"Going on, I’m woken up one morning by a group of focus officers and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder," continued Mahkinoc.

"Life?" objected Rhue,

"They don’t believe in the death penalty up there," explained Mahkinoc casually.

"No," objected Rhue, "I mean, you’re an animatoid. How could they sentence you to life? Wouldn’t that be kind of … impossible to enforce"

"Well," Mahkinoc paused briefly as he made sure that there were still no shadowed in the vicinity. "I used to be an insidis. Actually, I still am, just I’m in a metal shell. Oh, one thing, Rhue. Don’t so much as dream about this conversation if you can help it. My life could get even worse than it already is if the shadowed find out who I really am.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Long story short, I escaped by animating two anchors in the manual we’ve been looking for."

"Animating?"

"That’s how you bring an animatoid to life. ‘Dieing to live’ and similar metaphors were our old morbidly humorous terms for it."

"You mean you died?"

"If you mean giving up my mortal tent, then yes." The shocked look in Rhue’s eyes encouraged him to explain a little more. "Everyone has a soul, even you tanthris. I know that you can’t see or even remotely sense the spiritual realm like some humans do, but we insidissee it all every day. Most insidis don’t even really call it death. Our term for it is ‘moving on,’ or ‘facing eternity.’ Think of the animation process as kind of a temporary delay. Our research shows that the average animator only lasts five to fifteen orbits before giving up the ghost." Mahkinoc chuckled lightly.

"Are you saying that I could actually animate an animatoid?"

"Well… you couldn’t but humans and insidis could. Human’s have to be touching a specially designed anchor (I’m able to move by pulling and pushing them to and from each other in my shell, and they keep me here on Choaradar) at the time of death, but an insidis has a few other options. An insidis can move from walking in a dream to the anchor—that’s what I did, or they can just transfer at will if they are touching the anchor point."