“I have to begin with the Realms. The CGB created them to give us the illusion of space when we were forced into Pods during the Unity. They were only meant to be copies of the world we left behind, as you know, but the possibilities proved to be too enticing. So we gave ourselves the ability to fly. To travel from a snowcap to a beach with a single thought. And why feel pain if you don’t have to? Why feel the brunt of real fear if there’s no danger of becoming hurt? We increased what we deemed good and removed the bad. Those are the Realms as you know them. Better than Real, as they say.”

Lumina stared at the camera a few moments. Then she reached forward, pressing something beyond the camera’s view. A colorful scan of the human brain appeared in a quadrant over her left shoulder.

“The central area in blue is the oldest portion of the brain, Aria. It’s called the limbic system. It controls many of our most basic processes. Our drive to mate. Our comprehension of stress and fear and reaction to it. Our quick decision-making capability. We say a gut reaction, but actually these reflexes come from here. Simply put, this is our animal mind. Over generations in the Realms, the usefulness of this part of our brain has vastly diminished. What do you think, Daughter, happens to something that goes unused for time too long?”

Aria let out a sob, because this was her mother. This was how she’d always taught her, asking her questions. Letting her form her own answers.

“It’s lost,” Aria said.

Lumina nodded as though she’d heard her. “It degenerates. This has catastrophic consequences when we do need to rely on instinct. Pleasure and pain become confused. Fear can become thrilling. Rather than avoid stress, we seek it and even revel in it. The will to give life becomes the need to take it. The result is a collapse of reason and cognition. Put simply, it results in a psychotic break.”

Lumina paused. “I have spent my life studying this disorder, Degenerative Limbic Syndrome. When I began my work two decades ago, incidents of DLS were isolated and minor. No one believed it would amount to a real threat. But in the past three years the Aether storms have intensified at an alarming rate. They damage our Pods and cut off our link to the Realms. Generators fail. Backups fail. . . . We’re left in dire situations that we’re incapable of handling. Entire Pods have fallen to DLS. I think you can imagine, Aria, the anarchy of six thousand trapped people who have come under this syndrome. I see it around me now.”

She looked away from the camera for a moment, hiding her face.