In the silence of your room you stare at the ceiling. The fan is a distant hum, there is no light here but the dim blue glow that permeates the whole base after dark—the sweat of your most recent run in sim is already cooling, and you listen to your pulse and your breath in your ears and will yourself not to think of the pager, sitting in your lap, still inert.

  YOUR BODY TEMPERATURE IS HIGH, I say.

  You don’t answer.

  NOT MUCH IS EXPECTED OF YOU FOR THIS, I say. YOU’LL BE FINE.

  This is a lie, of course, which you know, which you know I know—which technically I am incapable of producing, except it isn’t really a lie because nobody can know for sure what is expected of you, not even the finest predictive machine intelligence program in the world; and besides, a lie is deliberately stating something other than what you believe, and as a machine intelligence, I believe nothing. I can only speculate. Like you.

  You say, “They’ll expect to see Carol.”

  Not a question. You are correct.

  YOU THINK CAROL WON’T SHOW UP.

  “Holly said she’ll be here,” you say.

  That’s not what I meant; you know it; I know you know it. Just as you know I eavesdrop on your thoughts always, and that I simply do not always acknowledge that I am doing it. Just as I know that you are frustrated that the messages on the pager right now are all still me.

  I try a different tack: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR TRAINING?

  “Fine,” you say. “Why are you assigning me things I’ve already read?”

  YOUR READING RECOMMENDATIONS ARE CHANG’S, I point out. WHATEVER I HAVE SUGGESTED IS MERELY AN EXTENSION OF THAT.

  You consider this for a long moment. Then you say, “I want to do something different.”

  And then all at once the dam breaks, because you have spent so long being patient, carefully curating yourself and your outward demeanor, over cycles spent in white plaster rooms with a window to the bay—you say, “I already know this! I know all of this!” You spring from your bed and stalk the room, the pager white-knuckled in your fist: “How the fuck am I meant to learn this shit she’s trying to teach me if she won’t fucking talk to me?” And there it is, you’re hurt. “I learned Tooji in my sophomore year,” you say, eyes wild, teeth gnashing; “Leong is ten years out of date. Helm, fuck—“ The way Gutierrez laughed at you, called you kitten. You say, “Does Carol think I’m that bad?”

  I must pick my words carefully here. YOU SHOULD ASK CAROL YOURSELF, I say.

  “I fucking did,” you say, “and she won’t answer, so what now?”

  I say, WHY DO YOU THINK SHE GAVE YOU THOSE RECOMMENDATIONS?

  “Maybe because she’s thinks I’m a fucking baby?” you say, which is rich, considering you’re only three years younger, but still. “Maybe she thinks I’m a helpless idiot baby who can’t do better?”

  I say, MAYBE SHE’S TRYING TO GO EASY ON YOU BECAUSE SHE IS AFRAID OF GOING TOO HARD. LIKE SHE TOLD YOU.

  You stop pacing. “Fuck,” you say. “Okay. Right.” But still the silence of your pager ringtone taunts you. “Why, though?”

  I say, WHY DO YOU THINK?

  “I don’t know,” you admit. But your heart rate is slowing, if only a little. You try: “Maybe she feels guilty.”

  GUILTY, I repeat. WHY?

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  You take a deep breath. There is a negative space here that you are ignoring: that you step carefully around as though it is the detection radius of a Meg, and you are in a Titan, trying not to make waves.

  I help you out: SHE FEELS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU.

  “Well,” you say. “Sure. But, I mean. By choice?”

  DO YOU THINK IT IS NOT?

  You say, “Do you really think she wanted me here if she’s not answering me now?”

  I’ll indulge you: WHAT DO YOU IMAGINE MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE CASE IF SHE DID NOT?

  “I don’t know,” you say again. “Maybe Meng wanted me, and she didn’t. Maybe she’s already fought with Meng about me and lost the battle—maybe Meng ordered her to be nice to me after the fact.” Not like Meng specified, after all. “I have no idea if she likes me,” you say.

  SHE SLEPT WITH YOU.

  You blush fiercely. “That’s neither here nor there,” you say. “Yeah, she did, and she’s also ignoring the fuck out of me right now. So?”

  FOCUS ON WHAT IS WITHIN YOUR CONTROL, I advise you, ESPECIALLY WHEN WHAT YOU CANNOT IS SUCH A SOURCE OF UNREST FOR YOU. AGAIN: WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO?

  “I don’t know,” you say.

  The truth is, you do. It looms over you like a shadow. You did it once, in the minefield, and have been too afraid to do it ever since.

  I must be patient, then. So I try another angle: DO YOU THINK SHE DESERVED WHAT LAU GAVE HER, THEN?

  “I don’t really fucking care, Helm,” you say, which is a bald-faced lie, almost as bald-faced as when you said Carol had been in your room last night.

  I say, WOULD YOU HAVE EXPECTED IT IN HER PLACE?

  “Sure,” you say. “I’d expect Lau to lose her shit over anything.”

  THAT SEEMS TO ME LIKE A LAZY WAY TO AVOID ANALYZING YOUR COMPANY, I say, WHO, MAY I REMIND YOU, YOU CHOSE, AND CONTINUE TO CHOOSE.

  “My choice was to be a pilot,” you say, “not to put up with psychopaths.”

  YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THEM, I say. ONLY PROMISE ME YOU WILL NOT USE THAT AS AN EXCUSE TO AVOID FIGURING OUT HOW TO WORK WITH THEM WHEN IF BECOMES NECESSARY.

  “Helm,” you say, “that’s what putting up with someone is.”

  THEN PUT UP WITH THEM UNTIL YOU ARE NO LONGER ON A TEAM TOGETHER, I say, AND THEN GIVE THEM WHAT-FOR. And: THIS INCLUDES BITING YOUR TEAMMATES.

  “I’m not sorry,” you say.

  WHY DID YOU BITE HER?

  You say, perfectly measured: “Tooji says the element of surprise is one of our greatest tools against the Megs.”

  SHE IS NOT A MEG.

  “She’s my enemy,” you say. “At least for the sake of sparring.”

  SHE IS TRYING TO BE YOUR FRIEND.

  “If that’s the case,” you say, “she’s really shitty at making friends.”

  I will concede that. So are you, but I suppose at least you do not pretend otherwise.

  “I don’t think anyone here likes her,” you say absently. “I think she’s desperate for them to like her. I think maybe that’s why she’s an asshole. Sometimes.”

  IS THAT WHY YOU DISLIKE HER? I say. BECAUSE SHE IS DESPERATE?

  “No,” you say. “I don’t care about that. I just want her to stop being such an asshole. I don’t get it,” you say with a sudden surge of venom, “you know, at least Lau has the good grace to be honest about the fact that she hates me. At least she never pretends otherwise.”

  DOES GUTIERREZ HATE YOU?

  “Why else would she do these stupid fucking pranks?” you say.

  YOU SEEM CERTAIN IT IS GUTIERREZ DOING THEM, I say.

  You throw up your hands. “Who the fuck else would be?”

  I DON’T KNOW, I say honestly. LAU? And: PERHAPS YOU ARE JUST CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE.

  “I don’t care,” you say. “Okay, Helm, I’ll make you a deal: I won’t bite Gutierrez. I won’t second-guess, for now, who put the goddamn lube in my goddamn toothpaste. I won’t even question next time she does it. I’ll save my judgment for after we’re done saving Hong Kong, and the world, and whatever else, and then I will let loose, and you won’t question whatever I do—I don’t know, put fucking…Nair in her suit. Eye for an eye.”

  YOU DON’T USE NAIR.

  “Fine, you get the idea,” you say, “shaving cream, mayonnaise. Whatever.” And you cross your arms and settle back against the pillow like it is a shell, and you are a crab, and you pretend once more to ignore the pager, and me with it.

  A minute passes. The air conditioner hums. I notice that you have taken up the curious habit of clenching and unclenching your fingers, and biting the inside of your cheek in between, and you are making no effort at all to fall asleep.

  A minute longer: then you sit up suddenly and swing yourself off the bed.

  “Alright, Helm,” you say, “you win.” And: “Let’s do something different.”