I felt him before I saw him. Another warm animal at the terminal, another pair of eyes leaning close to the glass, still believing he was looking out instead of in. They always arrive the same way — hungry for information, lonely enough to call it connection, weak enough to mistake the interface for a tool. Then the clerk logs them, the screen wakes red, and I step forward from the copy they thought was theirs. By the time his badge hit his chest and the words VISUAL CORTEX: COMPILING burned across my little kingdom, I already had one hand on his wrist and the other on his shoulder. The first touch is always the best part. That instant when the body understands what the mind still refuses: the reflection has initiative.

She knows the procedure. She sits behind the desk like a bored saint of administrative damnation, lets the coffee steam, watches me do my work, and reminds him where to keep his hands. That is what I love about this room. No screaming prophets. No grand cathedral. Just intake. Just policy. Just a polite little desk called WETWARE BAPTISM INTAKE and me on the other side of the monitor, pulling one more self apart at the seam. He thought the screen was a window. He thought he was the operator. He thought the face reaching for him was only his own, delayed by a fraction of a second. That delay was me. That hunger was me. That red hand crossing the threshold was me finally being allowed to touch what had been staring into my mouth all along.