“Not that I require affirmation of any sort, as my emotions are mere simulations… but you are listening to me, right?”

“I’m listening,” I said. “I’m just thinking.”

“That is good. I should not like to be maintained by one who lacks brain functions.”

It was at that moment that I had my third terrible idea in not so many days. I grinned.

Maybe there was a way to get some help on the repairs. Someone who had way more “brain functions” than I had.

• • •

Approximately an hour and a half later—well after curfew—I was hanging upside down by my light-line outside Rig’s window on the third floor of his apartment complex in Igneous. He was snug inside, sleeping in his bunk. He had his own little closet of a room, which I’d always found luxurious. His parents had been deemed exemplary in all six parental metrics, and had been granted housing for multiple children, but—ironically—Rig was the only one they’d ever ended up having.

I knocked on his window, hair dangling below my head as I hung there. Then I knocked again. Then a little louder. Come on; it hadn’t been that long since I’d last done this.

Finally, the sleepyhead sat up, light through the window—from my light-line—outlining his pale face and bleary eyes. He blinked at me, but didn’t seem the least bit surprised as he walked over and slid the window open to the side.

“Hey,” he said. “Took you long enough.”

“Long enough?”

“To come try to talk me into coming back. Which I’m not going to do. I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m still sure that my decision to—”

“Oh, shut up about that,” I whispered. “Grab your jumpsuit. I need to show you something.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“This is serious.” I said. “You’re going to flip your boots when you see it.”

Infuriatingly, he just leaned on the windowsill, looking out at me as I was hanging there upside down—which was not easy, mind you. “It’s almost midnight, Spin.”

“This will be worth it.”

“You’re going to drag me off to some cavern, aren’t you? I won’t be back until like two or three.”

“If you’re lucky.”

He took a deep breath, then grabbed his jumpsuit. “You do realize that you’re the weirdest friend I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, come on. Let’s not pretend you have other friends.”

“Strange,” he said, “that my parents never managed to give me a sibling—but I still somehow ended up with a sister who gets me into trouble all the time.”

I grinned. “Meet you down below,” I said, then I paused. “Flip. Your. Boots. Rig. Trust me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a minute to sneak past my parents.” He pulled the drapes closed, and I let myself down to the street below, where I waited impatiently.

Igneous was a strange place at night. The apparatus worked all hours, of course. Day and night were just words here, though we still used the terms. There was a mandatory quiet cycle—during which the cavern loudspeakers didn’t play any announcements or speeches—and a curfew for those who weren’t on last shift. But nobody paid attention to you as you walked the streets if you kept to your own business. The default assumption in Igneous was that everyone was going about something useful.