Not so Jeff Caird and the others. Though Zurvan had slammed and locked the doors on them, he saw them creep out of holes that he had not known existed. When he shoved them back in and cemented the holes, he found them oozing out through the walls in a sort of osmosis.

("This isn't like you, Zurvan," Jeff Caird said. "You're supposed to be religious and noble. Highly moral. A true son of God. You should be glad to be a martyr, to sacrifice yourself for others. But you're not. You're hard and ruthless, as godless as those you preach against. What happened?")

("He's a hypocrite, that's what," Charles Ohm said.)

("Of course, he is," Wyatt Repp said. "He was never fully what he claimed to be. Here he was, preaching absolute truthfulness and honesty. Confess your sins! Confess! Free yourself of all guilt and shame! Become the round man, the round woman! Be complete! Yet he was concealing from his disciples and from the public that he was an immer. He had a gift that he was denying them, the gift of a much longer life. He was and is a criminal, this righteous man. He belongs to a secret and illegal organization. He is indeed a hypocrite!")

"Shut up! Shut up!" Zurvan cried.

("Yes. Lie down whimpering and die," Jim Dunski said. "Make it easy for the hypocrite.")

("Whimper, whimpish whelp, hard-hearted hound of heaven," Bob Tingle said. "You're barking up the wrong tree, Preacher Tom. The dog of deity is following a sour scent.")

"What do you expect me to do?" Zurvan shouted.

That quieted them for a while. Anything that he did would not help them. Or him. He could, not resume the habit of the past and be one man one day and another the next. There was no place to go to where they could be themselves again. There was also no place where he could be Father Tom again. He was facing death as surely as they were. If the immers caught him, they would kill him. If the organics caught him, they would, after the trial, send him to an institution for the mentally unbalanced. If the therapy succeeded, he, Zurvan, would dissolve. So would all of them, Jeff Caird included. The man that walked out of the institution might be named Caird, but he would not be the same persona.

If the therapy failed, he would be stoned and put away until such time as psychic science found a sure cure for him. Inevitably, he would be forgotten. He would gather dust in some vast warehouse along with the millions now there and the billions that would be there.

"Yes, I am a hypocrite," he muttered. "I have failed. Why? I thought that I was a true son of God, that I believed what I urged others to believe. I did believe! I did! But my Maker made me flawed!"

He chewed his lip and stroked a beard that was no longer there.

"Don't put the blame on Him! He gave you free will! You had the power to heal the flaws! You did not have to blind yourself to them! You blinded yourself! Your Maker didn't blind you!"

(Jeff Caird said, quietly though very near, "But you forget that I am your maker.")

Zurvan yelled and fell to the floor. He rolled back and forth on the carpet crying, "No! No! No!"

When he stopped rolling and shouting, he lay for a long while on his back staring at the ceiling.

("Hell, why don't we quit prolonging this agony?" Charlie

Ohm said. "Let's turn ourselves in. They're going to catch us, anyway. And we'll be safe from the immers.")

("Too many organics are immers," Jim Dunski said. "They'll get to us, find some reason to kill us before we can talk. Anyway, I don't like to quit.")

("It's shootout time at the Psychic Corral," Wyatt Repp said. "May the best man win. Get off the floor and be a man, Zurvan. Fight! If you lose, go down trying to win! Fight! Don't listen to that loser, the lush!")

Zurvan walked to the kitchen as if he were pushing through cotton candy. He drank a tall glass of water, went to the toilet, relieved himself, and put cold water on his face. After drying off, he picked up his shoulderbag and walked to the hallway door.

("Hey, where you going?" Ohm said.)

("He's going to turn us in," Bob Tingle said. "By the time the organics get through with us, no stone will be left unturned. We'll be turned inside out and then turned to stone. Think about it, man!")

("I didn't mean it," Ohm said. "I was only kidding you, pushing you to see if you really were crazy.")

("Don't do it!" Caird said. "There may be a way out!")

Zurvan closed the door behind him and walked toward the elevator. "I'm not going to turn myself in," he said. "I'm going for a long walk. I can't stand being caged in the apartment. I need to think. I need ..

What did he need? A possibility where all was impossible.

("When the rat in the laboratory can't find the way out of the labyrinth," Caird said, "when the rat runs up against an insoluble problem, when the rat is hopelessly confused, it lies down and dies.")

"I am not a rat!" Zurvan said.

("No," Caird said, "you're not. You're not even a rat. You're a fiction! Remember, I am your maker! I, the real, made you, a fiction! ")

("Then that means the rest of us, too, are fictions," Repp said. "You made us. But so what?, You're a fiction, too, Caird. The government and the immers made you.")

("Fiction can become reality," Dunski said. "We're as real as Caird. After all, he made us from parts of him. He grew us as surely as a mother grows the embryo in the womb. And he gave birth to us. Now he wants to kill us. His children!")

("For Chrissake!" Ohm said. "We all want to kill each other! God, I need a drink!")

("I am your maker," Caird said over and over again. "The maker of all of you. What I can make, I can unmake. I am your maker and your unmaker.")

("Bullshit!" Charlie Ohm cried. "You're not Aladdin, and we're not genies you can put back into the bottle!")

("You would think of a bottle," Bob Tingle said. "Lush, loser, lessening Lazarus! Think of yourself as a hangover we all want to get rid of. You're all hangovers!")

("En garde, you son of a bitch!")

("Play your hand!")

("All fictions. I made you. I now unmake you.")

("Ohm-mani-padme-hum! ")

("Humbug, you alcoholic hummingbird! ")

("I made you. I am unmaking you. Do you think for one moment that I didn't foresee this. I made the rituals that admitted you each day into your day. I also made the reverse ritual, the undoing ritual, the no-entrance ritual. I knew that I'd need it some day. And today is the day!")

("Liar! ")

("Fictions calling the fiction-maker a liar? Living lies calling the one who made you truths, though temporary truths, a liar? I am your maker. I made you. I am unmaking you. Can't you feel everything slipping away? Go back to where you came from!")

The wind that blew across Waverly Place was not strong enough as yet to blow off a hat. But the winds howling inside

Zurvan seemed to lift him up and carry him away into the clouds. The light grew dim; the pedestrians around him were looking at him because he was staggering. When they saw him drop to his knees and lift his hands high, they backed away.

Far in the east, thunder stomped its feet in a war dance and lightning flashed its many lances.

Zurvan sped whirling through the whirling grayness. He tried to grab the dark wetness to keep himself from falling. Up? Or down?

"0 Lord," he bellowed, "I'm lost! Snatch me from this doom! Take me away from this gray world to your glory!"

The people on the sidewalk backed even farther away or hurried off as Zurvan clapped his hands to his eyes and screamed, "The light! The light!"

He fell forward on his arms and lay still for a moment.

"Call an ambulance," someone said.

He rolled over, staring and blinking, and got unsteadily to his feet. "That won't be necessary," he said. "I'm all right. Just a bit dizzy. I'll go home. It's near. Just leave me alone."