Prism had proved a lot less pretentious that his name might imply and his assistant Roberta, stood by to hand him the pieces of equipment he needed to show off his sleight of hand and a few smaller effects.

Prism dressed as many magicians that play the role of 'mad scientist' did; a white lab coat over dark trousers and causal shoes. His hair was a bit disorderly, but his coat was, in defiance of the stereotype, a pristine white that almost glowed; lacking the splatters and stains that so often are seen.

Roberta was cast in the role of hapless, but sexy lab assistant. She wore a not quite skin-tight jumpsuit also in white, but not quite as bright as Prism's. The main feature was that where her limbs connected to her torso was a prominent line of black piping and two others, round her waist and at the base of her collar.

About half way through the first act, Prism put Roberta into a clear box and manipulated some levers and buttons on a control panel. The cabinet filled with smoke, but Roberta's hands remained visible, because they were pressed against the front door of the cabinet as if she was trying to get out, but the cabinet was latched from the outside.

Prism went over to the cabinet and unlatched the door. Roberta stepped out stiffly. "What are you still doing he? The plan was that you would be teleported over there." He pointed at a similar cabinet towards the rear of the stage.

Roberta turned her head to follow the pointing, with a stiffness that seemed totally wrong. She turned back and in a new female voice, which lacked any intonation, said, "That does not compute."

Prism went back to the cabinet whipped off a cloth that had been draped carelessly across the top. The label thus revealed said, "Robotizer".

The magician appeared to dismiss the mistake. He went on to demonstrated a mind-reading device with a member of the audience and another sleight of hand effect, where flasks of assorted shapes and sizes seemed to fill and empty with fluids of various colours with no regard to Prism's stated intention or normal physical logic. During this Roberta helped out as before, but never failing to maintain her new robotic persona.

The next thing that Prism brought forward was a vertical cabinet with a table attached to the side on which there was a piece of equipment that most of the audience knew was a laser gun without having to be told. The magician instructed his robotic assistant to enter the cabinet, which was evidently intended to divided the assistant at the waist and allow the upper part to be transferred to the table at the side.

Robot Roberta resisted the instruction twice; the second time she raised her arm as robotically waggled her finger at him.

"Explain!" the frustrated scientist ordered.

Roberta turn towards the audience and indicating her torso and legs said, "This body is not compatible with that equipment."

Prism looked puzzled then went round the back of the equipment in question, returning with an oversized book titled in large letters 'Instruction Manual'. He took a few moments to flip through the pages before pronouncing that he did not see the problem. Roberta moved behind him, reached under his arm, flipped a couple of pages and pointed.

"Not compatible with inorganic devices," Prism read.

Roberta emerged into full view and tapped a place on the abdomen, causing a door or service hatch to open showing a circuit-board alight with twinkling LEDs. She re-closed the hatch as the applause faded.

"But how am I meant to perform the experiment without a suitable test subject?" The mad scientist asked the world in general.

Roberta had an answer. She made a pointing gesture that encompassed the entire audience.

"But none of them will know what to do," he objected.

Roberta's answer was to move the cabinet aside and bring forward a platform on which two chairs were mounted seperated by a control panel that bore the label, "Mind Transferrer".

Prism dispatched his robotic assistant to collect a couple to help with the experiment and confided in the audience that sometimes she made a better assistant as a robot than she had before.

Roberta soon returned with a couple in their mid-thirties, who she introduced as 'Subject Gwen' and Subject Peter'.

Prism put on a pair of latex gloves and then shook hands with the volunteers. First he turned to Gwen. "You're here to be my test subject. Don't worry it won't hurt in the slightest." He turned to his male volunteer and undercut his assurance to Gwen by saying, "And you're here to see that this is done properly and to take away and look after any bits of Subject Gwen that are left over."

"Ok, Gwen you can sit here and I'll set up the equipment. You, Peter, can help Roberta install herself in that chair over there."

Gwen gave every appearance of being shocked and a little scared as Prism strapped her into the chair that would not have looked out of place on a filmset of mad scientist's laboratory. The magician also brought over an egg-shaped helmet that connected by cables to the main console and strapped it around Gwen's head. The audience wondered what would be happening next, but were enjoying seeing the discomfiture on Gwen's face, as she seemed as clueless about her intended fate as they were.

At the other side of the platform Roberta sat in the matching chair and when Prism passed the matching helmet to Peter she refused to let him fit it, again on compatibility grounds. Prism was better prepared to deal with this situation, this time. He took back the helmet and handed Peter a thick cable with a connector on the end. "Just remove the hair piece and plug it in!"

Roberta turned her head sideways to the audience, then removed what seemed to be a wig. This is not what astounded Peter and the rest of the audience. Under the wig Roberta's scalp was made of glass inside which could be seen an arrangement of circuit boards covered in twinkling LEDs. Peter stood back astounded while Roberta gently took the cable from his hand and fitted it into a socket on the back of her see-through cranium.

With Roberta connected, Peter was asked to stand back, while Prism threw switches, pulled levers and adjusted dials on the control panel, resulting in a spectacular light-show that seemed to have no effect on the chairs' occupants. Roberta remained expressionless, while Gwen's face showed relief that nothing more than the light-show and sprays of sparks appeared to be happening.

Prism looked at Gwen and saw that her face was still expressive. "It looks like that didn't work. I'll have to tinker with it some more later. In the meantime I guess I'll to implement Plan B."

As if to emphasise that this was unlikely to go well for Gwen, her face dropped from 'Well, at least that's over' to 'Oh no! What is Plan B?'

In answer to the unasked question, Prism muttered, very audibly, "I thought that my days of doing surgery were done with, but needs must."

Gwen asked in a panicked tone, "Oh my god, what are you going to do to me?"

Detecting his partners fear Peter made a move forward to intervene in the 'surgery' presumably with the intent of preventing it.

Prism drew a device from the pocket of his immaculate lab coat and pointed it at Peter. Peter stopped mid-stride, with his forward foot an inch above the stage.

"What have you done to Peter?" Gwen yelled, as she struggled to free herself from the chair.

"He's in a localised time-stop field; sadly that won't last long so I had better get on with it."

Gwen, reminded of her own danger, again asked, "What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to move your head aside so that I can put Roberta's in its place. That way I have an organic assistant again, even if she has a robotic head."

"You can't do that," protested Gwen.

"Oh yes, I can. I've done it several times before." Prism pulled a square blade from the console and stepped towards Gwen, who ineffectively tried to lean away from him.

"I meant, you can't; I don't want you to."

This clarification was lost on Prism. "You volunteered to have Roberta's mind transferred into your head, what's the difference. In fact, this way is better for you, because you will still have your mind in your head and be able to watch the rest of the show."

While Gwen attempted to make sense of that and her situation Prism step up to her and slotted the blade into the gap between the fitting that held Gwen's neck and the helmet over her head.

Gwen make a brief strangling noise, then said, "That didn't feel too bad, but something feels wrong. What have you done to me?"

"That's quite simple to answer," said Prism. He went behind the chair and flipped a shelf-like fitting beside the neck shackle. "I simply cut your head off." To demonstrate the truth of this statement, he told hold of the egg-shaped helmet and slid it sideways onto the small shelf he had erected.

For a moment Gwen's eyes looked about wildly. They soon took in the presence of her body still locked into the chair and about a foot to the side. An expression of wonder, gradually took control of her features.

While Gwen was becoming used to being a head detached from her body, Prism went over to Roberta, unplugged the cable from the rear of her glass cranium and then with a quick twist lifted her head from her shoulders.

The headless body of Roberta stood up and followed Prism back to Gwen. The body moved to the other side of the chair, while the magician positioned the glass-domed head over where Gwen's head had been. He lowered the head towards the neck shackle and the headless Roberta pulled the blade free to allow contact to be made.

Roberta's body began working on the restraints that held Gwen's body in place; once she had released the first wrist the body assisted in freeing itself.

Prism had other problems, because there was popping noise and a fizzle, which announced that Peter was completing the step he had started a couple of minutes before.

"What happened?" Peter asked, registering that things had moved on while he was mid-step.

"Nothing much," said Prism. "I just removed the bit of Gwen we did not need. And as promised you will get to look after it." The magician picked up the ovoid helmet with Gwen's shocked face still visible within and handed it to Peter, once he had covered the three metres to reach him.

Peter froze for a few moments, working out how to react to being handed Gwen's head. Gwen did not seem to know how a disembodied head was supposed to react to being handed to someone.

With a gentle hand, Prism guided Peter and his prize to the steps that would return them to the audience, telling them to enjoy the rest of the show and come backstage afterwards where they would see about fitting Gwen's head back on her body.

The next illusion was the one that had been stalled by Roberta having an incompatible body. She piloted Gwen's body through the illusion, with a helping hand or two from her own robotic body.

While Gwen's upper half, topped by Roberta's head was still on table by the side of the half height cabinet containing Gwen's legs and hips, Roberta's body started to make random jerking movements. The concerned Prism asked Roberta what was wrong. Despite her frown of concentration, Roberta responded that she did have the computing power to operate both bodies simultaneously.

Prism's response was to dismantle Roberta's body and put it on a rack that was labelled 'charging frame'.

The remaining assistant, composed of Gwen's body topped with Roberta's robotic head, continued to play her part. Soon the interval arrived.

During the interval Peter and Gwen were the subject of much attention from other audience members, but were unable to enlighten them about how what they had seen and were seeing had been achieved.

The second act continued with Prism, the mad scientist, and Roberta, his robotic assistant with an organic Gwen body. During the interval a short lab-coat had been put over Gwen's clothes.

Towards the end of the show, Roberta lay on a steel table and allowed Prism to place a metal enclosure over her organic body. Then he pressed a button on the covering, labelled 'Thermal Resistance Test; Robots only'. A warning hooter sounded, causing Prism to jump back as flames began to jet out from the ventilation grills of the enclosure.

The flames soon subsided and Prism waved away a plume of white smoke. He took up some thick gauntlets, having initially approached the metal box and been driven back by the heat. With his hands protected Prism lifted the metal cover to show that Gwen's body was no longer under there, but a blackened skeleton.

The magician soon rebuilt Roberta's body from the parts on the 'Charging Frame' and transferred the robotic head from the steel table to it.

Prism and Roberta bowed and thanked the audience for attending their show, then the curtain closed.

----------

Peter, carrying Gwen's head, was escorted backstage by a theatre employee to Prism's dressing room.

Before Peter or Gwen could express their concerns about what had occurred on the stage, Prism took the initiative. "Thank for helping out. You were marvellous. Unfortunately, we destroyed Gwen's body and her clothes, but we can do something to compensate for that. Follow me!" He strode out the door. Peter had to rush to keep up with him.

Prism stopped in a backstage area next to a device labelled 'Body Synthesiser'. "Right, Peter, place Gwen's head in that shallow dip in the top and we can grow Gwen new body."

He opened the doors to show that the cabinet below was empty, the re-closed the door. "Gwen, I need you to think about what you want your body to be like, but don't think about it being too different from what it was, because then you would need to buy yourself a whole new wardrobe."

The magician turned a few knobs and moved some levers, before declaring that the process was complete. Prism made no move to open the device, but shrugged the lab-coat from his shoulders and handed it and an envelope to Peter. "You'll probably need these," he said, then departed.

Peter stared after the magician until Gwen brought his attention to her plight. "Get me out of here!" He opened the cabinet to find that there was a body inside that connected to Gwen's head through a hole in the top of the cabinet. The body inside was Gwen's, except that it was not an exact copy, such as the tan lines were missing and the whole body glowed with an even golden tan. He handed the lab-coat into the device and worked on releasing the neck restraint.

With Gwen covered by a lab-coat, but otherwise naked, they turned their attention to the envelope, which contained a voucher to purchase an outfit from a local high-end dress shop.