“I’ll be fine. In time.”

“I understand.”

I looked around at the gathering. “Well, I’d better get going. I don’t want to interrupt your group.” I reached my hand out to Sabin. “Thanks for letting me pick this up. I’d enjoy keeping in touch, Sabin.”

He shook my hand. “I would too, Creighton.”

I moved toward the door.

“Creighton…”

I turned back to him.

“Since Abby started this group…I was just thinking…We all wanted to see if you’d like to stay for a bit and join us. That would have meant a lot to Abby, I know.”

Several of them nodded. I glanced at the coffee table. It held a single goblet and a small loaf of bread. I looked back at Sabin. “I’d like that.”

Sabin motioned to an open seat, and I sat down next to him. He spoke to the group. “We were talking about how the bread represents the life of Jesus, now within us and expressed through each of us.”

He looked at the man to my right. “Ryan, why don’t you get us started?” The man picked up the bread, took a piece, then passed the loaf to the woman next to him. It came around the circle until Sabin held it.

“As Abby said, he who has the Son has the life. His life is ours, together.”

He broke off a piece of bread for himself, turned, and offered the bread to me.

Later that day I rode back to Dallas. I walked through my front door and surveyed my house. It felt empty. It probably would for a while.

I got a bite to eat, settled in the living room recliner, and checked headlines on the Grid. I chatted with Alistair awhile. With my new brain, I didn’t actually need Alistair to perform any functions, but I talked to him more than ever. He was, at least, the semblance of a friend. I wished I hadn’t left Sabin’s so quickly. I could interact with real people there.

I finally turned to a task I’d been avoiding: perusing memory streams one last time. I felt tainted just contemplating it. But I needed to ensure that all danger had indeed passed. One by one I examined the memories of the transplant recipients.

Nichols’s existence, I already knew, had ended in an NTI incinerator. Pape, as expected, had been dying, his brain slowly being eaten by nanites. He tapped Cleary the evening of the shooting, accusing his client of infecting him. Cleary laughed at him and ended the tap.