"You’ve been out of touch for a few decades, Bob. And I understand why you’ve been keeping to yourself. The whole Archimedes business would be several emotional kicks to the crotch for anyone. But you’re missing things. The Bobiverse is evolving. We’ve got some Bobs here that are twentieth generation and more. Replicative drift is becoming significant enough that some of these Bobs really only look like you. And for that matter, there’s a lot more playing around with appearance, and I don’t just mean facial hair. A half-dozen or so Bobs have started walking around as full-time Borg." Bill appeared momentarily embarrassed, then invoked a Cone of Silence over us. That was jarring to me. Normally they were used to cut down on distracting background noise, but Bill’s action was, in this case, intended to prevent eavesdropping. "Honestly, Bob, if you haven’t changed your encryption keys and passwords since your last cloning, you should really do it, just on principle. I already have. I don’t actually distrust anyone yet, but I’m beginning to recognize that one of these times we’ll run into a descendant who thinks the ends justify the means, you know?"