Free Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 by Today We Choose Faces Page B

Then it happens and you still
do not know. You only know that it worked.
                   I knew I was not the same Mark Engel I had
been before the old man shot Lange. I was Lange, but Lange was also me. I mean,
we were us. We had merged, more or less, with the shifting of the nexus, when
his body was destroyed. It did not require a massive adjustment, since we had
experienced the same phenomenon on a temporary basis countless times in the
past. Now that it was for keeps, there were a number of things I had to do to
tailor the arrangement, so to speak. But they would have to wait. We should
have acted right away, after the first murder. Lange had dragged his heels,
though, and it had proved fatal. I did not approve of his postponing an
important action, regardless of his mental condition. I could feel this
tendency warring with my own resolve even then. That part would be
sacrificed—soon—when I inserted pin eight.
                   Although the identity situation would
ordinarily have precedence, it would have to take second place this time
around.
                   About three centimeters behind my eyes, that
is where I seem to live. My mind, my consciousness ... I tightened and relaxed,
tightened and relaxed, there in my home. A mental heartbeat, a mindbeat . . .
Then it was all diastole, and thoughts the mindblood flowing uncontrolled ...
                   Then we were there and together—Davis, Gene,
Serafis, Jenkins, Karab, Winkel and the others. Suddenly, I was all of us and
we were all of us me. There was little hesitation as everyone slipped into
place, recognizing the new position of the nexus. A good, comfortable, familiar
feeling.
                   I saw through many eyes, heard many sounds,
felt the weight of all of our flesh. It was as though we were one body, our various
limbs in all of the Wings. All but two, that is. And in a very special sense we
were but one body.
                   In a timeless moment, we were all of us aware
of the conscious contents of all of our individual skulls. It was a brief
eternity of realization, a plasmic state of being wherein our temporary
surrender of individuality caused all of us to grow, instantly, by the sum of
the new experiential units which had come to be since our most recent meshing,
perhaps a month earlier.
                   There was fear, and my surprise at the fact
that there was so little anger other than that which I had brought to the
meshing. My anger was countered by an attitude of mild reproval, tempered by
the awareness that I had just received the nexus and had not had time to make
the necessary adjustments. Otherwise, the anger might have been washed away,
submerged. As it was, I saw that they also feared any reaction that might
affect me before my new personality had solidified. Good. I felt the same way
about it
                   The first death had been that of Hinkley, in
the Library, Wing 18. We knew that it had occurred in cubicle 17641, his
private living quarters there, as we had all become instantly aware of his
terminal impressions. He was with us still, but he was unable to supply any
clues as to the motives or identity of his slayer. We had all reacted
differently to the death, in keeping with our private temperaments, but none of
us had any notion as to the reason for the killing and no one had done anything
about it yet. As for Lange's/my body, it still lay in the Victorian drawing
room of the Cocktail Lounge of Wing 19, unless the old man had done something
with it.
                   . . . And nobody recognized Mr. Black. No one
knew him from anywhere. I assigned myself the task of running the search for him,
as I would have access to the necessary equipment very soon.
                   Davis was in the Library, Wing 18, keeping an eye
on cubicle 17641. He had already seen to it that the quarters were shown as
vacant and the phone