“The Coryphaeus forgave us. The Coryphaeus is our conscience.”

“I don’t mean to offend you, Oscar, but doesn’t it seem to you that a conscience that can rationalize genocide might be defective?”

He stared at me, radiating violet spikes of anger and resentment. Then he shrugged. “You haven’t lived with your node long enough. Before long you’ll understand.”

That’s what frightens me, I thought.

“None of this matters now,” he said. “Come with me.”

I wanted to. All the years of my adult life I had lived in the harsh light of the burning man. I longed to let the Coryphaeus shoulder my sins. And if the price I paid was oblivion or death, maybe that was nothing but belated justice. At least I would die clean.

Did I deserve to die clean?

“I’d rather be with Allison,” I said. “When the time comes.”

“Then why isn’t she here? I know you feel responsible for her, but she’s an aberration, an empty vessel. Even her affection for you is artificial. You’re Networked now—you must have seen that in her.”

I didn’t want to tell him what I had seen in her.

“Go on, Oscar,” I said. “Go be with your family.”

He started to object, then closed his mouth and nodded in resignation. Maybe he saw how deeply I envied him, and maybe he was too kind to mention it.

He stood up. “All right. Good-bye, Mr. Findley,” he said.

The door closed behind him. I waited until I was sure he had cleared the corridor. I told myself it was time to go. But it would be so much easier to rest, I thought. To let what would happen, happen. It was a foolishness, a terrible vanity, this idea of escape. An insult to the millions who had already lived and died in Vox Core and to the millions more whose bright hopes were burning behind my eyes.

I took a last look around. I thought about Allison, waiting for me. Then I headed for the aircraft docks.

Chapter Twenty-Six. Allison’s Story

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SANDRA AND BOSE

Before Bose could say anything else—before Sandra could even begin to consider what he had told her—another bus pulled up at the stop across the street. She turned her head to watch.

Under the orange glare of a streetlight, the shiny-wet bus looked like a floating hallucination. Nobody got on. Two men got off. Just a couple of shift workers carrying dinner pails. The bus pulled away, and the men hurried off wherever they were going—not in the direction of the Findley warehouse.

“It’s getting late,” Sandra said. She wasn’t ready to think about what Bose had admitted about himself, and Bose seemed willing to back away from the subject. “What if he doesn’t show up?”

“I think he will,” Bose said.

“Because of what he wrote?”