I froze in front of the closed door. A second later, I heard the response, much fainter and somewhat tinny. My mom was using the chat app on her deskpad. She’d never been much of a Speculus person; she always insisted VR gave her motion sickness.

“It’s natural, Jess. You need to not push him so much.”

I recognized my Tia Mayra’s voice. Mayra wasn’t my real aunt, but she was my mom’s best friend, so that’s what we’d always called her. She lived in California—apparently Mom had been less concerned about time zone differences than me.

“I know, but his grades at the Academy are slipping. I’m worried about his scholarship. If he loses that, I don’t know what we’re going to do. It’s so much harder to get into a university here with a public school diploma, and without a degree, there’s not a whole lot he could do here. Apart from the factories. I don’t want that to be his only alternative.”

“What about a school here on Earth? He’d be a third-generation student at Cal, that must count for something. If his grades aren’t high enough, he could start at a community college and transfer.”

Mom’s voice shook a little when she answered her. “I thought about that, but I don’t know if I could bear him going back to Earth. I already had to leave behind my parents and my friends when I came here. And then Raymond… you know. So to lose my son, too?” She sniffled. “But if he can’t get his act together here, what choice do I have?”

My chest clenched. This was ridiculous. Everyone had been planning my life out for me when I was a straight-A student, and now here they were, doing it again when my grades slipped. Was I ever going to get to have any input on anything?

“Have faith in the kid, Jess,” Tia Mayra said. “He’s going through a lot of crap in his life. He still has another year of high school left. He’s smart, and you said his grades in his language classes are fine. He’s probably just bored with his G.E.s. Happens to the best of us.”

“I know. You’re right. Maybe I’m just stressed. My last round of crops didn’t come out any better than the ones before, and there’s pressure from GSAF...” She sighed. “I just… deep down, I worry. Isaak is so much like his father. I just pray he’s not like him in the ways that count.”