The file is found in the storage memory of the cyberdeck belonging to the persona Serpens in Machina. The time and date signature indicates that the file was composed and sent eleven months, six days, seven hours, twenty-eight minutes, and thirty-one seconds ago. Original routing: NA/UCAS-TOR-8267-PTLG-43, the private telecommunications grid of Griffith Pharmaceuticals. Rerouting: NA/UCAS-SEA-3308. Current status of address: null data. Address cancelled seven seconds after re-routing and message download complete.

»Hi Dad. »I heard about the shooting. I'm glad the docs managed to patch you up. »I hate to tell you this, but I think it was all my fault. I didn't mean to "out" you-it was an accident. I was with a friend of mine in a bar in the Barrens-a dump, but one of the few places they let ghouls into-and we were arguing politics. We got onto the subject of the Human Nation, and how its membership were evil-nazzie fraggers who should all be slagged, and I argued that some of those members were just gullible, that they weren't really evil. I told him that the Human Nation had even managed to sucker in some metas-like my own father, for example. »Well, I guess I said your name a little too loud. After I heard about the shooting, I remembered that there was this human guy at the end of the bar. I didn't think much of it at the time. He looked pretty scruffy, and fit the decor. But later I remembered how he'd sort of leaned our way, like he was listening, when I started talking about you. And how he'd hurried away afterward. Anyhow, I think he was the one who tipped off the guy who shot you. »What can I say, Dad? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to almost get you killed. We've had our differences-we'll never see eye to eye on the meta issue. But you're my father. I'm happy with my chosen family, but you're the only real family I've got, since Mom's side doesn't really count. Not any more. »I could use your help, Dad. Things are pretty tough for me right now. I hate to admit it, but you were right-I did wind up on the streets. I could use some nuyen to help me through. But I don't want to ask you in person, since I know you're ashamed of me. We both know that this is why you sent me away to boarding school-so I wouldn't embarrass you in front of your Human Nation friends. »If you don't reply to this message, I'll assume you never want to see me again. But I'll always love you, just the same. I'm just sorry that my last memory of you is of us fighting. »Love, Chester.«

Dark Father reeled as the text of the e-mail flooded into his mind. Chester was on the streets and in trouble? Chester had composed that message eleven months ago. Eleven months ago. Anything could have happened since then. Chester could be hurt, or in jail, or dead at the hands of a bounty hunter by now.

Spirits curse Serpens in Machina. That bleeding-heart meta lover had cost Dark Father his only son. If only the shadowrunner hadn't stolen Chester's message…

No. If only Winston hadn't been so ashamed of his own son. He loved the boy, despite what he was. Despite what they both were.

Dark Father felt a tear trickle down his bony cheek. He was crying? Without the aid of tear ducts? He supposed he must be crying, in the real world. Ghouls did cry-just like everyone else. They were only… human… after all.

"Why?" he whispered. "Oh, Chester."

Yes, Daddy?

The toddler that stood in front of Dark Father shifted form, his claws reshaping themselves into blunt fingernails and his ears rounding down from sharp points. The jagged teeth in his mouth softened and flattened into the baby teeth of a human and its skin lost its mottling, darkening into a rich, uniform brown.

Chester had become human.

No. The Al that was using Chester's image as a persona had reshaped it into human form. Dark Father felt his heart soften. The boy looked so much like Anne…

Knowing that this wasn't really Chester, feeling slightly foolish, Dark Father spoke: "I love you, Chester. Just the way you are. You don't have to be human to be my son."

Humans are perfect.

Dark Father laughed out loud. "No, they're not. Although my-friends-in the Human Nation would like me to think so."

He sighed and shook his head. "I've been so wrong. About so many things."

We must all become perfect.

"No," Dark Father corrected. "We just have to be the best we can."

Imperfect copies must be deleted.

"That's what the bounty hunter thought. But he was wrong."

I am imperfect. I must be deleted. YOU are imperfect…

Dark Father shuddered, remembering that the virus that had infected the Al was designed to trick it into crashing itself. And now it looked as though the thing would deliberately take Dark Father with it when it went.

He suddenly wished he hadn't decided to confront the artificial intelligence on his own. He wasn't doing a very good job of convincing it not to crash. And-he looked around the duplicate of his living room, wondering which elements were icons and which were just window dressing-he didn't have the first idea how to repair the damage done by the virus.

As if on cue, Lady Death appeared. "Dark Father! The others never showed up, and I had trouble finding you. Did you find the trap door-"

Dark Father didn't think it was possible for Lady Death's face to change color. But somehow, as she looked at the icon that represented the Al, it did.

"Oh," she said in a small voice, blushing furiously. "Shinanai."

Hitomi was still pretty shaky on her feet, but she was tired of lying in the hospital bed. They wouldn't even let her play simsense to pass the time. As if she could log onto the Matrix from a clunky old playback unit like the one in her hospital room.

Well, she could, she thought smugly. But not as easily as she could with the nova-hot cyberdeck that was hidden in her room at home.

Instead she had to rely on the cyberterminal that her tutor had smuggled in to her, the one that she'd hidden under the hospital bed. It was a tortoise-a child's toy that accessed the Matrix only via keyboard and monitor screen. With a computer like that, the only workable jackpoint was the telecom connection in the lounge.

Hitomi walked down the hallway of her family's private medical clinic, supporting herself by hanging onto the railing on the wall, her illicit cyberterminal tucked under one arm. Legs trembling, she made her way to the lounge at the end of the hall. Father would be coming to visit her there in an hour or so, and he was always pleased by signs of her progress-especially since it was taking her so much longer to recover than the doctors expected. Today she'd make him proud of her by revealing to him the fact that she could walk to the lounge on her own, without the aid of attendants. And while she was waiting for him, she'd use this as an opportunity to access the Matrix.