She smiled, but did not turn from her screen. “The key, the door, your footsteps . . . you know . . .” Her avatar picked up a large sniper rifle from behind a bookcase.

“All right, Miss Supersense. Mum not home yet?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“So you put Franklin to bed by yourself?”

“Yay expressed breast milk. Yay carrot smoothie. Yay soiled diaper.”

“Vee, I’m sorry—”

She turned, smiled, cut me short. “Don’t sweat it.”

I had waited on my bench for an hour. Elsa had not appeared. Her phone was off.

I walked through the living room to our bedroom. Franklin lay in his cot, clutching and unclutching his fists, sucking on the nose of his bear. I slipped my hand into his, and he gripped it. “Beautiful child,” I whispered, and he stirred, turned on to his back, opened his eyes, shook his fists excitedly.

“Dddd,” he said.

“Shhh, love. Shhh.” I shielded his eyes with my hand, sang the only Norwegian lullaby I knew:

Sleep in peace

Little man

Dream of mint and clover

“Mmm,” said Franklin. “Mmm.”

“Sleep, little man.”

Dream so sweet

And travel, fleet

Sleep, my sweet wild rover

When I lifted my hand away, Franklin’s eyes were closed.

I stood in the hall, watching Vee in the light of her screen. Behind her the door to her sister’s room was open, but Licia’s window blind was closed.

Vee’s avatar crouched at the top of a high tower, aiming with a hunting rifle at a girl in a blue beret far below. Vee fired twice. The girl crumpled to the ground. Her possessions scattered on the grass.

Eliminated WhoKTDid

No sound beyond my daughter’s breathing. Her avatar jumped down from the tower to where the girl with the blue beret had stood.

“Vee, have you had any weird friend requests recently?”

“Dad, we had this talk literally a hundred times.” She turned so that I could see the exaggerated roll of her eyes. “I don’t friend with randoms.” She turned back to her screen. Her avatar climbed up the tower, began scanning the horizon for movement.

“Okay. But how about people calling themselves knights?”

“Ew. People with knight gamer tags are the worst. They’re all, like, I don’t know, Sir Fragalot, or Damselpleezer. Easy to kill, though. Watch.”

Her avatar switched weapons.

“Is that a rocket launcher, Vee?”

An amused smile. “Yepp.”

On the screen Vee’s avatar fired two rockets at a distant tower. The tower came crashing down. A tiny figure began running from the scene. Vee’s avatar took her hunting rifle, aimed, and shot the figure dead.

Eliminated Kruse8or

“Kruse8or,” said Vee. “See what I mean?”

“And how big a thing is racism in this game?”