible to the U.S. border — but it wasn't out of fondness for our American neighbors.

Rather, we simply went as far south into the warmth as we could without leaving our own country. And now the reverse was true. Trying to escape the heat, Americans came as far north as possible without actually departing the land of the free and the home of the brave; that's why Karen lived here.

Of course, she had a fabulous mansion, filled with trophies for her writing, copies of her books in over thirty languages, and even some props and set pieces from the movies made of her work.

It was also filled with things reflective of her last husband, Ryan, who had died two years ago. Ryan had collected fossils. Unlike most nature-based hobbies, that one had actually gotten easier of late: all the extra runoff and erosion caused by the polar caps shrinking apparently exposed lots of new material. Or so Karen told me.

Anyway, Ryan had shelves of trilobites — the only invertebrate fossil I could identify on sight — and many other wonderful things.

The most important reason for stopping in Detroit was so that Karen could see her son Tyler, who also lived in this city. She'd spoken to Tyler several times on the phone since undergoing the Mindscan process, but had opted to do it as voice-only calls. She'd told me she wanted him to see her new face directly, not over some hardware that would make it appear even more cold and remote.

Around 6:00 p.m., Karen's doorbell rang. The living-room wall monitor immediately changed to show the peephole-camera view. "That's Tyler," said Karen, nodding. He was, I knew, forty-six. His hair was light brown, and had receded a fair bit. Karen got up from the couch and headed for the entryway. I followed. The light there was dim. Karen unlocked and opened the front door, and—

"Hello," said Tyler, sounding surprised. "My name's Tyler Horowitz. I'm here to see—"

"Tyler, it's me," said Karen.

He froze, his jaw hanging slack. I did some quick math: Tyler was born in 1999; Karen's new face was based on the way she'd appeared when she was thirty, back in 1990. Even as a boy, Tyler would never have seen his mother looking quite like this.

"Mom?" he said, softly, disbelieving.

"Come in, son, come in." She stepped aside, and he entered the house.

Karen turned now to face me. "Jake," she said, "I'd like you to meet my son Tyler.

Tyler, this is the new friend I was telling you about."

Even in the dim light, Tyler must have seen that my body was artificial: he looked at my proffered hand as though I'd extended some hideous mechanical claw. He did finally take my hand, but he shook it with no enthusiasm. "Hello, Tyler," I said, bringing all the warmth I could to my electronic voice.

He was clearly Karen's son, although he looked almost twenty years older than she did now. But his basic facial structure was highly similar to hers: broad, with a smallish nose and widely spaced green eyes. "Hello," he said, his voice ironically sounding flat and mechanical.