Before:
Karen cried off and on most of the day. She tried to run a program for a duplicate and gave up after several feeble attempts. It was impossible to keep her mind on what she was doing. Henry could have carried her though it, but he knew she didn't feel up to the task even if he did the whole thing. She finally made up her mind to stop feeling sorry for herself and told Henry just that.

Now:
"I’m glad to hear it, Karen. I was beginning to worry about you. I don't have it in my memory when I have ever seen you so depressed."

She smiled at the camera for the first time today. "Thanks Henry, I feel better anyway. I guess, I better see if David will give me a ride home this evening."

"Karen, I took the liberty of ordering clothes for you. Everything should be at your house when you get home tonight. I instructed the driver to deliver after five and if no one is home, he is supposed to wait until you arrive."

Karen looked down at the lab coat she had borrowed from David this morning. She didn't have to ask Henry why he thought she needed new clothes. Boy, did it seem like a long day. This morning was a thousand years ago. "Henry, I can't pay for anything. I have all my money tied up in savings. The only money I have is the fifty dollars in my checking account. It will be another two weeks before we get a check from Comm Tech, and they split my pay check before I ever get it. The hundred dollars they transfer to my checking account isn't going to make the department store very happy. You better cancel out any orders you made until I can transfer some savings. I’ll wash out this dress tonight and wear it tomorrow."

She closed her eyes. "Which reminds me, I didn't pay David for my clothes this morning either. I bet he thinks I’m a real chintzy cheapskate. I didn't think of it with everything else I had on my mind."

Henry knew he could feel when Karen was happy. Could she sense the same thing about him? No matter, it was confession time. Maybe she wouldn't think about it too much, especially with everything else that had happened to her today. "You don't have any money in savings. I transferred it years ago. Twelve years ago to be more precise. Interest and inflation were running in a dead heat. Your savings weren't accumulating any extra money. They were dead in the water so to speak. I mailed you those savings certificates you have been receiving all these years. I really don't think it would be a wise move to withdraw any money out of savings. You don't have any savings. Your money isn't there. Among other things, you own stocks and securities in Comm Tech. Because Comm Tech has multiple listings, you actually own your own laboratory. I won't get down to the basics of what you do own. but you are wealthy by human standards if you count money as wealth. Your gold card took care of your purchases."

Karen sat down hard in her chair. She didn't think anything could shock her any more after what she had already been through. Maybe not, but this came close. Could Henry manage what he had just said? He was quite capable of managing it, if he was programmed for it, but what made him do it on his own? He usually left things alone if they didn't concern him or her.

She had her answer. Henry was looking after her affairs. But for so many years without her suspecting? "How did you manage to hide what you were doing to my savings? I made withdrawals from time to time. My checks always cleared."

"I would convert a low interest loan into cash to cover your withdrawals. Actually, it was quite easy to do. It would put a burden on stocks to sell the few shares necessary to cover your small needs, and than purchase them again when the cash was replaced. Handling stocks is a long term commitment. Trust me, you made money by borrowing money rather than cashing any stocks."

She made her voice as deep and reprimanding as she could manage, but the astonishment in her eyes gave her true feelings away. "Henry, I don't own a gold card. I would know if I owned any credit cards, wouldn't I? I should also know if I owned stock somewhere, wouldn't I?"

"Maybe, you took out an application for a gold card and forgot. Maybe, you didn't take out an application for a card so there wouldn't be anything to forget. You know, Karen, the human mind doesn't hold onto information very well. People are always forgetting the things they did or didn't do. The mind is kind of like a computer with corroded circuits. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And we won't get into what I think of the data storage files in the human mind. Lost cause. I guess it can ...."

Karen cut him off. "Maybe I didn't forget because I didn't do these things. What else have you been up to I don't know about? No, scratch that, I don't think I want to know."

"Karen, don't worry about a thing. I have taken care of you and made certain you won't want for anything even if you quit working now. You better go catch David. It is four-fifteen, and he likes to leave at four-thirty when he can. He will be leaving anytime now. You don't want to miss your ride home." He was trying to get her out of the lab to prevent her from asking too many probing questions.

Karen opened the door and turned around. She knew what Henry was doing. She said it so softly, if Henry were human, he wouldn't have heard her. "Thanks Henry, you’re my best friend."

As the door clicked shut behind her, she took a furtive glance up and down the hall. The corridor was empty. Those who left early were gone already, and the others hadn't started yet. At least she didn't have to explain herself to anyone. Not yet, anyway.

The security cameras, which were always looking the other way when she walked down the hall, now followed her. If the guard who monitored the cameras was awake, he was probably trying to get his eyeballs back into their sockets. Henry took a look into the security office. Nope, he alone was watching Karen. He knew it was the last time it would happen this way. It saddened him. As much as he belonged to Karen, she also belonged to him. Now all that was about to change. He lost her last night in David's lab when he didn't stay with her.
The door to David's lab clicked open before Karen even touched it. David's eyes momentarily widened to two balls of white as he saw who was coming into the lab. She was the last thing in the world he expected to see coming through his door. Damn, she took one's breath away every time he looked at her. He wondered if it would always be like this?

"Henry open the door for you?"

Karen nodded her head yes.

At the back of the room, Al was pointing at Karen and trying to speak. He, along with a thousand other people, had seen the model in room two. The sight of her sent cold chills down to the very bottom of his soul. He certainly didn't expect her to walk into their lab. Even now, as his eyes were telling him she was standing across the room, his mind was telling him she wasn't real. As hard as he tried he couldn't get his voice box to work.

"Uh, uh, uh, uh!" It was the best he could do. His mind wasn't communicating with his larynx. His vocal cords were wanting to say something and his mind had gone into hiding.

Jr. had a little better luck. Almost. Turning around to see what Al was stammering about and pointing at, he fell back into the lab table and sent glassware falling everywhere. He took a quick sharp look at David and pointed toward Al as he stared at Karen. "What he was saying, that goes double ditto for me."

David knew that tore it. His help would be brain dead for a month if not more. After this any progress in his research would be a miracle. He looked at Karen and the lab coat she was wearing. It was the one he gave her to cover up that body she was sporting this morning. Not that it made much difference. Even a blind man could see there was a woman there, coat or no. There were too many abundant curves under that lab coat.

"My lab coat looks a whole lot sexier on you than it did on me." It was small talk, and he was only trying to do something besides stand there and look stupid like his help.

She smiled at him. "Maybe I put a lot more into it than you did."

David felt his face flush. It never happened to him around any woman. Certainly Karen never affected him this way before. Why now? He always enjoyed the time spent with her, but now he was feeling ill at ease because she was so close. It finally came to him, he enjoyed her before because she didn't attract attention to herself. He could be himself without worrying what anyone thought. She was comfortable to be around. Well, that certainly had changed.

He looked around to take his attention off of her. Jr's mess needed to be to be cleaned up before it ate up the floor. "Jr., make sure you and Al get this cleaned up before you go home tonight. The lab animals are all right until morning. Don't make a mess of their feeding charts, if you get here before I do tomorrow. Okay?"

Neither of them said anything, or acknowleged they had even heard what David was saying. They were still ogling Karen. David knew they would be the first ones into the building tomorrow, but it wouldn't be to feed the animals. They would be down at the cafeteria telling everyone in the whole damn building, how the model from conference room two, just happened to walk into David's lab, and how he just happened to know her. He could see his job, his research, his whole damn life going down the drain.

Remembering Henry, he looked up wide-eyed at the security camera. Could Karen's computer read minds? Right now, he would believe anything she or her computer told him. David turned around to Karen and put his arm around her waist urging her toward the door. As soon as he touched her, he yanked his hand back as if he had been burned. He didn't know if he should touch her or not. What would Henry think?

He pointed toward the door, making it a point to keep his hands off her. "Let's go, you killed my help. Come tomorrow, there isn't going to be one single person in this whole complex who doesn't know you came into my lab this evening."

David looked back at his assistants as he and Karen walked out the door. He bet a thousand dollars he could ask what instructions he had left with them and they couldn't repeat a single word. He was right in his first assessment. They would be brain dead for a month.

As they walked down the hall toward the exit, he decided to tell Karen what was on his mind. "Henry said he would take care of everything. I hope he was right. The wheels in this place will be swarming all over me and my lab in the morning. As soon as they realize it isn't company gossip, and you were really there, I can check down at the unemployment office for a new job."

Karen looked toward the end of the hall where the cameras were mounted. "David, look at the cameras." "It could be security, or it may be Henry who is watching. It could even be both of them looking at us. I promise you, if Henry didn't want them to look, they couldn't. It doesn't work the other way around. They can't keep Henry from watching."

She smiled and waved at the camera as they walked out the door. The security guard glanced up at the monitors, and fell backwards out of his chair.

"Holy mackerel! My gawd everybody, come look at this! It's room two walking out the door."

His partner was turned away from the monitors while checking a security pass, for someone wanting to visit her husband in engineering level three. "Arnold, I swear you been hitting the hooch early tonight. Couldn't you wait until we didn't have a witness before you began doing anything stupid?"

The lady he was waiting on waved toward the monitors. "Does that woman work here? She better not work anywhere close to my husband or he better find a new job. Is she married? It might be all right for him to work in the same building if she is married."

Jack finally turned around to see what Arnold and this woman were screeching about. The monitor they were pointing at showed nothing but an empty hallway. "What is the matter with you two? There is nothing there."

Arnold got up and was busy pushing the replay buttons as he hunted for his chair again. "Wait a minute. You can see our model from room two walk out the east tower door."

Almost instantly, Karen and David rolled back up on the screen. It wasn't David everyone was looking at.

Jack groaned. "You're right. It is room two."

He grabbed Arnold's chair, dumping him out on the floor when Karen smiled at the camera, and waved. Arnold was sitting on the floor still looking up at the monitors as if nothing happened. Where the camera was mounted close to the ceiling, it gave a better than excellent view of the cleavage of her breasts as she passed beneath it.

They forgot about the woman standing behind them. Jack was busy pushing buttons and flipping switches on the control panel. He brought up the outside camera on every screen they had in the office. Karen and David were already several yards away from the camera and walking toward the parking tower. Even though her back was to the camera, Jack and Arnold knew they were watching the model from room two. David was right, there wasn't any lab coat in the world able to hide that figure.

Jack finally coughed. "I thought room two was supposed to be a dummy. I heard some stories about her walking in from the parking tower but they said she never moved in room two. What is the matter with those stupid guards on the daytime shift? Can't they tell a real live person from the mannequins they make in this God forsaken place?"

Arnold was shaking his head from side to side. "Jack, I swear I saw her in room two this morning and I didn't ever see her move. Hell man, they packed her up in a shipping crate and sent her out in some customer's van. Eddie, from the day shift called me this morning to take a look at something I wouldn't believe. He promised me it would be worth my drive over here. He didn't lie. It was certainly worth the drive."

"Wait until I call him and let him know it will be worth his effort to drive back to work. I’ll show him something he won't believe. Even if she's gone, he can look at the tapes."

He had a scary thought and laid back on the floor to look up at Jack. "You do have the tapes running, don't you? No one is going to believe our report on this, unless, we have tape to back us up."

Arnold looked at Jack to see if he had heard him or understood the question. Nothing. Jack was busy watching the monitors. He looked at the control console. All the red lights on the recording equipment were on, indicating a permanent record was being kept.

He looked back to the monitors. "How about if we arrest her? We could get her for breech of security. No, I got it. Let's arrest her for a moving violation. It has to be unlawful for anyone to move the way she does."

Jack didn't see the humor in the situation. If they arrested her and she had a pass, they would probably be reprimanded. If they didn't arrest her and she was a security violation, they would be fired. He was fast deciding this was a no win situation, until he remembered the gate guard. They would have the guard stop her and check for identification. It could be a routine auto check and they would have their man, or in this case, woman.

With the toe of his boot, Jack prodded Arnold in the middle of the back to get his attention. "Get up here. Bring them up in the parking tower cams. I’m calling the gate and have them check her. If she is bogus, we will catch her and her partner before they get out the gate. Who can we send for backup?"

Arnold reclaimed his seat and was punching buttons to bring the parking tower cameras up on the monitor. "I got'em. They’re approaching a black car of some kind. You know, we really should replace those tower cams. I can't make out much more than the car. Anyway, I think it is a car. This is like looking through some one's muddy bath water. I think it’s a black car, but there’s no doubt it’s her."

He looked over his shoulder at Jack who was already on the red phone. "We don't have anyone to send down to gate two. In case you forgot, it is shift change. The day shift has left and you and I are the only two here, not counting the gate guards. That gate guard is on his own. We couldn't get out there in time to be any help if something goes sour."

Jack had the phone ringing in the guard house. Mac never received a call on his red phone. Today he had two. The one this morning and now this one. Things were finally getting interesting in his everyday dull job.

"This is gate two, Mac speaking."

Jack knew he would have to talk fast if they were going to stop room two before she escaped out the gate. "Mac, you have the model from room two coming your way. Stop her and her boy friend and check her ID. "If her identification clears, find out what department she works in."

Mac knew there was a practical joker on the other end of the line. Didn't those people in the security office have better things to do? Well, they weren't going to make a fool out of him. "Listen Jack. We get serious out here. Because I spend my time in the guard shack by myself, doesn't mean I'm stupid. Go find your entertainment somewhere else. I heard about room two and from what I heard, she doesn't drive any cars."

Jack growled into the phone. "You're right, my name is Jack and you better believe we’re serious too. We saw room two leave the building and go into the parking tower. I have her on video. If you blow this one and let her out the gate without checking her identification, I can promise you, come tomorrow, your ass will belong to the boss."

As Karen and David walked to his car, she attracted the attention of everyone on their level of the tower. There were gasps of disbelief, a few unsuccessful tries at a wolf whistle, but mostly people pointing and trying to get the attention of someone else. They wanted to be sure they weren't the only ones who witnessed this event. They wanted substantiated proof when they tried to explain seeing the model from room two walking to a car. After all, those who made that claim this morning weren't taken very seriously.

David unlocked the doors and Karen slid into the seat. As he opened his door and got in, she turned around in the seat, slid her left leg up under herself, and sat facing him.

She noticed a scowl on his face as he started the car. "Look on the bright side. At least they weren't throwing rotten vegetables at us."
David glanced over at her, as he pulled out of his space and turned out of the tower toward the gate. "Do you have to sit like that?"

"Your seat belts don't fit and sitting like this is comfortable."

"Seat belts are made to fit universally. What do you mean they don't fit?"

He turned his head and stared at her for a couple of seconds. "Sorry, stupid question."

The car phone rang and as her hand was already resting on it, Karen picked it up . Before she had a chance to speak, Henry came on the line. "Karen, you and David will be stopped by the gate guard. I can't get you around it this time and I wouldn't if I could. Security has you on tape. Everyone who saw you and David in the tower, will be talking about it tomorrow. Most won't even wait until tomorrow, to start calling someone to tell what they have seen. It has to begin sometime. The odds are better if it starts now. Don't panic, answer any questions the guard asks you. Act normal, as if you were still the same. You are still Karen Long according to your identification badge. Your background checks will verify your ID."

"I can see David's car coming up on the gate camera. We will talk later. I will explain everything to you. Stay calm. The guard's name is Mac. It may slow down his thinking if you address him personally."

Karen was still on the phone when Mac waved them to a stop. He didn't believe what he was seeing. He bent down to take a closer scrutiny of the passenger in the car.

"I'll be damned! It is room two!"

Karen didn't make the connection to what he was talking about. She missed all the gossip making the rounds in the plant about her model in room two. David, on the other hand, had been to conference room two. There was no doubt in his mind to whom the guard was referring.

Mac forced himself to stop gawking at Karen long enough to take a cursory glance at David's name tag. He would have to fill out a report as to why he stopped this car. "Doctor Beckworth, you have to be the luckiest son of a bitch in the whole world, getting to drive Miss Room Two home."

Mac's eyes changed to two startled white explanation points and he slapped his hand over his mouth as soon as he said it. "I’m sorry, Miss Two, I usually don't cuss like that in front of a lady. It won't happen again."

Karen laid the phone in her lap, leaving the connection open so Henry could listen in to the conversation. They might need his help.

"I accept your apology, Mac. I’m ordering pizza for supper. You want me to order you some?"

Big as they already were, Mac's eyes got even bigger. "Sure, uh, I mean no, I mean my wife wouldn't understand, I mean ..."

David stepped in and rescued him before he had a stroke. "She was only joking. We’re dining out tonight and she was making reservations at Karl's Gas Light."

Mac stood up, straightened his tie and fumbled at his clipboard. "Sure, I knew that. Let's get our paper work done. What is your name Miss Two? I mean lady."

"Karen Long, I work in human duplications systems lab five four." She snapped her ID off her lapel, and handed it to David, so he could pass it to Mac.

Mac backed into the guard house and ran Karen's ID through the computer. Henry knew it would check through the security computer, but he didn't want to take another chance, like he did when he left her alone in David's lab. That was supposed to have been a routine event, too. He routed the information scan his way. After he checked it, he gave the security computer the information. Making doubly sure, he checked what the security computer would show on the screen before it got to Arnold and Jack.

It only took a nanosecond, but Henry was leaving nothing to chance. If the security computer blipped, Jack and Arnold would never have known. Henry would have taken it offline and fed the information directly to their screen himself. It would have happened faster than the human eye could have followed. As it was, he shouldn't have bothered. Everything checked out perfectly.

After he had received a positive check through his computer, Mac held onto Karen's ID a lot longer than was necessary. David was about to ask for it, when Mac handed it to him.

"Nice picture, Miss Long. You know, people always complain their pictures don't look like them. Usually I agree, but your picture looks just like you, except you’re a lot prettier in the flesh."

Mac put his hand over his mouth again. "I’m sorry, Miss Long. I don't know what has come over me. I can't seem to get my foot out of my mouth. I swear, I usually don't talk to our employees like this. Only a couple of more questions and you can go."

"Let's see. A black Bemmer and what year is it, Mr....?"

David knew this would happen. He would always be the invisible man as long as he was with Karen. People would look at him and never see him nor remember him. He could take her in to rob a bank, and never wear a mask. No one would notice him, anyway. It was the price a man paid for getting close to a beautiful woman.

"It is Beckworth, Dr. David Beckworth." David wasn't jealous, only disgusted.

"I’m the driver of the BMW who drove off with room two. It's new this year."

He was sure he would regret his last remark about driving off with room two, after the big boys had a chance to go over this guards report. He also hated it when people referred to his BMW as a Bemmer, but he wasn't about to get in a heated discussion with Mac about the proper way to address a BMW. Maybe next time, when he didn't have Karen in the car with him, he would straighten Mac out as to what kind of car he drove.
What could he be thinking of? There wasn't going to be a next time. Karen and Henry had sunk his career. As soon as Mac filed his report, he would be history as far as this company was concerned. He couldn't believe all the things Karen and Henry had talked him into since this morning. David felt like a black cloud was parked over him.

Mac was repeating it for the second time, before David heard him. "I said you could go, Dr. Beckworth. I already have your license number."

David slipped the car in drive and pulled out into the traffic on Mileline Highway. Karen told Henry goodby and hung up the phone.

"What was that room two business all about?"

David remembered the conversation that had taken place in room two between Bob, Bill Chambers, and Betty. Even now, it left a bad taste in his mouth. Some things were better left unsaid. "I don't know. I was working in the lab all day and never had an opportunity to get out. You put my day into such chaos, I wasn't able to gain back the ground I lost. And this was before you made a shambles out of my lab. Remember what you did to my two assistants?"

Karen began laughing. The picture in her mind of Al and Jr. as she walked into David's lab, came back into focus. Al's stammering and Jr. backing into the lab table sending beakers everywhere, became funnier the more she thought about it.

"Well." She said indignantly between giggles. "It isn't my fault you didn't hire competent help. Nobody ever acted that way before when I entered the room."

The emotional flood gates opened, and all the tension from the trials of the day came rushing through. David found himself laughing along with Karen. They couldn't stop. About the time they had a check on their emotions, one would look at the other, and it would start over again.

David pulled up in front of Karen's house laughing hysterically. "Quit, quit, I can't take any more. I’m about to have a wreck."

Straightening up, he motioned toward the delivery van parked in the driveway. "You have company."

"Henry ordered me some clothes. Remember what we went through this morning? I didn't have anything in the house I could wear. She consciously touched her breast. David was looking at her and she dropped her hand.

"If I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never forget this morning." He added in his own mind he would never forget this whole day.

Karen opened the door and slipped out of her seat. "Thanks for being there, David. I wouldn't have made it without you."

He turned off the ignition. "I plan on spending the night with you. Henry said not to let you out of my sight."

She leaned down and looked through the open window. "I’m all right. I think we will both get a better nights sleep, the closer to normal surroundings we have. You better go on home."

"You don't understand, Karen. Henry ordered me to spend the night with you. I got to admit, just being close to you scares the hell out of me. I haven't quite got a handle on how I feel about you. Not yet anyway, and I probably never will. However Henry scares me a lot more. I don't know what he’s capable of. I don't aim to test him to find out. Look what he did today and these are only the things I know about. He has security jumping through the hoop for him. He gets you a new ID when it takes a month for everyone else to get clearance into Comm Tech. He’s calling up outside lines and ordering your personal attire as easy as the rest of us order pizza. He runs through my computer like a laxative."

"Someday, somewhere, someone, might try to test him. But it isn't going to be me. Lord knows, it sure ain't going to be me! I’m only a stupid research scientist with a degree in medicine. I don't think our best computer engineers could go up against Henry, and win. Present company excepted, of course."

She brushed the hair out of her face. "Silly boy, Henry is just a computer. He certainly isn't the beast you make him out to be. He is programmed with more logic than any other computer. His fuzzy logic enables him to analyze problems the same as you or I. He is really a pussy cat and wouldn't hurt a flea. I'll call him up and tell him to stop scaring you. You go on home and sleep in your own bed tonight."

Karen reached back inside the car through the open window. Although her head didn't have any problems, the rest of her didn't fit. The old Karen wouldn't have had this particular problem.

"Hand me the phone, please David."

David sputtered. "Don't do that any more."

Karen took the phone from his hand. "You’re always telling me not to do first one thing, then another. Isn't there anything I can do, you like?"

"Yes, remember you have all the equipment to drive men insane. Looking at you is like driving a Lamborgini down a residential street. It can be done, but very carefully. This isn't life as you remember it, Karen. Whatever either of us had planned yesterday is gone forever."

She lowered her head as her lips started quivering. David thought she was about to start crying again. He felt ashamed. Why was it he couldn't say anything right around her? His lab assistants weren't the only ones whose minds turned into mush when she came close. He and Max shared the same problem. Why did she effect everyone so?

After a few short sobs and dry tears Karen managed to get hold of her emotions and gave a deep sigh. David stung her with his remarks about their whole past being gone. She really didn't need that right now with everything else going wrong.

Before David could apologize, Karen was pushing the buttons on his phone again. Henry answered with the front receptionist voice. Karen knew he had made a mistake this time. Linda was on her way home.

"Henry, this is me. Knock it off. You have an internal clock malfunction? Check the time. Linda went home already."

"I’m sending David home. I don't need a baby sitter tonight. You have been talking to people for one day that I know of. You have been ordering them around like the quarterback at the super bowl trying for the winning touchdown. You keep up this nonsense, and I’m going to pull your electrical plug. I’ll take you back to Radio Shack, and they can sell you as a recycled computer. If you’re lucky they won't dismantle you for pieces. You may only end up washing dishes down at the greasy spoon cafe. If I were you, I think I would start looking through the classifieds and see if I couldn't find another job."

David knew there was no way, he would talk to Henry like she just did. He didn't think she should be doing it, either. It had to be like a monkey offering to whip the gorilla for misbehaving.

After listening for a minute, Karen said goodby. She handed the phone back to David. "You can go home, or wherever you were going tonight."

David had told her this morning, a friend helped him pick out the clothes she was wearing.

"Henry said he was sorry. He was only trying to make sure I was all right. He said, he would let you know where you were making a mistake in your DNA research. He caught your mistake when he was checking your files."

"As you could tell, if you were listening, Henry makes mistakes himself, but he doesn't do it twice. He won't ever answer the phone with Linda's voice again before he checks the time to see if she is at the front desk. You and I are capable of making the same error over and over again. Sometimes we don't see an error and sometimes we don't realize it is an error. The comparisons may be too vague or too far removed for us to remember. Henry doesn't forget. Anything!"

As David started the car he had the strangest desire to kiss her. Something he had been wanting to do ever since he found her this morning. It was like an itch crying to be scratched. He ignored his urge. "I’ll pick you up in the morning."

"There is no need. My car runs all right and I have an ID which matches me. Mac will probably remember me."

David almost laughed aloud. Mac would certainly remember her. "It isn't any trouble, really. Besides, you have made my life so miserable, I’m beginning to like pain. Anyway, there will probably be a reception committee waiting for both of us tomorrow. It's no big deal, but I thought you might want to be there when I get fired. After all, you started this."

Karen looked him straight in the eye for what felt like an eternity. He thought his heart was going to quit. It was pounding like a trip hammer deep inside his chest. Those eyes, well, at least they didn't suck him into a mindless void, the way they had this morning. It startled him to think about it again. He checked his mind to see if he still had control of it. It was a debatable question but, he thought it was still his.

"I appreciate what you did for me today, David. Henry said he would take care of you. Trust me, you aren't going to lose your job over someone like me. It would be sweet of you to stop by and pick me up in the morning, but give me time to get ready. I don't know how long this is going to take. I never had to do any more than slip on a blouse and pants. I have a sinking feeling this body isn't going to let me get away so easily. The Lamborghini you were talking about usually required a wash and wax job before one drove it in public."

She straightened up, brushed the hair from her face, and looked at her long fingernails. Something had to be done. She wasn't putting up with this everyday.

David left with mixed emotions. He didn't want to stay but was reluctant to go. The new Karen was really something but, she scared him when he was close to her. He wondered if this was what psychologists called a love-hate relationship?

The delivery driver had waited for Karen and David to quit talking. Then she picked up the phone and started talking to someone else, while she was still talking to the guy in the car. He figured she had to be the gabbiest woman on earth. She was on the far side of the car and he couldn't see her very well Even at that, he knew she was a looker. When David drove off and left her standing on the curb, the delivery driver surged forward for a closer look and, banged his head on the windshield.
"Ouch, damn that hurt."

Karen heard him clear across the street. Walking to the front of the van, she leaned around the side trying to see if the driver was all right.

Determined not let her out of his sight, he leaned around the door brace for a better look. He fell out of the truck onto the ground.

She took a step backwards not knowing what to think. "You all right?"

Never taking his eyes off her, he got up and made a pretense of dusting himself off. "Driver's seat is broken. It dumps me out the door if I don't watch it."

They stood looking at one another, until Karen decided he needed a push to get his mind moving again. "You have something for me, or you just sitting in my driveway filling out delivery tickets?"

"Yes, no, I mean yes. I have some packages for you and no I wasn't filling out delivery tickets. Not yet, anyway."

He handed her a clipboard. "Sign this and I will put the packages in your house."

She signed it and handed it back to him. "Hand me the box and I will carry it in myself."

In her whole life, no one had ever offered to carry anything for her. A lifetime of old habits don't die in one day.

"You don't understand, Miss Long. There isn't one box, there are several packages. In fact, a bunch of packages. Open your door, I'll put them in your house."

She opened the garage door with the control from her purse. "You got it. Dump them in the kitchen, or anywhere you like. I don't care where you put them."

He finally finished and was standing on the front walk while Karen was in the doorway. She got hot while moving packages and took off the lab coat David loaned her this morning. Holding out ten dollars for the driver as a tip, she couldn't decided if it was correct or not. She had no idea how much she should pay someone for this type of work. She never had to think about a tip before since no one offered to help her do anything.

The driver only glanced at the money she offered while he stood there looking at her. Karen was self-conscious about the way she looked. She knew the dress, David bought her this morning, only emphasized her figure. There were no delusions what the driver was gawking at. She wished she was still wearing the lab coat in spite of the heat.

Slipping ten dollars into the driver's hand, she closed the door in his face. She never had to close the door on someone to get rid of them before. Usually it was the other way around. Someone would close the door on her because they didn't want to be bothered by her. Henry and David were the only real friends she knew, and she felt David did it because he felt sorry for her.

The night turned out differently for everyone. Karen unpacked and admired Henry's taste in satin underwear, silky slips, and beautiful dresses. She was enjoying being a woman for the first time in her whole life.

David tossed and turned, and thought he would wear out the sheets before finally nodding off to sleep. Even then, sleep didn't bring any rest. It was in fits and starts of snatches of sleep, he wore out the night.

Henry was busy as usual. For the nine thousand, seven hundred and fifty-third time, he ran a program analysis of all the DNA research he could find. He still didn't like the results. The answer remained the same as it was the first time. Every time he accessed a computer somewhere with additional data, he added that information to what he already accumulated. Then he would compute the variables again. He would keep at it continuously, until Karen found out and told him to stop. If she ever found out. He placed some spare memory aside for Karen's business. She belonged to him.