Chapter 9: Fading

The extra line in my eye was gone by the time I had counted to ten.

I asked the System again, twice, and got only the same flat refusal.

"Query restricted."

"Is it a person?"

"Query restricted."

"Is it dangerous?"

"The host is advised to maintain distance from all unidentified signatures."

That was the most useful thing it had ever said to me, and it was no use at all.

I carried the trash out to the alley behind the diner at ten past twelve.

Alana had gone to wash her face in the ladies' room.

The rain had thinned to a cold drizzle, and the alley light buzzed over the bins.

I lifted the lid of the dumpster and dropped the bag in.

Then I looked down at my hand on the lid.

I could see the lid through it.

The skin was there, pale and slightly blurred, and under it the green metal showed through.

I snatched my hand back.

It came back solid, then it wavered.

The panel in my eye read a single trembling line.

Total 0.06.

My legs went.

I sat down hard on an upturned crate with my back against the brick wall.

My other hand, when I held it up, was missing a finger.

It was there, and not there, a smear of nothing where the third knuckle should have been.

"Host," the System said. "Your affection floor is at critical level."

"I can see that."

"The host is advised to maintain proximity to the targets."

"Proximity to who? They're both half a mile away."

"The floor is sustained only by feeling. Absence is not feeling."

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