"Forgive me, Jake, but it seems more likely that there's just something not quite functioning right in your new brain. I'm sure if you told Dr. Porter about it, he'd—"

"No!" I said. "No. Immortex is doing something wrong. I — I can feel it."

"Jake…"

"It's inherent in the Mindscan technology: the ability to make as many copies as you want of the source mind."

Karen and I were holding hands. It didn't provide quite the same intimate sensation it had when I'd been flesh and blood, but, then again, at least my palms weren't sweating. "But why would they do that?" she said. "What possible purpose could it serve?"

"Steal corporate secrets. Steal personal security codes. Blackmail me."

"Over what? What have you done?"

"Well … nothing that I'm ashamed of."

Karen's tone was teasing. "Really?"

I didn't want to be sidetracked, but I found myself considering her question for a moment. "Yes, really; there's nothing in my past I'd pay any sizable amount of money to have kept secret. But that's not the point. They could be on a fishing expedition. See what they turn up."

"Like the formula for Old Sully's Premium Dark?"

"Karen, be serious. Something is going on."

"Oh, I'm sure there is," she said. "But, you know, I hear voices in my head all the time — my characters' voices. It's a fact of life, being a writer. Could what you're experiencing be something like that?"

"I'm not a writer, Karen."

"Well, all right then. Okay. But did you ever read Julian Jaynes?"

I shook my head.

"Oh, I loved him in college! The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind — amazing book. And what a title! My editor would never let me get away with anything like that. Anyway, Jaynes said the two hemispheres are basically two separate intelligences, and that the voices of angels and demons people claimed to hear in ancient times were really coming from the other side of their own heads."

She looked at me. "Maybe the integration of your new brain isn't working quite right.

Get Dr. Porter to tweak a few things, and I'm sure it'll go away."

"No, no," I said. "It's real."

"Can you do it now? Connect with another you?"

"I can't do it on demand. And it only happens sometimes."

"Jake…" Karen said gently, leaving my name hanging in the night air.

"No, really," I said. "It really does happen."

Her tone was infinitely gentle. "Jake, have you ever heard of assisted writing? Or Ouija boards? Or false-memory syndrome? The human mind can convince itself that all sorts of things have external reality, or are coming from somewhere else, when it's really doing them itself."

"That's not what's happening here."

"Isn't it? Have these — these voices said anything to you that you didn't already know? Anything that you couldn't already know, but that we could check on to see if it's true?"

"Well, no, of course not. The other instantiations are being held in isolation somewhere."

"Why would that be? And why aren't I detecting anything similar?"

I shrugged my shoulders a bit. "I don't know."

"You should ask Dr. Porter about it."

"No," I said. "And don't you speak to him about it either — not until I've figured out what's going on."

At 10:00 a.m. the next morning, Maria Lopez faced Karen, who had returned to the witness stand.

"Good morning, Ms. Bessarian."

"Good morning," said Karen.

"Did you have a pleasant — a pleasant interregnum since our last session in court?" asked Lopez.

"Yes."

"What, may I ask, did you do?"

Deshawn spoke up. "Objection, your honor! Relevance."

"A little latitude your honor," said Lopez.

"Very well," said Herrington. "Ms. Bessarian, you'll answer the question."

"Well, let's see. I read, I watched a movie, I wrote part of a new novel, I surfed the Web. I went for a nice walk."

"Very good. Very good. Anything else?"

"All sorts of insignificant things. I'm really not sure what you're driving at, Ms. Lopez."

"Well, then, let me ask you directly: did you sleep?"

"No."

"You didn't sleep. So, it's safe to say, you didn't dream, either, isn't that right?"

"Obviously."

"Why didn't you sleep?"

"My artificial body doesn't require it."

"But could you sleep, if you wanted to?"

"I — I'm not sure why one would desire sleeping if it wasn't necessary."

"You're begging the question. Can you go to sleep?"

Karen was quiet for a few moments, then: "No. Apparently not."

"You haven't slept at all since you were reinstantiated in this form, correct?"

"That is correct, yes."

"And, therefore, you haven't dreamed, right?"

"I have not."

Deshawn was on his feet. "Your honor, this is hardly proper cross."

"Sorry," said Lopez. "Just a few pleasantries to start the day." She picked up a large paper book from her table and rose to her feet. "We've been discussing your physical parameters, Ms. Bessarian. Let's start with a simple one. Your age."

"I'm eighty-five."

"And your date of birth?"

"May twenty-ninth, 1960."

"And how were you born?"

"I — I beg your pardon?"

"Was it a normal birth? A cesarean section? Or some other procedure?"

"A normal birth, at least by the standards of the time. My mother was given heavy anesthetic, labor was induced, and my father wasn't allowed in the delivery room."

Karen looked directly at the jury box, wanting to score a point right off the bat.

"We've come a long way since then."

"A normal birth," said Lopez. "Through the dilated birth canal, out into the light of day, a gentle slap on the bottom — I imagine that was still in vogue back then."

"Yes, I believe so."

"A first cry."

"Yes."

"And, of course, a severing of the umbilical cord."

"That's right."

"The umbilical cord, through which nutrients had been passed from your mother into the developing embryo, correct?"

"Yes."

"A cord whose removal leaves a scar, something we call the navel, no?"

"That's correct."

"And those scars come in two forms — commonly called innies and outies, isn't that right?"

"Yes."

"And which kind do you have, Ms. Bessarian?"

"Objection!" said Deshawn. "Relevance!"

"Mr. Draper raised the question of biometrics," said Lopez, spreading her arms.

"Surely I'm allowed to explore all her biometrics, not just the ones that Mr. Draper can do parlor tricks with."

The judge's shoehorn face bobbed up and down. "Overruled."

"Ms. Bessarian," said Lopez, "which is it — and innie or an outie?"

"An innie."

"May we see it?"

"No."

"And why not?"

Karen held her head up high. "Because it would be pointless, and — as I'm sure the judge would agree — hardly befitting the dignity of this court. You're hoping I have no belly button at all, so that you can make some facile point. But, of course I do; my body is anatomically correct. And so, with my belly exposed, you'd fall back on trying to make some lesser point about how my navel isn't really made of scar tissue but rather is just a sculpted indentation. Let me save you the bother: I concede that indeed it is sculpted. But given that navels don't do anything, that's hardly significant.

Mine is as good as anyone else's." She looked directly at the jury box again, and smiled a winning smile. "It even collects lint."

The jurors, and even the judge, laughed. "Move along," said Herrington.

"Very well," said Lopez, sounding somewhat chastened. "Your honor, may I introduce the defendant's first exhibit, a hardcopy of the operating manual for the transaction terminal Mr. Draper introduced earlier?"

"Mr. Draper?" asked Judge Herrington.

"No objection."