“Oh,” Ada said softly. “I see. I really am broken, aren’t I?”

“Yes.”

“And I can’t be fixed.”

“No,” Claire said softly. “I’m sorry. I think—I think you’ve got brain damage. I don’t think you’re ever going to be right.”

Ada was silent for a moment, watching her, and then she said, “I loved him, you know. I really did.”

“I think he really loved you, too. That’s why he tried to hang on to you all these years.”

Ada nodded. “Please tell him that I still love him. And because I love him, I can’t take the risk that I might hurt him again.”

Claire had a very bad feeling. “What are you—”

“Just tell him.” Ada smiled, and it was a real smile. A sweet one. “Good-bye, Claire.”

And the panel at the wall blew up in arcs of electricity and flames and shredded metal, and Claire ducked and covered her head.

The lights went out.

Ada’s image flickered in place for a moment, and then she said, very quietly, “Tell Myrnin I’m sorry I hurt him.”

Then she was gone, and the low-level hum of the computer just . . . died.

Claire crouched there, trembling in the dark for a while and listening to the escaping hiss of steam. On one of the round screens on the computer, she saw Ada’s image appear. It moved to the next screen—and then to the next. It grew a little fainter every time.

Then Ada’s image faded to a single dot of white, and the screen went totally black.

Silence. Real, total silence.

Claire put her head on her upraised knees.

I’ll just take a nap, she thought, and then it all just went away for a while.

When she woke up, Amelie was standing in front of the silent, dead computer, one pale hand on the keyboard touching the metal and bone.

“We’ll have to get this running again as soon as possible,” she said, and then turned toward Claire. “I see you’re awake.”

“Not really,” Claire said. “I don’t know what I am right now.”

“Your friends are coming.” Amelie’s tone was cool, and her face was a mask. Claire couldn’t tell anything about what she was feeling. “I called them.”

“Where’s Myrnin?”

Amelie’s gray eyes focused on her neck. “He bit you.”

“Well—a little.” Claire put her hand to the wound, and winced when it throbbed. “Is it bad?”

“You’ll live.” Amelie turned back to the keyboard. “I’m afraid Ada is beyond help. When the electrical power failed, the nutrients that sustained her organic remnants turned toxic.”

“She’s dead?”

“She was always dead, Claire. Now she is well beyond our attempts to revive her.” Amelie looked at her with cool, calm eyes. “Did you kill her?”