But this Chen, too, must have altered oxygen capacity, or was working from a different equation, and did not tire and did not pass out or die, but only squeezed harder on Chen’s neck, too. Which alarmed Chen, and then all the solidarity with his own flesh that he had built up over time … gave way.

Grayson’s Chen burst at the seams. Became a mound of writhing green salamanders, in a sigh, a deliquescence. Slipping from Chen’s grasp as he gasped and stepped back. In surprise or disgust? For salamander-Chen still formed a rough composite of Chen’s form. Slouched over on the ground, the salamanders fierce-eyed, determined to pledge allegiance to an equation made obsolete.

Stared up disoriented at Chen through the array of a thousand eyes and, with a shudder, misdiagnosing, thinking he was back at the wall of globes in the Company building, he screamed. Chen shrieked. The salamanders wailed with him in an uncanny chorus. Even as locked together they clung, embraced, their feet like hooks, a community of flesh desperate not to succumb to a more nomadic impulse. How lonely that would be. For everyone.

Then Grayson was there, enveloping Chen and keeping Chen whole, putting him back together, subsiding the frenzy of the salamanders.

Then Moss was there, subduing the other Chen. Muffling the Chen in waves of green particles, come a little undone herself to undo Chen.

Who, stunned, stumbled now as if through a dream or nightmare. Grappled with this nothing dissipating through the air and made despairing sounds. Subsided, rendered frozen by the pinpricks of Moss’s transference of her defensive blood. Moss recoiling at the feel of Chen’s blood in contact with her particles.

Grayson found rope in Chen’s pack and bound Chen’s hands and feet.

“I have you, Chen.”

“I have you, Moss.”

“Another time, Chen. Another time. But not now.”

Chen outside was Chen again. Could not describe the feeling of being so distributed: to have so many bodies at once and so many eyes, and so many beating hearts and breathing lungs. A legion of tiny lives that could not be reduced to equations, that existed in every moment, each unique, nothing about math or structure. He needed music. He needed a huge meal. He would get neither, just the relief of his own labored breathing. Singular.

Charlie X had altered Chen to fail because he was disposable. Moss had made him fail in a way that allowed him to live, that gave some comfort, that was not really failure. That allowed Chen to atone, that manifested in his flesh.

Grayson and Moss looked down at Chen. They could see the imprint of salamander bodies like a fading tattoo. They could see it, so Chen could too. Feel also their concern.

“Should you do it or should I do it?” Grayson asked Chen.

Kill the other Chen.

Chen said, “No! Keep him alive. He might have value.”