Drew watched the plane circle the mansion a few more times, then pried himself away from the window. "You'd think the thing would have to refuel itself some time," he grumbled. 

"It's being refueled in midair," Toby explained from the seat of the convertible roadster parked in the second story bedroom. Dragging it up the stairs was more manageable than one of the 1930s limousines. Whoever came up with the "live and let live" concept was from a family of addicts, Drew thought, regarding him. For anyone else it was just too exhausting.  

Robin, in the thick of the latest meltdown, droned on, her tone betraying how morbidly depressed she was. "They're mining space to give them a leg up on the rest of the Milky Way. Already they have outposts on every planet in the solar system. They're using self-assembling robots for everything, from harvesting asteroids and comets to habitat construction and expansion of the colonies." 

"Is she being psychic, paranoid and delusional, or just suicidally depressed with schizoid features?" Toby asked. 

"Rest assured, it's all of the above," Drew said. "She's probably having to economize on time by multitasking the wackos clamoring for space inside her head. Best way to keep up with the pressure of psychoanalyzing Mother."  

Toby clutched the steering wheel as a security blanket. "I never had room in my head for more than two neuroses at a time." 

"What she's describing, it's a good twenty, thirty years into the future. It has to be." Drew paced, unraveled his cigarettes, and just chewed on the tobacco inside. "She's got to be gazing into the future." 

"It does sound precocious by European Union standards. But I'll look into it." Toby grabbed his iPhone, keyed away. "You never know. It's possible-" 

Robin filled in the rest for him, speaking in a morbid monotone, as she picked away at the wallpaper. "They're keeping the entire operation out of the media for fear of igniting still more civil unrest. The People's Movement protests have spread to every city in the world; they're not looking to swell the crowds further." She continued to pick absently at the flaking floral design. "Too many are upset the funds aren't being spent on the half of the world that is starving, and they're just not high functioning enough to grasp the technologies needed to save them will come from the space program." The rift in the wall she'd opened up was starting to look eerily symbolic of the tear in reality she was creating in Drew's mind. "They also don't want widespread panic. Their reason for jumping the gun with the space program, after all, is the number crunchers have already determined the likelihood of Earth surviving any number of calamities earmarked to befall it even a few years out is vanishingly small."  

As Drew diverted Robin away from the wall, she continued to talk as if from a trance, not blinking, her eyes focused on some invisible horizon. Like any good séance mediator between this world and the netherworlds, she remained entirely responsive to the questions placed before her by the "seekers" themselves. "Last but not least is the fact that there's only time to construct lifeboats for the rich and famous that-once launched-will be supplied by the outposts scattered throughout the solar system." She stroked the bedpost as if only by exciting Satan's phallus could she expect the flow of information to continue to be this good. "There won't be enough time to save the multitudes before the next calamity strikes. Elitist agendas are the last thing the top one percent needs to advertise now that the ninety-nine percent is reaching for their throats." 

"You're right about one thing," Toby said, "the crazier she sounds, the saner she sounds, like she's the only one who really gets it." 

"It's a gift handed down only to tenth generation addicts, who've amassed sufficient inertia to keep justifying their insanity through End Times." 

Robin rose from the edge of the bed and walked over to the vanity. She started to change herself over before the mirror: her hairstyle and makeup; her wardrobe; everything. 

"Look out," Toby said. "I think she's getting ready to change constellations in the zodiac wheel of star-aligned personalities." 

"What are you fingering so zealously on your iPhone?" Drew asked. 

"I patched in the Three Stooges a few hours back. We're good, but not good enough to check her predictions in real time. These guys are phenomenal. Crychek has already written the self-evolving algorithms to ferret out the information from the net that pertains to Robin's conquest-of-space paradigm. So far, she's right on the money all the way down the line. I'm propagating the intel out to the underground network here in Europe so they can take further actions." 

"What kind of further actions?" Drew pulled at his collar. "Are we supporting this space program or sabotaging it?" 

"I guess for now we're just monitoring their efforts and awaiting further instructions from Nostradamus reborn over there," Toby said, alluding to Robin.  

"How is this any more than wishful thinking? I just don't get it." Drew toyed with his cufflinks, which he just couldn't get to sit right. 

Toby brought Drew up to speed without his fingers slowing over his virtual keypad. "The self-evolving software and hardware, which came out over ten years ago, only held under wraps, was the real breakthrough for the entirely robotic, self-sustaining work crews needed to open up space. No one at the time thought to put it to the applications we're putting it to today. But even back then, they were looking for a way out of a double bind. On the one hand, we were passing the tipping point with regards to civilization's sustainability, considering our talent for genocide. On the other hand, natural disasters alone were threatening to take us out."  

Toby briefly lifted his eyes from the 4" x 5" screen. "Corporations cooperate a lot better than national governments, moreover, and have the excess wealth to tackle the tasks. They're able to ride the Singularity wave of profits well ahead of the Singularity reaction spreading to the masses proper to feed the starving monster hungry for new technologies to continue the rate of progress." 

"Where are you getting all this from?" Drew brushed his hair, attended his self-image with ever more care as his image of the world about him continued to fall apart. 

"I'm reading from Science As Culture, the online version, being updated by our people now off the intel mined by the Three Stooges." 

Tired of ogling Toby in the roadster, which looked strangely at home in the bedroom suite, like one of those displaced Victorian bath tubs, Drew poured brandy from the crystal decanter. "Christ, if it gets any more surreal around here," Drew protested, "I'm going to have to revisit those Luis Bunuel films from my college years to help me cope."  

Robin seemed to recognize her cue and burst on the scene with her latest alter from her conglomeration of surrogate personas. Drew shook his head, then guzzled brandy which was meant to be sipped.  

Toby, who'd migrated to the iPad, after pulling it out of the glove box, when the Science As Culture magazine on line got unduly intriguing, gazed up and beheld the made-over Robin. Her hair was braided in pigtails and she had freckles dotting her face worse than a savage breakout of small pox. "What's with Little Orphan Annie?" he said.  

"Going from the eyes," Drew said, "I'm thinking this poor demon-possessed creature was the best Robin could come up with to channel the venom that's coming our way. Kids do have greater resilience, as a rule."  

Robin contorted her face, opened her mouth wide, and angled her head in ways that would make a Cirque de Soleil acrobat wince. Drew said, "You have a rocket launcher that can take out that plane flying overhead just in case, right?" 

"In the trunk," Toby said.  

"I suppose it pays to have lived with madness all your life." Drew took another drink.  

Robin's voice, when she spoke, was characteristic of demonic possession. It wasn't her voice, for one thing, and the tone conveyed the condensation of toxic emotions stowed for centuries, and only now bubbling up from the pits of hell courtesy of the opportune volcanic vent of Robin's throat. "We're going to shatter your precious blue gem of a world into tiny little shards." 

"How so?" Drew asked, partly playing along, partly genuinely concerned, considering how the last prophecies had gone. 

"A Tesla oscillating wave generator sends vibrations through the core of the planet that will build, multiplying harmonic frequencies, until it calves the planet in two." The demonic voice that conveyed the message reeked of ominous satisfaction. 

"Tesla actually designed and built such a device," Toby explained, after surrendering his relaxed posture in favor of one more constipated. "I read about it." 

"Where?" Drew said, directing his question at Robin.  

"That's for me to know and you to find out," she hissed, then laughed.  

Toby discretely fingered his memo to the underground railroad on his iPad.  

Robin's body contorted further. The ripple effect extended now from the head and neck through her spine, and ultimately out through her limbs, as if she were practicing some bizarre, incredibly advanced form of hatha yoga. Drew and Toby both indelicately scrunched up their faces, feeling the pain she could no longer feel for herself. 

"Doesn't sound all that inspired for a hell beast," Drew goaded. 

Robin's laughter sent cracks through the floor and walls. 

"She doesn't do anything half-assed, does she?" Toby surveyed the ground the car was perched on. "Tell her easy on the cracks, huh? Those white walls get scratched, there's no repairing them." 

"Careful what falls on your head," Robin said, then lost herself in echoing laughter; the echoes reverberated in a room that should never have allowed for them.  

Drew gazed up at the roof before he realized she might be talking about something else. He turned to Toby. "Is it possible to redirect the asteroids on near-pass orbits with the Earth to impact us?" 

Toby took a deep breath. Finished keying in the latest intel, he said, "Before today, I'd say no. Wishful thinking. But if there are self-assembling robotic factories strategically located on them, capable of generating all the thrust they need, and self-evolving software and hardware on site to handle contingencies the designers themselves couldn't foresee-" 

Toby glanced at his iPad. "Crychek and the boys are on it. They'll work on giving the self-evolving algorithms on the asteroids an attitude check. But they're getting overloaded." 

"I guess it's all hands on deck," Drew said. "We're not going to be able to avoid getting our hands dirty."  

He picked the contorted Robin off the floor, hardened like the twisted roots of a tree, and stuck her as best he could into the back of the roadster. He slipped himself into the front seat beside Toby, as Toby fired up the engine. "You have a quick way out of here?" Drew said. 

Toby hit him with the "I'm so hurt" face.  

Then he gunned the car out the window. 

It landed from free fall-after generating what felt to Drew's stomach like a brief zero gravity effect-on a trampoline placed strategically below.  

The resilient canvas sheet bounced them up to a ramp which they drove down, headed straight for the main road.  

"Sanity really doesn't prepare you for the real world like it used to," Drew said, holding on to Robin to keep her from being hurtled from the car.  

He steadied himself as the vehicle bounced down the road. "I hope you have a good field general to deploy the troops. It is going to require sensitive timing to put out all the fires in time." 

"She doesn't exactly have the charm and personality of this one," Toby said, "but she'll do."