As Andy read, the room began to hum. It wasn't the fan of his PC; it was a frequency vibrating in his teeth. He looked at his hand. For a split second, his fingers trailed behind his wrist like a motion-blur effect in a video game.
Outside, black sedans pulled onto his curb. The men in suits didn't walk; they glided with a terrifying, programmed precision. They weren't there to arrest him. They were there to reclaim the "zip"—the part of the code that had grown a soul.
"I can see the lag in the world now. The three-second delay between a thought and the reality."