manipulators that floated
constantly around the apt, tasting the air. It called itself "Tom." I didn't
call it anything, and I limited my answers to it to monosyllables.

The next time I came on the guy who was Nicola Tesla in his chair, the letter
was in my pocket. I took a long swim in the ocean, and then I stripped off my
mask and spit out the snorkel, took a deep breath and dove until my ears felt
like they were going to burst. I stared at my reflection in the silvered wall of
the tank. Through the distortion of the water and the sting of the salt, my body
was indistinct and clothed in quicksilver, surrounded by schools of alien,
darting fish. I didn't recognize myself, but I didn't take my eyes away until my
lungs were ready to burst and I resurfaced.

The guy who thought he was Nicola Tesla was still thrashing away at his straps
when I climbed down from the ocean's top. At one side of Old Sparky, there was a
timer, like the one on my apparatus, and a knife-switch for timed and untimed
sessions.

I stared at him. My life unrolled before me, a life distanced and remote from
the world around me, a life trapped in my own deepening battiness. Before I
could think about what I was doing, I flipped the switch from "timed" to
"untimed." I took one last look at the ocean, looked again at Nicola Tesla, my
friend and seducer, stuck to his chair until someone switched it off again, and
left the 125th floor.

#

I took the apparatus apart in the kiddy workshop, stripped it to a collection of
screws and wires and circuit boards, then carefully smashed each component with
a hammer until it was in thousands of tiny pieces.

It took me two days to do it right, and not a moment passed when I didn't nearly
run upstairs and switch off Tesla's chair.

And not a moment passed when I didn't visualize Tesla's wrath, his betrayal, his
anger, when I unbuckled him.

And not a moment passed when I didn't wish I could plug in the apparatus, swim
in the ocean, take myself away from the world and the world away from me.

The Amazing Robotron returned at the end of the second day.

"Chet, I am glad to see you a-gain."

I bit my lip and choked on tears of relief. "I need to leave here, Robotron. I
can't stay another minute. Please, get me out of here. I'll do anything. I'll
run away. Get me out, get me out, get me out!" I was babbling, sniveling and
crying, and I begged all the harder.

"Why do you want to leave right now?"

"I --