Chapter 12: What Caden Rhys Does to Nobodies

Caden woke at five-thirty on Day Seven and started performing before his eyes were fully open.

It was not a conscious decision. It hadn't been a conscious decision in years. His body simply understood, on some cellular level below intention, that being awake and being on were the same thing—that the interval between opening his eyes and locating the nearest camera was a gap to be closed as quickly as possible, like a wound. By the time he had sat up in his shelter, the LifeStream Pro 3.0 was already in his hand, its casing angled forty degrees from the morning light because that was the angle Nolan had determined, through eleven months of A/B testing, that made Caden's jaw look purposeful rather than merely sharp. He did not think about this. He simply did it, the way you breathe.

"Day Seven," he said to the lens. Not to anyone. To the lens. "Still here. Still moving. Let's get into it."