Neither Aaron nor Ken knew where they were or how they had gotten there—not that the electronic representation of the man in a dark silk robe and the nude woman standing nose-to-nose in a stop-action shouting match wasn’t a great clue. It was simply that so many other things were competing for their attention. Only one of those things was the sudden change in their environment from their High School Classroom VRS to a VR bedroom with Persian rugs, a blue marble ceiling, blue marble columns, and custom-made furniture of ebony, ivory and gold.

Joshua’s Virtual Reality Persona had changed to match his more exotic name. The face was the same but the skin was darker and the only hair on his head hung down his back from a circular patch at the spiral of his dome in a long black queue. He wore an ornate vest over a muscular bare chest and abdomen. A red sash was tied around his incredibly slim waist. His pants were made of yellow silk in the baggy fashion of the Medieval Middle East. His red shoes were turned up at the tip.

Ken’s VRP had also changed. This cyberspace body was no different from his own body. Even the clothes he’d worn to the Jim Crow were the same. With a slight turn of his head toward Aaron, whose appearance hadn’t changed at all, he noticed that his ease of movement was indistinguishable from that in the world outside of the VR chamber. It wasn’t as though he had switched places in cyberspace. It was as though he had been physically relocated in actual space from his seated position in the VR chamber to this standing position just inside the door of some rich guy’s bedroom.

Though the effect was more disconcerting to Ken than his initial plunge into virtual reality had been, it was even more disconcerting to Aaron, who felt in his gut the implications of what had happened before he could say them in his head. The only constant in the switch from one VRS to another was Joshua, the teen idol with the man’s voice who had brought it about. Exactly what it was, that he’d done could not be answered by a run-of-the-mill wizard in virtual reality like Aaron McPhail. This was a level of technology combined with a level of influence that exceeded the distant limits of Aaron’s imagination. Friend or foe, The Genie was not one to be taken lightly.

Aaron and Ken did a double take of the couple stuck in time before their eyes. This wasn’t just some rich guy’s bedroom, they now realized, sharing the same perceptions and the same thoughts. They knew the man in the mauve and black-striped robe. They knew the naked blond woman looking up at him with contempt blazing out of her baby blue eyes and a word beginning with the letter "f" frozen on her lips. They were Jack and Kimberly Fleetwood, the most famous couple in the United States—with the possible exception of Euel and Estelle Gidarb—or Blue Monday’s attorney Lea Flores and her lesbian lover, Andrea Urlan. But what, in all honesty, could the Fleetwoods have to do with the murder of two women attributed to the Brown Belt Strangler?

"What you’re about to see," said The Genie, "is not a computer simulation or recreation of something that might have happened. It’s a recording of what did happen."

Aaron and Ken cut their eyes at each other, both latching on to the fact that he did not say, "flashback," which meant that they were looking at a snapshot of what had happened as it happened. If the master bedroom of the Fleetwood mansion had been under direct observation during this frozen moment in time, one had to wonder not only who could have done it but why anyone would. Who but the government would have the temerity and the wherewithal?

Had Vince Costello been standing with Aaron and Ken as a guest of The Genie in this VRS, he would have named Condor or its chief executive officer, Dean Piper. The thought of what he would have said in this situation was as good as if he’d said it. With the sound of his voice in Aaron’s head came an explosive shift in Aaron’s world view which put him into perfect alignment with his friend’s. He could see clearly what Vince had been talking so much about for the past few years and why he’d been obsessed with it. Condor Inc., owned not only Condor Broadcasting International, but the common visions of a nation. In a nation governed mostly by public opinion, Condor held the balance of power.

Ken tried not to feel the surge of joy that he was indeed feeling at the prospect of tying Jack Fleetwood to the Strangler. When that didn’t work, he tried giving the feeling another name. That didn’t work either. There was no other name for it. He only wished that Barbara was with him to see Fleetwood for the man he was rather than the larger-than-life hero he wasn’t.

"Did I hear you right?" asked Ken, oblivious to the accurate interpretation of his thoughts reflected in his father-in-law’s face.

The Genie squinted. "Hear what right?"

"Before you brought us here, you said you were going to show us who killed those women."

The Genie shook his head. "I said I knew who did it."

"Then," said Aaron, "you brought us here. I take it there’s a connection."

The Genie smiled his most charming teen idol smile. "Listen," he said....

From the vicinity of the empty bed, came the sound of a man and woman talking.

"No point in turning this into a peep show," explained The Genie."

The voice of the man was clearly that of Jack Fleetwood. The woman’s voice, though less familiar to Ken and Harold, was non-the-less recognizable in the context of the frozen figures before them, as Mrs. Fleetwood.

Jack said, "Sometimes I don’t think I know you anymore. How can you possibly compare us to Monday, not to mention that absurd crack of yours about the criminal justice system making money off of sex?"

Kimberly responded, "Jack, whether you’re getting paid to sell it or suppress it, you’re making money off of it. What else can you call it when people make carriers out of writing laws and enforcing laws that govern people’s sex lives?"

Ken and Aaron looked at each other, their eyes wide in amazement.

"Think that’s something?" said The Genie, over the soft whir of a fast forwarding recording disk. "Listen to this...."

"Don’t tell them," said Jack. "Monday has been supplying sexual services to wives of very important people. Wives, daughter’s, sisters, mothers, favorite aunts... You can’t hide it. It’s a shocking thing. When we stumbled onto the names, we didn’t know what to make of them. There were names like Samantha Gidarb and Mary Macky. We even found a Kimberly Fleetwood."

When Ken heard that, he thought he would explode with glee while his father-in-law’s doubts about the validity of what they were hearing and seeing grew with each startling revelation: Samantha Gidarb, the daughter of Estelle Gidarb? Mary Macky, the wife of the chief prosecutor in the Blue Monday trial? Kimberly Fleetwood? The Kimberly Fleetwood?

Jack chuckled. "That’s where they went wrong. Whoever planted those names went too far. They had the first lady of the United States, the wives of senators and the daughter of a Supreme Court justice. They had two women who were dead when Monday started his business. We couldn’t do a thing with a contaminated list like that. How could you even begin to separate the names that belonged there from the ones that didn’t? We know of only two for sure who do belong. That’s because they came to us to try to get us to drop the charges—hang the consequences to their families. He’s a smooth talking son-of-a-bitch. He’s even got children turning against parents. You wouldn’t believe some of the things Little Jack has said to me."

"I’m gonna skip some more stuff," said The Genie...

"See!" said Jack, "it’s different when it hits home, isn’t it?"

Kimberly shot back, "Yes, but not the way you think."

"Oh?"

"...Little Jack has talked to me about you, too."

"What did he say?"

"He told me you were a good guy deep down."

"That’s not what he told me. He told me I was mixed up with crazy people. He said I was crazy, that I was prosecuting the wrong guy. He said I should be concentrating on the Brown Belt Strangler instead of that goddamned Blue Monday creep."

"Well?" said Kimberly. "Shouldn’t you?"

"Don’t be silly. The Brown Belt Strangler has absolutely nothing to do with the Monday case." If the citizens of those communities—in Detroit—where the murders are taking place, had the social responsibility to run a time scan on one of the murder scenes, he’d be out of business. It’s that simple. The state can’t devote its resources to solving every local crime that pops up. My job is to uphold the laws of the State of Michigan; to serve the taxpayers of Michigan, not just the people of Detroit."

That sounds like one of his campaign speeches, thought Aaron.

"That sounds like one of your campaign speeches," said Kimberly.

"Our son had to understand that Monday is a threat to every family in the state—and the country. Macky is a hell of a prosecutor and he tells me he’s got the jury he wants for conviction. We have to set an example with Monday, and I promised the boy that we would."

Kimberly raised her voice. "Did you think you could impress Little Jack with that crap?"

Jack raised his voice. "You never used to talk to me like this. I’m going to be the next President of the United States! You’re going to be the First Lady!"

"You have to see this part," said The Genie. The first letter of Kimberly’s next word was lost as the rest of what was said flowed into a commencement of action.

"—uck you Jack," she said.

The naked blond brushed by her husband, tossing her bare bottom contemptuously from side to side as she moved toward the open bathroom door.

When she was halfway there, Jack ran to her, grabbed her by one arm and spun her around to get a tight grip on both of her upper arms. He glared at her.

She glared back.

"You fucking slut!" he hissed.

Kimberly smiled coldly. "Why Jack, darling. You never used to talk to me like that."

Ken and Aaron stood transfixed as Jack Fleetwood hurled his wife through the air head first, where she crashed head first into the blue marble frame of the mirrored bathroom door. The VR scene froze with Kimberly’s head in violent contact with the door jam, her feet high off the floor and her husband’s arm’s fully extended. His feet were planted wide apart for balance and he had the crazed look on his face of a soldier in mortal combat. During the Guido Calvera Drug War, Aaron had seen that look on the face of his friend Vince Costello in the heat of battle along with a bayonet in each of his hands and a mortally wounded enemy soldier skewered on each bayonet. He'd seen that look on the face of Hecor Clay and knew that they had seen it on his. Ken had seen the look in numerous TOM flashbacks of civilians who’d killed other civilians in a moment of rage—just like this.

There was no question in the mind of anyone present that the Jack Fleetwood they were looking at had intended to kill his wife. There was, however, some question in the mind of Aaron McPhail about the authenticity of what they’d seen.

He turned to The Genie, attempting in the process to make his persona overreact only to have his extraneous movement in the real world compensated for in this virtually real world and placed within real world bounds. A VR environment in which an inexperienced user like his son-in-law could move as easily as an old pro like himself, was unheard of.

"This is all very convincing," he said, "but so are these bodies we’re wearing—and we know they’re not real."

The Genie pouted like a six-year-old. "You don’t trust me?"

"How can we?" said Ken to Aaron’s surprise. "You’ve already shown us how good you are at getting into places you don’t belong and showing us things you want us to see. Why us? What can we do with any of this if we can’t prove it in court? And what’s in it for you? Who the hell are you anyway?"

Aaron looked at his son-in-law with new respect, knowing how much he wanted to believe what they’d been shown by the stranger yet daring to challenge it to learn the truth.

"One question at a time," said The Genie, "Why you? Because you’re uniquely positioned to know what you know and properly motivated to do what has to be done. If you could see beyond your own limited interests you wouldn’t have to ask. You started off thinking that all of this was about the Brown Belt Strangler. Now you see that there might be a connection between him and that man right there that both of you hate and fear more than anybody else in the world, but it sounds so good that you’re afraid to believe it."

He pointed to Ken. "You’re a homicide detective investigating the Brown Belt Strangler." He turned his head to Aaron. "Your old Army buddy knows who he is because he dated the guy’s mother. Both of’em are jurors on the Blue Monday case. If Monday loses, you’re at more risk of being Gidarbed than you know—"

Aaron’s knees wobbled, his gut caved in and his wind left his lungs as though he’d been sucker-punched by a heavyweight.

The Genie kept going. "Your daughter—his wife, worships this piece of shit." He pointed to Jack Fleetwood. "And this piece of shit has got to be stopped." He didn’t shout or stomp his feet, but he spoke his last sentence with such passion that his message was conveyed as though he had.

Ken was more embarrassed than shaken by The Genie’s inadvertent confession that he’d been spying on him and his father-in-law. He was more angry than intimidated by the stranger’s apparent knowledge that Aaron was being specifically targeted for Gidarbing and more than curious about the reason. He made up his mind to find out what was going on.

"What the hell is this about?" he demanded.

"Power," said The Genie. "Isn’t that always what it’s about?" He nodded toward Aaron. "Your friend, Vince, has been telling you that for a long time. He’s right about the Party and Condor, Inc. He was right about Dean Piper, too, until the old silver fox got caught in a NEZ with his pants down. Now he’s just a frightened old fool running himself ragged trying to keep a certain time scan—with a few editing touches—from showing up on the X-channel. But there’s a power struggle going on now to fill the leadership vacuum and one of the top contenders for the job likes to play games."

"G-g-games?" sputtered Aaron. "Do you mean to say that the Strangler cover-up—which includes the murder of at least two other women, the cover-up of this attempted murder that you brought us here to see, and that whole STOPIT thing, including the Blue Monday trial and the Gidarb penalty are fucking games! Games that one man is playing with millions of lives?"

The Genie nodded. "More or less. That doesn’t mean all of it was conceived from the start by one guy as part of one big plan."

Ken folded his arms and pursed his lips in frustration, "Then what does it mean?"

"It means that one man found a way to make all of those things work for him and spew his goo at the same time. He did it by backing Jack Fleetwood for the Party’s Presidential nominee. Everything else he did flowed from that."

Aaron folded his arms, unmindful that he was following Ken’s lead. "Who is this guy?"

The Genie snapped his fingers...

Suddenly, the master bedroom of the Fleetwood Mansion was gone. Everyone in the master bedroom VRS was now in a hospital room with Kimberly lying on her back in bed with her hair cut close to her head and her husband leaning over her with a worried look on his face. The VR spectators stood on the far side of the bed facing the door, Ken and Aaron trying to get their bearings, as The Genie told them where they were and what was about to happen.

"This is yesterday afternoon," said The Genie. "The same day the second woman was found murdered in the style of the Brown Belt Strangler while P.J. Shields was a sequestered juror in a hotel."

While the Genie was telling his guests that they were immersed in a VR conversion of an unedited 3-D recording, Ken thought that he saw Kimberly open her eyes. He was sure of what he saw only when he heard her speak.

Jack Fleetwood hopped back from the bed. "Dr. Gieldgood! Dr. Gieldgood!" he cried, nearly tripping over his own feet to get to the door. "She’s awake!"

My God!, thought Ken and Aaron as if sharing one mind, she is awake!

Jack ran from the room.

"Tell me," said The Genie to Ken, "whether or not you recognize the next person to come through that door."

Ken was about to say that he didn’t know anybody in Lansing, when a green-eyed, fair-skinned woman in a white uniform burst through the door. She appeared to be in her middle to late twenties. Even without makeup on her face and the nurse’s cap hiding most of her copper hair just as her shapeless uniform hid most of her body, Ken could tell that she was attractive. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Ken couldn’t say what it was.

The nurse said, "It show is good ta see you awake, Mrs. Fleetwood," as Gieldgood and Jack entered the room. She lifted Kimberly’s left arm to read the vital sighs on the white band around her wrist, "Oh, das fine," she said, "jus’ fine."

Hearing how black the woman sounded, Ken felt acutely embarrassed for the entire race. He was now convinced that he didn’t know her. He shook his head.

"Take a closer look," advised The Genie.

Ken and Aaron both looked closer as the doctor brushed her to the side. She was a stranger to the older man, but when he added up the separate elements of her description, minus the uniform and language, he saw a recognizable face that Ken should have recognized before he had.

"That’s her," said Aaron, speaking over Kimberly’s words to the doctor, "the second victim."

Ken shook his head, preparing a mental list of reasons why that couldn’t have been so while the doctor told Kimberly not to talk too much. But something in the nurse’s incredulous reaction to Gieldgood’s advice brought him up short. Aaron could almost see him thinking, Let down the hair, add the make-up, drop the dialect, tie a belt around her neck, stop the breathing—It really was her!

Ken and Aaron saw the doctor look at his patient with a grim expression on his face and heard him say, "Yes, dear. You’re going to live."

But, thought both men cutting their eyes at the nurse, you’re not! They turned their eyes to the doctor who, they were sure, had the thought before they had it.

Ken flashed on what had happened a few minutes earlier in the High School Classroom VRS when he’d blown cigar smoke in the teacher’s face and Aaron told him that he knew he would do just that. If Gieldgood was the pretender to the Condor throne that The Genie was talking about, and Condor was the power behind the American Party throne, the smoke-blowing exercise was going to be useful in nailing the bastard to the wall. That had been lesson number one in predicting the "inevitable past." This was lesson number two. He looked at The Genie.

The Genie nodded. "That’s your man...Oh, no! Don’t fizz out...I have something else...."

Aaron cursed.

Ken wondered what was going on until he noticed that the hospital room and everything in it was breaking up into thousands of little pieces, like mosaic tiles made of ice beginning to melt and pull apart in the mid-day sun. He realized that he was the one that was breaking up. He could not stop it.

As the tiles shrank, the black space between them became expanded, until blackness was all there was.

A moment earlier, Ken would have sworn that he was standing on his feet in the Fleetwood Memorial Hospital room of Kimberly Fleetwood. Now, as the overhead light came on, he could have sworn that he had been sucked through space down into the plastic bubble seat of the VR chamber, butt first. It wasn’t at all like taking off a VRV or waking up from a vivid dream where your senses and your knowledge of the laws of physics told you what was real and what wasn’t. It was like being in a different place, this one no more or less real than the one he’d left.

The speaker voice said, "Thank you for visiting the Jim Crow. Please be sure to take all of your belongings with you. The management cannot be responsible for personal items left behind...."

While the message was playing, Ken was trying to get out of his seat. At first he cursed the seat. Then, when he had trouble lifting his hand to his face, he cursed himself. There was a physical adjustment to be made to the physical world. With that knowledge came the ability to do it with no difficulty whatsoever.

Ken collected his coat and left the chamber with two teen-age boys beside the door trying to muscle each other out of the way to take his place. His emotions were running hot; his brain was popping with images of what he’d just experienced and incomplete ideas about what to do with them. The Genie had wanted to show him more before his time had expired. He checked the time display on his wristband telewindow, wondering whether he’d gotten all the time he’d paid for.

When he couldn’t remember when he bought the ticket, he gave up that line of thinking and turned his attention to his wife. How was he going to explain to Barbara the time and money he’d spent in the Jim Crow?

All the way out to his two-seat Wind Dancer and on the freeway to his home, the question of what to tell his wife frequently got ahead of everything else on his mind. It bobbed and wove through the fast-moving traffic of his frequently lane-changing thoughts about Gieldgood, the Fleetwoods and the Brown Belt Strangler. Estelle Gidarb and the trial of Blue Monday were mixed up in that chaotic flow of ideas as well. But the one thought that he couldn’t get around for long was the one about his wife and what to tell her about the Jim Crow.