un-scene boat

Sil has a picture on the boat of a young girl. The real girl asks who it is and Sil says he doesn't know, the found it in an abndoned house, he keeps it because it reminds him of everything that isn't.

The girls (the real girl) is an artifact AI conceived to record document and store. When she dies everything he has recorded downloads into the net and becoes a digital artifact, but without a physical form, digital can have no artifact of its own. At least n ot in the sense that we typically think of an artifact.

A purely digital workd means a loss of artifaces -- no ??? no way to retrieve

There are many recording devices like the little girl. Every human is essentially a recording device, the Man in black is the origial analog recording device, Claire is another.

Sil figures part of this out in Ameritown, Everyone else who runs either thinks someone is fater them or that they're just helping the little girl.

The people running the protectorate know what the girl is, they abducted her from wherever because they want to stop the AI, the software machines before they get more powerful? Or perhaps they want to stop them from leaving as they do at the end?