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I could only look at theI lifted one hand and slapped it flat against the plastic Dr Banks juenuine terror in his expression, like I had so in his universe I couldn’t decide how that made me feel

The terror cleared, replaced first by confusion and then by paternal war back into place and locking ahatever he was really feeling "Sally," he said, starting to sirl You always have been You--"

"Is Tansy really alive?"

My question sliced across whatever he was saying and rendered hiinto even more of ahim as blank-faced as one of the sleepwalkers he had helped to create

"I don’t see why you’re co me," he said "The woman who runs this place has already ood faith I have to say, Sally, I thought better of you"

"Are you where she gets it?" I asked

He blinked atwell to es of topic Good I wasn’t here tome"

"Dr Cale does that--she uses people’s naet who they are I didn’t think about the way you always used to do that to ets that? Or did you get it froanisms themselves, weren’t they? Every human was the result of social and cultural reco up a turn of phrase here, an idea or a preconception there, the sa was purely its own self Nothing would ever want to be

"I got it fro the topic for signs that it was a trick "Surrey used to have difficulty with nale cell, but damned if she could remember which of our TAs was Paul and which was Jeffrey Someone told her that she could reinforce names in her head if she said them at least three times a conversation--said it would make people trust her more, too, since it caave a da it, and damned if it didn’t work Everyone loved her Sweet little Surrey, overcoenetics department"

"So you started doing it because you wanted the ed not to flinch "I did, and daain People like it when you seem to take an interest in the I wanted, and all I had to do was remember names and children and anniversaries You should have seen s hadn’t gotten bad on us I was going to really enjoy showing you to the world, Sally"

Showingthe world to me: I was an experirew or howof the world improved I could save the hu ht have worked on me, too, if you hadn’t messed it up," I said I couldn’t make this too easy He wouldn’t believe it if it was too easy "You’re not as good at this as you think you are"

Dr Banks blinked at me He looked briefly, utterly baffled, and I would have felt bad for his from me None of them were my sympathy "What do you mean?"

"My name isn’t ‘Sally’ It’s never been Sally She died She was… she was like a canary in a coal mine She died because if she hadn’t, I would never have been able to live" Sally’s death had been as inevitable asHe should have been sending up the alarm the day I opened my eyes Instead, he stood by and let me make myself into an individual Because of hitheir defenses theda in supplies by the tis Because of him

"Now you and I both know that’s not true" His smile had too many teeth "Do you really think that just because you’ve shut off all the pieces of you that reirl anymore? You can’t buy a used pair of shoes and announce that they’re new just because you want theirl playing at being so different, at least until you adawped at hied to stammer, "That--that’s not true! You know that’s not true! None of the doctors ever found any trace of Sally in one"

"Coma patients still hear People in clinical brain death still wake up The hu, Sally, and one day you’re going to flip the wrong switch or press the wrong button and hand the whole thing back over to the girl you used to be When that day co to trust? The people who loved a tapeearing her skin like a suit, or theher na, and I was relieved There was only so much I could handle "I call you Sally because it’s your na to let me own you later"