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girls, being intangible
and all."
    "There are rewards in life far greater than
'getting the girl.’”
    "Gee, thanks for the pep talk, Dr.
Know-it-all."
    Richard took the doctor's hand, and was
pulled to his feet. The doctor led him to the next room. The
sleeping quarters weren't the cramped bunk he expected but a plush
canopy bed, covered with hand-sewn quilts. The bathroom beyond was
spacious, with a full-sized toilet, a bidet, and a claw-footed
tub.
    "Swank," said Richard. "Doc, you may be a
time-traveling, life-wrecking scumbag, but you know how to
travel."
    "Here," said the doctor, handing him some
pills. "These will prevent swelling in your jaw and help you
sleep."
    Richard popped the pills and swallowed them
without waiting for water. He collapsed onto the bed. It was soft
and warm and smelled freshly laundered. He shut his eyes and felt
like he was at his grandmother's house.
    When he opened his eyes, Dr. Knowbokov was
gone.
    He closed his eyes again. His head felt full
of static. Images flashed across his eyelids, words echoed through
his skull.
    Echo . That's all he was now. An echo
of someone who used to be. How long before he faded away to
nothingness?
    It was absurd. Everything, the time machine,
the photos of sisters he'd never known, the private jet, the
island, the seven-foot-tall bald chick driving the limo, all of it
was just a joke. Any minute, someone would yell, "Surprise!" He
could grin and say, "You got me!" Or maybe he would open his eyes
and realize that the soft bed he lay upon was the floor of a padded
cell.
    But he had gone too far into this now to
question his sanity. Lying in the bed, his jaw still throbbing, he
had a very good sense of what was real, and what wasn't. This
wasn't a joke. He wasn't real. And, yet, of course, he was.
    He could feel himself drifting. He wondered
if something in the pills was putting him to sleep. He felt too
full of questions to rest. And yet, little by little, he drew
deeper inside himself, floating in memories.
    He remembered sitting on his grandmother's
bed. Her bed had always smelled so wonderful. He was very, very
small. She held his hand in hers.
    "And when you add another one you get . . .
?" She folded out a second finger from his fist.
    "Two!" he said.
    "And when you fold it back you have?"
    "One!" he said.
    She folded the remaining finger back into his
palm. "And now you have?"
    He looked at his hand. He wasn't sure what he
had. "One minus one is zero," his grandmother said.
    He stared at his fist, unconvinced. After
all, his fingers were still there.
    "Zero," he said, knowing it would make her
happy.
    "Good boy," she said.
    Drifting to sleep in his memories as well as
here and now, Richard felt his grandmother's kiss upon his
brow.

CHAPTER FOUR
    STRONG GENETIC COMPONENT
     
    When Richard opened his eyes again his jaw no
longer hurt. He touched it carefully, then more firmly. It was like
he'd never been kicked. Rich people apparently got better pills
than the rest of us.
    He sat up on the most comfortable bed he'd
ever slept on, then stepped onto the nicest carpet his feet had
ever touched. Piano music drifted into the room, serene and
introspective. An eerie red light seeped through the drapes. He
went to a window, pushed aside the drapes, and opened the
shade.
    They were over an ocean, gleaming with the
last sunlight of the day. For as far as he could see, there was
only water and sky merging as one on the horizon. The plane seemed
to hang in perfect stillness.
    On the window, he could see the faint trace
of his reflection.
    "Never born," he said. "Huh."
    In the distance he could see a flash of
light, a boat perhaps, or a low plane. Whatever he saw, it was
moving rapidly, leaving a wake of gleaming silver.
    He focused his attention on the approaching
object. Could a boat move that fast? The wake wasn't dispersing
like a boat's. It remained a perfect, shining, razor-sharp line. It
was definitely moving above the water, not across it. A plane? It
seemed