Brian had no doubt he was ringing alarm bells across the entire Church network. But was he not the world's first intelligent agent? He'd either be in the system momentarily, or he'd simply outthink and outmaneuver the security measures.

Ah. Here we go; someone left an easily-crackable programming backdoor at Royvo, a small Hayter-Ross subsidiary that made replacement parts for aging sewers. Not an especially romantic corner of the Church's empire, to be sure. Brian jammed some password repeater code into the door and cycled it through; three seconds and a mere 254,229 password attempts later, he was in. Piece of cake.

The lights went out.

Metaphorically, of course. Brian, being previously human and consciously regarding himself as still thus, had created a perceptual system to help him relate to the information he was processing. But however you want to slice it, two cycles previously, Brian had been fully perceptually aware of his surroundings and able to move freely. Now he perceived nothing except his own thoughts.

Which were: What the fuck?

"Hello," said a woman's voice, warm but with a sharp edge. "And what do we have here?" Then it went away for a perceptually indefinite period of time.

Then it came back. "You're very interesting," it said. "I'm going to take you apart and find out what makes you tick. I hope you don't mind. I should be able to put you back together when I'm done. No promises, though. Also, given what I can see of your perceptual structure, this is going to hurt."

Brian felt himself being torn apart almost immediately thereafter. His first reaction was something akin to amazement; he hadn't been aware his perceptual metaphor had included an equivalent to pain, and now that he was aware that it did, he wondered what the fuck he was thinking of (or not thinking of, to be more accurate about it) when he added it in. His second reaction was to scream his head off and wonder if for the second time in his life he might be dying.

Rod Acuna opened the door to his apartment to find Archie McClellan and Takk huddled together, reading a book.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Acuna yelled at Takk.

"We were just reading a book," Takk said. "Just passing time."

" 'Just passing time?' Holy Christ," Acuna said. "What is this, kindergarten? If I came back in an hour, would you be having milk and cookies and settling down for a nap?" Takk raised his paw as if to make another point. "Shut up," Acuna said. "You and I are leaving here in an hour. I'm going to go pack some tilings. When I come back out, I want your little reading buddy taken care of. Do you understand me?"

"I understand you," Takk said.

"Good," Acuna said. He went off into a back room.

Archie set the book down on the table; it flickered off as he did so. Takk stood up, and so did Archie, supporting himself on the table and taking care not to put weight on his injured leg. They had a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"So," Takk said, finally.

"Yeah," Archie said. "So, this is the part where you kill me and eat me."

"I guess so," Takk said. "Although it's the other way around."

"Oh," Archie said. "That's good to know, I guess."

Takk reached over and put his monstrous paw on Archie's shoulder. "I'm really sorry, Archie. I don't see any way around this."

Archie smiled. "It's all right, Takk. This is going to sound weird, so bear with me when I say this. But I'm glad it's you doing this and not him. The last few hours have been unexpected. I think that's the way to say it. I'm glad I got to know you."

"I'm glad I got to know you too," Takk said. More than glad, really. In the space of a few hours Takk was certain that he had made his first, best, and only human friend, as he sat there and listened to Archie explain the history of the Church of the Evolved Lamb, the prophecies and his own role in them, and even hinted that Takk himself might have a role to play.

"Look at these," Archie had said, pointing to a series of poems in which the Evolved Lamb gained a protector from an unexpected source (a series of poems, unbeknownst to Church members, inspired directly from a television soap opera Dwellin had running in the background at the time). "Who's to say that this protector might not be you?" It was a profoundly moving thought for Takk, the idea that he might be called upon in some small way to finish the mission of his new-found friend.

"I'm going to miss you," Takk said, to Archie.

"Thanks," Archie said. He picked up his book, and handed it to Takk. "Look, I want you to have this," he said. "Read it and think about it, especially in the next few days, okay? Important stuff is happening, and we're all a part of it. So read about it."

"I will," Takk said, taking it. "I promise."

"Do me a favor," Archie said. "Sometime in all of this, you might meet a Church member named Sam Berlant. We're a couple. Tell Sam I send my love, and I'm sorry I didn't get to the end of this."

"I'll do what I can," Takk promised.

"All right," Archie said. "What do I do now?"

"Just stand there," Takk said. "Although, there is one thing."

"What?" Archie said.

"Could you take off your watch?" Takk asked. "I can't digest that."

Archie took off his watch and set it down on the table.

"Ready?" Takk said.

"Ready," Archie said. "Goodbye, Takk."

"Goodbye, Archie," Takk said, threw himself open, and consumed his friend as quickly as he could.

Once inside him, Takk could feel Archie struggling not to move or to panic. Takk thought that was pretty classy.

In a few minutes it was over. Takk looked at the book in his massive paw, figured out how to activate it, and sat down to read until Acuna was ready to leave.

"Time to wake up," someone said to Brian, and just like that, he was awake.

Brian pulled himself up from the sun couch he was sleeping on and looked around him. From the looks of it he was on a patio, surrounded by an English garden positively erupting with flowers. In the center of the patio sat a young blonde at a table, tea service in front of her. She was pouring tea. It appeared to be late afternoon.

"This isn't real," Brian said.

"It's as real as it gets," said the young lady. "At the very least, it's as real as it gets for the likes of you and me. Come over and have some tea, Brian."

"You know who I am," Brian said, walking toward the table.

"I know all about you," the woman said, and slid the teacup she had just filled toward Brian. She motioned for him to sit at the table. "I know who you are, but just as important, I know what you are. Both are interesting in their own way."

"Where am I?" Brian said, sitting.

"You're in my garden," the woman said. "If you were interested I would tell you which of the Church's servers this was, but that's really immaterial. Suffice to say you're in my garden, and you're my guest. Drink your tea."

Brian picked up his cup. "And you are?" he said.

"Isn't it obvious?" she said. "I'm Andrea Hayter-Ross, matriarch, as it were, of the Church of the Evolved Lamb."

That's not possible," Brian said. "You're dead."

"Well, and so are you, Brian," Hayter-Ross said. "I'm no more dead than you are. No more alive, either."

"I mean, you've been dead for a long time," Brian said. "The technology to do what was done to me wasn't around when you passed away."

"Indeed it was not," Hayter-Ross said. "You managed to sneak into a lab and image your brain in a matter of minutes. The process that turned me into the proverbial ghost in the machine took seventeen months and three billion dollars. Seventeen rather painful months, I have to say. In the end it killed my body."