"Doctor Pete is coming over, Dan. I don't know if he can help me -- I don't know if anyone can. I just wanted you to know." He surprised me, then, and made me remember why he was still my friend, even after everything. "Do you want me to come over?" "That would be very nice," I said, quietly. "I'm at the hotel." "Give me ten minutes," he said, and rang off. # He found me on my patio, looking out at the Castle and the peaks of Space Mountain. To my left spread the sparkling waters of the Seven Seas Lagoon, to my right, the Property stretched away for mile after manicured mile. The sun was warm on my skin, faint strains of happy laughter drifted with the wind, and the flowers were in bloom. In Toronto, it would be freezing rain, gray buildings, noisome rapid transit (a monorail hissed by), and hard-faced anonymity. I missed it. Dan pulled up a chair next to mine and sat without a word. We both stared out at the view for a long while. "It's something else, isn't it?" I said, finally. "I suppose so," he said. "I want to say something before the doc comes by, Julius." "Go ahead." "Lil and I are through. It should never have happened in the first place, and I'm not proud of myself. If you two were breaking up, that's none of my business, but I had no right to hurry it along." "All right," I said. I was too drained for emotion. "I've taken a room here, moved my things." "How's Lil taking it?" "Oh, she thinks I'm a total bastard. I suppose she's right." "I suppose she's partly right," I corrected him. He gave me a gentle slug in the shoulder. "Thanks." We waited in companionable silence until the doc arrived. He bustled in, his smile lines drawn up into a sour purse and waited expectantly. I left Dan on the patio while I took a seat on the bed. "I'm cracking up or something," I said. "I've been acting erratically, sometimes violently. I don't know what's wrong with me." I'd rehearsed the speech, but it still wasn't easy to choke out. "We both know what's wrong, Julius," the doc said, impatiently. "You need to be refreshed from your backup, get set up with a fresh clone and retire this one. We've had this talk." "I can't do it," I said, not meeting his eye. "I just can't -- isn't there another way?" The doc shook his head. "Julius, I've got limited resources to allocate. There's a perfectly good cure for what's ailing you, and if you won't take it, there's not much I can do for you." "But what about meds?" "Your problem isn't a chemical imbalance, it's a mental defect. Your _brain_ is _broken_, son. All that meds will do is mask the symptoms, while you get worse. I can't tell you what you want to hear, unfortunately. Now, If you're ready to take the cure, I can retire this clone immediately and get you restored into a new one in 48 hours."