The old nun strapped Karl into the hypodyne. She touched his hand, then began the command sequence to scan him into the Collective Unconscious.
"Shouldn't we wait for Willard?" His skin began to glow as if he were a swamp animal, moonlit and steaming. "If I'm going to turn into stars and breezes for the Resistance, I want someone who knows this gizmo to run me."
"Can't wait," the old nun said, closing the switch that would make him stars and breezes. "They're coming. Wenty's Gang!"
Under the hypodyne Karl's body fizzed like a head of lager. His lederhosen ballooned. He became translucent, then transparent, as flesh sizzled into data, manipulable data.
He was gone. The old nun prayed: "Sleep, Wenty! Please don't see him. Sleep!"
She massaged her temples, then raked her fingers through hair dry as windburn. It was down to her shoulders now still a strange feeling. Eight years a shave pate at Butsu Shin Ji, she'd made herself a promise when Wenty burned all the monasteries to the ground: I'll let it grow till the world has its conscience back. Outside her door, the ancient wooden stairs creaked. The old nun stiffened. Her blood bumped-bumped, core to skin. She gripped the keyboard now it meant weight, not wiring; she could smash a nose with it and run. The door opened.
As she but not her glands had known, it was her tech man. He skulked in, munching an apple.
"Close the door," she said. "You're sure you weren't followed?"
"What do you take me for?"
She stood. "You punch Karl in, Willard. I just hypodyned him."
"No, you do it. I want to finish the apple, okay?"
The old nun scowled. She sat again. She punched the keys that threw Karl into the Collective Unconscious. She divided him in two, as they had planned; Karl was Karl and Dagmar now. Then the old nun set to work on the old fairy tale.
)
