My personal phantoms move in and out, twisting through me. They haunt me in my sleep.

Faces fly past me, leave me behind. So many are in white helmets, circuits everywhere. They bring with them the hollowness of loss.

One such conscript, I remember, was blonde. He wore a sort of vest, running blue with foreign, ancient, but familiar circuitry. I think I knew him for a long time. I see him in my head, spinning an odd sort of code disc on the end of his finger... But then he's gone. Not just from memory. I feel it. He's gone forever. Dead, right in front of me. I can't remember his name.

I see others, too. Less personal. They are a series of nameless faces, some grateful, some admiring, some new, some old. Some are ISOs.

Out of their midst, though, I see him.

I see the one who looks so much like Clu, and yet, so unlike him. I see his eyes. Warm, bright, mischievous eyes. His unruly hair. He smiles so often, and I remember him as he claps his hand on my shoulder. Friendly. But then, he is running, running away from me, from some fatal mistake. . .

I failed him.

What have I done?

He leaves me, leaves me with this lingering question. But he, his memory, his questions, they are not the worst thing which sleep can bring.

No, That title belongs to her.

The nameless ghost.

The unforgettable woman.

My beautiful program.

I remember her so clearly. It is as if she's somehow been ingrained into my own systems, like she's a fragment of myself. A piece of me belongs to her, and I cannot take it back, not any more than I can take her, for she is gone as well. She is long lost in the sea of my city, in the shelter of hiding. She is free.

But I remember. I always remember. Even now, her voice cuts through my systems, blinds my closed eyes, made so much worse by the vividness of the memory which has risen in my sleep.

In this dream, she is dressed in that strange way again, all in white, uniform cut with a garishly neon blue. Her hair is hidden away beneath some kind of circuit emblazoned cap.

She is lovely.

I think it even in sleep.

Hopeless Rinzler . . .

The dream carries on, and she looks at me, perching herself, so neatly, on the edge of her chair. Her eyes, clear, cool, pale blue, fixate on me, and the batting fans of her long lashes begin to flutter at their borders.

I am helpless.

I have to come to her.

Don't say it.

I warn myself away as I approach, transfixed. I've had this dream before. I know what's going to happen.

Don't . . .

But I do. My own voice is staggering enough, one of so many things which have been taken from me. I don't like to hear it, much less what it says.

"I can always count on you, can't I?"

Something is freezes inside of my chest when I say it, something about the words cutting into me.

. . . But there is more.

Don't. Beautiful program. Don't.

I think it at her with all I have. But she's going to do it anyway.

And I am still going to let her.

As the dream commences, I sit, relax beside her. I melt. Trying not to show it, I collapse in her presence. I am consumed by relief, freedom, sanctuary . . . And something else. Something so much more terrible, so much more wrenching to watch.

Her hand is shifting, now, playing towards me, playing towards this weakness I refuse to name, playing towards what I cannot fight.

. . . . . . Please. Don't.

I am so unaccustomed to begging.

Don't say it.

But I loathe the inventible response.

The tragedy of it is precluded by her eyes. Those huge, fixating, lovely eyes. It is completed by the smile playing across her mouth, her delicate face, her tucked together posture, finalized by the way her hand flexes as if to reach for mine. I am shattered. Broken by immaculate details, by this fleeting moment.

"Always."

That is what she says.

Always.

It's one word. That is all, and it's enough. It runs itself through me.

I gasp, stutter, wretch to wakefulness. My own grimace tears at my face, and my helmet snaps down, ripping me away from everything. Away from always, and her.

I want to scream.

Beautiful program . . .

She is tearing me apart.