Perhaps the time under hypnosis had left a residual susceptibility to orders, or perhaps getting out simply struck them all as the smart thing to do. But whatever the reason, they obeyed without question or complaint. It wasn't easy—in the absence of artificial compulsion, the physical drain of their ordeal abruptly appeared. But with a lot of mutual support, they kept moving. "I don't suppose there's any way to disarm the bombs," Susan said wistfully. "I mean, now that there's no reason to destroy all of this..."

"No reason, my eye," Charles snorted. "You never felt how strong that hypnosis machine was. If anyone got ahold of it and figured out how to make it work again—"

"Would it hurt people?" Dennis asked.

"Very much," Susan sighed. "You're probably right, Charles. Let's just get out of here, then."

There was less than a minute to go on the fuses when they reached the first row of buildings, the point at which Charles had earlier gotten his first glimpse of the dome. "It was a lot more colorful before," he commented to no one in particular as he turned for one final look. "Must have been part of the hypnosis."

"Can we stay here and watch the bang?" Dennis asked eagerly.

"Probably won't be much to see," Charles told him. "The dome will contain most of the explosion, and anything that leaks out the door probably won't be very bright."

"Aw, what the hell," Frank said, to everyone's surprise. "Let's let the kid have a look."

"I thought you didn't like Dennis, Frank," Susan said.

"Naw, he's okay. And—look, he did his share, right?"

"Sure," Charles said. "Okay, we'll stay."

The seconds ticked by. "Even if we don't see anything, we ought to feel the ground shake when they go off," Arthur remarked, talking to cover up his nervousness. He had led them through the critical part of the mission; he alone was responsible for success or failure. And if—somehow—this didn't work, no one would ever let him be a leader again.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll see something," Susan assured him.

As it turned out, she and Charles had both rather underestimated things.

—

This hospital, he decided early on, was much nicer than the other one. Not only was the bed more comfortable, with no lumps or straps, but the nurses were friendlier and more attentive. His eyes still hurt a little beneath their bandages and the perpetual darkness was sometimes scary, but Dr. Housman and the others assured him he would be all right. Best of all, there were none of the horrible sounds of the other hospital here; no one laughed or cried or gurgled. He slept a great deal now, and nightmares were no longer commonplace.

"Charles?" a familiar voice asked softly. "Are you awake?"

"Hello, Colonel Lee," he said. "I didn't hear you come in."

There was the sound of a chair being pulled over to his bed. "I thought I'd drop by and let you know that all of the people you got out of the dome are off the critical list now, though most are still pretty weak."

"Glad to hear it. You ever figure out what went wrong that the dome needed them?"

"Only indirectly—you didn't leave us a whole lot to study, you know. But a couple of the others told us they saw a bunch of things that looked like robots lying around one of the outer corridors. Best guess is that the dome had an accident and lost control of its automated workers. Whether recruitment of native help was already programmed in or whether the dome was smart enough to develop the hypnosis field from scratch we'll probably never know."

"So it really wasn't a threat, after all."

Lee must have heard the regret in his voice. "We don't know that. It's quite possible that it intended to cover the whole globe with copies of itself. And even if it wasn't deliberately threatening us, the people inside would have started dying very soon. Who knows how big the field would have become, or how many people would have been sucked in to die? No, Charles, you did the right thing. Now, I'm going to leave and let you rest, but I want you to hurry up and get well. The president is anxious to meet you—" he paused dramatically—"at the White House ceremony where you'll be getting the Medal of Freedom."

Charles tried to find the right words; finally gave up. "Thank you," he said.

"You earned it. All of you did." A hand briefly gripped his shoulder. "I'll drop back in next week, after the bandages are off your eyes. Good-bye for now."

Charles heard him walk to the door and open it. Another voice greeted Colonel Lee as he stepped into the corridor: Dr. Housman's, Charles recognized it. For a moment the two men talked by the open door; and while the conversation was obviously meant to be private, Charles had always had exceptional hearing.

"How's he doing?" Lee asked.

"Better than our best predictions, I'm delighted to say. That new hypnotic technique for intrapsyche communication was very helpful, but I personally think the success of his mission played a bigger role. Low self-esteem, you see, is often at the root of these really chronic cases. Eliminate that problem and you're halfway home."

"So who did I just talk to? I mean, who's where now?" "The Susan and Dennis fragments have been completely integrated into the main Charles personality. Arthur and Frank are still separate—especially Frank; Charles still has a great deal of suppressed anger within him—but both are moving toward integration. I give them a month, maybe less. If you've got a few minutes I can show you the progress charts."

The voices faded as the two men moved away down the hall. "A month," Charles whispered to himself, savoring the sound of the words. One month... and he would have his dream.

He would be whole.

Afterword

This was another story whose original (unsalable) version refused to stay banished in my reject files—not for any particular philosophical reasons, but because it was such a neat little sinking curve ball to throw at the unsuspecting reader. The nicest thing about it was that every bit of dialogue was perfectly fair and legal, owing entirely to the often annoying fact that in English "you" can be either singular or plural.

And yet, even in what's essentially a gimmick story, I find myself growing to like my characters. I hope Charles made it; he certainly deserved to.

The Final Report on the Lifeline Experiment

It has been less than a month now since the sealed personal files of the late Daniel Staley have been opened, but already the rumors are beginning to be heard: rumors that explosive new information concerning the Lifeline Experiment has been uncovered. Though these rumors contain a grain of truth, they are for the most part the products of prejudice and hysteria, and it is in an effort to separate the truth from the lies that I have consented to write this report. Since, too, I find that even after twenty years a great number of popular misconceptions still surround the experiment itself, I feel it is necessary for me to begin with a full recounting of those controversial events of 1994.

I suppose I should first say a word about my credentials. I became Dr. Staley's private secretary in 1989 and continued in this role full-time until his tragic death. My usefulness to him stemmed from my eidetic memory which, especially when coupled with his telepathic abilities, made me a sort of walking information retrieval system for him. It is also the reason I can claim perfect accuracy for my memories of the events and conversations I am about to describe.

—

The popular press usually credits Dr. Staley with coming up with the Lifeline Experiment idea on his own, but the original suggestion actually came from the Reverend Ron Brady in mid-January of 1994. Brady, a good friend of Dan's, was driving us back to San Francisco from a seminar on bioethics at USC and the conversation, almost inevitably, turned to the subject of abortion.