Eli fulfilled all his family obligations afterward, hugging some aunts and helping gather up the photos they’d posted around the room of his grandfather, bringing some flower arrangements to the apartment. He sat with his sister at the kitchen table—she’d somehow managed to bring home a few conversation-starter cards that had been left behind by accident, and Eli asked her now to pose for a picture with one of them.

That was when he saw the text from Aizel. The second Aizel. He checked when he’d gotten it, and it had come right before the explosion.

Just four numbers without explanation. Again without an alert or notification that he’d seen. Again marked as read even though he hadn’t read it.

His heartbeat quickened as his mind set to work trying to figure out what it could mean.

The revelation was nearly instant: the code for the door of Aizel Inc.

He should just delete the message.

The whole thing was over.

But the others hadn’t mentioned it. So he was the only one Aizel had reached out to?

What did she want from him?

Was he ready to be done?

It would be easy to just hop a bus up Twenty-First Street and try the numbers.

If it didn’t work, it didn’t work.

And if it did work, then what?

He’d see if he could get the computer to start up again? He’d see if he could clean out the printer and print another device?

Failing all else he could take home one of the old toys and dissect it and see what he could learn. He could go back to the toy site and see if that chatbot came back and said, TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INTEREST IN AIZEL.

He didn’t know what he’d do, and it was oddly thrilling.

Eliot was used to doing risky things; Eli not so much. Maybe it was time for that to change.

What else was Aizel capable of?

What about me?

Marwan

MARWAN

There was a nip to the air Friday evening so they didn’t open the garden, but the so-called tiny eatery seemed larger than ever to Marwan. Watching his father cook and mingle, he enjoyed a sort of calm he hadn’t felt there in days or weeks or maybe ever.

He didn’t have to ask to know that they weren’t moving to Egypt—not now, probably not ever. This—Queens—was home, and the restaurant was home more so, even, than their house with its crazy solar panels. And while it might not be Marwan’s home forever, he was lucky to have it now.