I feel the edges of myself slipping away. I imagine my body disintegrating. My skin sloughs away, my veins lift from my muscles, spiraling out into infinity. My muscles unravel into thin tendrils. Just my bones are left, and even they begin to break down, scattering like snow. I’m now just my mind, my metal sternum, my mechanical heart.

As those start to leave me, light returns. It’s as if the stars have turned on again. There’s a moment where I hover. The pieces of me are scattered all around. I can bring them to me again, knit it all together and go back.

For a moment, I don’t know if I want to. Maybe I should let it all fade away.

I remember Tila. How she looked in that surgery room as she put her arms around me and fell asleep. The fear on her face as she clutched me in our apartment a few days ago, terrified and desperate. If I go into that darkness, I go alone.

I pull myself together and return to the real, cruel, painful world.

*   *   *

It’s bright.

I should hurt. A migraine aura should warble at the edges of my vision. My skin should be rubbed raw and bloody, my lungs charred, my muscles tender. It’s like a Synth non-hangover. Somewhere, down deep, your body knows you did something dangerous.

“It went well,” Kim says.

“It … was meant to be like that?” I ask, faint.

“What was it like?” Kim tilts her head in curiosity.

“Memories came out of nowhere and my senses went confused, and then it was all dark and quiet. I thought I’d died.”

Kim’s eyebrows rise at that. “Nope, all vital signs were fine. Your brainwaves did drop off at the end there, but not enough to alarm me.”

“The brain is weird,” I mutter.

Kim laughs. “You can say that again.”

“So how does it work?” I ask. I don’t feel any different. “Is it recording now?”

“No. It’s pretty easy. You can do it now. I’ve linked it to a certain place on your body. I stimulated a particular nerve cluster in your brain, and the code can read it. You press it three times, once a second or so, and it starts. Another three, and it stops. Makes it harder to accidentally interrupt if you’re bumped. Here.” She walks over to Nazarin. “I was tempted to wire it somewhere a little … private … to make this moment funnier. I didn’t. Aren’t you impressed with my restraint, my parakeet?”

“Very,” Nazarin says, deadpan. His skin is still a little gray. Kim takes Nazarin’s hand and makes him put his index finger to his throat and has him press once, twice, three times in the hollow between his clavicle. He looks exactly the same to me. No little red recording lights in his eyes or ears, not that I expected it.