Mira smiled, tired and sad. "It was a story about holding an umbrella in the rain for someone who's already gone. And it was the most beautiful piece of code ever written."

Mira disconnected the K2160. Its LCD was dark now, truly dead. The Ghost was gone, its elegy complete. She set the heavy, leaden-gray controller on the council table.

For three years, she’d been trying to crack its firmware. Not for money. For proof .

Kael stared at it. "What was it? The firmware?"