MINEOLA, NY

One hell of a day.

Patrick lay awake in the dark in the smaller of Betsy Cannon's two extra bedrooms, and thought about the changes Meerm's baby would bring. He had no doubt that the child's pedigree, despite all the challenges and smokescreens SimGen would throw up, eventually would elevate sims to the status of "persons." That one change in designation would tumble SimGen and send the world's labor and financial markets into chaos. The simple realization that he'd occupy a pivotal position in the eye of that oncoming storm would have made sleep difficult; knowing that a cadre of ruthless men were on the prowl, looking for him and Romy and Meerm to prevent that from happening made it impossible.

Zero had departed late this afternoon after a protracted debate as to whether or not Kek should stay here for security. They finally decided against that. Zero was the only one who could control him. What if Kek decided he wanted to go outside? Who was going to stop him? If he were spotted, that would blow their cover. Better to keep all nonhumans away from Betsy's.

After a light dinner, they'd all turned in early. Romy was in the next bedroom down the hall, Meerm was on a cot in Betsy's bedroom, Tome and Kek were with Zero at his home, wherever that was, God was in His heaven, and not one damn thing seemed right with the world.

He jumped as he heard the bedroom door open.

"It's only me." He recognized Romy's whisper. "Didn't mean to frighten you."

"Just startled me," he said. Then she startled him even further him by slipping under the covers and huddling against him. "Hold me, Patrick."

"Gladly."

He wound his arms around her. She was wearing some sort of long T-shirt. He didn't know what she had on under it, if anything.

"No, I mean, just hold me," she said. "Nothing more. I don't want to be alone tonight, Patrick. I need a friend."

"That's me," he sighed. He was about to add, Friend to the friendless, but bit it back. She was trembling, as if chilled. So he said, "Tough day, huh."

"Believe it."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay."

And then she said, "I feel lost, Patrick. I used to have some pretty hard and fast ideas about right and wrong, up and down, latitude and longitude, but now everything's been twisted out of shape. Like one of those computer programs that let you distort a photo or a famous painting, you know, push it and pull it this way and that until it bears only a passing resemblance to the original. That's how my world feels. That's how my life feels. That's howI feel. Like I don't even know myself anymore." A harsh little laugh. "Not that I ever did."

"You loved him, didn't you."

He heard a soft sob and felt her head nod against his shoulder.

"Do you still?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "I think I was in love with an image I'd concocted. But now that the mask is off..."

"Let me ask you something," Patrick said. "If he'd taken off the mask and revealed a face horribly disfigured by birth defects or an accident, how would that have changed things?"

He marveled at the way his thoughts were running. He should have been searching for the best angle to wedge himself between Romy and Zero; instead he was looking for a way to ease her pain. As much as he wanted her - and right now, with her bare legs warm against his, that was very, very much -  comforting her seemed even more important.

"Not at all. It wasn't a physical attraction. I see where you're going, but it's not the same. A disfigured man would still be a man. Zero isn't..."

"A man? What's your definition of a man, Romy?"

"A maleHomo sapiens ."

Patrick sensed himself clicking into attorney mode, felt the well-oiled teeth of his rhetoric and advocacy gears meshing. He'd always prided himself on an ability to mount a convincing argument for either side of an issue, even one he didn't particularly care for. Like this one.

"But before today, when you thought of both Zero and me as maleHomo saps , you gravitated more toward him than me. Why?"

"I didn't know you, Patrick. And I didn't trust you. At least not at first. But you've got to admit you've changed."

"How?"

"Well...," she said, drawing out the word, "you've gone from a man with no commitments to one who believes in something and is willing to put himself on the line for it."

"Romy, Zero has been committed since day one, from the roots of his hair down to his toenails, and that was what you responded to. But it went beyond commitment, didn't it. He demonstrated high intelligence, integrity, decency, courage, dignity, a reverence for life that matches, maybe even exceeds, your own. Those are traits you admire in humans. They're what make you value a human, and until this morning you'd thought you could find them only in a human. But this is a new world, Romy, where the definition of 'human' is being revised - and let me tell you, when we take Meerm's baby public, it's going to undergo a total rewrite."

Listen to me, Patrick thought. I'm making his case and killing my own.

But he was on a roll, high on his rhetorical momentum, and couldn't stop himself.

"As for Zero, he says he's a mutated sim. Well, it looks to me like he mutated in theHomo sapiens direction, big time. He's more human than a lot ofHomo saps I know, and we both knowHomo saps who look more apelike than he does. Meerm's baby is going to upgrade the sims from 'product' to 'person,' from the Pongidae family to Hominidae, but as far as I can see, Zero is already there. A new species of Hominidae - Homo zero. So what else do you want from the guy? What else does he have to do to deserve you?"

He felt her stiffen. "It's not about deserving me. I'd never - "

"Then decide what makes a guy worthy of your love - his genome or his values."

A long silence. Patrick had run out of steam, and Romy...he wished he knew what she was thinking.

Then she snuggled closer. "Thank you, Patrick. That doesn't settle things, but it helps. Helps a lot. You're a good friend."

Good friend...he wished he were much more, but for now he'd settle for that. Didn't have much choice. And who knew? Maybe things wouldn't work out between Zero and her. They'd barely spoken today. Maybe Zero had other plans. But even if they both agreed on trying a relationship, they had a hell of a lot stacked against them.

He'd wait, because he knew of no other woman in the world like Romy Cadman. He'd hang around so he could be close by to catch her if she fell.