I couldn’t decide whether to laugh. It was one of those strange remarks offered in jest that nevertheless displays all the hallmarks of honesty. I hadn’t known till then that my condition could be thought costly if it meant men of science must confess their limitations.

“Is that chocolate?” I asked instead.

He looked surprised but handed me the dish. “I suppose you even have a favorite meal.”

“I don’t see how anyone could. Some things I love because the smell reminds me of my childhood, and then there are the things I like most when I’m sad or happy. And I love the popcorn from my movie theater better than all the other theaters in town. I could never choose a favorite food.”

When I turned to gauge his response, he was moving his jaw as though nibbling bits of something more substantial than ice cream.

“Is that strange?”

“No,” he said. “Not for a person. Or a Mem like you.”

He was still standing a bit behind my chair when he reached around and collected the now empty dish. In what could have been an experiment of my own, I considered too late what he may have done if I’d left a bite for him in the paper bowl. Clearly he’d been intrigued to share food with a Mem when he offered it to me, but would he have eaten again after I was done? And then the thoughts muddled, a wave of cologne reaching around me along with the shadow he cast.

“Anyway, I hope all this isn’t a complete waste of time,” he said, nodding toward the scene when he returned from the trash bin. “I’d like to think fractured Sources can be rehabilitated somehow.”

“Perhaps if the law were written more clearly, they wouldn’t be fractured in the first place.”

“But even better if the procedure could be perfected.”

I’d never felt such a rush of violent disagreement. It rolled up the length of my torso and burned my chest, as if more than a mere opinion. It was strong enough in fact that suppressing it took effort.

“If people are imperfect enough to destroy their minds, perhaps they cannot perfect the procedure that allows them to do so.”

Harvey dismissed my logic. “That’s rather literal. It’s more a matter of scientific integrity. Regardless the invention in question, regardless what it does—if we’ve created it, we must strive to perfect it, if we can.”

I nodded, but my mind was unchanged. In place of challenging the sentiment, I turned my attention to a more selfish concern. I was, after all, a creation. Other Mems didn’t perceive the world outside the memories they housed, but did my being an exception and garnering the attention of scientists and socialites alike make me any less imperfect?