Behind him, the screen beeped again. ALBERT, SHOULD I LOG IN?

‘Shut up,’ he said, still not looking at it.

He was in no mood to spend the day on the network. In fact, after the excitement of the last few hours, the prospect seemed even duller and colourless than usual. Right now, he mused, the girl was a lot better off than he was; she’d probably never seen so many new things in her life.

He frowned as the deeper implications of that statement began to sink in and glanced at the timer. Almost seven-and-a-half hours left. What could she do in seven hours? The answer, he had to admit, was plenty. He looked at the timer again. All of two seconds had passed, although this was probably less time than it would take her to order the water dispenser to start flooding the house. No, the odds were most definitely not in his favour. She could be up to any manner of mischief at this very moment. Perhaps he should check on the situation, just to be sure everything was under control and, more importantly, that she was. It was easy enough to get the screen here to connect him to the one at home—if it hadn’t already been disembowelled in a hunt for storytellers. But what if the network was being monitored? No, it wasn’t worth the risk.

He frowned again. It might have been the only option, but he was fairly sure leaving her there alone hadn’t been such a good idea. She’d never even been inside a house. Then again, she’d no doubt been in far more dangerous places than his apartment, and had come through seemingly unscathed, which was not necessarily a completely good thing. The way he saw it, hers was a personality that could have done with a little scathing. He had to find a way to get her back to that lot without attracting attention. Maybe a few discreet—very discreet—enquiries on the network would help. Perhaps it was time to clock in a few conversations.

‘Log in,’ he said.

He heard the distinctive beep-beep behind him that meant someone was flagging him for a conversation.

AL—

‘All right,’ he said, turning around, smile fixed firmly in place and was treated to the sight of Theo, draped in his dressing gown, wearing one of his belts as a headband.

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. She had ordered his home screen to contact him and, following his instructions to do as she commanded, it had obeyed. Which was all very well for her, but he couldn’t talk to her here! What if someone found out? That would be disastrous! Briefly, he toyed with the idea of just cutting off the call, but something made him pause. What if she was hurt or something? He looked at her, and she grinned.

‘Mac!’ she shouted, waving gaily.