"What would you have been," she said (always with that scythe of a smile), "if it hadn't been for me?"

Gaius thought about it--for the first time, honestly thought about it: endless lines of code, defense software, databases; that sleek apartment, all glass; complicated coffee orders, cocktails with the sweat sliding down the stems--never far enough from the sick stench of sweet hay, his entire existence a practice in going through the motions.

"A machine," he told her; the most basic command of any program was always run.