The railing was cold. Not just cool to the touch, but a biting, industrial freeze that burned the skin.
I wasn't touching it. Adam was.
But I could feel it. The sensory data was bleeding through the gap between us. I could feel the rough rust flaking off under his thumb. I could feel the vibration of the cars passing on the real bridge, fifty feet behind him. And I could feel the pull of the void in front of him.
"He’s not moving," Desi screamed over the wind. She was barely holding her shape. Her edges were blurring into static, like a detuned television channel. "Why isn't he moving? Is he... is he paused?"
"He’s buffering," I said, my voice sounding tinny and far away. "He is stuck in a loop. The indecision loop. To be or not to be. It’s the ultimate binary choice, and his processor is frozen."
We were standing on a narrow strip of asphalt suspended in gray fog. The "Cortex Club" was gone. The shelves of liquor, the sticky tables, the jukebox—deleted. All that was left was this: three terrified fragments of a personality, standing ten feet behind a man who was about to make a permanent error.
"We have to grab him," Desi yelled. She lunged forward, her boots scraping on the wet road.
"Wait!" I grabbed the back of her leather jacket. My hand went through the fabric for a second before solidifying. "You can't just grab him. If you startle him... gravity takes over. The physics here are unforgiving."
"So what do we do?" Greg asked.
I looked at Greg. He was translucent. I could see the gray fog right through his chest. He looked like a ghost wearing a hoodie. But he still looked heavy. He was the only thing on this bridge that didn't look like it was about to blow away in the wind.
"We talk to him," I said, adjusting my tie. It was a reflex. My tie was gone. My suit was gone. I looked down and realized I was just a silhouette of white light, shaped like a man. "We have to integrate. We have to give him the one thing he’s missing."
"A drink?" Desi asked, hopeful.
"No," I said. "Permission."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.