The pavement was strangely broken. Reich stumbled, then regained his balance and stood still, numb, lost. It was darker… eternally darker. A few street lights were lit. The skyways were extinguished. The Jumpers had disappeared. There were great gaps shorn in the skyline.

“I’m sick,” Reich moaned. “I’m sick. I need help…”

He began to lurch down the broken streets with arms clutching his belly.

“Jumper!” he yelled. “Jumper? Isn’t there anything in this God-forsaken city? Where is everything? Jumper!”

There was nothing.

“I’m sick… sick. Got to get home. I’m sick…” Again he shouted: “Isn’t there anybody who can hear me? I’m sick. I need help… Help!… Help!” There was nothing.

He moaned again. Then he tittered… weakly, inanely. He sang in a broken voice: “Eight, sir… Five, sir… One, sir… Tenser said Tensor… Tension… ’prehension… ’ssention have begun…”

He called plaintively: “Where is everybody? Maria! Lights! Ma-ri-aaa! Stop this crazy Sardine game!” He stumbled.

“Come back,” Reich called. “For God’s sake, come back! I’m all alone.”

No answer.

He was searching for 9 Park South, looking for the Beaumont Mansion, the site of D’Courtney’s death… and Maria Beaumont, shrill, decadent, reassuring.

There was nothing.

A black tundra. Black sky. Unfamiliar desolation.

Nothing.

Reich shouted once… a hoarse, inarticulate yell of rage and fright.

No answer. Not even an echo.

“For God’s sake!” he cried. “Where is everything? Bring it all back! There’s nothing but space…”

Out of the enveloping desolation, a figure gathered and grew, familiar, ominous, gigantic… A figure of black shadows, looking, looming, silent… The Man With No Face. Reich watched it, paralyzed, transfixed.

Then the figure spoke: “There is no space. There is nothing.”

And there was a screaming in Reich’s ears that was his voice, and a hammering pulse that was his heart. He was running down a yawning alien path, devoid of life, devoid of space, running before it was too late, too late, too late… running while there was still time, time, time—

He ran headlong into a figure of black shadows. A figure without a face. A figure that said: “There is no time. There is nothing.”

Reich backed away. He turned. He fell. He crawled feebly through eternal emptiness shrieking: “Powell! Duffy! Quizzard! Tate! Oh Christ! Where is everybody? Where is everything? For the love of God…”

And he was face to face with the Man With No Face who said: “There is no God. There is nothing.”

And now there was no longer escape. There was only a negative infinity and Reich and the Man With No Face. And fixed, frozen, helpless in that matrix, Reich at last raised his eyes and stared deep into the face of his deadly enemy… the man he could not escape… the terror of his nightmares… the destroyer of his existence…

It was…

Himself.

D’Courtney.

Both.

Two faces, blending into one. Ben D’Courtney. Craye Reich. D’Courtney-Reich. D’R.

He could make no sound. He could make no move. There was neither time nor space nor matter. There was nothing left but dying thought.