"Cheez, lady, I don’t give a fuck how busy he is. I gotta see him. I got sumpin’ t’give him.”

Caul started out of his chair, but then the door to his office opened and Billy Milligan was standing there.

"You Billy’s shrink?”

"I’m Dr. Caul.”

“Yeah, well, I’m Philip. Some of us tink you should oughta have dis.” He slapped a sheet of yellow legal paper on the desk, then turned and walked out. Caul glanced at it and saw immediately that it was a long list of names: Billy’s ten personalities and others as well. The last one wasn’t really a name, just “The Teacher.”

He started to follow his patient, but then thought better of it. He picked up the phone and asked to speak to the technician at medical microwave.

"George,” he said. “I’ve got a session planned for today with Billy Milligan and Dave Malawista. I’d like you to videotape it.”

Then he hung up and studied the list. So many unfamiliar names—twenty-four in all. Caul didn’t dare allow himself to think what was starting to dawn on him. How did one handle something like this? And who in God’s name was “The Teacher”?

After lunch Caul went up to AIT and knocked on the door of Milligan’s room. Seconds later Billy opened it, sleepy-eyed and tousled. “Yeah?”

“We’ve got a session this afternoon, Billy. C’mon, shake it.” “Yeah, sure. Okay, Dr. Caul.”

Billy followed the energetic little man up the steps and through the door out of AIT.

They walked down the corridor to the modem geriatrics building, past the soft-drink and candy machines, through doors leading to the medical microwave room.

George was inside the conference room, setting up the television camera, and he nodded as Billy and Dr. Caul walked in. On the right, chairs were grouped as if for a nonexistent audience. On the left, just beyond the open accordion doors, stood the television camera and a bank of monitoring equipment. Billy took the chair Caul motioned to, and George helped Billy fasten the cord of the microphone around his neck. At that moment a young dark-haired man entered the room, and Caul turned to greet Dave Malawista, a senior staff psychologist.

George signaled that the TV camera was ready and Caul began the session. “Would you tell us for the record who you are?”

“Billy.”

“All right, Billy, I need your help to get some information. We know there are some new names of what you've called ‘your people’ that keep coming up. Are there, to your knowledge, any others?”

Billy looked surprised and glanced from Caul to Malawista and back. “Well, there was a psychologist in Columbus who asked me about someone named ‘Philip.’”

Caul noted that Billy’s knees were moving up and down in a nervous jiggling motion.

“Do the names ‘Shawn’ or ‘Mark’ or ‘Robert’ mean anything to you?”

Billy thought for a moment, looked distant, his lips moving in inner conversation. Then he mumbled, “I just heard talking in my head. Arthur and somebody were arguing. The names ring out. I don’t know what they mean.” He hesitated. “Arthur said ‘Shawn’ wasn’t retarded. Not mentally. He was bom deaf and he slowed down. He’s not normal for his age … There’s been a war going on in me ever since Dr. Wilbur woke me up and before I went to sleep.”