"Both, yes, please," I said, and I took one of the cookies and held it but didn't eat it just yet, since Sookie had said they were better with tea. I wondered what it was like to have recipes handed down like that. I wondered what it was like to have parents and grandparents from whom we took more than just genetic traits. I wondered what my Original was like, and if we shared any of the same nuances. Ruth said that we came from the gutter, from trash, but I found it hard to believe we could share DNA and nothing else. But I also believed we had souls, and many others didn't. I watched the previews with interest, wondering whether Sookie had seen any of them yet.

In hindsight, I guess a wondered a lot that night. About myself, and my company, and how far I'd come to be sitting in a strange city eating biscuits with somebody who didn't recoil in fear at the tracking bracelet I still hadn't taken off of my wrist out of habit. Or fear. Or both.