Part of me wanted to spit in his eye. I'd tried to talk about it and he'd told me to go to hell, and now he changes his mind? But I did want to talk. "I didn't want to die," I said. "Oh no?" he said. "I think the evidence suggests the contrary." "I wasn't trying to die," I protested. "I was trying to --" What? I was trying to. . ._abdicate_. Take the refresh without choosing it, without shutting out the last year of my best friend's life. Rescue myself from the stinking pit I'd sunk into without flushing Dan away along with it. That's all, that's all. "I wasn't thinking -- I was just acting. It was an episode or something. Does that mean I'm nuts?" "Oh, probably," Doctor Pete said, offhandedly. "But let's worry about one thing at a time. You can die if you want to, that's your right. I'd rather you lived, if you want my opinion, and I doubt that I'm the only one, Whuffie be damned. If you're going to live, I'd like to record you saying so, just in case. We have a backup of you on file -- I'd hate to have to delete it." "Yes," I said. "Yes, I'd like to be restored if there's no other option." It was true. I didn't want to die. "All right then," Doctor Pete said. "It's on file and I'm a happy man. Now, are you nuts? Probably. A little. Nothing a little counseling and some R&R wouldn't fix, if you want my opinion. I could find you somewhere if you want." "Not yet," I said. "I appreciate the offer, but there's something else I have to do first." # Dan took me back to the room and put me to bed with a transdermal soporific that knocked me out for the rest of the day. When I woke, the moon was over the Seven Seas Lagoon and the monorail was silent. I stood on the patio for a while, thinking about all the things this place had meant to me for more than a century: happiness, security, efficiency, fantasy. All of it gone. It was time I left. Maybe back to space, find Zed and see if I could make her happy again. Anywhere but here. Once Dan was dead -- God, it was sinking in finally -- I could catch a ride down to the Cape for a launch. "What's on your mind?" Dan asked from behind me, startling me. He was in his boxers, thin and rangy and hairy. "Thinking about moving on," I said. He chuckled. "I've been thinking about doing the same," he said. I smiled. "Not that way," I said. "Just going somewhere else, starting over. Getting away from this." "Going to take the refresh?" he asked. I looked away. "No," I said. "I don't believe I will." "It may be none of my business," he said, "but why the fuck not? Jesus, Julius, what're you afraid of?" "You don't want to know," I said. "I'll be the judge of that." "Let's have a drink, first," I said. Dan rolled his eyes back for a second, then said, "All right, two Coronas, coming up." After the room-service bot had left, we cracked the beers and pulled chairs out onto the porch. "You sure you want to know this?" I asked. He tipped his bottle at me. "Sure as shootin'," he said.