"A simple yes or no, Dan. That's all I want to hear from you." I was boiling with anger -- at myself, at Dan, at Debra, at the whole goddamn thing. "Fine," he said. "Good. Dial it up to max dispersion and point it straight up." I heard him release the catch, felt a staticky crackle in the air, and then it was done. The gun was a one-shot, something I'd confiscated from a mischievous guest a decade before, when they'd had a brief vogue. "Hang on to it," I said. I had no intention of leaving such a damning bit of evidence behind. I resumed my bellycrawl forward to the next service hatch, near the parking lot, where I'd stashed an identical change of clothes for both of us. # We made it back just as the demo was getting underway. Debra's ad-hocs were ranged around the mezzanine inside the Hall of Presidents, a collection of influential castmembers from other ad-hocs filling the pre-show area to capacity. Dan and I filed in just as Tim was stringing the velvet rope up behind the crowd. He gave me a genuine smile and shook my hand, and I smiled back, full of good feelings now that I knew that he was going down in flames. I found Lil and slipped my hand into hers as we filed into the auditorium, which had the new-car smell of rug shampoo and fresh electronics. We took our seats and I bounced my leg nervously, compulsively, while Debra, dressed in Lincoln's coat and stovepipe, delivered a short speech. There was some kind of broadcast rig mounted over the stage now, something to allow them to beam us all their app in one humongous burst. Debra finished up and stepped off the stage to a polite round of applause, and they started the demo. Nothing happened. I tried to keep the shit-eating grin off my face as nothing happened. No tone in my cochlea indicating a new file in my public directory, no rush of sensation, nothing. I turned to Lil to make some snotty remark, but her eyes were closed, her mouth lolling open, her breath coming in short huffs. Down the row, every castmember was in the same attitude of deep, mind-blown concentration. I pulled up a diagnostic HUD. Nothing. No diagnostics. No HUD. I cold-rebooted. Nothing. I was offline. # Offline, I filed out of the Hall of Presidents. Offline, I took Lil's hand and walked to the Liberty Belle load-zone, our spot for private conversations. Offline, I bummed a cigarette from her. Lil was upset -- even through my bemused, offline haze, I could tell that. Tears pricked her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?" she said, after a hard moment's staring into the moonlight reflecting off the river. "Tell you?" I said, dumbly. "They're really good. They're better than good. They're better than us. Oh, God."