“No,” said the Metatron. “But the quality of the communications between this world and the one where El lives is high enough that you may think of me as his representative. His ambassador.”

“His avatar,” Zula said. “His angel.”

“Now who is using funny words?” the Metatron asked.

“What is it you seek here?” Corvallis asked. “There must be more to your mission than just freaking us out. I mean, if you were just fishing—wondering how we’d react to this news about the Renascent Egdod-Associated Process—you have your answer. We were surprised. That’s your answer.”

“Surprised, and skeptical as hell,” Zula added.

“Now that you know as much, do you just get up and leave?” Corvallis went on.

“There are questions raised by this that set up a constitutional crisis for ALISS and that cannot wait until the next ACTANSS to be resolved,” said the Metatron.

“Go on,” said Corvallis.

“Oh, you can see it perfectly well,” said the Metatron, now showing some very human emotions. “All of the big issues are triggered by this. I will tick them off, just so we have an agenda. We have self-replicating processes now, capable in theory of exponential growth. Are those to be paid for from Buildings and Grounds? We are unwilling to pay the lion’s share—or any share, for that matter—of the costs that could spring from unlimited reproduction of such processes. We have made a good-faith effort to nip that problem in the bud, which has been sabotaged by the REAP—almost undoubtedly with the connivance of Sophia. Sophia, though dead, is a token holder with special powers—thanks to unprecedented steps that you took when you booted her process.”

“Oh my god, we’re back to that again!?” Zula exclaimed.

“Meanwhile we face a shortage of the mana required for full embodiment of our customers. Priority should be given to them—not to this new breed of self-replicators.”

“For fuck’s sake, there’s only two of those and they aren’t replicating yet!” Corvallis said. “It’s a purely theoretical problem at this point.”

“Your late wife accompanies them. We find this remarkable.”

“Have some decency!” Zula said. “She’s only been dead three weeks.”