On a normal outing there would have been no complications. Garrick would have slid in and out like a gust of wind, but Riley had been along for his first kill. It had been a trial run for the lad, plain and simple. Garrick had kept an eye on the comings and goings for a few days, then sent Riley in through an upstairs window. He would never have risked his reputation or purse taking the boy along had there been even a smell of peril.

All of these magical happenings are luck or fate.

Though Garrick could not now believe in either magic or fate. Atoms collided or they did not, simple as that. Atoms, thought Garrick, delighted with the new understanding that the merge with Felix Smart had brought him. I can see their systems in my mind’s eye.

Garrick was not anxious or ill at ease over this curious transition. He knew now exactly what was happening and what awaited him in the future. Nor was he disappointed over the absence of “real magic,” for was this not magic all around him now? Wasn’t this new knowledge power without measure? Garrick was too enchanted by his new state to take to brooding.

The future awaits and, with my new awareness, I will be master of it.

These were issues to be decided in a future Garrick knew well.

Three-D movies and pocket-sized computers. Automatic weapons and Japanese robots. My oh my.

On this occasion there was no gentle materialization in the house on Bedford Square, no wisps of ethereal mist or shuddering passengers in the pod. This time a red ball of liquid appeared, maybe the size of an apple, and then it exploded in a grisly mess, vomiting sheets of blood into the basement, accompanied by a sonic boom and wave of concussive force. The ring of dampers set around the pod exploded like fireworks at a rock concert.

Chevie was lifted like a leaf before a hurricane and tossed backward the length of the basement corridor. She touched down a couple of times before crashing into a stack of her own packing boxes under the stairs, which she had been meaning to fold flat since she’d arrived. The boxes tumbled on top of her, leaving a triangular tunnel for her to keep an eye on the pod. And it was only one eye; Chevie’s left eye closed on impact and her senses longed to desert her, but she held on long enough to see what else came out of the pod.

What came out was a sac of flesh and bone, lurching across the blood-slick floor, fighting with itself. Chevie saw a hand punching through the membrane and a face pressing against the viscous surface.

“Smart,” called Chevie weakly.

Then the face bubbled and changed, becoming that of the man on the screen.

I am in a nightmare. Wake up, Chevron Savano. On your feet.