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thin figure emerging from behind the curtain, tracking him as he hobbled toward the podium, I knew. He shook hands with Savona, then looked out over the audience, his eyes finding the camera. Finding me. They were a brighter green than I remembered--then I realized he wasn't wearing his glasses. He'd been the only person I knew who wore glasses, because no one in their right mind would turn down the simple med-tech to fix myopia. But then, no one in their right mind would allow that kind of defect to slip into their child's genetic code in the first place, not when they had the credit to fix it. As I understood it, his mother hadn't been in her right mind, not with all the talk of preserving God's natural plan. When she died, he'd kept the glasses, a tribute to the woman, I thought, not an embrace of her insanity.
    Except here he was, embracing the Honored Rai Savona. No glasses.
    "I'm Auden Heller," he said, his voice raspy and hoarse. "And this is the story of how I almost died."
    I could feel them all staring at me, waiting for me to react. But I kept my face blank. That was the serious advantage to mech life--when you were disconnected from your body, it couldn't give you away.
    They've already watched this, I thought. They all know.
    Which meant it would be useless to run away or shut it off. I would only look weak. I would stay; I would listen. It was no more than I deserved.
    And I wanted to see him. Even like this.
    Auden eased himself into a chair next to the podium. His movements were slow and careful, as if to protect brittle bones. "I hope you don't mind if I sit," he said, his voice amplified by a hidden microphone. "I get tired so easily now. Rai wanted to do this over the network, so I could speak from my home, but I told him no." His voice rose, some of the color bleeding back into his pale face. "It's important that we be here together, in person, celebrating one another's humanity. Without electronic barriers, without machines , keeping us apart."
    "Impressive ventriloquism, isn't it?" Jude murmured. "You can barely see Savona's lips move."
    I jabbed an elbow into his side. "Shut. Up."
    "I used to think this was my fault," Auden said, gesturing down at his ruined body. His cheeks were hollow, his face etched with scars that he must have had the doctors leave intact for effect. He was thinner than he'd been before, and, bent by a twisted spine, his left shoulder dipped below his right. He wore short sleeves, and the skin on one arm was markedly darker than on the other, the telltale sign of a transplanted limb. His hand lay in his lap, its fingers half-curled, and I flashed on the last time I'd seen him, when I rested my hand in his and he hadn't even realized it. The nerves transmitting the sensation had dead-ended at his severed spine. "I was naive," he continued. "When I met the skinner, I believed its disguise. I thought it was my friend. It's very good at simulating human emotion--they all are. And emotional exhibition stimulates emotional response. That's how we're built. If someone smiles at you, you instinctually smile back. Even if that someone is a machine. You forget." He broke off coughing, his whole body spasming. Savona took a step toward him, but Auden got himself under control. And he told the story.
    Our story.
    I couldn't look at him while he spoke. Telling the world how he'd befriended me after the download. Telling thousands of strangers how he'd assured me I was human, I was still me. Telling Ani and Quinn and Riley about the day I'd leaped off the edge of the waterfall. How he'd nearly died trying to save me, the mech who would never need saving.
    My fault, for letting both of us forget what I really was. Jude had helped me see that. I couldn't blame Auden for seeing it too.
    "I believe it didn't mean to hurt me," Auden said. I wondered if he knew I was watching. If he thought about me at all--but then I realized he must think about me every day, every time he collapsed after walking up a