The Hidden Man Read Free

get bored. They will forgive anything else.
    The strong spotlight swung toward him while he stepped into view. Its beam was generated by the theatre’s brand-new, all-electric direct current illumination system, and after the light was concentrated through the powerful Fresnel lens, it hit him so hard that it sent a rush of golden sparkles swirling through him.
    A sudden wave of ecstasy pounded into him. It was all he could do to remain on his feet. No matter that he was already in full view; nothing could stop such powerful waves from washing through him. He planted his feet and doubled over, writhing with the irresistible sensations.
    Everything good so far,
J.D. reassured himself. He knew that during the first moments of any show, the audience was so ready for entertainment that they would play along with practically anything. He called that time period the Golden Moment, and the secret of its forgiving magic lay in understanding that the Golden Moment was always short. You could get away with all kinds of slips and false starts, but whatever it was that you asked the audience to play along with during the Golden Moment, you had damned well better be able to tie it all up before the end of the show.
    If you do, they will love you.
    If you don’t, they will mock you out of town.
J.D.’s time-leash tended to be a bit longer than those of other performers, because his audiences were always primed for weird experiences in the mysteries of hypnotic trances. He had to hope that during tonight’s Golden Moment, the audience would interpret any odd behavior on his part as being some kind of exotic preparation ritual.
    It worked, to an extent. Everyone fell silent in fascination while he gyrated and jerked in response to the overwhelming physical sensations storming through him.
    A little luck arrived; the social scale of that particular audience was such that no rude noises came from the house, in spite of his unique behavior. No unkind observations were spoken in that special sotto voce style of the theatre world, that false display of discretion intended to be overheard. Throughout the packed house, dignity trumped common impulse. Except for some confused muttering, the respectful silence held—for the moment.
    By the time J.D. regained enough control to proceed to the podium, he knew that he was still inside the Golden Moment, but just barely. He gazed out over the audience with an equal mix of elation and terror.
    Still there was no other course but to press straight ahead. He knew his routine well enough to hope that if he let himself run on sheer experience—and did not put too much thought into anything—he might somehow fake his way through the evening without stumbling so badly that no recovery was possible.
    That small hope consoled him well enough that once he began calling out his customary opening lines to the rapt audience, his fear at finding himself in this situation was not as bad as the realization that he still had no memory of taking the elixir. Certainly not mixing it into his tea. Or of forgetting, unforgivably, to put the bag away.
    No. He realized in that instant that he had been wrong to doubt himself. If the elixir had been in his tea, somebody else had to have put it there. Someone else did it, despite the fact that he had never met anyone on the American continent who was even aware of its existence.
    J.D. knew the elixir’s effects well enough, but the knowledge did little to protect him from it. After being exposed to such an amount, he felt his trademark sharp mental skills turning to dust.
    One last, semicoherent thought ran through his head before he surrendered to the situation and attempted to run through his show under a combination of ingrained memory and force of habit. The thought was that as soon as the performance was over, he should be sure not to forget about something. Backstage, seeing a door closing from the corner of his eye.
    But by this point, his vision was filled with tiny