"There's those three people in the closet, too. The ones in the black boxes? Now that's what I call a disability."

Lily grunts. "Touché." And she downs the rest of her wine.

"Jenna, we have to talk about these things," Mother says. "You can't just run off and worry us every time you hit a bump."

"I didn't hit a bump. You both hid it from me."

"They aren't people," Father says.

"Have another," Lily offers, holding out the platter of mushrooms to me.

"We didn't hide it from you," Mother says.

"Did you hear me?"

"Behind a locked door is hidden."

"Shall I open another bottle?"

"What do you expect when you're acting like this?"

"Stop!" I yell. I can't keep up with the tangled conversation.

"I'll open another," Lily says. She shuffles off to the house while we sit at the table, using the silence to regroup. Mother lifts her hair off her shoulders and blows at the wisps on her forehead. The shifting Santa Ana winds have made it unseasonably warm for March. Father turns his glass, suddenly so interested in his wine, his brows creasing, his concentration holding his emotions back. I see his lips pull tight, like a seam within him is splitting.

"Let's start at the beginning," Mother says softly. :"What were you doing in my closet?"

"Let's start more at the beginning," I say. "Why is there a computer in your closet with my name on it?"

"It's a backup, Jenna," Father says, in his usual cut-the-crap voice. "We had to save the original upload."

I can hardly see Father as he continues to explain. I can only remember a place with no dimension, no depth, no heat, no cold, but immeasurable amounts of darkness and solitude. Another Jenna is still there.

"We already told you that this is uncharted territory. We don't think anything will go wrong, but if it does, we have a backup just in case. But it can't be a part of any Network. It's too risky. So we keep the bioenvironment completely independent of all Networks and power sources."

I stand, holding my arms, walking in circles, shaking my head.

"Jenna — "

"What are you doing? You have another me trapped in that environment! And Kara and Locke!"

Father shifts in his seat. His shoulders hunch awkwardly. "It's not another you or them, and trapped isn't a good word to use. It's only bits of infor — "

"It's a mind. You said so yourself."

"But it's a mind without any sensory input. It's like limbo or a dreamworld."

"Trust me, it's not a dreamworld. Not by a long shot. It's more like a nightmare." I collapse back into my chair and close my eyes.

"Jenna, it's only been a few months," Claire says. "Give us some time to work this out. We're still trying to think it through ourselves. That's all we ask. Just give us some time."

She is not listening. Neither of them are. They don't want to believe that the place I occupied for eighteen months was anything less than a dreamy waiting room. And time is all I've given them. Time. Months. Years. A lifetime of being theirs. Will a time come when I can ever say no? Do I even have time? I need a backup because something could go wrong? I am suddenly aware of my quivering hands and the tremor in my leg.

"What could go wrong?" I ask. It hadn't occurred to me that I could suddenly blink into nothingness like a crashed computer with not even two years used up on my shelf life. That two years seems so precious now — a lifetime. I don't want to be . . . gone. My insides tighten and I feel breathless. Breathless from someone who has no lungs. Should I laugh or cry?

I feel Father grab my hands in his, and I open my eyes. "We don't think anything will go wrong, Angel. But we don't have any long-term data for a project of this magnitude. The Bio Gel has only been in use for eight years and then it's only been used for isolated organ transplants, not as an entire nervous system. The problem might be if there are conflicts between your original brain tissue and the Bio Gel, signals that might create almost an antibody effect, with one trying to override the other. We haven't seen it yet and we don't expect to, but scenarios like that are why we have backups. Just in case."

Blink. Gone.

I don't want to blink out of existence. Images flash through me. Ethan's stormy eyes. Mr. Bender's sparrows. Allys smiling. Claire holding her arms out to me. The forest and sky that mesmerized me for hours. New images from my new life. Images that are not in my backup. That's a different Jenna. I want to keep the Jenna I am now.

"Here we go." Lily plops another bottle of wine down on the table and places an extra glass in front of me.

"Have you lost your mind, Lily?" Father says.

"It's not like she can get drunk."

"But it still — "

"Leave it, Matt," Mother says.

"Pour up, Lily," I say, lifting my glass.

She does, and Father doesn't say another word.

I don't get drunk, but I do feel it warm my insides. However primitive my digestive system may be, it seems to appreciate Lily's effort, even if the wine is tasteless.

"Why are there backups for Kara and Locke?" I ask.

"It was me," Mother says as she rubs her temple. She takes another sip of her wine and looks out across the pond. "We had already scanned you. We had hope. But a few days after we had moved you, I had to go back to the hospital to retrieve some of your belongings and I saw Kara's and Locke's parents and the agony they were going through. I begged your father to scan them, too, in case they didn't make it." She sighs and looks back at me. "So he did."