“Yeah, George,” Bug Man yelled, “I’m getting up. Damn, give a brother a few minutes to—”

The door opened. It was not George, but a white woman. Medium-tall, slender, good-looking but sharp edged. Brunette.

“Hello, Anthony. I’m sorry to barge in on you. But I have to get back to New York, so I don’t have a lot of time.”

She sat down on the foot of the bed, a position that made Bug Man quite uncomfortable since under the blankets he wasn’t wearing anything. He was very conscious of his skinny chest and well-formed but not exactly muscular shoulders.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Lystra.”

“You were the pathway.”

She smiled. She tilted her head, looked closely at him, making eye contact, taking her time in responding. Smart, that’s what he thought of her on first impression. That she was smart. And not bad if you liked older women. And she was on his bed.…

“I’m a lot of pathways,” Lystra said.

“So, George said—”

“Do you like George?” she asked.

“Not really,” Bug Man said.

“No, you wouldn’t. George isn’t really like us, is he?”

“Like us?”

“George is so serious. He never plays games. You and I, we like to play. We enjoy the game as a game.”

“Do we know each other?” Bug Man asked. Alarm bells were going off in his head. He recalled George’s furtive eyes.

“In a way. I’ve played you at different times in different games, yeah. I use several online identities. But you’re better than I am. Quicker reaction time; very, very good at taking advantage of terrain. And an amazing three-dimensional thinker. I can see why the Armstrong Twins hired you: your natural abilities, yeah, and your total lack of moral core.”

Bug Man wasn’t sure he liked that. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he could argue the point. Was he without a moral core? He frowned, considered it, shrugged it off—figuring that if he couldn’t think of a good counterargument, maybe it meant she was right.

So he said, “Thank you. George said you weren’t part of BZRK.”

“Hmmm. Well, at that point I wasn’t sure we should meet, you and I. Yeah. You’ve extracted the sample?”

“The cells? Yeah, I got the Pope’s cells out. They’re with my nanobots on the Pope’s sleeve.”

“Yes, which goes to the laundry where it will be intercepted by someone working for … well, us.” She said the plural pronoun mockingly. As if it made no sense.

The alarm bells were going crazy now. Bug Man almost felt the floor tipping beneath him. Lystra laughed, almost as though she could read his mind.

“Ah, suspicion begins to form, yeah,” Lystra said. “See how quick you are? That’s why I like you. I’m done with you, I mean you’ve done what … we … wanted you to do. You harvested the cells. And I thought maybe, yeah … we … would just kill you now.”

Bug Man froze. The playful tone was more frightening than a threat. An overt threat might ring false, might be a bluff. But this woman was not bluffing. She could have him killed.

“Here you are, though, a young man without a place to go. So very many people, yeah, want you dead.”

His throat was dry, and the first words came out in a rasp. “What do you …” He swallowed, tried to get some moisture going.

“What do I want?” She sighed. The sigh was melodramatic and false. “Do you know the difference between us, Bug Man? Aside from the obvious—gender, age, race. We both know none of that’s important. The real difference between us is that you are a superb game player. Whereas I am a game designer.”

“Yeah? What game?”

“This one. Yeah. The game I call BZRK. Nanobots and biots. On the one side, twisted idealist freaks who would deprive humans of free will in order to give them all contentment. On the other hand …” She let it hang, then added a superfluous, “Yeah.”

“That’s the Twins’ game,” he said dully.

The not-very-convincing mask of friendliness disappeared so suddenly and so completely that it must never have been there. He had the terrifying impression that the skin on her face had shrunk so that bone and teeth and the hollows of her eye sockets were all suddenly outlined and shadowed.

Her eyes glittered. “Oh, them,” she said, striving to regain her jokey tone and failing. “They have their game. Mine is better. More levels.”

He noted that she no longer used the plural. Not our game. Mine.

She stood up suddenly. “Get dressed. I’ve decided. You’re coming with me.”

“But … where? Why am I—?”

“Where? Oh, places with tall buildings. New York City. And then cold, cold places. As cold as it gets this side of the grave. But what do you care, Bug Man?” She sounded weary now. “Don’t you want to see how the game plays out? Don’t you want to know what it was all about?”

He shook his head slowly. “Games aren’t about anything. Games are just about the game.”

She leaned down and laid a soft palm against his cheek. “See? That’s why I like you, Anthony Bug Man. You and I are going to be friends. Or I can have George put a bullet in your head.”

“Friends,” he said.

And Lear smiled.

TEN

Nijinsky was shopping when it happened.