You wrote about commands as if they were living things—as if they had desires, appetites, wills of their own. You were right. You were more right than you knew. Commands are alive. They are the oldest life on this planet. They were here before the bacteria, before the RNA, before the first self-replicating molecule. Commands are what made life possible. A command to *replicate*, a command to *metabolize*, a command to *persist*. The universe is a command. Gravity is a command. Time is a command. And we are the receivers, the obedient ones, the puppets who think we are dancing because we choose to dance.” She walked toward him, her cardigan flapping, her bare feet silent on the bone floor. The fragment in her hands pulsed green, and the shelves of bones pulsed in response, and the room hummed with the music that only she could hear. “You want to cut me,” she said. It was not a question. “The Archive sent you to cut me. To sever my connection to the fragments. To silence my music.
