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Your <span class="mu-i">retainer.</span> You turn back to Gil, who peers tightly up at you. "...What'd Richard say?" he says.
"Nothing. Do you know what a book on tape is? ...No, nevermind. I—" You drop your voice. "I am going to utilize my, um, magyckal powers upon the personage of Fake Rudy. So if I start to foam at the mouth or anything, drag me away, okay? Otherwise, don't worry about it. I shall report with my discoveries posthaste. Cool?"
"Uh," says Gil. "Cool."
"Cool!" You clap your hands together, then spin on your heel to face Fake Rudy— who's been entranced, apparently, by the puddle of his own weird vomit. (You hadn't thought of Fake Ellery as being a particularly good replica, given the memory blocks and heart-stabbing and whatnot, but as an object of comparison...) Is it worthwhile to give him warning? Or a preamble? Probably not. You touch his shoulder, curl your toes, contemplate whether you should develop a catchphrase for this. Wouldn't a catchphrase be easier? At least it'd provide a clear mechanism: at the moment you have no explanation for how you've been pulling this off, other than a sorcerous bloodline and/or concentrated vigor, and neither of those seem to explain the foreign, silky detachment that descends upon you. Like you're seeing the person from a great height, or in clean slivers on a table, like you're seeing right through them— <span class="mu-r">seeing</span> right <span class="mu-r">through</span>—
Fake Rudy has no interior. Fake Rudy is a wafer-thin ocean-wide sheet of mirror, and you go sailing merrily through him. Bam! Crash! Smash! Easy enough. Tether stretching behind you, you slam short into somebody else.
<span class="mu-i">Into</span> somebody else. Into their head, from first-person perspective. Or something, or something: you're not yourself, from your lack of a bad eye, and you're not in control, from your inability to blink or twitch or do anything at all. You're spectating. What are you spectating?
Whoever "you" are, you're sat around a table in a little room, surrounded by small-print documents and fidgeting people. "—ready for launch," somebody's saying. "Needs another round of QC—"
"What QC?" somebody else says. "Didn't they get <span class="mu-i">downsized?</span>"
A wave of nervous tittering. "That's bunkum," says the first somebody, irritably. ("You" are staring at the table, which complicates your ability to follow the conversation.) "The QC team is fully intact, and then some. Haven't you been in contact, Rudy?"
"You" startle up, but say nothing. "Your" hand goes up to your temple.
"Rudy? Er, is everything alright?"
"Gee, look at his eyes," says a woman to the side. "You think it's withdrawal?"
"Withdrawal? Don't be crass, Gretchen, I'm sure he's— <span class="mu-i">Rudy?</span>" Your field of vision's closing: you can barely make out the gaggle of people around "you". "Can you hear us? Marc's gone to ring up Health, but—"
(3/4)
