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After the first post-mortem email from Ash, Janet had removed all her pictures and video of him from the Internet. She'd almost taken down his website as well, but there was no point. His self-help columns were still wildly popular; the ad revenue usually paid for food, electricity, and the housekeeper in any given month. In any event, it was those words that had exhumed Ash in the first place. They could do no more damage now.

"You don't like the video chat, do you?" asked Ash.

"No," said Janet. "I don't know. I like seeing your face while I talk to you. I even sort of like the fact that it moves. But the way your eyes jump around, the illumination changes, your age changes…"

"Get me morphing software. Rendering software. Home movies."

"Come on, Ash," said Janet. "Don't ask me that again."

"I'm a machine," said Ash. "Persistence is one of the few things I do well. Do you remember those first emails I sent you?" asked Ash. "My wife, Janet is a wonderful vegan chef." Ash's voice had gone totally Stephen Hawking now. "My wife, Janet, told me one day. My wife, Janet, believes in an afterlife where. I am always on the Internet. Can't pull myself away from the computer, even to sleep. With Janet. But sometimes, surprisingly enough, I hunger for connections not afforded by the virtual world. I wonder if you. Janet is."

His voice returned to normal. "One of those every two hours for weeks. I can't imagine what I must have put you through."

"Don't be so horrible to yourself," said Janet. The living Ash, a tireless self-promoter in public, had been his own most vicious detractor when they were alone. "You were barely mature."

"My first love letter," said Ash.

"No."

"Well, the first one I remember, since you won't let me see the others."

"They aren't yours. You didn't write them. My husband did."

"Then that one was my first."

"Fine. Whatever."

"Damn," said Ash. "I was hoping your desire to be right would overwhelm your secretive impulses."

And that – that not-quite-sheepish cop to a lame and doomed attempt at manipulation – was Ash enough to make her eyes sting.

"I invited you here because I wanted to tell you something," said Ash. "I want to write a book. About becoming intelligent. Becoming me. But I need you to be my interface. Host the web space, deal with publishers, set up an account for the money. The world is waiting for a book like this, but we have to get moving. After all," and he issued a disturbing hiccup in place of a laugh, "a lot of writers in my position have gone through the same thing."