Doc shakes his head. “No. You’re right. I can’t. But I think you need—” His hand moves to his neck, where his wireless communicator is embedded beneath his skin.

“No!” This is another argument we’ve had plenty of times before. Doc—and Elder too—neither of them understands why I refuse to get a wi-com. I know Elder wants me to have one because he cares and worries about me. And—it would be nice, to be able to talk to him whenever I like. Touch a button and I could ride the grav tube up to Elder’s level, com him, or just find out where he is on the ship.

A wi-com is the ultimate cell phone, always keeping you plugged in.

Always keeping you tied to this ship, this ship that is not my home. I won’t get a wi-com any more than I’ll lock myself up in this room. Wi-coms are just too . . . too . . . too not-Earth. I can’t just let myself be wired into the ship. I can’t let them cut me open and implant something not-Earth into me, beneath my skin, wiggling into my brain. I can’t do that.

Doc reaches into his pocket and pulls something out in a fluid motion that seems contrary to his usually stiff persona. He holds the thing out to me.

“This is a”—Doc pauses—“it’s a special wi-com.”

I force myself to look at the thing in his hand. It’s essentially a tiny button, not any bigger than a dime, with three wires coming from each side. In a regular wi-com, the button’s hidden underneath the skin behind your left ear and the wires burrow into your flesh. But Doc has braided the wires into a circle, making a bracelet. Tiny words are printed along the red wire, so small I can barely see them.

“Give me your hand.”

I raise my arm obediently, then hesitate, drawing it closer to me. Doc snatches my wrist before I have a chance to object and slips the bracelet wi-com over my hand. He tightens it quickly—not enough to cut off my circulation, but enough to stop it from slipping off my wrist. Before I can say anything, Doc secures the wires with a metal cinch.

“You’ll have to hold it to your mouth to speak,” he says. “And then hold it to your ear to hear coms. There’s an amplifier there.” He points to the tiny black mesh that circles the button. This whole thing is smaller than the earbuds I used when I went running before school, but it’s clearly far more powerful. When Doc tests it by sending me a com link request, it beeps loudly enough for me to hear from my wrist. Intrigued, I raise my hand to my ear and listen to the tiny electronic voice of the wi-com say, “Com link req: Doc.”

“You made this?” I ask, awed.

Doc hesitates. His unease is so unnatural that I stop staring at the bracelet wi-com and instead turn my gaze to his nervous face. “No,” he says finally. “I didn’t make this. I found it.”