You stood up from your bed and crossed the room, rummaging through your backpack. When you did not find what you were looking for, you tore through mine, the one I had not used since we stopped going to school.

“What are you—”

You took out my notebook, the one I mostly used for doodles, and my bag of pencils. The misshapen ones from the company.

“I’ll show you what stories can do,” you said fervently. “How they can bring hope. Write this down.” You pushed my notebook and pencil into my hands.

“In an old building in Shanghai lived two girls,” you recited.

I reluctantly wrote down your words.

“They didn’t like each other very much,” you continued, “and in many ways they were very different. But they both had a special ability, and they were going to use it to change the world.”

I managed to smile.

“What comes next?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” you said. You sat next to me. “It’s your turn.”

And so I wrote another line, and then you wrote a line, and together we began piecing together our story, our only weapon against the invasion of our home.

Chapter 9

From the diary of Monica Tsai, backed up on three servers spanning two continents

September 4, 2018 (2018-09-04T20:13:29.681998)

loc: Cambridge, Massachusetts. United States of America (42.3721865,71.1117091)

It’s September in Cambridge now, which means the students have returned. The curbs are littered with furniture looking for a new home, the shuttles ferry students to campus and to the store, everyone wearing a backpack. It’s weird seeing them ease back into their lives while mine has stalled—it’s like I’ve gone from being a character in my own movie to being a member of the audience, watching as something more exciting plays out before me.

I try not to think about it too much and channel my energy into EMBRS instead. I’ve learned a ton and developed a good routine. Somehow, Prof. Logan always finds time to review my code, leaving insightful comments around 3 a.m.

As I work, grandmother sits across from me at the dining table, writing. She pauses and crosses out words or a line often, murmuring under her breath. Sometimes she only writes a few characters and then stops, distracted, forgetting what she’s doing. Other times she writes without pause, the sound of the pencil scratching on paper the perfect white noise as I code. Sitting with her, both of us working independently, her with pencil and paper, me at my computer—it almost makes me feel like I’m back at school.

When I’m not coding, I run whatever errands my grandparents need done: packages returned, medicine picked up, groceries bought. The bike has been amazing for getting around, for getting out of the house, for letting me feel like I’m still moving forward in some way.

let me guess. your 😄 is biking again