After he got out of the hospital, Swan found a new job waiting for him. With Tony's help he got the position in customer relations that Tony had predicted for him.

But nothing felt the same.

Who was he?

Was he a stranger falsely trying to fill another man's shoes?

Or was he who he had willed himself--at first halfheartedly, then earnestly, with the help of others--to become?

These questions occupied his every waking moment. Mostly he tended to come down on the blackest side of the dilemma.

How could he ever have imagined he could slip so easily into someone else's old life? He was a fraud, an impostor. Everyone was just pretending with him, pretending to like him, pretending to tolerate him, pretending to accept him as what he was not and could never be.

Even Emma?

Even her.

Emma in her cold bed.

One day when his doubts reached an unbearable intensity, Swan began making discreet inquiries.

Inquiries that brought him one day after a week's searching to arrange an appointment for his next lunch hour.

As he made ready to go to work that morning, Emma said, "Glen--I realize how hard things have been for you lately. But I want you to know that I believe in you. Nothing's your fault, Glen. And someday those guys who beat you up will get caught. Even if they don't, they'll pay somehow, in the end. I really believe that, and you should too."

Swan winced inwardly at the memory of his beating, but did not comment on Emma's notion of justice. Justice--or revenge--was something that would soon be within his own grasp.

If he truly wanted it, knew what to do with it, how best to have it.

Emma seemed desperate to reach him, as if she sensed the enormity of this day. "You've been good to me and Will, Glen. And if I haven't been quite as good to you, well--it's because I needed time. I can be better. We can be better together."

Swan did not reply. Emma looked down at her hands folded in her lap. When she raised her face, her cheeks were wet.

"I--I really couldn't stand to lose you twice."

Swan left.

There was no sign that the door Swan faced at noon in a shabby part of the city belonged to a doctor's office. And inside were no reassuring accoutrements of medicine, no diplomas or cheerful receptionist or old dying magazines or fellow patients.

Just a man. A man who sat behind his desk in a highbacked chair in the gloom, swiveled so that Swan never got a good look at his appearance. He was a voice only, and even that voice, Swan suspected, was electronically disguised.

"--not responsible for any side-effects," the man was saying. "The whole thing is highly experimental still," The man chuckled. "No FDA seal of approval. But the beauty of it is that it's just one spinal injection. Bam! Straight to the brain and your little parasitical friend dissolves and gets scavenged. If everything goes okay, that is. Then you're free."

Free. But for what? If he just wanted to run away from everything, he could run away now. He didn't have to kill the thing inside his head just to run. It wasn't a leash or a fence.

But the EGA was a symbol. That, he realized, was the calculated subtlety of it, of the State's reformatory schemes. It didn't even have to function to fulfill its purpose. It could be a placebo for all he knew, a ruse. But even so it was strong, a monument, a permanent symbol of the agreement he had entered into. A token of the exchange he had made, the life that had been extinguished in his place, the new bonds he had willingly assumed. To kill the thing in his head meant to deny the entire past year, to abrogate his contract with his new life.

To focus instead on spite and revenge, on hurting and pain.

Swan began to feel sick to his stomach. Was it the EGA kicking in? Or just the natural reaction of whoever he was?

The doctor was talking. Swan tried to focus on what he was saying.

"--not your fucking fault--"

Emma's face swam up into his vision.

"Nothing's your fault, Glen."

Swan stood up. "I've decided."

The doctor's voice was gloating. "Great. Now we can get down to the important things."

"Right," said Swan, and turned to leave.

"Hey," said the doctor. "Where you going?"

"Back to my job, back to my home, back to my wife."

Back to my life.