TRUE FAME by Robert Reed

Robert Reed tells us "Thirteen, fourteen years ago, my future bride and I were vacationing in the Muskoka region of Ontario. At an outdoor restaurant beside one of the countless scenic lakes in the region, we spotted a familiar face. I thought it was 'him,' and Leslie thought so too. Then we decided it wasn't. He was eating at the other end of the patio, alone, and he left alone, walking with a swagger, jumping into a boat and speeding away. Immediately, from every other table, people were asking, 'Was that Kurt Russell?' We found out later that yes, he and Goldie vacationed there that summer -- hence, the nucleus of a story about facial recognition software."

This is the prettiest restaurant they've seen in quite a while. He says so, and she tells him to please not look at the waitresses, and he responds with a smile and the reflexive promise to be good. His girlfriend has no reason for concerns, and she knows it. Laughing and sitting back, she continues studying the closest faces. He looks past the ornate iron rail, down at the lake, watching the boats tied to the floating docks and the blue-gray water and the various islands sitting between here and the horizon. This lake is much better than their lake. Its water is deeper and colder, roads forbidden everywhere but inside this one tiny resort town. His portal-glasses reach past the horizon, blending views from a variety of easy sources. Second homes stand on the lakeshore and every island. Some might be third or fourth homes, and every last one resembles a tiny palace. But the real mark of wealth is the extravagant distance between front doors. These days, just the illusion of solitude is a treasure. The two of them have invested a year's savings for the privilege of sleeping six nights in a retrofitted trailer that sits beside a shallow and muddy body of water, and they are not poor people. Yet it's easy to feel destitute in a setting like this. Even the boats are impressive. One vessel looks like an ordinary twelve-meter cabin cruiser, but its design doesn't match any popular model, and the hull shows signs of morphing capacities. The license number is a phony, but that isn't a difficult problem. A reliable savant in Sri Lanka makes useful suggestions, and he focuses on the door behind the cockpit, his glasses teasing out the first twenty-eight digits of a code that leads a few seconds later to the boat's builder and its specifications, and then to its present owner. Sure enough, the machine can transform into any of five different shapes, including a spacious deep-water submarine. "Neat," he says, and she asks, "What is?" But he's already searching the tables scattered across the pink granite patio, finding the neurosurgeon sitting with his youthful third wife and a slightly younger, thoroughly bored son left over from his first wife: The great mariner on vacation, enjoying his green salad and an enormous glass of cold green tea.

"What's neat?" she asks again.

He mentions the boat, letting her discern the rest for herself.

Then he asks in turn, "Find anybody?"

She offers three names. In principle, they wield identical recognition software and portal-glasses, and they know the same savants and coyotes and misfits. But the girlfriend has always been a little quicker when it comes to digesting faces. That bothered him for the first month or two. But he eventually realized that he had her beat when it comes to prying secrets from behind the Privacy Acts of '17 and '39. Each of them has strengths, and they compliment each other quite nicely, and what more can you ask from a couple?

She repeats the second name. He spots a sixty-one-year-old male with his back to them but his craggy, once-handsome face reflected in the restaurant's long window. He makes a few queries, and while waiting for the coyotes to track down interesting treats, they study the menu, discussing the relative merits of cultured burgers and yogurt shakes. At these inflated prices, they decide, it means one or the other, but probably not both.

"So did you find his movie?" she finally asks.

As a twenty-eight-year-old, their subject made a video showing him and a young woman doing the nasty in the woods, and like a lot of people in those days, he posted his work on a marginally anonymous site. The old man probably believes that the embarrassing data was lost ages ago, or that the commercial software for Web-wide purges has real value. But that isn't how it works. The two of them smile silently, investing the next thirty seconds watching a bawdy, amateurish show. Then their waitress appears, asking with a clipped, marginally friendly voice, "So are you ready to order?"

It's a coincidence just how much the waitress resembles the girl in that old sex show. She's small and blonde and not quite pretty, but far from homely. She doesn't wear a nametag, but there isn't a trace of surprise when they say in the same moment, "Hello, Tina."

Tina looks at their faces. She smiles. Then because they mentioned her name, she can now politely use theirs.

He opts for the burger.

The girlfriend wants a yogurt shake, chocolate and with two spoons.

They have rules when it comes to pretty young things. But he takes the risk, watching their waitress for the next few minutes. Everywhere but here, he studies her. He finds a birth announcement from sixteen years ago. He uncovers school grades and family portraits buried in enduring servers. But her presence is a fraction of what her parents once made available to the Web. People who are now middle-aged and elderly citizens would throw everything up on those early sites, and they would blog obsessively about every tiny drama and embarrassing fart, and photographs would be shared, and videos would be crafted -- the more outrageous, the better -- and like everything foolish, it all seemed fresh and fun. By contrast, the most explicit piece of Tina's life is some interesting, edgy poetry that she reads for him now, two months in the past and sitting alone in her little bedroom, surrounded by a small nation of semi-intelligent, big-eyed stuffed animals.

His arm is touched.

The pressure of his girlfriend's fingers brings him back to the present, to here. She stares off into the distance now. His sense is that her glasses are set at maximum magnification, her focus absolute. She has touched his arm by memory, blind to everything but what her glasses feed her.

He asks, "Who?"

She says nothing.

"Which face?" he says.

For a moment, she acts deaf. Then she blinks and forces herself to sit back, doing nothing but smiling. Genuinely gorgeous and slender to the brink of wiry, she has dark brown hair curled with gene treatments and tiny, doll-like features that never require makeup. Her link-pins peek through the curls. Smart-tattoos ride the backs of both hands, randomly playing slices of favorite entertainments. By any measure, the young woman is gifted. But she also enjoys an infectious certainty born from her abilities. The first time they met, he hated her. She dredged up obscure facts about him and then teased him savagely. Of course her life was full of reasons to label her as trouble and move on. Yet here they sit, enjoying their second summer vacation as a couple, as a team. And suddenly the other half of the team leans forward, pushing that wide uninhibited mouth into his ear, not quite whispering when she says, "At the far end of the patio. That man sitting alone with his mashed potatoes."

There is no choice but to be obvious. He leans back, twisting around to gain a clear look at the target.

"See him?" she asks.

"With the blond hair?"

"Yes."

The shaggy hair is long and thick, brushing against the subject's shoulders. The face is both handsome and distinctive. Several seconds are spent staring at the potato man, waiting for enlightenment. But nothing comes. More queries are made, using coyotes that cost a little more for their noses, and then she leans close again, asking, "Well?"

"Give me time," he begs.

She counts. Knowing it irritates him, she counts aloud, though softly, and when she says, "Sixty," her fingernails dig into his bare forearm.

"I don't recognize him," he says.

"Well, I don't either," she confesses.

They sit still for another half minute. And then they laugh, each saying to the other, "So who the hell is he?"

* * * *

Masks and holo-disguises are obvious explanations. But portal-glasses should be able to tease apart any trace of subterfuge -- a seam, a sparkle, or the wrong kind of reflection riding the honest sunlight. That's why the obvious explanations prove unworthy. No disguise, or even a combination of disguises, would convince their studied stares. So they discuss what else is possible, and the best answer from that unlikely heap is that this is a genuine face, only new. Autodocs and a lot of money might have created a fresh appearance, unscarred and unique. Yet even that possibility has drawbacks. A burn victim or a gender-switcher might be tempted. But once the patient reenters the public realm, he will be noticed. Security cameras will want a name. Passersby will throw his image to the coyotes, asking the obvious questions. Without an overt act on this man's part, the world will make him into a recognizable entity, and they should see that now -- a history built from images and lunch purchases and the other dreary, unique detritus that no citizen can ever willfully avoid.

"Unless he has powerful friends," she mentions, her voice shivering as she points to that improbability.

He quickly identifies the trouble with that scenario. "If it's government work -- if Potato-man is an operative or a hiding crime boss -- they wouldn't make him into nobody. They'd give Potato-man a good fake life, and we wouldn't think about him twice."

People are hard-wired to spot strangers. That has always been true, and the last fifty years have only improved what is a most essential human talent.

"Unless of course somebody screwed up," she remarks. "Maybe his fake bio just got dumped, or his enemies deleted it, and we just happen to be the first two souls to notice."

Nothing about that is strictly impossible, but the explanation demands a sequence of incredible events. There must be a better answer. They fall silent, each trying to identify every remaining option. And that's when Tina emerges from the restaurant, their minimal lunch in hand.

"Ask your jail bait about him," the girlfriend suggests.

He doesn't like her tone. "What do you mean, darling?"

Those lovely, all-seeing eyes try to bore holes in his skull.

"You're being silly," he announces as the waitress arrives.

Tina isn't expecting a substantial tip. But she knows the importance of charm, if only to fool the neurologist and other wealthy customers who come here day after day. That's probably why she uses an overly friendly voice, asking them brightly, "Is there anything at all that I can do for you?"

Looking at his girlfriend, he says, "No. And thank you."

The waitress turns away gladly.

"Wait," the girlfriend says.

Tina turns back slowly.

"The man at the end of the patio. What is his name?"

That question strikes the youngster as being odd, even remarkable. She takes a few moments to parse the sense out of those unexpected words, and then finally, almost grudgingly, she turns and looks in just about the proper line.

"Which man?" Tina asks.

"At the last table," the girlfriend replies, as if it can't be more obvious.

Tina tugs at her portal-glasses for a moment. Then without looking back at her customers, she says, "Nobody. Nobody is there."

* * * *

The man has suddenly, inexplicably vanished.

Tina wants to vanish too, but the best she can manage is to march over to the neurologist, enduring the lustful stares of the bored son.

"Where did he go?" both ask.

A map of the restaurant is found, studied. A small back staircase leaves the patio, leading to several viable escape routes. But their mystery man isn't trying to vanish. He simply went down to the lake by the most direct route, walking with purpose but never hurrying, the water on his right and the stone seawall on his left, and the two of them staring at him from above.

If Potato-man notices, no sign is given. He turns onto the middle dock and walks past boats that belong to others. Details continue to emerge from their careful study: The stranger is 184 centimeters tall, has muscular arms and a left-handed droop to his shoulder, and his jeans look honestly worn, and the plain orange shirt shows the telltale dark splotches of sweat that a quick chemical analysis shows to be genuine. A cleverly rendered android seems less and less likely, although neither of them is willing to relinquish the possibility. The hiking boots are dusty and battered on top, and because she has nothing better to do, the girlfriend compares those boots against the inventory in hundreds of catalogs, finding the proper model on a sporting goods site that hasn't been active for twenty years.

She explains, and he listens.

Then as the object of their fascination nears the end of the dock, she asks, "What do you think he'll do now?"

"Swim," he says.

He means this as a joke, but just saying the word gives the possibility muscle. No other boat is in view, and he continues walking with a pace that belies any intention of waiting for a ride from some vessel that is coming to collect him. Where the dock ends, he will pitch forward and leap into the water, and fitting his role as a creature of ultimate mystery, he will morph into something other than a man, fins and a long jeweled tail breaking from the cold water, crimson gills flashing before he dives toward his underwater paradise.

They have stopped breathing, almost stopped thinking, anticipating the imminent spectacle.

Then the man steps off the dock, and as he drops, his boots pull apart and his body settles on the footrests of a little waterski that was always there, always waiting, tucked neatly out of view.

They laugh, relieved and disappointed in equal measure.

A small engine kicks to life, and the craft pulls away from the dock with the mystery man standing tall, hands on the handlebars and the throttle opening up with a rough, elderly sound that draws glances from a few patrons sitting nearby.

It is gratifying, knowing that others notice the stranger, too.

The girlfriend makes a low, vaguely angry sound, and then she suddenly stands.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving," she announces.

Their meal isn't half-eaten.

"I want to follow him," she says.

He does too. But he attacks her plan through its practicality. "How can we? We don't have a boat!"

"No?" she says, laughing at what to her has always been his persistent and frustrating cowardice. "I count thirty-four boats waiting for us. Which one do you want to take?"

* * * *

Everybody is a thief. Everybody looks at each new face with the intention of stealing away secrets, learning what is interesting and funny and what is supposed to be private. Humans have always been that way; only their reach has changed. Some people are better than others at the ancient game, and the girlfriend takes deserved pride in being one of the best, not just with her innate skills but also her fearlessness, never hesitating to acquire and master the latest techniques of exploration.

Yet she really isn't much of a thief, she might argue. With a practiced, somewhat weary passion, she has pointed out that in the course of a busy day she might trip across a thousand secrets, a few of which would have enormous value to the cruel and rapacious. But she is neither. One careless owner neglects to upgrade his buzz-brain barriers and his e-ramparts, and through no fault of her own she can find herself in possession of keys to the fool's savings. But has she ever launched into a feeding frenzy? Never. And she refuses to act like some of her friends, stealing tiny, almost invisible sums from a multitude. That too has always been against her rules and an insult to her pride. "The worst thieves are the little ones, the gnats who steal pennies, making themselves rich but tiny. And that isn't me, I promise you."

When they first met, she was a middle-of-the-stream thief -- somebody with the capacity to find a few misplaced dollars, as needed, and occasionally borrow property that only seemed to belong to others. But that was more than two years ago. After several fights and one painful ultimatum, she has managed to carry herself with remarkable restraint. He can count eleven lapses in twenty-eight months, although there are probably a few other misdemeanors hiding out of view. But isn't danger part of her charm? He doesn't approve of her slippery, self-serving ethics, but he loves the rest of her, and he has never seen any reason not to remain faithful to this beautiful, half-wild creature.

Adoring her is his calling and daily challenge.

She is fun, yes, and funny and bold and smart. The love of his life can tell a wonderful story, and even when she repeats herself, he is interested. Often enthralled. But by the same token, she constantly frustrates him with her self-absorbed nature. When he speaks about his past life -- his schools and silly loves, vanished friends and such -- he often catches her staring through him. In their relationship, he has always felt like the significantly less fascinating character. If she doesn't like his story, she acts like a bored five-year-old. And if he repeats any anecdote, no matter how entertaining, she doesn't waste time warning him, "You've already told me that."

She's a great and dangerous thief who by choice has never lived up to her potential. But as they walk on the dock, he realizes that every promise for moderation is now being shoved aside.

"You can't do this," he says.

She says nothing.

"No," he begs. "Let's forget this, please." Then in the next moment, in despair, he mutters her name.

"Kora."

Even that shattered taboo has no effect. She remains silent and watchful, and they walk past big cabin cruisers and houseboats, hydrofoils and rocket-driven submersibles. Thankfully none of these vessels are easy to borrow. Or perhaps the scale of theft scares even her.

A long way out on the center dock, he finally hesitates, turning back and noticing faces casually studying their progress.

"We're noticed," he warns.

She smiles, shrugs.

He says, "Kora," once again, with a tight, worried voice. Then he starts to walk again, falling in behind her, claiming, "I'm not going with you."

"Yes you will."

"No," he maintains.

"Turn back," she suggests. "Go finish our lunch."

He wants to. But she's bound to find herself in terrible trouble, and what he loves this much can't be abandoned now.

She stops, announcing with authority, "Here. This one."

The boat is small but fancy -- a fisherman's toy built for stability as well as speed, with a squared bow and twin jets intended to whisk passengers and their fancy lures to and from the best water.

He starts to glance over his shoulder and then thinks better of it. "People are watching us," he repeats.

Then he hears voices, soft at first but quickly growing in volume, in intensity -- a mishmash of words and exclamations coupled with the sound of dozens of chairs being dragged across the pink face of the patio.

He asks, "What -- ?"

She names an actor -- a man of astonishing good looks and boundless talent, a godly creature that would be famous in any century. Then she smiles back at him, calmly explaining, "He just took the table that our man left."

Stupidly, he says, "Yes?" and believes her.

She laughs at him.

"It's a trick?" he asks.

She winks.

"You fooled everybody?"

She jumps into the fishing boat, feet straddling the assorted tackle.

"How did you manage it?" he asks.

Not even looking back, she declares, "It was easy," even though it can't be. Then she tells him, "Hurry, darling. They won't be confused for long."

The boat believes that that they own it and always have. He unties both ropes and jumps in after the girlfriend, and moments later, running smoothly and quietly, they streak unnoticed out across water that is deep and clean and deliciously, wondrously cold.

* * * *

The waterski's trail remains visible: A million agitations coupled with tiny contaminants and the telltale residue of heat. It helps that their quarry doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry. Potato-man keeps his throttle only halfway open, and it isn't long before they pull him back into view. At that point they match his speed, satisfied to keep watch. Who he might be is again the central question. They massage the possibilities separately, following their talents and expectations. In the meantime, islands are passed. Brightly colored vacation homes sit in forests of tailored trees, matching boathouses down by the water and pets like malamutes and emus and dwarf mammoths playing together on the shady lawns. But the man on the waterski continues on a line that will eventually take him into open water, and that course begs another question worth chasing: Where is he going?

In the end, a list of possible identities is drawn up. The boyfriend has five names, the girlfriend seven. But their rationale is identical. There are modern myths about souls like this: Exceptionally wealthy and powerful and farsighted souls who should be known to everyone, but at the same time have kept themselves removed from public view. According to self-styled experts, these Special Ones can eat mashed potatoes in the midst of their peers, yet they have an astonishing, nearly supernatural capacity not to exist. Armies of AIs are responsible for their anonymity, guarding an elaborate, many-layered privacy with tools that even clever young people can only imagine. But the myth claims even more: That this handful of shy souls maintains its privacy not for privacy's sake, but for the power that it affords. Invisible to the world, the Special Ones enjoy freedoms that presidents and corporate masters can't possibly know. Their decrees go unheard, which is why nobody notices the effects. And their long thoughtful silences won't panic Washington or Wall Street. Unlike every other notable citizen, they have the freedom to do nothing if nothing is best, and no one takes note, and their irresistible powers won't fade like muscles never used.

"It has to be one of them," she declares.

He isn't quite as certain, mentioning as much.

She takes offense. Bristling, she claims, "There's no other explanation, darling. No other suspects. It's one of the seven, and I think it's my first candidate. I don't know why, but I do."

"But he's dead," the boyfriend pointed out.

"Reportedly dead for eight years, and a century old if he isn't. But you know what they're doing today with stem cells and artificial colons. Why couldn't our friend be a twentieth century billionaire?"

First of all, Potato-man isn't their friend. But he doesn't say that or anything else that will provide easy ammunition.

Then she straightens up, leaning forward into the boat-made wind. "What island is that?" she asks.

His glasses reach the horizon, finding a dark smudge that quickly becomes land and woods and a thin warm haze.

"Look at the maps," she presses. "Do you see it anywhere?"

According to every available source, including digitals from a multitude of orbiting vistas, what waits before them is nothing but cold water and fat, delicious lake trout.

"This is scary," she declares, laughing nervously.

This is scary and wrong, and again, he wants to retreat. But she opens the throttle, lifting their pace until they are quickly closing on the waterski. Yet their quarry doesn't seem to notice, bearing straight toward a coastline that shouldn't exist. There are no buildings on the island, or a dock. And suddenly there isn't any stranger to be seen, either.

"The bastard's vanished," she announces.

Into the wind, he begs, "Turn around."

Again, she laughs loudly, nervously. But the hands show no sign of adjusting their course.

He stands in front of her, making certain that she has no choice but to pay attention. "Maybe we've been fooled," he says. "Like you fooled the others. Maybe he didn't exist in the first place."

"That isn't possible," she maintains. "I know how it's done, and this wasn't faked."

"Someone has a bigger, better trick," he argues.

But that thrills her even more. She giggles and begs all of the power out of the engines, and as they slide across the last open water, she screams to be heard. "Then it's a trick worth learning, and that's what I'll ask him first."

The land rises and darkens even more, and at the last moment she cuts the engines, allowing their momentum to carry them into shore. Then she shoves aside the silence, asking, "What's your first question going to be?"

He stares at the woods and the low waves lazily beating against oddly shaped rocks.

For the first time today, she speaks his name.

"Troy," she says.

Turning toward her, he says, "Kora," for the final time. Then in despair, he asks, "What kinds of trees are those? Do you know the species?"

She looks. She says, "No."

"Do you hear that bird singing?"

"It's not in any database," she gushes.

"I can't find it either," he admits. Then he turns forward, and with a shaking voice exclaims, "I don't recognize anything here. None of it! So please! Turn this boat around, please...!"

* * * *

But she refuses. Or maybe she tries to turn the wheel but the boat refuses, and because of her pernicious need to appear in control, she tells him, "No," with a flat, certain voice. Then the bow hits a submerged rock, and she breathes twice, deeply, before saying, "No," once again.

The shoreline is built from pale blue stones, crenulated, composed of unrepeating patterns, each slice of the whole rich with minuscule details. Mosses of different colors and endless textures inhabit every crevice. Insects barely bigger than dust motes patrol the ridges and tiny peaks. Sitting on the bow, he focuses his portal-glasses on this slender edge and that nameless pit, and what astonishes him more than his total ignorance of the species is that no piece of the terrain seems the same as any other. Whatever this place, novelty is rich, relentless. Effortless.

His heart thunders in response, and he trembles, a rich salty sweat pushing out of his panicked body.

He promises himself not to abandon the boat.

But she does, in one long sloppy bound, and with an arm sweeping through the air, she says, "Every tree is different. Did you notice?"

He did, yes. And they aren't just a little bit different, as you'd see in a tropical rainforest. The texture and color of the bark varies, and the design of each tree's leaves is different, and the size and proportions and colors of the flowers that do or don't weigh down their limbs ... well, this is forest seemingly designed by a thousand remote gods, each weaving its own ideal tree from genius and caprice.

"Are you coming?" she asks.

Grudgingly, yes. But he takes the trouble to wrap one of the boat's lines around a tall purple thumb of stone.

"Our man's close," she promises.

He agrees, though why that should be is just another puzzle.

Climbing away from the shoreline, the girlfriend seems full of decisive curiosity. But her courage vanishes at the edge of the mysterious forest. Maybe the oddities piled upon wonders wear her down. Whatever the reason, Kora is the one who acts suddenly unsure. Staring at her feet, she mutters, "I don't know."

Neither does he. But he senses an advantage, rare and ripe. "This way," he declares, pushing into the shadows.

A flock of birdish creatures flies away, each one dressed in its own florid colors, but screaming with the same panicked voice.

Novelty proves exhausting. The mind leaps and sputters, trying to digest this unpredictable environment. But at least the terror proves bearable, and with practice even that begins to fade. Never a man to notice odors, he nonetheless finds himself drinking down perfumes and rich earthy odors and lost farts and warning stinks from creatures too scared to show themselves. He walks faster, and then he runs, and she calls to him from behind and then from farther behind, using a plaintive tone that he has never heard before when she begs, "Darling, wait."

He slows.

At a sprint, she collides with his back.

Then they stand motionless, the island's low summit beneath their feet. Behind them lies their shoreline; ahead wait louder waves. She takes his arm in hers, and together, as one, they push ahead.

Who would have imagined that ignorance would feel divine and mesmerizing? But of course in a world where AIs are plentiful and databases thorough, the capacity to utterly surprise a person might prove relatively impressive, and enhancing the senses on top of that ... well, this is exactly the kind of magic sure to become the next drug of choice.

Leaving the trees, passing into the open again, they discover the sun standing at an unexpected angle. Water reaches to the horizon and probably long beyond. This new sea looks deep and smells brackish. But at least one feature is familiar enough to give comfort. Novelty lies everywhere but in the man standing on the beach, his old boots enduring the sweeping waters, hands on hips and no glasses on his face, but a jaunty smile ready to greet whoever emerges from what has to be his private woods.

Kora offers the name of her favorite candidate, adding, "Sir," and then, "Hello."

The stranger says nothing.

Troy decides on different tactics. Into the hard wind, he says, "I don't care who you are. But I think you want something from us."

The stranger considers speaking but decides otherwise.

Kora jumps on that possibility. "You want to hire us," she guesses. "That's why you were at the restaurant. And why you lured us here ... wherever 'here' is..."

"Here," the stranger says, "is the only place of worth."

They are stunned, mute and utterly thrilled.

"Don't use names," he continues, his voice a little higher and rather less impressive than his handsome face implied. "You guessed it already, or you didn't. Either way, you've wasted your energies."

She grabs her boyfriend's hand, and he squeezes it gratefully.

"Energy is always limited. Always finite. That's the nature of the universe, and thinking otherwise is to embrace sloth and waste and your imagined importance."

They sag against each other, their bodies familiar, reassuring.

"You have no importance," the stranger assures.

Each wants to say otherwise; but nothing left inside them is brazen enough to argue their case.

"But," he adds, "you do show me a small measure of promise."

Weak smiles surface, and the girlfriend says, "I knew it. You want us."

But as those words are offered, the man frowns, shaking his head slowly, the long hair brushing against his broad shoulders.

"Not 'us,'" he warns.

Their hands grip harder, but now they lean away from one another.

"What I want -- what I offer today and only today -- is the opportunity to serve, to become one part of the ultimate cause. But my interest extends only to one of you."

"Which one?" Troy asks.

Silence.

"How do we know which?" he demands.

The nameless man stares at them for a long while, never blinking. Then after what seems like an interminable delay, he says, "Both of you know precisely who I want."

As if being burnt, their shared hands let go.

Then each turns to face the other, and with a tight happy voice, Kora asks, "What else?"

"You think there's more?" the stranger replies.

Troy believes it too, yes.

"Very well," they hear. "One of you will come with me. But the cost of admission involves leaving the other behind. And when I talk about abandonment, I mean that it will happen in the most profound and eternal way."

* * * *

The girlfriend is a thief, and possibly worse. That has always been part of the attraction and the heart of Troy's deepest worries. There have been days when he believes that he loves her and always will, but she always finds some way to ruin his affections, spoiling his warm feeling. A piece of her is evil. For instance, she will always dismiss the kindness of others. Weakness and charity are the same words to her. How many times has she implied as much? What matters to Kora is Kora. Others exist only to help her, or they are enemies to be outwitted and left crumbled by the road. She is competitive and tenacious and scary, and Troy finds himself remembering cruel suggestions offered casually, as well as queenly pities for the ignorant masses that will never be half as brilliant as she is.

An awful question poses itself.

He looks at the girl's face as she drops her gaze. Between them is a gray-blue stone set on top of the other stones, its sharpest edge glinting in the unworldly sun. She looks at the stone. He can guess what she is thinking. "How do I prove that I'm the one?" she asks herself. And in that instant, with remarkably little effort, a difficult decision has been made.

But he refuses to act.

Watching her, he wishes for a sign that will tell him that he's wrong, that she is a little less awful than what he fears. But then her right hand flinches, wanting to reach for something, and what choice remains?

He kneels quickly.

She says, "Troy."

He grabs the stone, slicing open his palm before turning the edge to face her. Then he strikes her, just once and not particularly hard, leaving a narrow neat slice in her forearm. And that's when he hesitates, scared to do anything else. He feels powerless, his mind searching for any thought that will lend resolution. She has always mocked him for his lack of courage, his tentative calculating ways. Memories make him angry, but what helps most is to try and imagine the world she would invent, if allowed. Yes, that's the way to think about it. Disconnected images come to mind -- visions of a nightmarish place -- and that's how Troy assures himself that this is the right and proper course.

She stands her ground, numbly staring at the fresh wound.

Then with a sudden sense of purpose, Troy knocks that wiry little body off its feet and kneels over it, cutting away the throat before she manages to say his name again.

* * * *

She bleeds, and bleeds.

He is panting and sorry, but what else was possible? This is best. In one fashion or another, this kind of ending was inevitable -- if not through him, then some other force of Right -- and he stands up again and looks at the man in the surf, thrilled to see a narrow smile and an unblinking nod of approval.

Then the girl sits up and says, "Troy," despite the gore and the chopped-apart larynx. "Why did you do this?"

He looks at the dying woman, too astonished to react.

"I wouldn't have done this to you," she claims.

But she would have, wouldn't she?

"Never," she promises.

He drops to his knees.

Every wound has been healed, or they never were. She stands easily and joins the other man, and the man tells Troy, "This is a bigger place than you've guessed. If you're smart, you can make a respectable life for yourself here."

The stolen fishing boat has appeared on the shoreline.

As Kora steps onboard, Troy shouts out, "You'll come back for me someday. Won't you?"

She looks at him, her gaze furious. Cold.

"It's your head," she reminds him. "You can put whatever thoughts you want inside it."