My containment chair held me fast. It kept my spinal column from shattering further under my nervous shaking, what little the chair permitted, as I waited for a verdict. The judge stood. "The court finds the state liable for the plaintiff's injuries." And just like that, my tension drained away. Liable! Such a wealth of meaning for such a small word! Liable for this ruin of a body, transformed into my prison. Liable to repair its wrong by paying the enormous cost of a clone-and-copy, putting me into a new, healthy body. I shivered, to the extent that the chair let me shiver, and grinned.

"...and sentences the state," continued the judge, "to pay for a complete repair and partial transfer." The gavel came down.

I'm told there were congratulations, but I didn't hear them. I had no money to buy the bandwidth to turn a partial transfer complete. They'd make me choose what to keep. What would I leave behind? My wedding? My daughter's graduation? The years of work at the firm? Memories of childhood, like sunlight through fog? Who would I be if I forgot any of them?

"Wait." Would they hear me? "Wait, I changed my mind."