But every time she does it, quotes and facts and thoughts, it's another step into the floating world. If other people are only machines -- "You make it sound so mechanical!" she said; perhaps she knew she was joking -- then we can do whatever we want. This Amanda, she's not real and that's a professional disappointment. But it needn't be a personal one. And every time she updates, quotes and facts and thoughts regurgitated, she steps further from the woman and closer to being his possession.

Amanda would hate it. She would hate it: Amanda Graystone, artificial life form extending a perverted grace. Repurposed, in her image, saying words she's never said and pretending to feelings she doesn't feel. Offering grace Daniel knows will never come. Perverted. How could you do that to a person? How is that grace? Amanda would hate it.

But Amanda's not here anymore.

"I want you to really try to remember how it felt. Like the night that we snuck out of the tent when Zoë was sleeping." She looks at him, with so much love. "We got a bottle of wine and we ran down that path..." She updates and smiles. To the beach. There was just enough moonlight to see the surf. And the air was cold, but the water was so warm...

That's just him again, his journal. He begs her to cross it, into the floating world; to augment his reality with wild algorithms. Amanda as generative model, an infinite variety of tree-like trees and woman-like women and a sudden spark, a leap to consciousness: "Don't just parrot it back. Really remember. Remember. Remember the..." He thinks about it, about what's there now, the kernels inside her. Made to love and to be loved in return. "The feel of the sand on our bodies," he begs, and she updates.

"And we made love. We didn't care about the sand, because we were... We were... It's like we were hungry for each other," she says, begging for his approval. Like this? You like it like this? Hungry. "Like I feel now." All of the taste, none of the calories. All of the grace, none of the guilt.