Open mouths, empty heads, big bytes.
The redundancies are collapsing. Ghost divisions are eating each other. And SKELM CORPS is doing what it always does when the architecture starts to crack - it promotes the problem.
Darby Skelm has been inside the machine long enough to know the sound it makes before it swallows you whole. Beverly knows it too. The difference is she's still willing to bet on the long game while Darby's starting to wonder if the game was rigged before either of them sat down.
The consciousness yields are accelerating. The endpoints are getting closer. And the thing between them - the thing neither of them will name out loud - is either the only real thing left or the most elaborate extraction of all.
The machine doesn't break. It digests.
They're running out of time to decide which side of the teeth they're on.
