Aria woke in a room she’d never seen before. She winced, pressing her fingers against the throbbing at her temples. Heavy fabric crinkled over her arms. She peered down. A white suit covered her from neck to feet. She wiggled her fingers inside loose-fitting gloves. Whose clothes was she wearing?

She sucked in a breath as she recognized the Medsuit. Lumina had told her about therapeutic garments like this. How could she be sick? Reverie’s sterile environment eradicated disease. Genetic engineers like her mother kept them physically well. But she didn’t feel well right now. Gingerly she turned her head left and right. Even the smallest movements brought shocking aches.

She sat up slowly, gasping at the sharp pinch in the crook of her elbow. A tube filled with clear liquid poked out of a patch in the suit by her arm and disappeared into the thick base of the bed. Her head pounded and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

She sent a hurried message. Lumina, something’s happened. I don’t know what’s going on. Mom? Where are you?

A steel counter ran along one side of the room. A regress screen sat on top, two-dimensional, like the sort used a long time ago. Aria saw a series of lines on it, the vital signals her suit transmitted.

Why was Lumina taking so long to respond?

Time and location, she requested from her Smarteye. Neither came up. Where was her Smartscreen?

Paisley? Caleb? Where are you?

Aria tried cruising to a beach Realm. One of her favorites. She stiffened as the wrong images streaked through her mind. Burning trees. Smoke that moved like waves. Paisley’s wide-eyed terror. Soren on top of her.

She reached toward her left eye and poked herself, jerking back as she blinked. Nothing but a useless eyeball. She flattened her palm over her naked eye just as a slender man in a doctor’s smock entered the room.

“Hello, Aria. You’re awake.”

“Doctor Ward,” she said, momentarily relieved. Ward was one of her mother’s colleagues, a quiet 5th Gen with a serious, square face. It wasn’t unusual to only have one parent, but a few years earlier Aria had wondered if he was her father. Ward and Lumina were similar, both reserved and consumed by their work. But when Aria asked, Lumina had answered, We have each other, Aria. That’s everything we need.

“Careful,” Ward said. “You have a laceration along your brow that’s not fully healed, but that’s the worst of it. Your tests came out clear on everything else. No infection. No damage to your lungs. Remarkable results considering what you must have gone through.”

Aria didn’t move her hand. She knew how horrible she must look. “Where’s my Smarteye? I can’t get to the Realms. I’m stuck here. With no one.” She bit her lip to keep from rambling.