We took a minute to enjoy the joke — belly laughs are one of the best things about being sentient, and you should never miss a chance for one. - Dennis E. Taylor

What it lacks in elegance, it makes up for with wads of unearned optimism. Let’s do it.

This operation was being run either by a FAITH faction that didn’t approve of me or by one of the competing nations. Either way, they wanted me dead. It seemed to me that the Golden Rule applied. Time to reciprocate.

I had three issues that bothered me. Was I conscious? Could I actually consider myself to be alive? And was I still Bob? Philosophers had been going on and on about this type of thing for centuries, but now, for me, it was personal. A human, regardless of their opinion on the subject, could depend on being a human. The minister’s offhand reference to me as ‘it’ and ‘replicant’ had stung at a level I was just now starting to appreciate.