Tennal’s crouch gave way, and he sat on the floor.

The nausea he’d been suppressing came back full force. He wanted to go back to bed and preferably never get up. But that wouldn’t solve this. All the other students would have family supporting them at the ceremony, or at least on comm. Zin and Tennal weren’t close to many members of their own family, and it wasn’t as if their gen-parent would be there unless science had made some serious advances in posthumous communication. He hadn’t even remembered Zin was coming up to the start of her course, after she’d spent years working for it. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, in case he had to make some sort of decision.

He grabbed his wristband, pulled on some clothes, and stumbled out of the penthouse.

The upper floors of the hotel were littered with detritus from last night’s party, but there were very few people. A few floors down, Tennal found an empty lounge. He threw himself in a leather chair, told his wristband to project over the table, and painstakingly set out to reengineer the damage.

It was tricky work because Tennal only knew what he’d gleaned from the programmer who’d disabled it in the first place. The one thing he didn’t want to do was reactivate any of the location functions. It took him a good twenty minutes, stuck in the mess of number trees that underpinned the program, before he could resurrect some semblance of the voice chat and contact a single person.

Finally his wristband projected a swirling gray pool in the air at head height, waiting for Zin to answer her comm. The delay gave him just enough time to consider finding another soother.

Then the gray faded out, and a projection coalesced above the table: a sixteen-year-old with a short black bob, a gray lawyer’s tunic, and a startled look. A pit opened in Tennal’s stomach. He pushed his hair out of his face, wished to the Lights he’d showered, and said, “Hey, Zin.” There was a moment’s horrible silence. Tennal’s best smile wasn’t having the effect he wanted. “All turned out, look at you.”

“Tennal,” Zin said. “Light of Guidance, where are y—” She visibly stopped herself. Tennal saw her swallow. “I won’t ask,” she said. “Your business. Glad you, um. Glad your comm’s working now.”

That made Tennal feel worse. He could see her glance around his projection, as if for any clues to his whereabouts he’d accidentally included. She caught herself and looked determinedly back at him. They’d had arguments about coming home before. “Yeah,” Tennal said. “Just thought I’d—well. You all right?”