JEFFREY THOMAS - DEADSTOCK

"Hey, mate, we all fought on the same side once."

"Yeah? Not anymore."

"Oh my God," Jones said in barely a whisper, taking a step nearer to Stake. "Your face is changing. You're starting to look like us."

Dung, Stake thought. Not in color, he knew from spending time with their sort in the past, but definitely in form.

Decimator man leaned around in front of Stake for a look. "Not us," he corrected. "You. He's a chameleon."

"Why are you copying me?" Jones asked harshly.

"I can't help it," Stake snapped. "So you're like us, huh? A belf?" "No. I was born, not grown. I'm a mutant." "I see. Better to be a mutant than a clone, I guess." "Your words, not mine."

The Decimator's muzzle ground itself against his jawbone more painfully. The front sight broke his skin and he felt a bead of blood run down his neck. "Wanker," the man snarled.

Mr. Jones looked Stake up and down. "Don't be so smug, my friend. You might still be a belf and not know it. Your designers could have given you a false history. A brain drip of memory-encoded long-chain molecules, the way they trained us."

"Why would they go through the trouble of making me think I was a birther?"

"Maybe it had to do with the work they programmed you for in the war. I mean, why would they have used you, if not to exploit your ability? Were you a spy? A deep penetration scout?"

"Stop fucking with me. You're not going to convince me I'm a factory product like you bastards."

The shotgun's stock smashed him in the ribs, and Stake went down on the floor, feeling as if he'd been hit with a load of its pellets. The Decimator now pointed at the top of his porkpie hat. But Jones hadn't deemed to pull his own gun. Calmly, he said, "Maybe you're a pet that madman Fukuda cooked up in one of his labs. And it's him who put a bogus history in your head. Digest that for a while, Mr. Stake."

"Blast you," he wheezed.

"In the meantime, I suggest you think about the wisdom of withholding information that might lead us to the whereabouts of Krimson Tableau, dead or alive. If you come forward to help us, we'll be lenient, even if you had something to do with it. After all, you're just a tool. But if we have to come back here again, we may be in a less civil mood next time."

"I'm going to continue looking for that doll," Stake said evenly. "And if I find Krimson Tableau along the way-dead or alive-I promise to let you know. But I will assure you again, I had nothing to do with her disappearance."

"And you can assure us that Fukuda had nothing to do with it, either?"

Actually, Stake couldn't assure them of that. The man was still too much of a mystery to him. Too full of surprises.

"Not as far as I know," was the best he could say, rising to his feet again slowly so as not to alarm them. He winced, a hand to his side.

Shotgun man took the Darwin .55 out of his comrade's waistband and walked into the bedroom. He apparently left the shotgun and pistol in there to return them to Stake, because he came back without them. Meanwhile, Jones had moved toward the door.

"Remember what I said, Mr. Stake. Don't be foolish, now."

"I won't if you won't."

The last one out was Decimator man, and he gave a mocking military salute before Stake closed the door in his blue-mottled face.

A false history. If he were just a "pet" created by John Fukuda himself, as part of some game, some play-the scope and purpose of which he couldn't fully imagine-would his maker go through the trouble of faking these medals framed on the wall? The pictures of his parents that he kept, but locked away? The same way Fukuda had manufactured a history for Yuki, his wife-turned-daughter? No, it was too illogical in his own case. At least the idea that he himself was a military clone, designed for his chameleon abilities, made more sense.

But it wasn't true! It wasn't! He knew who he was. He had had parents. A past. All these memories were real. He knew them as intimately as he knew this very second.

He turned to look across the room at his computer.

Rick Henderson had given him the number by which to contact her, via net connection. On her other world. In her other dimension, almost as far away as their one week together.

Stake sat down in front of his computer. And at last, began the call he had fantasized about making for a decade gone by.

It rang and rang on her end. He let it go on for five minutes. What time was it, there? And if someone finally answered, might it be a boyfriend? A husband? A daughter or son?

He was about to disconnect, filled with that thought, when her face appeared on the screen. He flinched, felt nausea lurch into his guts.

Her hair was parted on the side, drawn back behind her head but he could tell it was still as long as ever. Where the light gave it a sheen, it went from black to metallic red. Her blue face, like that of some beautiful apparition, had maybe lost a layer of youthful softness. But he had never seen her eyes, or her little smile, so soft. Or heard her voice, when she spoke, sound so gentle.

"Ga Noh."

"Hi," he said, trying to make his own smile look casual. "Hi, Thi Gonh. It's good to see you again. My friend told you I'd be contacting you, then?"

"Yes. Your friend. Hen-da-son."

Stake nodded. "Good. Thanks for talking to me. How are you?"

"Thi is good," she said. "How are you, Ga Noh? You married now? Children?"

"Me? No. No time, I guess. Busy working."

"Work what?"

"I'm a detective." He saw her features pinch together in confusion. "I'm like a policeman, but for money."

"Ah." But it looked like she only partly got it.

"What are you doing now, for work?"

"I have good money. Farm. Big farm." It seemed to Stake that she watched him more closely, watched for his reaction, when she added, "My husa-bund and me."

"Ah." He nodded again. Husband. "You got married."

"Yes. Six years married."

"Congratulations. Wow. Ah. any children?"

"Oh, no." She shifted slightly, uncomfortably, as if embarrassed at a failing. "Thi body no good."

"No, don't say that. Your body… you…"

His words trailed off. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to cry. He wondered if it were too late to go out after Jones and the other two clones- and shoot them. Shoot their blue-patterned faces off.

Now Thi narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized him even more intently. Why? Was he beginning to change? To mirror her face, as he had done the first time she had told him her name? Mirror her face, as he had done when their bodies were knotted behind the closed blue door of her cell?

"Ga Noh, what happen?" She pointed at the screen.

"Huh?" He touched the blood trickling down his neck, and understood. "Oh. I, ah, cut myself shaving." He made shaving motions and grinned stupidly. Broken-heartedly.

"Ga Noh," Thi said. "You okay? Okay?"

"I'm okay."

"Why you call me? You need Thi take care you?

Help Ga Noh?"

"Help? Oh no. No. I just. I just lost track of you so long ago, and I've always wondered how you were. After the trial and all. I'm just happy you made out all right. I'm relieved."

"Someone hurt you, huh?"

"Hurt me? No. No, I'm okay."

"Someone hurt Ga Noh." Her face had become harder, grim.

"Don't worry about me. It's just my job. It's crazy sometimes." He cleared his voice. "Hey, look, I have to go. But I was talking to Rick- Henderson-and I just thought I'd check in with you and say hi. Now that we aren't at war with each other anymore, huh?"

Her eyes still probed him. Sniper's keen eyes. "Thi worry you. Very worry."

"No. No, really. Look, I have to go. Maybe I'll call again sometime."

"Call from where? Where you now?"

"Punktown, on Oasis. I was born here."

She glanced behind her before she continued. "I am afraid husa-bund angry Thi, talk to Ga Noh."