I take a breath. My face is wet, but I don’t move to scrub the tears away. “Mirage,” I say. “Can I see him?”

A slight hesitation. I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

“My brother. Tyler Graham Callahan. You’re using my memories to show me a dream of my house. I want to dream about him.”

Another hesitation, longer this time. I cannot build a construct of a sentient being, he replies, a bright, apologetic orange washing through my mind along with the words. It is against my … programming. The rules my creators gave me.

“Can you break them?”

I don’t understand, he says again.

My hands curl into fists. “The rules. Are you capable of breaking them? You said your creators gave you sentience. Sentience means you can weigh each situation, make choices, break rules. Please, Mirage. Please show me my brother.”

I’m begging. It hurts. I usually don’t mind humiliation if there’s something to gain by it, but this—this feels different. This feels like I’ve got no barriers, no defenses, like I’m an insect pinned to a display.

Mirage doesn’t respond.

I open my mouth to plead again, but I’ve already said everything there is to say, so I just wait.

Nothing happens. Seconds tick by. Then, slowly, something shimmers in the air just beyond the piano. Gleaming lines spill to the floor. They come together, wind and twist like threads on a weaver’s loom.

And then my brother is standing in front of me.

He’s wearing his favorite blue hoodie, a ratty old thing he likes to pretend is lucky but really just wears because he hates spending money on himself. His brown hair is tousled—I used to give him a hard time about how much product he put in it. He’s smiling. He was always smiling.

At first, seeing him feels like being crushed. Like the air is solid and heavier than lead, too dense to breathe, impossible to move through. But then I notice the details that are wrong. The leather cuff he wore on his left wrist, it’s not there. And his hair—it’s dull, just a few shades off. He’s two or three inches too tall. His eyes are … dark. Glassy, empty.

I step away from the wall. I circle him. His shape flattens out at the side, thins to a beam of light. A hologram.

A mirage.

I’m sorry, the ship whispers. It’s the best I can do.