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.He has learned relationships are safer that way, when digital walls shield people from one another.“Yeah,” she answers, and for a moment seems to grope for words.So now she acts as if she wants a different relationship.Anger begings to bubble within a knot at his center; he feels violated by her stare, that brown-eyed, gentle, intense stare.He wanted to be the one to change things; now she has taken even that from him.What right does she have to alter their interaction? It’s obscene how real she seems, the scent of her skin, those eyes burning into his retinas.An unrequested blackcard program automatically recalls them and replays—“How was it for you, in Corrections?” she finally asks.Jonathan consciously shuts down the program, his hands starting to shake.“All right, I guess,” he says.He rubs damp palms on the thighs of his pantlegs.“I made it out.Got out of a lot of school.”“No, I mean how was it? How did you.feel?”“I don’t know,” he answers, honestly, still rubbing his palms.“What did you do?”“We talked a lot.Every morning, they made us eat breakfast together, intheflesh, in a cafeteria.There were twelve of us in my group, twelve raptheads—”“Don’t say that, Jonny,” Josephine says sharply.Jonathan suppresses a smile, more comfortable in these familiar roles of agitator and agitatee.Still, he suppresses it—I want a different relationship.Don’t I want a different relationship? Even so, he relaxes a bit.“They kept the adults in another wing where they couldn’t corrupt our cards.We talked, and ate, and listened to an edufeed subscription taught by some expert at treating young raptheads—”“Jonny!” she says, sharply.“What do you care?” he asks, remembering her fierce fivesen stabs before he left for treatment.He had to ignore them for fear of revealing his blackcard, even though Josephine knew about that card—otherwise she couldn’t have assaulted him in that way.Stabs across the spectrum of senses following particularly bad encounters with Ms.Sombrio, following Jonathan-didn’t-know-what in his mother’s life, following an even murkier chain of causation.“Jonny, I haven’t been the greatest sister, but it’s been hard around here with you gone.You don’t know what it’s like to have to share a server with Mom and Dad.”“You think you’re telling me something new?” he asks.“I’m sorry.Of course you know what it’s like,” she says, quieting to a whisper, “but with me all alone, with no one for Dad to take out his frustrations on.”She sees his hardening face and quickly continues.“Come on, Jonny, give me a chance.I’ve had some time to think, you know, and I think this family’s crashed out.”What? Jonathan thinks.This is the moment I’ve been waiting for?“That’s it?” Jonathan asks, still careful to avoid her eyes.Even as he speaks, he regrets the bitter tone.Still he can’t stop it; it’s too familiar, and too much resentment stands between the two of them.His regret mounts as he wishes he hadn’t attempted to talk to her at all, not yet.Jonathan takes a step away, into the entryway.“I’m very proud of you for recognizing the obvious.Man, Josephine, you ever heard of the word ‘denial’? Look it up.”Jonathan’s father, a tall, thin man in his 40s, bumps into him.The man’s face temporarily tightens, then falls slack.His jaw moves subtly, as if chewing at something small.His eyes are defocused and pointed over Jonathan’s head.His father is probably 3VRDing.A second later, the man’s bald forehead wrinkles in frustration and a sneer twists his upper lip.Then he continues to walk, moving as if in a dream.Jonathan sees Ms.Sombrio farther down the hall, plucking at something invisible under her chin.She is slumped against the dining room wall where it joins the carpeted hallway, her head absently lolling from side to side.Her lips move mutely, and her face is a coiled mass of naked emotions, as if snakes seethe beneath the pale, brown skin.Man, and they called me the feed addict.Guess it doesn’t matter once you’re an adult, consuming citizen with the credit to pay for your subscriptions.Jonathan swivels on his heel and looks back at his sister.“I’m sorry, Josephine,” he says, finally able to apologize.He had honestly wanted to change things between them, and she had seemed receptive, even taken the initiative.But he had let the past get in the way.“I didn’t mean what I said.We’re cool.”Josephine’s face has changed.Jonathan frowns, not quite sure what it is that makes her look so different.The eyes.He realizes her eyes are now vacant, safe to peer into, but hollow.She no longer painfully returns his stare, instead looking right through him.“Josephine?” he repeats, audio-only.A chill races up Jonathan’s spine.Suddenly the house seems so empty, not only an antiseptic shelter for a crashed-out family, but completely devoid of life.His father shifts along the hall like an automaton, avoiding unseeable objects, touching non-present items or people or god-knows-what.His mother is involved in her own waking fantasy or nightmare, her body merely an obstacle or a trap.No human sound fills the apartment’s hollow except the rasping of his father’s shoes on the floor tiles.A background of unlocalized static.The distant boom of sonic grenades.A nearby scream of pleasure or terror, coming from an adjoining apartment unit.Heavy scraping along the street outside.A jet’s roar.A whining machine buried in one of the walls.Underground explosions.Wet noises coming from his sister’s silently moving lips.The scattered evidence of death and decay.Jonathan squeezes his eyes closed so hard they ache, then opens them again, trying to see this place as home.Though burdened with the soundtrack of Jonathan’s nightmares, the world feels terribly silent.He fights the desperate urge to power up and splice in.His eyes cast around and finally settle upon his sister, alone on the pink couch
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