Park tilted her console at him briefly.

“That’s where your interest is?” he said. “News?” His mouth twitched into a smile. “Human interest stories?”

When Park didn’t answer, he said, tapping out a kind of rhythm with his long, pale fingers: “You’d do better to watch the cinema streams. Television shows.”

“They don’t make those anymore,” Park said, surprised into answering. The film industry had died a long time ago, and who owned TVs anymore?

“The old ones, I mean,” Dataran amended.

“And why would I want to watch old filmstreams?”

Dataran smiled then, straight into Park’s eyes. For such a pale, wan thing, his smile was like a hot glittering light, forceful and unrelenting. Park felt the corners of her own mouth turn down.

“Everyone does it,” Dataran said. “If you do it too, then you’ll fit in.”

And why would I want to do that? Park wanted to ask, but she only put the dry little vegetable patty into her mouth and turned away.

After school, Dataran dogged her down the front steps to the gate that led out into the street. Glenn wasn’t there yet, which had only happened once before, when he was having maintenance done—and he had told her about that well in advance. Park felt staticky concern prick her stomach before she quieted it. What was the procedure here? Was she supposed to go home on her own? She hated disruptions in her routine, Glenn knew that—so where was he?

Before she could decide what to do, Dataran broke in again, chattering into her ear.

“You know,” he said, “I like you. As a friend, I mean. Of course. But. You’re nice.”

Nice was the best he could come up with, Park thought sourly, and even then she knew she was the farthest thing from nice. Even Glenn wouldn’t call her nice, though he called her plenty of other things—positive assurance was in his programming—and where was he, anyway? Androids kept to schedules, they were never meant to be unpredictable unless something happened to them, and what was this hot and vinegary fear crowding up inside her heart? She dug her nails into her palm; her hands itched. She fought the urge to call out, into the thin air.

“I was thinking we could hang out sometime,” Dataran babbled on, averting his gaze when she looked at him impatiently. “You know. Outside of school. If you wanted. That would be crash.”

“Why?” Park asked finally, turning to face him.

Dataran blinked. “Why . . . ?”