“Will you think about that first thing when you wake up, Barb? Your mind will be fresh then, and it might be important.”

“Okay . . .”

“I wish Hilda hadn’t thrown hers away,” Holly says. She gets no reply, nor expects one; she often talks to herself. Barbara’s breathing has grown deep and slow. Holly begins buttoning her coat.

“Dinah has one,” Barbara says in a faraway dreaming voice. “Hers works. She plays Crossy Road on it . . . and Plants Vs. Zombies . . . also, she downloaded the whole Divergent trilogy, but she said it came in all jumbled up.”

Holly stops buttoning. She knows Dinah Scott, has seen her at the Robinson house many times, playing board games or watching TV, often staying for supper. And drooling over Jerome, as all of Barbara’s friends do.

“Did the same man give it to her?”

Barbara doesn’t answer. Biting her lip, not wanting to press her but needing to, Holly shakes Barbara by the shoulder and asks again.

“No,” Barbara says in the same faraway voice. “She got it from the website.”

“What website was that, Barbara?”

Her only answer is a snore. Barbara is gone.

25

Holly knows that the Robinsons will be waiting for her in the lobby, so she hurries into the gift shop, lurks behind a display of teddy bears (Holly is an accomplished lurker), and calls Bill. She asks if he knows Barbara’s friend Dinah Scott.

“Sure,” he says. “I know most of her friends. The ones that come to the house, anyway. So do you.”

“I think you should go to see her.”

“You mean tonight?”

“I mean right away. She’s got a Zappit.” Holly takes a deep breath. “They’re dangerous.” She can’t quite bring herself to say what she is coming to believe: that they are suicide machines.

26

In Room 217, orderlies Norm Richard and Kelly Pelham lift Brady back into bed while Mavis Rainier supervises. Norm picks up the Zappit console from the floor and stares at the swimming fish on the screen.

“Why doesn’t he just catch pneumonia and die, like the rest of the gorks?” Kelly asks.

“This one’s too ornery to die,” Mavis says, then notices Norm staring down at the swimming fish. His eyes are wide and his mouth is hung ajar.

“Wake up, splendor in the grass,” she says, and snatches the gadget away. She pushes the power button and tosses it into the top drawer of Brady’s nightstand. “We’ve got miles to go before we sleep.”

“Huh?” Norm looks down at his hands, as if expecting to see the Zappit still in them.

Kelly asks Nurse Rainier if maybe she wants to take Hartsfield’s blood pressure. “O2 looks a little low,” he says.

Mavis considers this, then says, “Fuck him.”

They leave.

27