“Listen to me, Finch. It was Bliss who found me in this cavern. Who brought me to the rebels. I wasn’t even human anymore. I wasn’t, in any sane sense, alive. I had learned so much about the world that I had decided to withdraw from it. If I could come back from a hibernation of so many years, then maybe you’ll understand why a copy of me might be able to reenter the world.”

Bliss again. On the walls of Zamilon. Finding Duncan Shriek. Bending the ear of the Lady in Blue.

“When I wake up, you’ll just be a memory of a dream.”

“You’re not hearing me. You won’t wake up. Your body is shutting down.”

“Then take over. It’s a weak enough machine,” Finch said with self-contempt. “How can I stop you?”

Shriek waved his hand. They stood on the battlements of Zamilon. No one there but them. Cold and windy. Out in the desert: shadows gathering.

“I can’t force you. It would take too much time. We don’t have that kind of time. You’d die first. And right now the Lady in Blue is holding off the invaders at Zamilon. She’s waiting for a miracle. I’m that miracle.”

“And if I said no? If I said no, you’d just fade away and this would all be over?”

“Yes.”

Thinking again about Wyte. About Stark under the influence of Wyte’s memory bulb. At what price? And: You knew you might die. Why aren’t you willing to do this?

Because it’s not real.

Looked out at the green lights beginning to appear. Above, the blurred gleam of stars obscured by dust.

“It’s up to you, Finch,” Shriek said.

“How do we do it?” Finch asked. “I cut open my own head and you pop out?” And what happens to me then?

“It’s nothing like that,” Shriek said. “Nothing like that. You open yourself to me, and then I open myself to you. Then you sleep for a while. When you wake up, I am out of you. I can feed off moisture. Off the air. What I take from you will be no larger than the weight of a baby. And I will do the rest. Then we go our separate ways. You’ll never see me again.” Except when I look in the mirror. “I know you’re afraid. But what happened to Wyte was invasive. Hostile. He had a parasite inside of him. Something made possible by the gray caps.”

This isn’t invasive?

The green lights were closer. He could almost make out the forms of the creatures gathered out there in the desert. Waiting to take Zamilon for themselves. Who could say their cause was any less just? The Lady in Blue didn’t even know what they were.

“How do I know you’re not hostile? I ‘open up’ and you take over.”