Chapter 11

Rebecca opened her eyes. She was lying flat on her back, and as her gaze traveled upward to the warm sunlight mixing with the trees, she saw that the canopies above her were filled with life, and ripe with the promise of the coming fall season. "Oh, my home is so beautiful," Rebecca thought. "Thank You God for my beautiful Earth, thank You for my life, thank You for my husband. Thank You God, for all good gifts around me."

Rebecca sat up, saw Robert and smiled. Robert was also sitting, with Millie lying on her back stretched out against his leg. All four of Millie's legs were up in the air, and Robert was petting her chest, caressing the point where Millie had been mortally stabbed by the scorpio. Millie tail was wagging slowly, and the smiling expression on her face made Rebecca think that Millie was in dog heaven.

"How much time passed Rob?"

"Here? Less than 10 seconds I think."

"I have all my memories. I have everything. I have many of your memories too."

"And I have many of yours. It'll take me some time to appreciate the richness, of having the female perspective inside of me."

"And I have the rich memories of your male perspective... You! You are so visually oriented! You spend so much time thinking how beautiful and sexy I am. The first night we met at the mixer, you spent so much time staring down, trying to catch a glimpse of my bare legs in the slit of my skirt. And when we go jogging, you spend so much time watching how my tits jiggle! Scandalous!"

Robert only smiled. "You were so gentle with me Rebecca. All my embarrassing moments, you ignored them."

"I was just returning the favor. You were so kind to not pry into any of my shame, in fairness I had to give you the privacy you deserved... It wasn't easy. The desire to fully mesh the memories was strong. Both of us were assuming we'd be telepathic with each other. Neither of us anticipated how deep the integration would be, that we would create a compound mind."

"We were fortunate that we did. Only the Robecca entity could handle the mathematical challenges. The challenges were designed to be impossible. The labyrinth never anticipated it would have a problem killing us. Our IQ levels multiplied each other, something neither we nor the labyrinth suspected was possible. The labyrinth was certain that our two egos were going to tear each other apart, otherwise it never would have allowed us to try the hoop together. The risk was far greater than I realized. The labyrinth was expecting there would be nothing left to return to Earth, that our bodies would have been left mindless... It doesn't understand human love and trust at all..."

A voice called out from the hiking path, "Hello! I see you have my bitch! Thank you for sitting with her!"

Robert and Rebecca stood up. Millie turned over and then sat by Robert's leg, pressing the side of her muzzle into his leg, whimpering plaintively.

The hiker came up to their location, a leash in her hands. "Hi! My name's Gloria. I had Millie off her leash. Usually she's very obedient. But suddenly she just took off. It was as if she heard a dog whistle or something."

"It wasn't her fault," said Robert. "Hi! I'm Robert, this is Rebecca. We both felt a high- frequency vibration here just a short time ago. Very strange. It must have been what attracted the dog. I must say, I love your dog! She is the sweetest and most affectionate dog I've ever seen! I wish I had a dog like her."

"Oh really? I'm a dog breeder by trade, mostly Labradors. Millie is 8 months old. I'm hanging onto her because no one bought her. She was the runt of the litter. She has a great pedigree but she won't make the breed standard. Labrador bitches should be 55 lb to 70 lb. Millie might make 50 lb, but that's it. She is affectionate, but I must say I've never seen her take to a stranger as she's taking to you. It looks like she begging for you to take you. The way she's acting is quite remarkable."

"I really like her too. I think she's wonderful... My apartment does allow dogs. You wouldn't consider selling her, would you?"

"Ha! Selling dogs is my business. And I'd be happy to have her go to someone she so clearly likes. Tell you what, she is an older puppy, and you won't be able to show her in any serious competition. I'll give you a real good price. How does $300 sound?"

"Sounds great!"

"I'll give you my address. It's just south of here. You can stop by anytime to pick her up and get her papers."

"Wonderful! Actually... Becky, how much money do you have on you?"

"Me? $45."

"I have $225. Gloria, how about this. Can we give you $270 cash and take the dog now? I have some rope I can use as a leash. I'll mail you a check for $30, and you can send me the papers."

"Sure! I love completing sales. I don't mind trusting you for the $30."

A short time later they parted company with Gloria and resumed their return hike. Robert unleashed Millie soon after her former owner was out of sight, and Millie was prancing by Robert's side, her heart bursting with joy. Rebecca couldn't help but share in Millie's happiness for a while. But during the quiet hike back to the car, her thoughts returned to all the unanswered questions of their ordeal.

"Robert, is all this going to seem like a distant dream by tomorrow?"

"No, I don't think so. All three of us have been changed, and in major ways. The Robecca entity decided to retain all the memories. The concepts are hard to grasp for me too. It'll take time for all this to sink in. Robecca was kind of like the both of us, and also kind of like a parent that birthed both of us. But I firmly think of you as my wife, not my sister!"

"Oh yes! I wasn't saying that YOU would be a distant memory by tomorrow. You are my beloved husband, and I won't forget! It's amusing to remember just this morning driving to the park with you. I was fantasizing about getting my second goodbye kiss from you tonight! How things have changed... But the memories of the labyrinth, they're so confusing to me, will they be distant memories tomorrow?"

"Oh no. We can link-think together, though it might take some practice. Our memories won't fade. Becky, I think more of the understanding got left in the male core when Robecca chose to dissolve and give us back our individual lives. It's not that my mind is better than yours. The labyrinth had a lock on my quantum mental signature for years. I was by far the most common signature associated with interacting with its probing of the Internet. I was like a fly slowly being targeted by its spider's web. The interface had more experience linking to my mind. But we can link-think. I can teach you everything. We will be full equals."

"So you have a better understanding of what was going on?"

"I still have questions, but yes, I think so."

"Great! Explain it to me. I vaguely remember Robecca thought of the labyrinth as an abandoned amusement park. Abandoned for millions of years. Am I right?"

"It was abandoned. For well over a 100,000,000 years. I'm a little unsure about calling it an amusement park. We're dealing with alien perspectives. The concept of play might not map directly. There could be concepts of religion or puberty rites mixed in with this. Robecca thought that the labyrinth considered itself as serving a very serious purpose. But after all the years of abandonment, the control logic became a bit insane. Something the size of the Internet on Earth it could quantum detect. It was searching for a purpose for its existence. It found me, and put me through its program. You and Millie just happened to be caught in the entanglement transfer field. Lucky for me!"

"Religious rite? What religion could be that brutal?"

"Oh, there's a lot of puberty and religious rites on Earth that are nasty and painful, and they scar your real body. The labyrinth actually had a low opinion of us. It was disgusted by our carnival concept of a dunk tank, where one person would dunk another by hitting a switch with a thrown ball. The labyrinth thought that a person should only do that to himself or herself. But the labyrinth was a bit insane. It thought it had my permission to enter me into its big dunk tank, in order to test my survival skills. Having my backpack on was a signal to it that I was ready for testing. I gather its earlier contestants got to carry along a bag of tools. Contestants had their bodies marked to remind them that it wasn't real. Remember the backs of our necks? Our problem was the labyrinth was insane, it didn't realize that we didn't understand what the marks meant..."