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What stuff? The product Johnny had been working on? “You haven’t time for that now, Johnny. You can’t sell it. They’d watch for anyone of your description selling chemicals. Let me loan you some money.”

“Thanks.” Johnny was smiling oddly. “Everything’s set. I won’t need it. How close are they to finding me?”

“They don’t know where you’re staying.” Alcala leaned on the desk edge and put out his hand. “They tell me you’re Syndrome Johnny.”

“I thought you’d figured that one out.” Johnny shook his hand formally. “The name is John Osborne Drake. You aren’t horrified?”

“No.” Alcala knew that he was shaking hands with a man who would be thanked down all the successive generations of mankind. He noticed again the odd white web-work of scars on the back of Johnny’s hand. He indicated them as casually as he could. “Where did you pick those up?”

John Drake glanced at his hand. “I don’t know, Ric. Truthfully. I’ve had my brains beaten in too often to remember much any more. Unimportant. There are instructions outlining plans and methods filed in safety deposit boxes in almost every big city in the world. Always the same typing, always the same instructions. I can’t remember who typed them, myself or my father, but I must have been expected to forget or they wouldn’t be there. Up to eleven, my memory is all right, but after Dad started to remake me, everything gets fuzzy.”