“So technically it is solvent?” Zula asked. She had been juggling text messages and ignoring phone calls for several minutes and was losing the battle against electronic distractions.

“As long as El Shepherd is pouring money into it, it’s difficult to claim otherwise,” Stan said. “But listen, that’s not the only out in this document. Assuming you’re looking for an out. There’s also the question of whether the technology that ELSH is now using is really the best.”

“In the sole judgment of ELSH?” Esme asked.

Stan permitted himself a look of mild satisfaction. “Nope. In the boilerplate contract that was signed by the Ephrata Eleven—the people whose heads ended up in the freezer—the word ‘sole’ is used, but Chris Vail, bless his heart, struck that word out in the one that was signed by Dodge.”

“So we get some say over it,” Zula said.

Esme looked like she wanted to say something, but thought better of it and crossed her arms.

“You get lots of say over it,” Stan said, “and I’ll bet we can make an argument that cutting Dodge’s head off and throwing it in a freezer is no longer the best technology—if it ever was in the first place.”

Zula nodded at this and Corvallis had to swallow a mild feeling of discomfort. Later, he would sit down with Zula and Alice Forthrast and remind them that Argenbright Vail stood to make a lot of money if that case went to court and they had to argue it against El Shepherd’s lawyers. Anyway, his Googling had uncovered more facts that might make it irrelevant. “Turns out,” he announced, “that it’s no longer heads in a freezer. ELSH has moved on.”

“I’m ready,” Stan said. Again, Corvallis found his tone to be a little off. What really mattered was whether Zula was ready. But he could see where this was going. Stan was gradually asserting control over the situation. By the time Alice got off the plane, he’d be fully in command, ready to introduce himself as the Forthrast family lawyer.

Zula exchanged an unreadable look with Esme. A women-in-solidarity kind of thing, he guessed.

Corvallis waited until he had caught Zula’s eye and she had given him the nod. “Now that we have cloud computing,” he said, “storing bits is way cheaper than storing body parts in a freezer. A few years ago, ELSH, in its sole judgment, decided that the only thing that really mattered was the connectome—the pattern of connections among the neurons in the brain. They took each of those eleven brains and scanned them. Reduced them to data structures. Stored the data in the cloud.”

“And where are those brains now?” Esme asked. Because that shoe was going to drop eventually.