Bobby nodded again and this wasn’t so bad if they just wanted him to run some sort of command, which meant running some sort of program or executing some sort of script or changing some configuration and Bobby understood how Nexus was kind of a computer in his head because he’d learned about it from Rangan, and he understood about computers because they made sense they made way more sense than people especially the fake people that…

“The command is Nexus Purge,” the man said. “It’ll make you feel better.” And then the man started to spell out “Nexus” and “purge” for Bobby, like Bobby was an idiot – but Bobby wasn’t listening because he understood computers and he had a good vocabulary, and he knew what Nexus was from Rangan and he knew what purge meant and sometimes it meant something about your body like if you pooped or threw up a whole lot, but now it meant the other kind, to rid, clear, or free, and so the old man with the mustache was telling him to rid, clear, or free Nexus and Bobby didn’t want to do that at all, and they were trying to trick him and that made him mad.

“NO!” he yelled. “I need Nexus I need Nexus please please please.”

“Son,” the man said, “This won’t hurt your Nexus. It’s just gonna fix some problems and make you feel better.”

And he was lying to Bobby and treating Bobby like he was stupid that made him even more mad and so he yelled at the man “I’M AUTISTIC – NOT STUPID!” and he kept yelling it and kept yelling it, and the man shook his head and nodded at someone else, and then something hit Bobby’s head hard, something different like noise, like static, like ALL THE STATIC IN THE WORLD and he saw static and he heard static and he tasted static and he felt static and he smelled static and it was SO LOUD he couldn’t think, couldn’t think, and it HURT it HURT it HURT and he SCREAMED at them…

And then it stopped.

Bobby was crying when it ended, crying and crying and crying, and he thought maybe he’d peed himself, but he wasn’t sure because everything was so confused and he couldn’t tell what was happening anymore and then the man spoke again.

“Son, you’re sick. What you just felt… that was you being sick. We want to help you. We want to make that go away. Just run the command. Nexus Purge. And then you’ll feel better.”