"The ghost in the machine," Devero says slowly. "You'd hear the real veteran jockeys talking about stuff like that, sometimes; the ones who'd been piloting the same rig for years. They'd say that there's a part of them that stays in their exo whether they're interfaced to it or not."

He shakes his head. "I wasn't in my Scorpion long enough to get it. But with Babysitter..." He trails off, and focuses on the knife and the fruit in his hand for a minute. Eventually, he says, "If it does have a spirit, it's a little slice of mine." He lifts another slice of avocado free, as if to illustrate.