12/02/2026 18:14

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____, “Troika,” Godlike Machines. “I’m sorry, Fabbro,” he said in a completely different voice. The prefabricated surroundings, the background hum of distant machines, the utilitarian clothing of his wake-up team: perhaps he was aboard some kind of spacecraft, sailing between the worlds. It didn’t contain backup copies of the four of us; it contained only one ultra-high-fidelity copy of Michael Poole himself.

She was brought to me in the shambles of my new office, where I had barely begun to lay out my things. “You set us inside this world,” he said, “then turned away and left us to it. Let’s think about it when we get home. He stands where he landed, glancing back at Lucas and almost talking.