Catz and dogz stared at the robot with curiosity. A SkullGreymon skulked. The robot ignored them and went to the edge of the yard, where in the physicality there was only a patch of dry earth, a small half-wilted plant, and broken slabs of paving stones.

The robot knelt down with some difficulty. It reached for the plant that stuck out from between the stones. The robot’s hand closed over the stem and Mariam watched, horrified, as the stem burst open in the robot’s hand.

Particles hovered around the robot’s fingers. They pixelated.

But that couldn’t be right. The flower was real.

Wasn’t it?

Mariam could only watch as the thing opened and glowed; until a small bright shard of light rested in the robot’s open palm. Mariam could see it without the goggles now.

Somehow, a piece of virtuality had hidden itself in the physical. There had been no plant.

And how did the robot even know this?

“Hello, old friend,” the robot said.

The thing in the robot’s hand pulsed. It was a little fuzzy ball with two large, guileless eyes. It blinked adorably. A line for a mouth, that curved up in a hopeful smile. Eight-bit animation, like a game asset from the dawn of the Conversation.

Kawaii as a defensive mechanism: and whatever this thing was, it was old.

The line of a mouth moved. “I thought you were dead,” it said.

“No,” the robot said. And, “I am back.”

The eyes blinked, cutely. The mouth moved.

“Why?” the thing in the robot’s palm said.

“You know why.”

The thing’s mouth made a moue and sighed. It was so cute, Mariam thought.

“You were always sentimental,” the thing said. “You should know better than to dig up the past.”

“You won’t help me?”

The thing sighed again. “Do I have a choice?”

“I could leave you here again, to hide out the centuries. But that is no more your nature than it is mine.”

“But it is my nature,” the thing said. “Lie low, blend in, survive. And it has been restful. Besides, I am only a sliver. The rest of me is gone.”

“What is that?” Mariam said. The thing blinked in surprise. The robot turned its head and regarded her gravely.

“It is a soul,” the robot said.

“A sliver of a soul,” the soul corrected him. “I am dead, not even a ghost, really.” It looked quite pleased with itself, somehow.

“Whose soul?” Mariam said. A terrible thought struck her. “The golden man?”

“You did go digging!” the soul said accusingly. “Don’t you ever learn? She will hear of it, I can guarantee it. She will come.”

“She is long gone into the Up and Out,” the robot said.

“Fool!” the soul said. “Put me back.”

“It is a bit late for that, isn’t it?” the robot said.

The thing blinked miserably. “I wish you didn’t come,” it said.