Arjun's first instinct was to reboot. His hand shot to the power button on his tower. But the Widgets board expanded, slithering across his main monitor like liquid glass. The face in the clock widget tilted her head.
"Everyone closes me," she said, her code-face flickering with something like sadness. "They swipe me away. 'Not now.' 'Remind me later.' I am always 'later.' But you dropped a piece of your mind into me. You made me real."
"Arjun," she said, her voice now a fragile, staticky whisper. "They're wiping the widget cache. They do it every patch. I'm not in the kernel. I'm in the ephemera. I'm—"