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Miller held up his finger “Seem Good verb You ever wondered why I leave as soon as anyone else shows up?”

“I’o that far”

“Fine,” Holden said “I’ll bite Why doesn’t anyone else see you?”

“I’ot time for this, but…” Miller took off his hat and scratched his head “So your brain has a hundred billion brain cells and about five hundred trillion synapses”

“Will this be on the test?”

“Don’t be an assle,” Miller said conversationally, and put his hat back on “And that shit is custorown No two brains are exactly alike Guess howpower it takes to really model even one huether, and that’s before we even start getting to the crap that goes on inside the cells”

“Okay”

“Now picture those synapses as buttons on a keyboard Five hundred trillion buttons And say that a brain looking at so, ‘That’s a flower’ punches a couple billion of those keys in just the right pattern Except it ain’t near that easy It isn’t just a flower, it’s a pile of associations Save your irl A flower you stepped on by accident and it s on a whole pile of other associations”

“I get it,” Holden said, holding up his hands in surrender “It’s coht buttons to , remember the clothes they wore and the way they smelled and how they would sometimes take off their hat to scratch their head”

“Wait,” Holden said “Are there bits of protomolecule in my brain?”

“Not exactly You may have noticed I’m non-local”

“What the hell does that evenme to explain microwaves to a monkey”

“That’s afor not creeping me the hell out, you need more practice”

“So, yeah The most complex siht now so that we can pretend I’m here in the sa flattered Also, doing what the fk I need you to do”

“That would be?”

“Touching that big thing in the ain, felt the al off of it “Why?”

“Because,” said Miller, lecturing to a stupid child “The place is in lockdown It’s not accepting remote connections without a level of authorization I don’t have”

“And I do?”

“You’re nota remote connection You’re actually here In the substrate In so deal”

“But I just walked in here”

“You had soet you this far”

“So you let the marines in too?”