The note drifted to the floor when he opened his locker.

Vic reached between the bench and the lockers to pick it up, then smoothed the wrinkled paper against his thigh. It told him to call the nursery so they wouldn't send Daniel home at the end of the shift. It reminded him to save his pill. And it told him these things were important.

To him.

The note was in his handwriting.

He remembered sitting in his auto-kitchen early this morning, gazing out his portal screen at the tiny blaze of the sun amidst all that black, rubbing the pencil thoughtfully along the tattoos hooked across his face. But he felt no connection to the haggard middle-aged man who'd done it. He recognized himself as a fact among facts, without emotion. Along with the name of his ten-year-old son, along with the proper way to fit a vacuum suit, what it felt like to walk in point-five gee, how he'd crumpled the note and flattened it out again three times before finally slipping it into the pocket of his jumpsuit. So he understood that once he accessed his personality from its storage unit in the top of his locker, the message would take on a significance he simply didn't feel right now. And with himself on, he knew, there would also be fear.

...

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