“We don’t know, Eli,” she said. “And at his age, in his condition, here, under care and supervision, there’s no push for an autopsy. One way to look at it was that it was simply because he was very old and it was time.”

He wanted badly to hear some laughter from the next room, just to make the whole scene less sad. Were those figures in there even alive, or were they just cardboard cutouts, another ruse?

“You saw him? With your own eyes? That he was dead?” Emotion chiseled a crack in his voice.

“Yes, Eli. I’m so sorry,” she said. “He had a good day today … before, I mean. He seemed to actually enjoy his time with robots for once. He had the seal sit with him for a really long time.”

Eli nodded and turned to go, feeling like he might throw up. Out on the sidewalk he took a deep breath and let it out and his exhale vaped the air, proof of life. It had gotten cold out; he was underdressed.

He stopped at one point, at a bus stop enclosure with a bench, to open his backpack and take the device out before hitting the hour mark but remembered again that he didn’t even have it; it didn’t even exist anymore. It had had some hand in this—he was sure of it—and he wished, now, that they hadn’t destroyed it. Because if it were here, it could maybe give him some answers. If it were here, he could maybe bring the people behind it to justice.

Maybe he still could?

A bus pulled up, and its doors opened and let out a handful of passengers, and Eli wished he could get on and just ride it to the end of the line, wherever that was, like he and his grandfather had done a few times when he was younger.

He zipped his jacket up and put his hands in his pockets and headed for home, taking the long way because maybe he’d pick up some flowers for his mother or a cookie for his sister or maybe not.

Marwan

MARWAN

There were more voices in the house than were usual for the hour when Marwan got home. Namely his father’s—rising above the regular chatter of his mother and sisters as they got ready for bed. Why were they still up? How was it only nine p.m.?

Typically, at this time, his father was at the restaurant or at the dining room table in front of his computer, dealing with orders and bills. Now, he was on the couch, feet up, watching some international football match.

Marwan sat down on the couch with him. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” His father yawned. “And you? Where were you?”

“Helping a friend,” Marwan said. “Did you find someone to fix the glass?”

“Not yet, no.”