The transport tube slammed to a stop, dashing the standees
in the aisle into a casual, bloody cargo against the grafitti of
the car's forward bulkhead.  Bright station kliegs rang into the
strange, fateful silence, the dimness - shocking now, though a
promise of our deliverance spare moments ago.  In an instant the
aft boarding hatch whisked open, and the rank atmosphere within
seemed to explode.  The sour, oppressing fearsweat and the sharp
metallic tang of the subway was suddenly supplanted by the
present confrontation we all had been watching approach as the
station terminal drew ever closer.
	And the Mountie officer, one hand still on the bell cord,
drew the laser from his side.
	Hijacking was nearly unheard of.  Nearly.
	Yet the things that _could_ happen inside these underground
transit capsules, as they sped along out of touch with the world
outside, are legendary.  When you're noplace, nothing really
matters.
	I threw myself out onto the platform the moment the way was
clear, and was just fortunate to keep my feet and my flight bag.
Still holding my breath, I dropped to the floor behind a striped
safety barricade, awaiting screams from within the capsule, a
storm of armed troopers from without.  But the flat grey expanse
of concrete was strangely deserted: no one had come to the
rescue.  
	And, too, no one else managed to escape after me, it seemed.
The hatch sealed behind me with a hiss and a snap, and the
capsule slid quietly back into the subterranean void between the
cities.
	I hadn't been all that scared, I realized.  Which, perhaps,
shocked me even more.
	Just overwhelmingly weary.
	OK, maybe I'd seen this before, I figured.  Or something just
like it, really.  Picked up the pieces: that's better.  The Oath
- Aesculapius, did you ever have to treat a synchronous rad laser
wound? - would have required me to stay, of course, if things had 
gotten messy.  Worse, I mean.
	And I would have stayed, certainly.  The traditional Ionian
vow, millenia-old, was still too new upon me.
	Or so I reminded myself.  
	Anyway, it was too late to do anything.  
	The station was still, I noticed.  Humid and a bit cleaner
than I expected.  A couple of skinheads were shaking down a
saffron-robed spiritual-type for pocket change.  Mid-morning,
the diurnal rush had abated by now.  Nothing out of the
ordinary. The slow-motion climax of numb, screaming terror for a
hundred trapped passengers had occupied a single unnoticed
moment outside.
	Time does that, sometimes.  
	The world isn't cruel: just petrifyingly matter-of-fact.
	So straighten out your shirt, I said to myself, and run your
fingers through your hair.  Forget about it.  Nothing you could
have done.
	Not that I didn't care, of course.  I did.  Maybe more than
I can afford to, with things being what they seems nowadays.
But the cop was more than up to the job of dealing with those
'boots in the back row, even single-handedly.  I wished he
hadn't hurt all those people, stopping the train that way,
though.
	And just face it, Bobby: this sort of thing must be all too
common in the wide, wonderful world nowadays.  Nothing to worry
over, I cajoled myself.
	It was still some time before my journey resumed, as I stood
there fighting off shivers, staring into swirling backwash from 
the cold, black nothingness beyond the vacuum shield of the 
tunnel into which the capsule had silently slipped.
	I hoped they'd all be OK.
	I deliberately inhaled fresher air then, summoned myself
back to the present.  And back to the next hurdle - why I really
hate traveling most.  Too many ID checks, too many senseless,
prying questions - that was my next problem.  British Canada is
supposed to be one of the freest countries left.  (Right: and
the last hour was some kind of Sunday picnic.)  Not as wild and
fun as the great nation of California, of course: my home - that
reeling, screaming freak show, rocking away to a Brian Wilson
soundtrack - the only place on the planet where you can still be
sixteen forever.
    I wanted to hurry, presently, but next I would have to get
to endure the impediment and irritation of BritCan Customs,
Health & Immigration checks.  So, with a sigh I resigned myself
to the inevitable, and queued up with my passport at the ready.
And a bit of green tucked between the pages to expedite things,
all quiet and proper and casual.  I didn't have time to risk a
full inspection.  Not that I'd ever actually invite even a
little potential personal scrutiny.  Attention is worse for an
international traveler than bad water.  
	The low-roofed terminal was a regular bazaar of confusion
and noise, crowds and odors.  A distraction from my immanent
reality: waiting.  The blue neo-denim flight bag, all zippers
and pockets, was now becoming heavy.  It was all the luggage I
carried this trip, and not packed frugally, but I was wary of
putting it down.  Some zealous CHI officer might quit fiddling
with his truncheon and wonder, and I preferred not to have the
delay just today.  "Relax," I kept on telling myself, "just a
surfer boy," trying to look cool, detached.  Problem is: I've
never surfed in my whole life.
    I was on my way to Winnipeg, invited by a once-close friend
to holiday soon after my graduation.  I used to make this trip
regularly once, or one just like it actually, during my six
years in college and medical school.  But I hadn't seen him -
Professor MacLaurin - Sam - at all during the rush at the end of
my med/psych internship.  Not that UCLA medical school is all
that much.
    It isn't.  Not anymore.  Education is freely available, and
they load you up mentally with stuff from the time you're old
enough to listen to a terminal.  Sometimes even before that.  And
then there's the computers - expert systems they're called - to
make most of the decisions.  
	Although it's probably like that in all fields now.  No one
really does the work.  We push buttons, hand out pills, bandage
up hurts.  Nothing that requires years of education.  Nor much
thinking.  Certainly nothing personal.
    It's all in the traditions, I suppose.  There was once a
time when doctors were special, revered; men of the world, oh so
breezy and cosmopolitan.  They were all rich.  And old.  In the
days when only one nation could claim control over the resources
in that entire part of North America between the Northern Canadian
Provinces and the Kingdom of Mexico, they say doctors had a lot
of cultural and political power.  Used it for their advantage.
And their wealth.
    Those days are gone, of course.  The medical profession
really isn't much.  Most of the sickness in the world has been
cured now, too.  And people just don't always chose to live a
long time anymore, anyway.  Which is OK by me.
	That sounds bad, I know.  This little planet of ours isn't
doing so well.  Or maybe it's too well, too easy, and that's the
problem.  Or things are just too complicated now.  Just keeping
up's hard.
	I don't know.  Whatever.  Better to have stayed sixteen, 
maybe.
	So I had spent lots of my time at the beach (even after the
Environment Police closed the place to swimmers), mostly by
myself, and studying other stuff, psychology for instance.  I
liked to ponder human feelings.  Well, my feelings, anyway -
doesn't everybody who gets into psych do it for that reason?
Liked it enough to earn me a second degree.  Not very
democratic, I know, two sheeps to a customer.  Used to catch
pete for it around school, sometimes.  My scholarship, what the
hell.
	I guess I had nothing better to do just then.
	And I liked studying, making my own challenges.  Looking for
answers, that was it.  It came pretty easy to me - in my genes,
you might say.  Or I suppose I was bored, maybe.  Restless.
	Oh, then there's always the great California National Sport:
sex.  That came pretty easy, too.  Looks, I guess, because I
don't try hard.  Or often.  But there's so much free, or cheap
(or by membership at one of those total-sensorium holo palaces),
that a steady piece is like a dry beach.
    I was bored, maybe.  
	Alone, certainly.  
	And more than a little tired.
	I'd been thinking how I'd missed Sam, these last few days.
Travel permits between the California Confederacy and BC had
almost always been easy to get - elections and other periodic
political crises notwithstanding.  Intracontinental tube fare
isn't that expensive, either.  Nor that necessary bit of sly
gratuity for the officials at the border.  Even the risk of a
documents-check, and the trouble that can bring.  I should have
kept in better contact, I kicked myself.  'Once-close'.  I
wonder what that means?
    Sam taught beginning physics at the University of Manitoba,
and we had met at a recruitment seminar my first year at UCLA.
I wasn't really interested in a career in physics, just sort of
wasting time that day, hanging around the student activities
building, checking things out.  But his booth, demonstrating the
basic mechanics of antigravity space travel, complete with
lights, sounds, scents, and sizzling laser colors, was just too
cool to miss.  Sam was standing at the the center of all the
fun, greeting the passersby, making contacts, networking, and
renewing old connections.  A nerdy group of hotshot undergrad
temporal-dynamics kids alternately hacked into his display
hardware and capered greedily for his attention.  Sam spotted me
quietly checking out his display, I guess, and broke away.
    "You don't belong here", he admonished evenly, a faint
hologram from one of his gadgets floating, ethereal, like a
nimbus over his head.
	Startled me, I guess.  I happened to be off in my own
thoughts just then, taking in the display.  Lost for a moment,
sort of rent-and-tumbled in that single instant from my own
private distractions by his casual intrusion, I guess I'd only
half heard what he'd said.  But what I heard I didn't like.
When you're taken unawares like that, you often don't think or
understand - you react, even to a stupid comment like that.
	I do, anyway.  I just snapped.
	Doesn't make much sense, I know.  But it was a dumb thing to
say when you don't know someone.  And it all happened like a
flash of instinct.
	So I turned, ready for a confrontation.  Or to provoke one.
(And that doesn't make much sense, either.  I'm not like that
most of the time, usually the first to run for cover.  And I'm
not good at fighting, whenever I've had to do.)
	But I so hate comments like that, I do.
	Sam's gaze softly, fearsomely, pinioned me.  His smile was
innocent, disarming.  Strange, but it was like his presence held
some irresistible, immediate force, and his calm, a pervasive
power - well, almost overwhelming.
	I remember this so clearly - I noticed his hair, bright
blonde, as bright as the blue of his eyes.  As quick as it had
come, the feeling of threat was gone, back to those outlands of
the mind where fears lay their plans for night invasions.
    Not that I liked it at all, right then.  I don't go in for
guys, or anything like that.  And I don't buy ESP or psy.  But
for an instant I actually felt sweaty and dizzy.  Disoriented,
like I might be suddenly sick.  Or fly, maybe.  Or live on
forever and forever.  And, fixed by that strange power, I wasn't
the least little bit afraid.  
	Maybe not being afraid was worse, though.  My anger suddenly
seemed unmade - I couldn't even remember what I was pissed about
- and I was suddenly left feeling helpless without it.  Like a
lost little kid being lectured by strangers, or something.
	Of the power there was no aftertrace, like an enchanted
torch, a magical ephemerata, that had flashed and expired.  A
little wonder remained, a dimming echo of awe, and a guilty
sort of disgust.  I'm too much of a realist to believe in stuff
like this, which unnerved me worse.  And I was suddenly more
than mildly irritated again, as if Sam had bested me somehow, in
some way I didn't understand.  And he knew it, I suppose, that
he'd tagged me.
	But I still felt small, too, without fight.  Anger does that 
to me, sometimes.
	Sam smiled gently.  
	I returned his gaze coolly. 
    "I know a physics major when I see one, and you're
definitely not it, dude," he added softly, reassuringly.  He
shook his head at the irony.
	Embarrassed.  I'm sure he'd noticed my reaction.  No psychic
powers required here.  Made a mental note to kick myself later.
What had I thought he'd meant?  Sam hadn't even snuck up on me,
for pity's sake!
	But what had just happened to me, anyway?  The feeling of
that sudden something was fading faster than I could capture it.
Well, if I wanted to capture it.  I just longed to be elsewhere,
now, before I said or did something even more stupid.
	Sam didn't look much older than me, if at all.  Although the
name tag on his white coat was filled with initials, with a
'Ph.D.' among them.  I was still pretty keyed-up, still noticing
everything.
    "No, I, uh.  I'm bio-science.  Your booth's really great," I
temporized.  "I don't know a lot about physics, just the basic
quantum stuff.  Like from cereal boxes.  Do you really work with
this?"  I gestured to the display screens choreographed with the
chromatic waves and sonic particles, animated matter and living
antimatter, all bright and hypnotic.  It was a totally wild,
psychedelic view of the unreal world of indeterminism lurking
innocently inside every atom of plain old reality.
    "Nah, I don't do this stuff.  Babcock & Wilcox, Ltd. just
think I look better than the crusty old trolls who actually
spend their days and nights on antigrav research.  They believe
I'll attract the hotter and brighter young talent, sortta like
those big, tough guys on the Space Marine recruiting posters do.
The computer graphics are all mine, though," he added, modestly.
    Sam didn't at all look like a Space Marine, although he did
appear quite healthy and tanned, and looked like he worked out:
here to impress a bunch of kids sold on the myth they used to
call The California Dream.  He smelled honest, though.  Off
balance as I still was, I'm kind of careful not to let details
by me, body language and stuff.
	But the nose is never wrong.  Mine, anyway. Somebody once
told me that we pick our friends by their smell.  I don't know
if that's true.  But Sam smelled OK.  His apparent lack of age
still did make me wonder, though.
    "Do you work for them?  B & W.  As a researcher, I mean," I
awkwardly rejoined.
    "Sure, other stuff, though.  Theoretical, not practical.  Do
you like physics?"  Sam wasn't letting me off easily.
    He seemed OK, harmless, I mean.  Nice even.  I was feeling
stronger, too, and I did want to look at his booth a while
longer.  But not really to work for his company.  So I tread
water.  "I took some philosophy classes, 'Nature of Reality',
that kind of stuff.  'Basis of Knowledge and Science.'  Lots of
that subatomic and particle crap.  Not real physics.  But I
guess I'm sort of interested in it, even if it's not really in
my degree plan."  Not a lie.
    "Cool, man.  A real deepthinker.  Hay, dude, we're all
gettin' together," here he thumbed the brittle, tense geeks
still trying to reprogram the computer running his demo, "at the
campus canteen after lunch.  You can join us, if you don't mind
my technojock squad.  Hay, man:  we can talk philosophy.  Or get
wasted."
    I scowled - reflex, really - I'm not into 'wasted'.  Though
I'm certainly no suckling infant.  Sam smiled, wrinkled his
nose, shook his head assuringly.
	He dropped his voice confidentially, glanced back at the
myopic members of the cyberteam, now yanking on cables and
trying to unplug things.  "I need your support, man.  To tell
you the truth, dude, if someone asks me if I actually knew Erwin
Schroedinger just one more time, I think I'll scream."
    "Sure, yeah.  That'd be OK."  I didn't really want to go,
and I suppose I probably sounded flaky anyway.  And maybe I still
wasn't feeling quite like myself, 'cause I know for sure that
Sam didn't really need me, but - I'll admit it (it's a waste of
good bytes to write something this long if you can't be honest):
I guess it felt sort of sad and warm anyway to hear him say it.
	Gotta stop feeling like that, I thought.  Get a life, Bobby!
Get laid or something!  Getting soft in the head.
	Felt nice, anyway.  Shy.  I hoped Sam didn't notice.
    He handed me a business card, touched my name-badge.  Closed
his eyes and memorized its caption.  And then he was instantly
snatched aside by an impatient faculty member, a tall, muscular,
Scandanavian-looking woman with the biggest damned silicones I
had ever seen.  Or probably Sam, too, for that matter.  Judging
by his wide-eyed, open-mouthed feint.  The nerds were still
geeking gleefully away as I drifted off, back into the unbidden
solitude from whence I had come, absently browsing around the
other company presentation booths.  I didn't want to be
underfoot when Sam would have to reboot his display system when
it suddenly crashed.
    I showed up at the crowded, noisy canteen that afternoon.  I
still don't know just why.