He closed his eyes and felt a strange warmth flow up from his legs to his trunk and out to his arms, up to his shoulders and his head. He felt himself vibrating and pulsing. He looked down and saw the spot, the bright white light that hurt his eyes. And looking down, he knew they had to take the spot, all of them, all together at once, and then they were on the spot and he was on the spot and in the spot … and through the spot … falling … hurtling through inner space … all the people flowing together … sliding together … interlocking …

And then he was out the other side.

He clasped his hands and held them in front to look at them. Now he knew why he hadn’t been completely fused before. The others hadn’t been revealed. All the others he had created, all their actions, thoughts, memories, from Billy’s early childhood to this moment, now came back to him. He knew the successful ones as well as the failures—the undesirables Arthur had tried to control and then vainly to hide. He now knew his history: their absurdities, their tragedies, their undisclosed crimes. And he also knew that as he thought of something or remembered it and spoke of it to the writer, the twenty-three others would come to know it, too, and would learn the story of their own lives. Once knowing, amnesia erased, they could never be the same again. That made him sad, as if he had lost something. But for how long?

He sensed someone walking down the lobby, and turned to see who was coming toward him. Parts of himself, he knew, had met the little doctor.

Dr. Caul walked through the AIT lobby toward the nurses’ station and saw what he thought at first was Billy, sitting in the chair outside the TV room. But the moment his patient stood and turned, Caul knew it wasn’t Billy or any of the personalities he had seen before. There was an easiness to the stance, a disarmingly open gaze. Caul guessed something had happened, and he felt it was important to show the patient his doctor was sensitive enough to know without asking or being told. He had to risk it. Caul folded his arms across his chest and looked directly into the penetrating eyes.

“You’re the Teacher, aren’t you? I’ve been expecting you.” The Teacher looked down at him and nodded, a quiet strength in his half smile. “You’ve stripped away all my defenses, Dr. Caul.”

“I didn’t do it. You know that. It was time.”

“Things can’t ever be the same again.”

“Do you want them to?”

“I guess not.”

“So now you’ll be able to tell the writer the whole story. How far back can you recall?”

The Teacher looked at him steadily. “Total recall. I remember Billy being brought back to the hospital in Florida when he was a month old and nearly died because there was an obstruction in his throat. I remember his real father, Johnny Morrison, the Jewish comedian and master of ceremonies, who committed suicide. I remember Billy’s first imaginary playmate.”