“I am starting over,” Ambrose said. “Just not here. Not with you.” He pulled up the other arm. The palm was wired in the same way.

The sinewy tendons in Martin’s skinny neck bulged and cracked. Brown fluid leaked from the wounds and stank like rotten meat. Ambrose steadied his trembling hands.

I am stronger than a human being.

He dangled Martin’s arms outside the tube.

“You don’t have security clearance for my Admin Deck,” Martin said. “It’s far too advanced for you.”

“I was designed to absorb infinite Profile data, remember?” Ambrose braced Martin’s left wrist and pulled out the red wire. I can do impossible things. He plunged the razor-sharp tip into his own palm. The pain was a fiery talon that shot up his arm and gripped his shoulder.

Martin’s weeping throat gurgled. “You need calibration. Don’t do this. Stay with me.”

Ambrose braced Martin’s other wrist against the tube with the bottom of his foot and ripped out the second wire.

“I’m canceling the upgrade,” Ambrose said. “I’m giving those people back their lives.”

“You’re not authorized,” Martin said. His head thrashed wildly. The lower jaw snapped up and down. “My Admin Deck is encrypted.” The yellow teeth clacked and shattered. “You don’t have security clearance.”

Ambrose closed his eyes. I’m strong enough to control my mind.

“Security clearance is for humans.”

Ambrose felt Martin’s body go limp. The room was quiet again. He opened his eyes and looked at the fragile body of the man who had given him life. Then he pressed the second wire into his palm. Above him, the silver irrigation pipes withdrew to form the distant vaulted ceiling of a steel cathedral. His senses were deadened except for a cruel awareness of his racing heart. Pressure in his chest choked off the last of his oxygen. A hummingbird, he thought. That’s what my heart is like. He could barely remember his own name and managed to say it to himself only once before his mind went completely blank.

*   *   *

In the depths of a watery dream, Ambrose tasted rust. His mouth flooded with saliva. He swallowed the coppery bitterness, desperate for a sensation to replace the memory of his heart’s rapid-fire burnout. The flavor was familiar: more like battery acid than rust. A tickle began in the back of his throat and spread to the base of his skull, a maddening itch that made him want to pry open his head for relief.

He had completed the login circuit.

The itchy-throat feeling inflamed his face. He reached up to rub his skin and found that either his hands were missing or his face had ceased to exist. He had a brief and terrible impression of a black pit where his nose and mouth should be.