"What`ll it be now?" Dr. Light leaned forward, held the book above Blues`s upturned face, and began flipping slowly, deliberately through the pages.

"That one," Blues said. He focused his eyes on the photo, taken from a perspective looking up, of a tree whose reddish-brown trunk seemed to disappear into the sky. He recognized it as one of the familiar trees that towered around the perimeter of Dr. Light`s property. By force of habit he tried to point, but his right arm remained where it lay on top of the duvet cover, a deadweight.

Dr. Light lifted the book, and peered down at the picture through the magnified lenses of his bifocals. "You mean the sugi?" he said. "Haven`t we read this one before?"

"No, we haven`t," Blues said, and knew Dr. Light would believe him.

"All right." Tom cleared his throat. "Cryptomeria japonica. Genus cryptomeria, subfamily taxodiaceae. One of the largest evergreen trees. Native to Japan, and cultivated as an ornamental tree in China from antiquity..."

Blues stared up at the wooden panels in the ceiling, counting the knots. He remembered the likenesses of sugis he`d seen in the forest simulation: hulking pillars ringed by premeditated configurations of fallen pinecones. He preferred the real thing, now that he was used to it: the bark had a roughness and smell that was sharper than its dreamland counterpart, and the trunks of some individuals were twisted into formations that gave them a powerful, imperfect beauty. Variation, diversity: these were the things that interested him most within the three square kilometers of wilderness he`d been allowed to explore, and through which he`d gained an inkling of the enormity of the world.

And yet... this real world, filled with sensory input, and seasons, and weather, and life, and music, and people, exacted a heavy toll...

Tom continued to read. "...Grows quickly, and thrives, in warm, humid climates. Used extensively in construction..."

Blues cast a weary glance at Dr. Light, whose eyes were down at the pages, and waited for a pause between sentences.

"Dr. Light?"

Tom lowered the book, and pushed his reading glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. "Yes, Blues?"

"How much longer?"

Dr. Light glanced at his watch. "About twenty eight minutes," he said, "more or less."

Of course, it would probably be "less" rather than "more": as his creators had predicted, he`d lost a few seconds between each of his two previous charges, though they didn`t yet have enough data to confirm whether the rate of decline was constant, or if it was accelerating. For now, they could only hypothesize that it depended, to an undetermined degree, on how much he moved, or thought.

The portable netscreen was on the floor beside him, displaying his CPU activity as a side-scrolling series of peaks and valleys. At the bottom of the screen was his energy level represented as a percentage, steadily ticking down to zero. The precise moment he reached it, the moment of the flatline, was what Dr. Light was waiting for. And there, beside the netscreen, was the cube-shaped generator waiting to pull him back from oblivion.

This process was an unpleasant experience for Blues, and on each occasion Dr. Light did his best to keep him comfortable and calm during the last hour when he was too weak to move his limbs. There was music, if he wanted it—or, like today, Dr. Light`s voice reading from a book of his choosing, all in an effort to distract him from the terror of being locked inside his inert body.

A high-pitched screech, which Blues guessed had come from some kind of bird, pierced the silence. He turned his eyes to the curtains covering his bedroom window. A cord of sunlight snaking its way across the floor beneath them, and that screech, were all he could perceive of the outside world—but it was enough to remind him that, out there, the universe was going about its business, taking no notice of him or his flawed power core.

"Blues," Tom said, "do you want me to keep reading?"

"What was that noise?" said Blues.

"Oh, that?" Tom looked at the window. "It sounded like a hawk. Was this your first time to hear one?"

Just then, Blues felt his pain ratcheting up in intensity. Too weakened to grasp at his middle, or even to clench his fists, he squeezed his eyes shut. Seconds later, he noticed Tom`s warm hand pressing on his forehead.

"What number?" Dr. Light said.

He opened his eyes. "Six."

With a glance at his watch, Tom recorded the answer in the notepad he kept next to him on the floor. When he put his pencil down again, he sighed and looked away.

The episode was short lived. Already, Blues perceived the warm tingling in his fingers and toes, slowly creeping inward, which meant he would soon be numb. He knew it also meant he was running out of time to talk.

"When is Judith coming?" he said. He had asked the question a few times before, even to Judith herself, but no one could give him a precise answer.

Dr. Light turned back, pink-nosed. "Another week or two," he said. "She promised she`d be here on your birthday, and she doesn`t break her promises."

But Blues didn`t know whether to look forward to Judith`s arrival, or to dread it. Albert`s words of warning haunted him, and as he stared up into Dr. Light`s face, which looked as always so warm and kind, he was gripped with fear. He felt a sudden urge to run, but of course his body wouldn`t cooperate.

"The most likely scenario for you is a rapid decline... Tom and Judith aren`t going to tell you this... They might even decide to do something... you probably wouldn`t consent to..."

He suddenly remembered how, after last summer`s earthquake, he and Tom had found Catherine`s urn knocked onto its side with a third of its contents spread out on the floor. Blues had then watched as Dr. Light crouched on his knees, scooping up the grey grit with his bare hands. Some of the ashes had been lodged between the tatami mats, or lingered as dark outlines that put the tightly woven blades of grass into stark relief. Of course, it was impossible to salvage it all—sometimes, Dr. Light had said, these things couldn`t be helped—and in the end, traces of Catherine had gone into the vacuum cleaner that was kept in the living room closet.

Suffering... just the ordinary state of affairs.

His thoughts, dragged along by a process he could no longer control, wandered to the afternoon two days ago when another phone call from Judith had pulled Dr. Light outside with his hand cupped over the receiver—and Dr. Wily, left alone with Blues for the first time in almost a week, had taught him how to open his own chest cavity and recognize the relevant wires which, when detached, would stop any signals of pain from reaching his CPU. As Albert had disconnected them one by one, he`d watched Blues`s eyes carefully to make sure he was paying attention. He then had told Blues to try it once himself. Blues, in a haze of disbelief, had done as he`d asked.

"This is for your own peace of mind, and mine," Dr. Wily had said, as his nimble fingers returned the wires back to their proper inputs. "The truth is, I`ve become rather fond of you, and I`d hate to see you suffer."

Late that night, after Albert had left and Tom had gone to sleep, Blues had felt compelled to go down into the basement and open Dr. Light`s desk drawer, to check whether the box of matches was really there. It was.

I`m frightened. The phrase floated up to him from the depths. I`m frightened, Dr. Light. And you don`t even realize...

"Blues?" He saw Tom`s face peering down at him with a look of concern. His features were blurry. "What`s the matter? Are you still in pain?"

"No." The numbness had taken him over, and Blues couldn`t feel anything at all.

"Can you feel my hand on yours?"

"No." It was only one word, but he had to struggle to push it out.

"We`re almost finished, then." Dr. Light took a deep breath. "Just like before, you`ll be out for an hour or so while you recharge. Albert`s going to come pay us a visit in the afternoon, and you`ll have a netscreen chat with Judith, and..."

His face, and the room around it, faded to black. Blues closed his eyes. He began to play the opening of Schubert`s B-flat piano sonata in his head, but he couldn`t picture the positioning of his fingers on the keyboard, and he kept losing track of the music mid-phrase and having to start over from the beginning. Soon only the theme, stripped down to its handful of notes, remained; finally, that too was lost.

Another screech entered his awareness, but he couldn`t remember the bird it had come from. The fact he`d forgotten didn`t bother him. Even the name of the man sitting beside him, and the nature of their relationship, slipped his mind. As the particulars dropped out of view, the world felt once more like a benevolent place.

There was no more fear. He sensed a presence at his side, and heard a sonorous voice speaking words of comfort whose feeling and intent, if not their meaning, were understood up until the end.