Charlie Wilcox moved from a semi-conscious dream state to full consciousness on the examining room table. With some effort, he pulled himself into an upright position and saw his technical assistant, Freddy Mundy, staring at him with concern. Standing next to Mundy was a man whom he had never seen, a man Charlie assumed was an emergency room physician.
"What happened? Where am I?" he asked.
The stranger answered his question with a question. "What's the last thing you remember?" Charlie looked around the bare room and tried to place his location. The setting didn't look much like a hospital emergency room. There were no stethoscopes, IV equipment or unopened pints of blood. The room contained nothing but an autoclave, a few syringes sitting on metal tables and a couple of portable centrifuge units. Also, the place smelled wrong. It lacked the aroma of antiseptic which Charlie usually associated with hospitals.
"Freddy, what's going on here?" he demanded of his assistant. "What's happening? Who is this guy and what am I
doing here?"
"What is your name?" Freddy asked.
"What kind of stupid question is that? My name is Charlie Wilcox, Dr. Charles Wilcox. And your name is going to be 'mud' if you don't tell me what's going on."
"Relax, Dr. Wilcox. Just tell us the last thing you remember," said the stranger, calmly repeating his first question.
"I was mugged, is that it? I was knocked unconscious, right?"
"Is that what you remember?" asked Freddy.
"Please, let me ask the questions, Dr. Mundy."
"Freddy's no doctor. He's been working on his Ph.D. for close to five years, but he doesn't quite have it yet, do you, Freddy?"
"See, he remembers. He knows all about me," said Freddy.
"But Dr. Caldwell knows that information as well, doesn't he?" asked the stranger.
"Well, yes. I guess so."
"Where is Caldwell?" Charlie asked. "Is this one of his jokes?" Charlie jumped off the table, surprising the two men who backed away as if they half expected him to attack them. He moved to a bare window and looked outside at cars moving slowly down a suburban street lined with trees. The trees were all adorned with tiny flowers, a sure sign of spring in bloom. "Freddy, how long was I unconscious? Last thing I remember, there was snow on the ground."
"It's April, Charlie. April of 2001. It's been a year and a half since we--uh--last spoke."
"I've been out of it for a year and a half? I missed the turned of the century? My lord!" Charlie leaned against the window, feeling shaky, like he was going to faint. The stranger quickly provided him with a folding metal chair, which Charlie sat down on, gratefully.
"Dr. Wilcox, my name is Stanley Johnson," said the stranger. "And I'm here to help you, but I'd appreciate your cooperation. Now please, tell me exactly what you last remember."
"Are you a doctor? Are you with the police?"
"Dr. Wilcox, please cooperate."
"OK--OK. The last thing I remember is walking out to the parking lot of the company research building--see, I work in the main computer lab with Roger Caldwell and Freddy. It was cold, I remember that. Damn cold. But then again, it was the middle of December, it was supposed to be cold."
"He's right," Freddy said, excitedly. "It was December 14th!"
"Mr. Mundy, please, let him answer the questions."
"Sorry."
"I _was_ mugged, wasn't I?" Charlie asked.
"Is that what you remember?"
"No, Mr. Johnson, I don't remember being mugged. I remember walking out onto the parking lot, then nothing, until now."
"That rings true. That's all he should remember," Freddy said.
"But it's common knowledge, Mr. Mundy. Dr. Wilcox, what is your wife's name?"
"Susan."
"And when's your anniversary?"
"March 10th. Hell, I've missed two anniversaries. Where is Susan? Why isn't she here?"
"What's your birthday?"
"May 21st. Guess I'll be turning forty-one this year. Year forty certainly went by fast." Charlie smiled as he spoke, but he was beginning to feel dead inside, beginning to feel like an out-of-touch Rip Van Winkle. "Freddy, where is Susan?"
"She's at home, I guess, Charlie."
"Get her on the phone," he demanded. Freddy just stood there looking at him. "Freddy, get her on the phone."
"I can't, Charlie."
"And why not? Is she sick? Is she OK?"
"Charlie, you don't understand," said Freddy.
"OK--OK. Forget Susan for now. Get Roger on the phone. I want to speak to Roger!"
"You can't, Charlie."
"And why not?"
"Mr. Mundy, grab the mirror over on that table, please," Johnson asked.
"You sure?"
"Yes, bring him the mirror." Freddy picked up a small hand mirror and gave it to Charlie. At first Charlie was afraid to look, afraid he'd see the disfigured face of a man who'd been in a coma for a year and a half. Then he finally did look in the mirror, and saw the face of his partner, Roger Caldwell, staring back at him.
"I don't understand," Charlie said. "I don't understand any of this."
#
Charlie and Freddy sat around a table in the conference room of their computer lab, a room which had acquired a 25" monitor and several fancy looking video cameras and gizmos since Charlie had last seen it. The room where Charlie had awakened was an unfamiliar upper-floor suite in the same facility. "So you're telling me I was murdered in a mugging?" Charlie walked over to a wall mirror and again stared at Roger Caldwell's handsome, thirty-five-year-old face.
"Well, yes. At least, that's what the police think."
"How exactly did I die?" Charlie asked, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"A gunshot right through the back of your neck. You were gone in the blink of an eye." Freddy's coal-black skin looked almost green as he related the facts behind Charlie's demise.
"So then the company bigwigs took what was left of my brains and mixed them in a high-tech blender, so they could inject my memories and personalities into Roger?"
"Yes. Took them a while--a lot of convincing to get Susan to agree to--uh--donate the material. You were on ice for six months."
"How? How is this possible?"
"I don't know exactly how it's done, Charlie. They tried to explain it to me but--heck, I'm no biologist. I know they organized your memories comparably to the way we organize data on the computer." Freddy shrugged his massive shoulders. "If you want to know more, you'll have to ask Johnson."
"Lucky I wasn't shot in the head. Then, they wouldn't have had the brain material to work with."
"You're right. As it was, the bullet just severed your spinal cord. Your upper brain was completely intact."
"That was convenient."
"Yeah. Anyway, the corporate types were pretty upset when you died. That new operating system you were developing, well, they didn't trust Roger to finish on his own, even with my help." Freddy smiled his first bright smile of the afternoon as he mentioned his own contributions.
"Roger couldn't develop his way out of a paper bag without my input. But if I was on ice for six months, he had time to try."
"He couldn't do it, boss. We tried, but neither of us think quite the way you do. I spent hours trying to decipher your notes. When it comes to computer programming and software design, you're the champ, hands down."
"Thanks." Charlie started to pace back and forth in the conference room, anxious and unsettled. He remembered that Roger never paced, but rather was normally as calm and placid as a summer's day.
"Anyway, when they first told me about the memory transfer techniques, I was skeptical. I mean, I always thought it was impossible to bring somebody back from the dead, y'know?"
"But here I am."
"Here you are, at last. The procedure took more than two days. They had to blank out Rogers own memories and everything, then incorporate your--Charlie's material. And man, let me tell you, it worked. You are Charlie. I don't see a bit of Roger in you."
"Why did Roger agree to this transfer? I mean, why Roger instead of you?"
"Charlie, you're dead, remember? I mean, if you finish the operating system in Roger's body, he'll get the credit and the money. If I'd received the transfer then I'd get all the glory when this project was over." Freddy grinned and leaned back in his folding chair. "At least, that's my theory as to why he volunteered."
"And--uh--will Roger be coming back any time soon?" Charlie asked. He suddenly felt the cold touch of death on his chest.
"Well, yeah, eventually. I mean, you can't keep his body forever."
"How much time do I have?"
"They were--uh--figuring on about six weeks. Think you can finish the operating system in that time--I mean, if we really work hard at it, long hours, nose to the grindstone and all that?"
"Freddy, you've got to be kidding." Charlie paced the conference room floor, nearly stumbled over a small waste basket then kicked it out of his way. "First you say I only have six weeks to live, then you ask if I want to spend all of it cooped up in the lab? I want to spend the time living. I want to see my wife. Don't you understand?"
"The company said there was a chance you'd feel that way. I'm--I'm supposed to convince you that you're not really Charlie. You're just Roger with Charlie's memories. Susan isn't your wife and she doesn't want to see you. There is nothing for you to do but work."
"Forget it. Drive me to my house--Charlie's house. Susan's house. Drive me there now!"
"Charlie, I can't. That wouldn't be right." Freddy eased towards the conference room door, making Charlie wonder if his friend was going to try and physically restrain him.
"I'll bet Roger's Mercedes is still in the parking lot. Tell me where his keys are and I'll drive to the house by myself."
"No, Charlie. I can't let you do that," Freddy said, now clearly blocking the conference room door. Charlie remembered that Freddy was only twenty-six--or twenty-seven, now--and was quite muscular under his loose clothing.
Charlie took a deep breath, then sat down in one of the chairs around the conference room table. "OK Freddy, sit down." Freddy looked at Charlie as if he expected his friend to make a dash for the door if he moved out of the way. "Freddy. Have a seat, please."
Freddy moved to the chair adjacent to Charlie and sat down. "Charlie, you're going to ruin everything, if you don't wise up. You were brought back to work, not to play. You're a bright guy, can't you understand?"
"Give me one of your cigarettes."
"Roger doesn't smoke, Charlie."
"I smoke. Give me one of your cigarettes--please." Freddy pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights and matches out of his breast pocket and handed them to Charlie, then pushed an ashtray in front of him. Charlie lit up, took a deep drag and went into a coughing fit.
"I told you Roger doesn't smoke."
Charlie took a second drag, held it without coughing, then exhaled slowly in Freddy's direction. "He does now."
"Charlie, are you going to cooperate? Are you going to do what the company wants? They need this operating system, man."
"Since when have you been such a company robot?"
"I'm not."
"You never were, but maybe you've changed in the last year and a half."
"I'm just being realistic. And you ain't Charlie. It doesn't matter who you think you are, you're Roger. Get that through your head so we can get back to work."
"Freddy, have you ever heard the expression 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'? Well, you can drag me to the computer room, you can sit me down, but you can't make me work, unless I want to. So, if you really want me to finish the operating system, you'd better let me visit Susan."
"Charlie, you always were a stubborn S.O.B."
"Yup."
Freddy bit his lip and drummed his fingers on the desk top, then took at deep breath, let it out slowly and turned back to Charlie.
"OK. Roger's keys and wallet are on the top shelf of the big cabinet in the computer room. Go. Visit Susan. Just come back soon. And be careful what you say to Susan. Don't upset her too much, OK? Seeing you is going to be painful for her."
"Freddy, I'll be calm and gentle as a lamb."
"You'd better be, or I'll kick your ass."
"You'd just be kicking Roger's ass. You wouldn't want to punish Roger for something I did, would you?" Charlie asked with a smile.
"No, Charlie. I guess I wouldn't. What do I tell the corporate types if--make that 'when' they ask me where you are--Why you're not in the lab?"
"Just tell them I went out for coffee and donuts."
#
Later that afternoon, Charlie took a deep drag off one of Susan's cigarettes, coughed once, then snuffed it out in the ashtray on Susan's bedstand. Susan was dozing in the bed, next to him. Charlie hadn't necessarily intended to make love to her, but emotions had gotten the better of him. Susan, of course, knew about the memory transfer. She didn't completely accept the man in her bed as Charlie, but she knew he believed he was Charlie. She had told him that she missed her husband, on an emotional level, on an intellectual level and on a physical level.
"It's been a while since I've been woken up by the smell of that wretched smoke, Charlie," she said, head still turned away from him and buried in her pillow. "Reminds me of old times."
"Glad to be of service," he said.
"You know, if I just don't look at you--don't look at Roger's face, maybe I can pretend that you really are Charlie."
"Do I make love like Charlie?" he asked.
"More or less," she said, turning around in bed, but still avoiding his gaze.
"Well, one thing's better than before. At least we're not arguing like we used to. There was a time, a couple of years ago now, I guess, when I thought you were going to divorce me."
"I think we should forget all of those old silly arguments, don't you agree?"
"Yes, I do. I agree entirely." Susan leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then looked at him with a serious expression on her face.
"Charlie, do you think you were killed in a mugging?"
"What do you think, Suzy?"
Susan sat up in bed and pulled the sheets up to her neck to hide her nakedness. "Well, you only had a few dollars in your wallet that night."
"Lots of people have been killed for a 'few dollars'. This country has a high crime rate--at least, it did a year and a half ago."
"I guess you're right."
"What do the police say?"
"Oh, the police are _sure_ it was a mugging."
"I take it they never caught the guy?"
"No. They had a suspect--this homeless guy who was seen in the area that night, but they had to let him go. They didn't have any proof." Susan idly pushed loose strands of her long brown hair out of her eyes.
"But you don't think I was killed by a homeless guy. You think I was killed by--who? Somebody in the company?"
"I don't know, Charlie. Something just doesn't ring right about the whole thing."
As if in agreement with her statement, the phone rang. Susan reached over to where the instrument sat on her bed stand, and answered it.
"Hello. Yes--Yes, he's here. Charlie, it's for you." Charlie took the phone.
"Freddy? Oh, hello Johnson, what do you want? Yes. Yes, I'm coming back to work. I'll be at the lab, tomorrow. No, not this afternoon--tomorrow. What? Yes. Yes you can talk to Susan. Here she is."
"Hello. I know. Yes. He'll be there tomorrow. Yes. Thanks." Susan hung up the phone and turned to face Charlie.
"What did Johnson tell you?"
"He told me to remember that you're not really Charlie."
"Great. If I'm not really Charlie, I'm doing a pretty darn good imitation, in my opinion," he said. Charlie jumped out of bed to reveal Roger's birthday suit. He opened Susan's closet and found one of his old robes.
"Well, that robe was always big on Charlie, but the sleeves look about an inch too short on you," Susan said.
"Don't be deceived by physical appearances, Suzy," he said. Charlie looked through the closet to find the sash to the robe.
"Looks like you kept all my clothes, every suit, tie, shirt and pair of slacks."
"I didn't have the heart to throw them away."
Charlie tied the sash to the robe around his waist and walked to the bedroom window to look at the afternoon sky. "They say I've--uh--got to give Roger back his body sooner or later."
"Make it later," she said. At that instant, they heard an unexpected 'thump,' like a man jumping on the roof.
"What the heck was that?" he asked. "Termites?"
"I don't know."
Charlie moved away from the window an instant before a shot shattered the glass and slammed into the adjacent wall. Susan screamed and Charlie instinctively dropped to the floor.
"Holy Moses!" he said.
"Charlie, are you OK?" Susan's pleasant features were distorted into a mask of concern and fear.
Charlie carefully got to his feet, making sure he stayed clear of the open window. "Yes, I'm fine, Suzy, I'm fine. But, to tell you the truth, I've had enough excitement for one day."
He tip-toed over to the bed and sat down quietly next to Susan, eyes darting from the window to the bullet hole in the wall and back again. Susan leaned her head against Charlie's chest and waited for his rapid heartbeat to slow.
"I don't hear anything, Charlie," she said, finally. "Do you think he's gone?"
"I wouldn't count on it," he replied. "He's most likely gone, but we should wait here quietly for a while longer."
"I think we should call the police."
"No."
"No? What are you, crazy?"
Carefully avoiding the open window, Charlie walked over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. He pulled a small pistol from the back of the drawer.
"I'm glad this is still here."
"Put that thing away, Charlie and call the damn police."
"No, Suzy. If we call the police, they're going to ask a lot of questions that I can't really answer. We'll have to try and explain about the procedure that put me in Roger's body. Even if they call Freddy or Johnson for confirmation, they're not really going to believe it. Hell, I barely believe it, myself. Ultimately, they're going to go looking for burglars or something."
"So what are you going to do? Go outside with that gun and look for the guy, like you're James Bond or something?"
"No," he said as he laid the gun on the bed.
"Well, we have to do something. We can't just sit here forever." Susan got out of bed and pulled a skirt and a top out of the closet for herself, then threw Charlie one of his old
pairs of blue jeans and a short-sleeved shirt.
"Yes, we do have to do something. We have to find out who killed me," he said as he dressed himself in the garments.
"So, you think this--has something to do with that?"
"No Susan, I think they're completely unrelated. By sheer coincidence, someone just happened to put a bullet through your window on the day I return after being shot through the neck."
"Charlie, you don't have to be sarcastic."
"Sorry, Suzy. Dead people are often sarcastic. It comes with the territory."
"Stop it." Susan picked the gun off the bed and shoved it into the waistband of her skirt.
"All of this _has_ to have something to do with my development of that new operating system. Someone doesn't want me to finish the job. I've got to find out who that someone is. It's that simple." Charlie pulled and fastened a belt tightly around his jeans, to hide the fact that the waist was way too big for him. He then picked up Susan's phone and placed a call to the lab.
"Yes, Freddy Mundy please. This is, this is Roger Caldwell. Yes, I'll hold." Charlie turned to face Susan. "Maybe Freddy can help us. Once he knows that I was--murdered, he might be able to help us figure out who did the deed."
"Charlie, there's something you should know."
"Hold on a sec. Yes. What? He can't come to the phone? Did you tell him who was on the line. You did? And he still couldn't come to the phone. Yes. I understand. Thank you." Charlie hung up the phone, a puzzled look crossing his face. "That's strange."
"Charlie . . ."
"Hmm?"
"Charlie, there's something you should know."
"What?"
"I--uh--I had an affair with Freddy."
Charlie sat down hard on the bed, making the springs squeak loudly in protest. "You had an affair with my assistant--my best friend?"
"Charlie, you were dead, remember. Freddy came over to console me afterwards. We had lunch a number of times, and I could tell he was getting attached to me. About six months after you died, he asked me out on a real date. I tried to cool him off, tried to tell him that I wasn't ready to date, tried to tell him we could never be anything but friends. He accused me of not wanting to go out with him because he was black. Well, I like Freddy and I couldn't have him think that of me. So we went out on a few dates. One night, he came back here and--and one thing led to another and we slept together. What else can I say?"
"Are you still seeing him?"
"No. No. It ended after about 3 months. We--we just didn't have that much in common, Charlie."
"But it was fun while it lasted, I'll bet." Charlie's new face burned red with the anger Susan had sometimes seen in his old face.
"Charlie, don't make too much of this."
"Just tell me--who else did you have an affair with while I was gone? Did you sleep with Roger too?"
"No, Charlie. I didn't sleep with Roger. At least, not until this afternoon."
#
Several hours later, when the bright sunny day had turned into a pitch-black night, Charlie and Susan crept through the house. Charlie had warned Susan not to turn on any lights, for fear of alerting a possible intruder. He'd found an old flashlight in the bottom dresser drawer and was using that to guide them through doorways, around furniture, down stairs and into the basement.
"Ow," said Susan as she banged her leg hard against an old chair stored away in the seldom-used, lowest level of the house. "Charlie, shine that light in my direction please, before I break my neck."
Charlie turned the light on Susan's face, making her shield her eyes from the sudden brightness. The light cast a long shadow behind her and illuminated her brown hair, making her appear angelic, ghostly.
"Thanks, now I'm night-blind."
"Sorry."
"Charlie, why did we have to come down here? What are you trying to achieve?" she asked.
"Susan, I finished my operating system months before my--my death. Months," he said as he shined the light through the room, from old table to broken chair to the bicycle with the punctured rear tire.
"What? What do you mean you finished the operating system?"
"I mean what I said. There were--are factions within the company that didn't want to see me complete my work. I was actually paid several thousand dollars to--stall things for a few months."
"You accepted money? You accepted a bribe?" she asked.
"I accepted money because it was either accept the money or let certain V.P.'s ruin my reputation."
"And exactly how were these people going to ruin your reputation?"
"They were going to tell the media about that blue film--that porn film you starred in when you were in college. You know, the one you never told me about."
"Charlie...I never..."
"Save it, Suzy. They showed me the film. I saw it with my own eyes, babe. Pretty hot stuff. Of course, the fact that I was watching my own wife perform those acts on other men sort of ruined the fun for me, if you know what I mean."
"We--we weren't married then, Charlie. I was young and I needed the money."
"You could have been a waitress like every other college girl."
"Waitresses don't make much money."
"Fine. Defend yourself." Charlie's flashlight came to rest on a dilapidated briefcase tucked away in a corner.
"Are you trying to tell me that you hid a copy of the film down here, Charlie? What were you going to do, wait for the proper moment and then shock me by popping a tape of it in our VCR."
"No, Suzy. I hadn't planned on ever telling you that I knew about the film. Believe it or not, I forgave you for your youthful indiscretions. I mean, as long as we were married, you never once gave me reason to think you were unfaithful or anything. But now that you've slept with Freddy, well---"
"Damn it, Charlie, forget about Freddy."
Charlie retrieved the case from the corner and sat it on one of the old tables.
"So what's in the case, Charlie?"
"The operating system, I hope. I put ten floppys with the entire system down here in the basement, for when I needed it." Charlie opened the case and saw that it was empty.
"Damn. It's gone."
"Charlie, how could you possibly have finished the operating system? Roger would have known. Freddy would have known."
"Roger is pretty much an idiot so it wasn't hard to fool him. And Freddy, well, he's still inexperienced enough for me to hide things from him, mislead him. No Suzy, the finished system _was_ down here. And what happened to it has to have something to do with my death, and that gunshot this afternoon."
"So what do we do now?"
"We go visit Freddy."
"Why Freddy?"
"Think Suzy. Think. Who else had access to the basement? Did Roger visit?"
"No."
"Did anyone from the company ever stop by?"
"A few people were here on the day of the funeral, but they certainly never went down into the basement."
"Then it had to be Freddy. He took the disks."
"Do you think he killed you? Do you think he was the one who shot at us this morning? Freddy?"
"I don't know, Suzy," he said. "But I'm going to find out."
A door at the rear of the basement was rusted shut, but Charlie forced it open with an equally-rusted tire iron. They crept out into the night, behind the house, Charlie half expecting a shot to send him back to his death. No shot rang out.
They made a run for the car and soon were pulling off the driveway, Susan at the wheel of Roger's Mercedes.
"Where to?" she asked. "Freddy's place?"
"Yeah, Freddy's place. Need directions?"
"No," she said. "I've been there before."
#
Charlie reached under the welcome mat and pulled out a key.
"If Freddy didn't go home, what makes you think he's going to come here, to Roger's place?"
"He has Roger's keys. I mean, I don't have them, so Freddy _must_ have them."
"How did you know Roger kept a key under his mat?"
"You know, I'm not sure. Call it an educated guess. Or maybe I still have one or two of his memories up here," he said, tapping his head.
Charlie turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to Roger's small suburban home. He and Susan slipped into the foyer, feet stepping ever so lightly across the linoleum.
"Charlie, I think someone's home!" Susan said in a loud whisper.
Charlie stopped dead in his tracks and listened. He could hear the faint sounds of laughter coming from an upstairs room.
"Maybe we'd better get out of here."
"Suzy, this is my home, remember? Or at least, it's Roger's home. And officially, I _am_ Roger."
The laughter stopped and they could hear an upstairs door opening.
"Hello? Who's there?" said a voice they both immediately recognized as Freddy.
"It's me, Fred. It's Charlie."
"Charlie, what are you doing here," said Freddy as he walked to the top of the steps, dressed in one of Roger's robes. "I thought you were going to spend the night with . . . oh, hello Susan."
"Hi Freddy."
"From what Susan tells me, the two of you became somewhat well acquainted during my absence."
"Christ--Susan, what did you tell him?"
"Just the truth, Freddy."
"The whole truth and nothing but the truth, huh?" said Freddy. "Well, Charlie, you've got to remember--you were dead, man. And we'll have to take this up tomorrow at work. I have company."
"In my house, _you_ have company?"
"Freddy, who is it?" called a woman's voice from the upstairs bedroom.
"Honey, you stay put," he yelled back. "I'll take care of it."
"A new woman, Freddy? I never knew you were such a Romeo."
"Charlie, we didn't come here to talk about me, did we?" Susan asked.
"No," said Charlie. "Freddy, someone took a shot at me this afternoon."
"What? What are you talking about? Someone shot at you with a gun?"
"No, with a camera. Yes--someone shot a bullet through Susan's window. Was it you?"
"'Course not! No. Of course not. Why would I try to shoot you?"
"Did you take my disks?" Charlie asked. Freddy's dark face turned pale at the question.
"Uh--what are you talking about?"
"The operating system, Freddy. Did you take the disks to the operating system?"
"Charlie--shit. Look, I can explain."
"Did you take the disks, Freddy?"
"OK--yes. That's why I took up with Susan in the first place. She doesn't mean anything to me. I just--certain people in the company, hey, they wanted those disks. I just started dating Susan so I could, you know, get in the house and find those disks."
"You bastard!" said Susan.
"Hey Suzy, we had some laughs together. Didn't we?"
"Freddy, is everything OK?" yelled the woman from the bedroom.
"Just you stay put," Freddy called, turning his back to the couple. Charlie took the opportunity to run up the stairs and knock Freddy down a half-dozen steps. They struggled and Charlie planted a fist in Freddy's solar plexus. Freddy returned the punch with a sock to the jaw. Charlie rocked back and forth then fell to the ground.
"Freddy, leave him alone," Susan said, rushing to her husband. A young woman appeared out of the bedroom and Freddy rushed back up the steps and ushered her into the bedroom.
"Charlie, Charlie are you alright?" Susan asked.
"What? Huh?" Charlie's head suddenly felt like it weighed a ton, so he just laid on Roger's floor and stared at the ceiling.
"Charlie?"
Alone again, Freddy appeared at the top of the steps.
"The memory transfer is making his body weak. Johnson told me that might happen," he said. "Charlie's mind isn't used to the way Roger's body reacts to stress." Freddy approached his dazed colleague and slapped him lightly on the face.
"C'mon man, sit up."
Charlie opened his grey eyes and stared into Freddy's dark ones. "Did you kill me, Freddy?"
"No! I swear it wasn't me."
"Then who did? Somebody from the company?"
"I don't know, Charlie. Really. I just don't know."
#
Freddy returned to the upper floor of the house to explain to his date about his late-night business call and ask if he could take a 'rain-check' on the balance of the evening. Meanwhile, Susan and Charlie moved to Roger's kitchen. Susan prepared some hot cocoa while Charlie sat at the kitchen table, trying to make sense of the day's events.
"Freddy used me. I just can't believe it," Susan said.
"At this stage of the game, I find it hard to see you as a 'wounded madonna', Susan."
"Thanks for your support, Charlie."
"Don't mention it," he said.
The couple could hear Freddy, back in the foyer, whispering words of reassurance to his date. They heard the front door open and they heard Freddy say his final goodbyes. A moment later, Freddy joined them in the kitchen.
"So what happened to the operating system?"
"It didn't work, Charlie."
"What do you mean, it didn't work?"
"The damn thing didn't work, that's what I mean. We try to install it and the computer won't boot. Roger and I went through the code piece by piece, trying to figure out what's wrong with it. We even compared your disks to the partial system we developed on our own, and frankly, we can't decipher exactly how you were intending to implement your improvements."
"Freddy, it was working properly, when I--left. The system did everything the company expected of it--and more. It requires less memory, less disk space, accesses programs at least 50% faster--the whole nine yards."
"Well Charlie, that's why we brought you back---to reconstruct the damn thing."
"So Roger knew about your theft, huh? Ol' Rog was in on all this?"
"Yeah, I guess you might as well know. In fact, we flipped a coin to see which of us was going to--uh--romance Susan and find your disks in the first place."
"And you lost, huh Freddy?" Susan asked, as she poured three cups of cocoa and passed two to the two men in her life.
"No Suzy, I won."
"So--back to my original question. If you didn't kill me Freddy, who did? Roger?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe he did. You know, he really didn't want to loan you his body. I mean, he _really_ didn't want to . The company--uh--had to convince him to undergo that memory transfer. I think they figured that you couldn't ask him questions if he wasn't around to answer them."
Charlie sipped at his cocoa as he thought through the various possibilities.
"Hold it a second. If Roger was the one who killed Charlie, wouldn't Charlie know it?" Susan asked. "I mean, where are Roger's memories now?"
"From what I understand, they're buried inside him. But they're buried deep--real deep. He's not supposed to be able to get at them."
"OK, if it was Roger, how did he shoot at us this morning if he's--not around at the moment?" Charlie asked.
"Maybe he, or whoever he's working for in the company, hired someone, Charlie," Freddy suggested. "Someone to fire through the window and scare you. Maybe that bullet was never intended to kill you, just to get you thinking."
"Thinking about what exactly?" Susan asked.
"About where he hid the real version of the operating system, I'd guess," said Freddy.
"Damn it, there is no _real_ version, Freddy. You stole the only version--the correct version. I'll tell you again, the system should have worked. Susan, except for Freddy here, no one else in the company had access to our house?"
"You asked me that already, Charlie and I already gave you my answer. No. At least, I don't think so."
"Look--Someone had to substitute one of my system disks for a bogus copy."
"Well, maybe Roger or somebody did break in when I wasn't home or something."
"But Susan, it took me weeks to find those disks. I mean, I spent more time sneaking through your house after you fell asleep than I care to remember or admit," Freddy said.
"Love you too, Freddy," said Susan.
"Here's the way I see it," said Freddy. "It's probably Roger who killed you. I mean, he's the most likely suspect in my opinion. So why don't you kill him? I mean, don't give his body back. You and Susan could just disappear. If the company asks me where you are, I'll tell them I don't know a thing. I won't get in trouble, you'll get the girl and everyone will live happily ever after. Isn't that the best solution?"
"Now that sounds OK to me. I mean--If you'll still have me. If you still love me, Charlie," Susan said, her lovely brown eyes shining.
"I think I should go back to work with you, Freddy--and reconstruct the system. That way, you come out on top, I get my place in history. I can still run away with Suzy after the work is done and before they turn me back into Roger."
"No. No that's too dangerous, Charlie," Susan said. "Someone could kill you."
"It might be dangerous, Suzy, but that's the way I've decided to play it."
"At least take a day or two to think it over, Charlie. You owe me that much. Let's stay here at Roger's. Freddy can go to work and tell them he doesn't know where you are. Nobody'd think of looking for you here. It's too obvious a hiding place. And if your mind's still made up to continue the work by the end of this week, well, you can go to the lab and tell them you needed a couple of days to relax."
"I'd be OK with that, Charlie," Freddy said.
Charlie looked at Susan, then at Freddy, then back at Susan, again.
"OK, twist my arm. We'll do it your way, Suzy. Just--uh--let me speak to Freddy privately for a sec. if you don't mind."
"Why?" Susan looked at Freddy with distrust.
"Because I have something that I want to tell him that I don't want you to hear, OK?"
"Uh--OK. Fine. Talk to Freddy," she said curtly, as she grabbed her cup of cocoa and left the kitchen.
"I think you ticked her off just now, Charlie," said Freddy.
"She'll live," said Charlie.
#
Some hours later, upstairs in Roger's bedroom, Susan's naked body glistened with fine beads of sweat. She and Charlie had just engaged in an extraordinarily active session of love-making on Roger's comfortable king-sized mattress. Charlie got out of bed to open the bedroom door and the window just a crack, then returned to Susan's side. In reward for his efforts, a cool cross-breeze brushed over their bodies.
Susan leaned over to Charlie and whispered in his ear. "Charlie, what did you say to Freddy before? What did you have to tell him that I couldn't hear?"
"I just wanted to make sure he'd go back to his own apartment, so we could be alone. I just wanted to make sure we'd have a few hours of privacy," he said.
"I see," she said. "That was a good idea, Charlie." Susan got out of bed and grabbed a woman's shorts and a top out of Roger's closet. "Nice of Roger to leave these for me, don't you think?"
"Actually, I think they belong to Freddy's girlfriend," Charlie said with a grin.
Susan picked up her purse and the clothes and opened the door to Roger's private bathroom. "Excuse me lover, I'll be back in a minute. I need to freshen up," she said as she disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.
Charlie sat up in bed, crossing his arms behind his head. Although the room seemed peaceful and quiet, his heart began to beat faster and faster.
When Susan reappeared, she had a gun in her hand and it was pointed at Charlie's chest.
"Now, here's what happens, Charlie. I shoot you and you die again. Then I say there was a break-in and my lover was shot. And you don't get to reconstruct the operating system after all. Sorry about that."
"I don't understand."
"It's very simple Charlie. I killed you, and I switched one of your precious operating system disks for a flawed copy. I knew why Freddy was dating me and so did my contacts in the company. They wanted everyone to think that the system didn't--wouldn't ever work properly."
"I'm not buying it, Susan. Try again. Explain yourself!"
His words exploded across the room, like a series of firecrackers.
"It's all so simple, Charlie. With your brilliant mind, I'm surprised you never figured it out. You see, my contacts wanted to make sure you never showed anyone that operating system. It was in their best interests to have the company continue to use the present system, until they develop their own alternative. But then, that Johnson, Freddy and Roger had to bring you back to life. I _could_ have killed you this morning while you were sleeping if one of Johnson's and Freddy's dopes hadn't tried to scare you by firing through the window--trying to get you to look for the _real_ system disks. But no harm was done. I mean, I did enjoy our evening together. And I learned some more information about our rival faction within the company."
"Why would you do this, Susan?" Charlie said, even more loudly than before. "Why?"
"For money and power. Why else?"
At that moment, the bedroom door opened. Susan turned toward it and fired. Freddy fell into the room, a bullet-hole in his arm and blood rolling down his sleeve. Simultaneously, a still-naked Charlie rushed Susan and knocked her to the floor.
"Shit--I told you it was dangerous to try and trap her this way, man," said Freddy, in obvious pain.
"Oh come on, you're not dead. I needed to find out for sure if Susan was the one who---betrayed me." Charlie said as he sat on the floor and held his wife firmly with her arms pinned behind her back. "If you were the one who killed me, I was fairly certain that you'd try something tonight, Suzy."
"What--What made you suspect me?" asked Susan.
"Come on, Susan. It had to be you. Who else had access to those disks in the basement? If it wasn't Freddy, and I didn't think it was, you were the only other logical suspect."
"So what happens now?" she asked.
"Well, you go to jail, I think. Freddy and I reconstruct the operating system, and then . . . "
"And then?" Freddy asked.
Charlie sighed and hugged Susan tightly as she struggled to free herself from his grasp. "Then, I give this body back to Roger," he said.