With hindsight, I realized just how foolish my qualms were -- but that was too late for you. I couldn't afford to ditch you, and have myself scanned yet again. So, what could I do?

This: I put your awakening on hold for a while, and tracked down someone who could make a few alterations to the virtual-environment utilities. I know that wasn't strictly legal . . . but you know how important it is to me that you -- that we -- succeed this time.

I trust you’ll understand, and I'm confident that you'll accept the situation with dignity and equanimity.

Best wishes,

Paul

He sank to his knees, still holding the note, staring at it with disbelief. I can't have done this. I can't have been so callous.

No?

He could never have done it to anyone else. He was sure of that. He wasn't a monster, a torturer, a sadist.

And he would never have gone ahead himself without the bale-out option as a last resort. Between his ludicrous fantasies of stoicism, and the sanity-preserving cop-out of relating only to the flesh-and-blood version, he must have had moments of clarity when the bottom line had been: If it's that bad, I can always put an end to it.

But as for making a Copy, and then -- once its future was no 'longer his future, no longer anything for him to fear -- taking away its power to escape . . . and rationalizing this hijacking as nothing more than an over-literal act of self-control . . .

It rang so true that he hung his head in shame.

Then he dropped the note, raised his head, and bellowed with all the strength in his non-existent lungs: "DURHAM! YOU PRICK!"

+ + +

Paul thought about smashing furniture. Instead, he took a long, hot shower. In part, to calm himself; in part, as an act of petty vengeance: twenty virtual minutes of gratuitous hydrodynamic calculations would annoy the cheapskate no end.