“That's cool,” Kevin said, and they ran down to the school and broke a dozen windows.

Arthur listened and watched and decided that those two were definitely criminal types who could prove to be a very serious problem indeed.

Ragen knew some of the other people who shared his body. He knew Billy, whom he had known from the beginning of his own consciousness; David, who accepted the pain; Danny, who lived in constant fear; and three-year-old Christene, whom he adored. But he knew there were others as well—many others he hadn’t met. The voices and the things that happened couldn’t be explained by just the five of them.

Ragen knew his last name was Vadascovinich, that his homeland was Yugoslavia and that his reason for existence was to survive and to use any means to protect the others—especially the children. He was aware of his great strength and his ability to sense danger as a spider feels the tingling presence of an intruder on his web. He was able to absorb all the others’ fear and transform it into action. He vowed to train himself, perfect his body, study the martial arts. But that was not enough in this hostile world.

He went downtown to the local sporting-goods store and bought a throwing knife. Then he went out to the woods and practiced pulling it quickly from his boot and tossing it into a tree. When it got too dark to see, he headed for home. Never again, he decided, as he slipped the knife back into his boot, would he be without a weapon.

On the way home, he heard a strange voice with a British accent. He turned quickly, bending down and whipping out the knife, but there was no one there.

“I’m in your head, Ragen Vadascovinich. We are sharing the same body.”

Arthur talked to him as they walked, explaining what he had discovered about the other people inside.

“You are really in my head?” Ragen asked.

“That’s right.”

“And you know vat I am doing?”

“I’ve been observing you lately. I think you’re very good with a knife, but you should not limit yourself to one weapon. In addition to the skills of the martial arts, you should learn about guns and bombs as well.”

“I am no good with explosives. I don’t understand about all those wires and connections.”

“Tommy could specialize in that. The lad is good with electronics and mechanical things.”

“Who is Tommy?”

“One of these days I’ll introduce you. If we are to survive in this world, we’ll have to bring some order out of this chaos.”

“What you mean ‘chaos’?”

“When Billy wanders around, and one person after another switches in front of people, starting things and not finishing them, getting into scrapes that the others have to do mental handsprings to get out of, I call that chaos. There’s got to be a way to control things.”

“I don’t like too much control,” Ragen said.

“The important thing,” said Arthur, “is to learn to control events and people so that we can survive. That I place as the highest priority.”