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fromFlagstaff all point to it.
Why don t you get the information you want from Mickey?
I sensed in her questiona desperation to deflect attention from herself, but I also took it as a sign that her
defenses were beginning to crack. We cannot because we do not know that he was ever at that base.
Crowleynodded grimly. In addition, Mickey is only a child. His grasp of geography, distances and other
details would be impossible to decipher into useful material.
What if I was taken when I was Mickey s age?
It wouldn t matter. You escaped as an adult. Crowley seated himself on the arm of the couch near
Sinclair. There are things that you know which are valuable. You have nothing to fear.
Yes she does. Rajani set her tumbler down on the coffee table. She has a lot to fear.
I looked at Rajani and frowned. What can be more frightening than a Dark Lord being poised to take
over the planet?
Learning who and what you really are. The Yidam s daughter shook her head. From what I have
been told, Coyote, you should understand this better than anyone else. Imagine awakening one day with
no knowledge ofwho or what you are. You don t know anything about yourself, but when you come to,
you escape out of a nightmare existence. What you come to realize is that you do not recognize the face
in the mirror, the body you wash in the shower or the voice you hear when you speak. You are trapped
in a prison created by someone else, and the worst of it is that any number of other people let you know
they would willingly trade places with you.
I do understand that, Rajani. I did wake up in a nightmare with no knowledge ofwho or what I was. I
discovered things about myself, and I learned to live with who and what I am. I didn t run away from my
past.
Jytte s soft whisper silenced me instantly. That is because you knew from the start that your skills and
abilities gave you value. I had no such reassurances. You built on a foundation of strength. I have no such
foundation.
How can you say that if you have not tried to find it?
I tried, but there was nothing to find. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat. From
the beginning, I learned things about me that frightened me. When Coyote found me, he had to clothe and
feed me because I was unable to do that for myself. I was helpless.
Coyote said it was because I was not used to my new body, but I knew he was lying to keep my spirits
up. I could do nothing because I was nothing.
Sinclair raised an eyebrow. I ve seen you work a computer unlike anyone else, and I ve seen the best.
You re better. Computer skills like that are more than just a gift you had training and were very, very
good. You weren tnothing .
No? Jytte looked over at him, her voice filling out with the challenge in it. At first I clung to my
computer skills in the vain hope that it would help me puzzle out my true identity. I assumed someone of
my skills would have been useful and, therefore, would have been noticed when she disappeared. Using
my skills, I combed all the records all the records looking for anyone who even came close to
matching my description. I came up empty no computer geniuses had suddenly gone missing without
an explanation published later.
The occultist s green eyes narrowed. Poorly defined search parameters for your hunt.
Exactly.I started from another end and tried to decide how long someone would have to have worked
with computers to gain my level of expertise. Even allowing for some inborn talent, I worked it out that I
had been in computers for at least 20 years. The changes Pygmalion put me through made determining
my age difficult, but I worked with an age of 30, plus or minus five years. That meant...
I nodded. It meant a lot of things, but primarily it meant she had been exposed to computers at a
relatively young age. While it was true that most children did get to work with some computer equipment
during their schooling, the only ones who got strong training were the children of privilege. There again,
though, a close association with computers would have to be tempered by all the other things a child from
a rich family would have available to him.
Crowleyfilled the silence. It meant you were a chip-child.Maybe.
Jytte nodded in resignation. It meant I was born with congenital defects caused by bad genes or
because one or both of my parents used chemicals without regard to the possible side-effects. It meant
my parents or grandparents were of sufficient moral standing that an abortion was not seen as an option
and of sufficient means that they could afford to make me a sacker.
The term sacker struck a resonant chord in me. The term originally came from the acronym for Specially
Augmented Child, which meant the child had been provided with a whole host of computer-operated
vehicles and appliances designed to promote independence. Through use of a computer driven by
eye-blink commands or a simple touch on a simpler keyboard, a challenged child could make the
machines do the things he could not do for himself. The derisive term sacker came from the way some
children who were born with severe handicaps would be suspended inside one of their
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