In the dark, motes of light sparkled in Nell's flesh, like airplane 
beacons in the night sky. They scraped one of these away with a scalpel and 
examined it. They found similar devices circulating in her bloodstream. These 
things, they realized, must have been put into Nell's blood when she was raped. 
It was clear that the sparkling lights in Nell's flesh were beacons signaling 
to others across the gulf that separates each of us from our neighbors.