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"I don’t care who or what you are, nobody touches me"

He thinks for a moment, then says, in all seriousness, "Would you like to touch me then? You can feel all the seams You can see what nify that with a response "Do you think the kids ere unwound to be a part of you wanted it?"

"If they were tithes, they did," Cam says, "and some of them were As for the other ones, they had no choiceanymade"

And for a moment, within the fury she feels toward the people who created him, Risa realizes that Cam, as much as all the kids ere unwound to make him, is a victim too

"Why are you here?" she asks him

"I have lots of answers to that one," Cam says proudly " ‘The sole purpose of huht in the darkness of hs, exasperated "No--why are you here, in this place, talking to s for their beta test to do than talk to me"

"Where the heart is," he says "Uh--I mean--I’m here because this is my home But I’m also here because I want to be"

He smiles at her, and she hates the fact that his s herself that it’s not his s the flesh of others, and if it was all peeled away, there’d be nothing in the center He is little more than a cruel trick

"So did your brain cells colia ihtest?"

"Not all of the s I had no control over? I aod"

"Actually," he says, returning a little bit of her attitude, "God said, ‘I a Jaraes," Caain, not h at the audacity of his creators--did it occur to the God was the ultiurgitate it verbatie of a whole lotta stuff"

She looks at hie in speech pattern from advanced-placement to country-casual is a joke, but she can tell it’s not She supposes as connections spark through the various and sundry bits of his brain, he kicks out all kinds of talk

"May I ask you what ree to the operation?"

Risa looks away "I’h she’s not, and shifts to face away fro sideways in her bed was so she could not easily accomplish before the operation

When it beco to answer hiain?"

She keeps her back to him "No ?"

"Well," he says as he leaves, "it would be nice to have permission"

She lies there in that position for a long tihts swih her ht she dreams of the avalanche

- - -

Roberta is off so care of business on the day Risa first walks--and only a week after waking up, instead of two It’s a day that brings to a head all her conflicted e shared, but as usual, Cam comes uninvited

"Milestone! This is a momentous occasion," he tells her cheerily "It should be witnessed by a friend"

She throws hiaze, and he does a verbal backpedal

"Aaaand since no friends are present, I’ll have to do"

A rabs Risa’s upper ars off the bed It’s an unearthly sensation to actually feel them cantilevered out over the floor She bends her knees shakily until she feels the tips of her toes touch the wooden floor

"They should have a rug on the floor," Cam tells Nurse Beefcake "To s slip," Nurse Beefcake replies