Molly just shrugged, but Blackhead snorted. "He's never been away for more'n a few hours. No one's sure what happens when you stay in someone else's body too long."
"Maybe Bloat'd know," Blackhead said.
Molly scoffed. "And why the hell would you think that? You think Bloat jumps?"
"He reads minds, don't he?"
Molly just scowled harder. "This ain't got nothin' to do with Bloat."
"Everything in the Rox has to do with Bloat," Blackhead insisted. The kid sniffed and wiped his arm, across the back of his nose. Snot mixed with the blood on his cheek.
Molly sighed. "All right. Maybe we should let Bloat know what's going on. Hell, he probably knows already. Can you handle this?"
Blackhead scowled. "Shit," he said. "Sure. Me'n Kelly'll stay here and take care a'things."
Kelly's intense gaze had never left Patty. Her eyes were somewhere between blue and gray, and very open.
"You see how she's watching you?" she whispered teasingly to Evan, giggling with the wine. John's fundraising party for Gregg Hartmann's first senatorial campaign was a noisy swirl around them. "The willowy one with too much makeup, over in the corner by your sculpture. She hasn't taken her eyes off you since she came in:"
"Jesus, Patty, you have a filthy mind. That's the Salchows' daughter. She's still in high school. I sold her father two paintings last month."
"I was her age once, too. That's a teenage crush if I ever saw one. I've been there, too. The hormones just run away with your mind. How about it, Evan? She's young, rich, probably willing if a bit inexperienced. White and curious about how it'd be with a big black stud like you. "
"Patty-"
Patty laughed and kissed Evan. The girl's face had gone almost angry as she turned away…
Patty gave Runt a half smile. The girl seemed startled; then slowly, behind Blackhead, she smiled back, almost shyly.
[Have to get out of here. Have to find John and Evan.]
Patty knew in that moment how to escape. She hated herself for the knowledge, but she knew.
[You want out I know you do I can feel it and I can do it for you I have the key but it has to be soon I can take you to the Rox but
SOON…]
They were standing in front of the Dime Museum. A poster was stapled inside a case next to the door, a garish drawing of the Syrian exhibit. A waxen Senator Hartmann was gesturing for the others to retreat, his jacket bloody from the gunshot wound. Guards with Uzis gazed at the dais where the Kahina slit the throat of her brother the Nur al-Allah. Braun glowed in a golden spotlight; Carnifex gleamed in his white fighting suit; Tachyon clutched his head and crumpled on the ground.
John wasn't sure how they'd ended up there. For most of the last hour, they'd reeled through the streets of J-town blindly, trying to find the punks and slowly realizing that the quest was useless.
Their fists clenched and unclenched-the right hand Evan's and the left John's. There wasn't much of Patty surfaced in Oddity at all. It seemed that her body had become sluggish since the loss of her presence.
[We've got to go get her, John. David says they'd've taken her to the Rox. He says we have to find Patty quickly. He's afraid. I can feel it. He's scared of what might happen if he's out of his own body for too long. Patty might be trapped.]
[I don't hear him, Evan. We smashed him down to Passive. Stuck him in the basement and locked the door. We can't hear the fucker at all.]
[Don't tell him Evan I can get you out I can give you the release you want just help me out of here quick I know you I know you…]
David broadcast the plea desperately, constantly. Evan knew the truth. John was tiring already; Evan knew that his own will could not hold David down alone if John fell from Dominant. The jumper knew that, too. Since then, Evan had heard David's voice. Constantly. At Sub-Dominant, Oddity's eternal purgatory sluiced over Evan's soul, and he could hear the words promising a salvation.
[You want out I know you…] Yes, David knew Evan's weaknesses. He knew too well how Evan kept listening and wondering.
A violent shudder racked their body; they could see the right arm shorten and change color as they watched. The torment was worse than either John or Evan remembered, as if they had also taken Patty's share of the agony. The fingers curled with pain, the nails digging into the palm. When the fists opened again, the hand was a piebald mixture of John and Evan.
[How long can you stay Dominant?] Evan gasped with the transformation. [John, the only thing that's kept any of us sane was being able to go down to Passive and rest. Even Sub-Dominant hurts too much. John… please…]
[I'll jump someone else someone you'll loathe some- one neither you or John can stomach at all and you'll be left in the body with them without Patty without any chance of ever getting out at all unless you help me NOW…]
[Patty's in the Rox,] Evan said. [In the Rox. My God-]
[We haven't any plan. We don't know what we're running into or how to handle it once we do find her.] [Let's just get there. Now, John. Before it's too late.] Oddity moaned. The pain redoubled as the body shifted again. Oddity screamed this time, grasping the fire hydrant in front of the museum and wrenching upward as if they could drive away the torture with violence. The top of the hydrant gave way under their assault with a metallic shriek. Water cannoned in a gushing, two-story-high fountain, soaking their black cloak and turning the gutters into dark, trash-filled rapids. Water cascaded over the front of the Dime Museum.
Underneath, David laughed and whispered to Evan. [When we get there I can do it I can give you the body you want whatever you want just help me…]
"What's it feel like to be a man?"
"Huh?"
Patty kissed Evan and pulled him deeper into her with her hands, wrapping her legs around his back. Next to them, John snored, asleep.
"You know," she insisted, giggling. "To penetrate instead of being penetrated. To feel a woman's heat around your cock. To ejaculate. To have one short blinding spasm instead of a long extended one!"
"Is that what you're thinking about?" Evan pretended to be offended and Patty slapped his buttocks, rolling him over until she straddled him. She traced the tight black curls of hair on his dark chest. "So you want to be a man, eh, virile and masterful."
"To surrender my brain to a penis," she retorted. "C'mon, Evan, haven't you ever wondered what it feels like to be a woman?" Evan tried to shrug and she shook her head at him. "Come on now. Admit it!"
"Okay," he said. "Maybe a little. But there's no way to ever know, is there?"
But there was, now.
Moving an arm was ecstasy. Feeling the stubble on her cheek was glory The touch of jeans along her legs was a caress. The tepid beer that Blackhead gave her was a gastronomical delight. Despite all her worries about John and Evan, despite her fear of the Rox, Patty couldn't help but marvel at the wonder of being in this body. She'd forgotten how good it was. It didn't matter that she was male or that she very likely had a crack addiction or worse-she was free, able to walk alone and talk alone and not feel anyone else inside her.
[This body's wanted for questioning in New York, and that may not be the worst of it. What if he's got AIDS, what if the wild card has done other hidden things to him or if he's syphilitic or has cancer? What about sex? What if after a few experiments you find that you're still attracted only to males? What about John and Evan, trapped in Oddity with that punk?]
But the objections didn't totally convince. She was here, in David's teenage body, and Patty had to admit that she enjoyed the sensation. She drank again, savoring the coolness, the odor of the hops, the yeasty taste.
Kelly watched her, always, while Blackhead worried near the door.
"Why do you keep staring?" Patty asked, and the rich, deep voice was a joy.