Programmed for Peril

voice. It emerged in leafy tremble.
    “Some part of you will leave,” Carson said. “Call it your spirit, your soul, that thing which may or may not distinguish you from lower animals.”
    “I’ll go away. I’ll leave the city. I won’t help Trish anymore!” He astonished himself. Where was Sir Nicholas Smith-Patton, battling valiantly in the lists, Trish’s fabric favor fluttering from his lance? He was ashamed, but frightened far worse. "Please. ”
    “You’re too much a techie gadfly. I can’t tolerate talented wild cards in my game. It’s much too serious for that.” Nicholas backed away from the equipment toward the bed. Deep in the apartment now, he was aware of the rutty stink of male body. He stumbled over a heavy transformer on the floor and sprawled down among discarded fast-food bags and toppled paper cups. He squirmed to get up. The sole of Carson’s shoe crushed down on his ankle, pinning it to the floor. Nicholas tried in vain to pull it free. Carson towered over him.
    Carson raised hands to his own neck. He dug into his flesh somehow, pulled at his skin. Like a shedding viper, he had another skin ready beneath! Oh, the first wasn’t his skin.
    It was a mask! One that covered his whole head. He tore it free and flung it aside.
    “You!” Nicholas screamed. “You’re not Carson!”
    “Maybe I am!”
    Savage hands found Nicholas’s throat, squeezing off breath. Cartilage and soft tissue stretched and tore. His eyes closed themselves in the face of agony. His assailant was silent save for the hissing breaths of his exertion. Ben Webster’s earphoned sax whispered “Moments to Remember” above horrid, constricting fingers. Its key modulated from the major of life to the minor of death. Reflex ordered Nicholas to resist. He gripped thick wrists. His long fingers and spidery arms were feeble as feathers against wire sinews and iron bone. He tried to twist free. Weight crushed him down.
    He could burst for want of drawing breath. Terror overwhelmed him. There was no escape! His ears began to ring. Red waves rushed in from all directions. He was being murdered! Doomed, he only wanted it to be over. His mind drifted away to chess, its art and beauty. And jazz! Both were triumphs of imagination over the commonplace. How much they were alike, really. Yes! Everything that rises must converge!
    Lost, he marveled distantly at the devilish cunning of his assailant. Past cunning—genius, as Trish had promised. She was right.
    Knowing what he did about the man taking his life, Nicholas understood she was doomed as well.
    Poor woman!
     

26
     
    “READ ALL ABOUT IT!” CHAMP BAWLED AGAINST THE walls of Resurrection Headquarters. “Son of socially prominent family disappears! Massive missing person effort.” Sure there would be. More like it: “Cops take a break from hounding drug lords and murderers to hunt hothouse flower!”
    That flower was bent and broken, chums. Tossed on the temporary compost heap under his bed. His head was as loose and limp as a spring-necked toy’s in the back window of a teenager’s car. His van Champ had driven halfway across the city, rolled it into a long-term parking garage. Good luck to searchers!
    He studied the front page of the local paper. Not a bad likeness of Carson, cropped from a photo he knew well. A lot of good it would do the fuzz. That face wouldn’t be seen on the streets for the time being—possibly never again, depending on his master’s wishes.
    No question matters were coming to a head. Music maestro Carson conducted the players in his personal symphony—him, Trish, Melody, others—into the coda. The themes gathered, assimilated, refined, and were driven to the simplest, most logical melody: Trish, Carson, and Melody—together forever!
    To work! The note left on the bed by Carson was brief, explicit. Yet there was room for Champ to exercise his fertile imagination. Such a team they made! Carson the Führer, Champ the Desert Fox of execution. Before long now Queen 0f My Heart’s resurrection would be complete. She, Carson, and Melody would sail off into the sunset. And Champ... He blinked and shook himself like a dog emerging from water. He would be ever faithful, awaiting new orders. He would...
    He was startled. Boiling within signaled the shifting of the tectonic plates of his psyche—Earthquake Anger! Earlier it had been sparked by thoughts of Queen of My Heart’s intransigence, the Loathed One’s unworthiness. Now who or what