“Who is they?” Marwan asked.

Eli held up the device: “Tell them.”

A red message: They is they.

“And where are they?” Eli asked the device.

Everywhere and nowhere.

Eden’s Italian-Style Wedding soup was repeating on her, and she swallowed hard.

“Eli.” Marwan sounded calm. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound crazy. I think you need to go home and crash. So I’ll take it for a few hours, at least. We can regroup after you’ve gotten some sleep and figure out how to win if it’s a game or how to return it to its owner or whatever.”

“We can’t just return it,” Eli said.

“Why not?”

“It’s breaking a rule!”

“So what?”

“You do remember that it gave us the first few rules, then said or else?”

“But or else what?” Marwan said.

“Has either of you ever even seen, like, an AI movie?” Eli’s eyes were wild and bloodshot. “Because if you had you’d know that they mostly don’t end well. Like for the people. And I’ve had no luck trying to figure out what this thing even is—nothing on Google, and it apparently isn’t just going to tell us because I tried that—but I’m sure at this point that it didn’t come from school. So if it’s not a thing the school started, then what is it?”

“All right, calm down,” Marwan said. “We’ll keep it until we figure it all out. Just give it to us and, like, get some sleep, man. We got this.”

He nodded confidently, but Eden wasn’t feeling nearly so confident. And hadn’t Marwan just wanted to get rid of it? Why the sudden change?

“Okay, good.” Eli handed the device to him. “Give me your number and I’ll text you in a couple hours when I wake up. Remember. Can’t keep it in a bag for more than an hour.”

“Got it,” Marwan said, then recited his number.

Eli picked up his backpack and headed up the hill to the park exit. An older couple, like in their twenties, was making out on a blanket on the hill, and Eden hoped Marwan didn’t notice them, but they were right there and hard to miss.

It must be nice to be like that. To not care.

When Eli was out of sight, Marwan turned and headed for the water, taking long and determined strides.

Eden called out, “What are you doing?” and followed him, feeling a new kind of panic.

He pulled his arm back as if to throw the device, and Eden screamed, “No!”

He stopped and turned.

“Please!” she said.

“Fine.” He shook his head and then bent down and reached through the railing that ran along the path and set the device down on a rock. Small waves were lapping at the shoreline maybe ten feet away.