Now, Macy thought, and shoved with all his might Hamlin toppled from his perch. Fell moaning into the abyss. A moment of total disorientation, infinite in duration. Who am I? What am I? Where am I? He let go of the woman he held. She slumped to the floor; he lurched backward and slammed against the wall, and stood there, gasping, exhausted. Blood draining from his skull.
But it was all right. He was in charge again. He was Paul Macy, and he was back in charge.
13
To get away from there, fast, that was the important thing now. But first some peacemaking. Gestures of reassurance. Noreen Hamlin Krafft lay looking up dazedly at him, a dribble of bright red on her swelling lower lip, hair in disarray, angry blotches on her exposed white breasts where Hamlin had clutched her. They would be dark braises tomorrow. She didn’t move. Waiting numbly for the next onslaught. Resigned to her fate. He said, his voice coming out oddly furry and unfocused, “It’s okay now. I’ve taken control away from him. I’m Macy. I won’t hurt you.”
“Macy?”
“Paul Macy. The Rehab reconstruct. They did a bad deconstruct job on Hamlin and he’s still loose in my head. He grabbed the body’s motor and speech centers last night.” Last night? Last week, last month? How long had Hamlin been running things, anyway? “But he’s down underneath again, where he can’t make trouble. While he was fighting with you I was able to take over.” Gently helping her to her feet. He wondered if she had gone into shock. Making no attempt to cover herself. Tip of her tongue licking at the cut on her lip. He said, “I’m sorry you had to go through all this. Are you badly injured?”
“No. No.” Staring at him. Trying to come to terms with his abrupt transformation. Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde. “Just shaken up.” With trembling fingers she concealed her bosom, tidied her hair. Staring at him. Was his face different now? The lunatic glare of Hamlin gone from his eyes? He knew it wasn’t easy for her to understand any of what had taken place. These shifts of identity: he had come to accept them as part of the human condition, but to her they must be alien, incredible, bizarre. Maybe she thought he had been Macy all along, playing insane pranks on her. Or that he was still Hamlin.
He said, “It would be best if you didn’t tell anyone about this. The police, your husband, anyone. I’m trying to have Hamlin permanently eradicated before he can do some real harm, but there are problems, and getting the police into things would only make it worse for me. You see, I’m in constant danger from him, and if I went to the authorities he might force the destruction of this body, so—” He stopped. She didn’t seem to be comprehending. “Just don’t say anything, yes? If it’s at all in my power I’ll see to it you never go through a scene like this again. Do you follow me?”
She nodded distantly. Pacing about, now, working off her fright. Time for him to go. At the front door he turned and said, “One last thing, though. Can you tell me today’s date?”
“Today’s date.” She repeated it in a flat empty tone. As if he had asked her the name of the planet they were currently on.
“Yes, please. The date. It’s important.”
She shrugged. “The fourth of June, I think.”
“Friday?”
“Friday, yes.”
He thanked her gravely and went out. His body was stiff and he moved gracelessly toward the car, arms flailing spastically, shoulders ramming the air. He and Hamlin evidently had different notions of physical coordination, and his muscles, having taken orders from another mind for eighteen hours or so, were reluctant to go back to the mode he preferred. Not surprising: Hamlin’s way was this body’s normal way, and his own was something imposed from without. He concentrated on reimposing it. Damned good thing Hamlin had only been running the show since last night, since that takeover during the mugging in the hallway of Lissa’s house. Macy had been afraid he might have been unconscious for a week or more before surfacing this morning. In which case he’d have an endless trail of Hamlin’s deeds and misdeeds to trace and follow.
But no. It seemed that he had been awake for most of the period of Hamlin’s dominance, missing only the first eight hours or so after the takeover. Some comfort in that. Where had Hamlin been in those eight hours? Most likely at my place, getting some rest. And the mugging? It couldn’t have been too serious. Macy patted his pocket. Wallet gone. Okay, so he must have collapsed at the moment of takeover, the mugger cleaned him out, then Hamlin picked himself up and left unharmed. The wallet was no big loss. Identity papers, credit cards—all replaceable, all useless to the assailant Macy didn’t even need them himself, so long as he had a thumb with a fingerprint on it. Why, Hamlin had even managed to rent this car using only his thumbprint, not even his, my thumbprint. Ours, I guess. But the charge is debited to me. Macy felt vaguely sorry for the mugger, living a squalid lower-class life on a level of society where cash still called the tune. Fine lot of good it must have been for him to lift an executive’s wallet, the wallet of a thumb-tripper, five or six dollars in it at most. Oh, well.
Moving more easily now, Macy reached the car and thumbed the doorplate. The door slid open. He got behind the controls and tentatively grasped the steering-stick. The prospect of having to drive scared him. Suddenly. They had taught him how to drive at the Rehab Center, a couple of years ago, but he hadn’t had much chance to practice lately; and just now there was the special risk that Hamlin might surface and screw him up on the highway. I hit him pretty hard when I grabbed control, but even so.
Hamlin? You awake?
No reply from the depths. Macy felt his other self’s presence, though: a tinny faint reverberation out of the far-below, like the cries of an angry djinn who has been conjured back into his bottle.
Good. Stay like that. I don’t need any static from you while I’m driving.
If only I can keep the goddam stopper in place on the bottle this time.
He put his thumb to the ignition panel, and the car, scanning the print and finding it to be that of its duly licensed present master, came to life. Warily Macy let out the brake. Cautiously he rolled forward. The car responded well, great snorting beast under harness. Which way New York, now? Long afternoon shadows. The sun halfway down the sky on his right. Pick a direction, any direction. He found his way out of the residential area, cut off two drivers as he blurted into the business road, was rudely but deservedly screeched at, and discovered a green-on-white sign directing him to the city. Onward. Homeward. A ticklish trip. He survived it.
He hoped to find Lissa waiting for him at his apartment, slouched in bed in her pleasant wanton way, music playing, her hair a tangle, the aroma of pot in the air. Throw himself wearily down on top of her, bury his aching head between her bouncy boobs. Some chance. The apartment, empty, deserted for a mere twenty-odd hours, had the forlorn and abandoned look of a fifth-rate catacomb. Off with the sweaty crumpled clothing. Shower. Shave. Vague thoughts of dinner. The last meal he remembered having eaten was lunch on Thursday. Now it was dinnertime on Friday. Had Hamlin bothered to refuel their body at all during his eighteen hours on top? Macy wasn’t particularly hungry. All this shuttling about of identities. It must have wrecked my appetite. Odd. You’d think that much mental exertion would have burned up a lot of energy. A drink might be in order, though.