It is rarely a trouble to pick out the footsteps of the people of Taxon--as David's taken to placing them, in a class apart from his own and apart from all of the simple Extra AIs wandering around. The white noise of Taxon, meaningless chatter and the wind and the horns of distant cars all resolve themselves into a soothing, harmonic pattern. Extras come and go at perfectly randomized intervals; dogs bark, birds sing high and low at certain, blandly varied pitches. Taxon is a very harmonic place. This is a basic characteristic of a simulation. Everything is modulated. Everything is just imperfect enough.

One could almost say that it is, in fact, unheimlich.

So the people stand out when they move, and the purposeful stride of Nuada of Bethmoora certainly no exception. David looks over his shoulder when he hears him, before he comes into view; he has a hand laid curiously on the plastic padding of an exercise machine, a clumsy 21st-century contraption with (to him) squeaking and unreliable hinges. With little to do, David's now in the intermittent habit of wandering--wherever he goes that no one stops him, and no one ever seems to stop him. Today it's the gymnasium.

He still hasn't claimed a residence. He is not sure yet what he would do with a residence.

Nevertheless, he straightens up and turns and has his head bowed deferentially to Nuada in the next moment, every yellow hair on his head exactly in place.

He has never met this one before. There is a curious quality to his hair and skin--David is unsure of it.

"Hello, sir," he says, cool and monotone.