I took a deep and shaky breath. Maya and April were … together. Did I feel something next to jealousy? Maybe. But mostly jealousy for connection. I was jealous of love.

I was not in the right frame of mind to slowly vent fifteen condoms of hydrogen out my window that night, but that’s what I did.

Altus-Compatible Headsets Sold Out Worldwide

Associated Press

Despite escalating production throughout Asia, 8K VR headsets are unavailable anywhere in America right now. Walmart reports the last pair sold was in a South Dakota store more than five days ago. Since then, shipments have been delayed as demand in Asia has also spiked and headsets are being purchased for top-dollar prices there.

The market in used headsets has ballooned, with compatible products selling at auction for as much as $15,000. This has also, led to fraud, with many older headsets being sold for top prices even though they do not have the resolution necessary to trigger the Altus altered state. Altus has said in a press release that they have reached ten million concurrent users in the US alone.

MAYA

After Carl told us that we were going to become a zoo exhibition unless we could “increase the probability of a stable outcome to above 50 percent,” the monkey hopped off the stage and held a smooth black rectangle out to me. In their hand, it looked like something from another world.

“Your mom is worried about you.” The words were still coming from the PA system of the auditorium. “You should text her.”

It was a phone. No, I realized, it was my phone.

“Where did you get my phone?”

Now the voice transitioned, coming instead from the smartwatch wrapped around the monkey’s neck. “I grabbed it when April threw it out the window.”

April’s eyes widened. “How did you find us?”

“Well, I’ve been in the back of your truck the whole time, so I didn’t actually need to find you.”

A smile cracked April’s lips then, but I didn’t think any of this was funny.

“You carried my phone with us that whole way! You let them track us!” I accused.

“As I said, I can block him from tracking you, I just can’t block him from predicting where you might go. It has taken this much time for me to make it so that he won’t be able to track you if you text someone, but that is now done. Of course, you still can’t tell anyone where you are.”

I looked down at the phone, my mom had indeed texted me. A lot. The last one was recent.

Maya, text me when you get a chance to let me know you’re OK.

“Oh, that’s bad,” I said.

April leaned over to read it and said, “It is?”

“Yeah, if she’s resorting to asking for texts, that means she’s desperate.”

“Well,” April said, “it’s not like there was no reason to worry.” The emotions of her new face were sometimes hard to read, so at first I thought that was a joke and I didn’t think it was very funny. But then I saw the pain in her eyes. I had thought I was going to die, and so had she, and that puts a different light on everything. A bruise had spread out around the hole in my ribs, and while the pain seemed muted, it was always there. I had been shot. Let me say it for anyone who needs to hear it: There are too many guns in this fucking country.

But there was no way I was going to tell my mom that I had been shot, but was fine, and would see her in a little while. I started writing, I’m sorry, Mama, I was on a long trip and my phone broke and I didn’t have a chance to get it fixed. I should have figured something out, but

“Wait,” I said to Carl. “Can I tell her? Can I tell her that I found April?”

Then I realized I was asking the monkey for permission, and I got a little angry.

“Yes—but only your parents for now. If you’re worried about my brother, he, of course, already knows.”

“Don’t, though,” April said.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Don’t tell her.” She hesitated and then said, “Can we go … back downstairs?” She was looking at Carl, not for permission but to make it clear that she wanted us to be alone.

I sent the text to my mom, ending with but I’m actually doing really well, and then we went downstairs.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” she told me as she sat on the futon.

“You’re going to have to give me more than that,” I told her, already a little frustrated with her.

“I don’t … want it to be …”

Ah, OK, this I understood. I pulled a chair over so that I could sit down facing her. “You don’t want it to be real. April, for the last six months, everyone you love has had to live with a reality that they don’t want. We’ve had to move your stuff into storage and break your lease. We’ve had to watch as people talked about you like they know who you are—as they vilify you and deify you. Your parents have had to talk to like thirty different tax lawyers because no one knows whether or not to tax the estate of a millionaire who disappeared in a burning building. None of us wanted it to be real. It just was. And every tiny time we had to act like it was real, it got more real.”

She was looking down at the floor, but I wanted to see her eyes, so I reached out and lifted her chin. I was getting more comfortable with her face. It was already starting to just look like her, especially like this, with her black hair spilling over it.

“Here, in this boiler room, with just you and me and our potato plant and our alien monkey”—she smiled—“I like it too. But your real is real whether you deal with it or not. And your parents are real right now.” She started crying at this, but I had to keep talking. “And you don’t want to face that, how real the pain of this has been for them. But now you get to end it. It doesn’t even make your life worse, it just means you have to accept what you did. I know you can do that.” I held out my phone to April.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I said, knowing she would need to be alone.

Five minutes later, I returned with a whole roll of toilet paper, knowing we’d both probably need it. She was holding the phone to her ear, saying, “I’m so sorry, Mama, I’m so sorry.” She was repeating it over and over again, crying but not sobbing. The sobbing I could hear coming from the other end of the line.

“I’m really OK,” she said, looking up at me. “Carl took me and they rescued me and it took a long time for them to fix me, but I’m better now.” I knew April didn’t believe that all the way, but that didn’t matter.

I sat down next to her and placed my hand on the middle of her back. I couldn’t hear the other side of the call. Her dad was talking; her mom was crying.

After a while she sniffed and said, in a clear voice, “Maya is here with me. I’m not alone. We have a couple things we need to work out. We can’t see you now. If it wasn’t important, I promise I would be there.” She paused for a moment and said, “No, I’m sorry, the internet isn’t good enough here for FaceTime. I’ll send you a photo of me and Maya. My face is … it’s a little different, because of the fire. But I’m OK. I’ll be OK. As long as I have you guys, I’ll be OK.”