his parents, sitting with them around the kitchen table, trying to explain how he has a sister, and that while she doesn’t need to be a part of their family, she’s always been a part of his. In fact, Dodger haunted all his dreams last night, calling his name, trying to get his attention when something else always seemed more pressing.
The hammering on the door hasn’t stopped. He rolls out of bed, wiping the grit from his eyes, and bellows, “Hold your water!” The hammering doesn’t lessen. If anything, it increases, like the person trying for his attention has been rewarded by the proof that he’s home.
“I’m going to fucking murder someone,” he says pleasantly, as he grabs yesterday’s jeans off the floor. He doesn’t bother hunting for a shirt. Whoever it is can cope with the sight of his bare chest, and if that’s too much for their delicate sensibilities, too bad for them. He wasn’t planning to be out of bed before nine. He certainly wasn’t planning on this bullshit.
Then he opens the door and Dodger’s there, also wearing yesterday’s clothes, her hair snarled like she hasn’t bothered to run a brush through it. She wails something incoherent, more sound and agony than words, and flings herself at him, eyes closed before she hits his chest. When she speaks, her words echo both inside and outside of his skull, like reverb applied to the real world.
“She’s dead there was a fire last night and now she’s dead the Life Sciences Annex is gone and she’s dead and they called to say classes were canceled because you can’t have a class without a classroom and she’s dead and is this our fault? Did we do this?” She doesn’t pause for air so much as she stops to suck it in, filling lungs that must have been deflated like balloons. She pushes back, opening her eyes, and this time when she speaks, her voice comes only from outside. For that moment, she sounds like a stranger.
“Roger, Smita’s dead, and so are six other people. We made her look at our weird DNA. We made her start trying to figure out what we were. Is this our fault?”
Two things occur to Roger simultaneously: first that she’s serious, her eyes wide and brimming with terrified tears. Second that they’re standing at the threshold of his apartment, with door wide open and their conversation being broadcast to the world. It would be nice if their quantum entanglement came with silent communication, but it never has, and this doesn’t seem like the time or place to try.
The comprehension of what she is saying comes third, and that almost grudgingly, like his mind has no interest in accepting her words. It would reject them if it could, and when he refuses it that right, it responds by dropping them, thuddingly, into the forefront of his awareness, where he must deal with them unsupported.
Roger’s eyes widen. “Come on, Dodge,” he says. “Let’s get inside. I’ll see if there’s some coffee left in the pot from last night.” Her love of stale coffee borders on the surreal. He’s seen her drink the stuff when it was six days old and capable of supporting life. If anything’s going to lure her, this should be it.
She isn’t lured. “Smita’s dead,” she says again, louder. “What are we going to do?”
Curtains twitch in nearby windows. A trick of the light, perhaps, a manifestation of a mind that’s guilty but shouldn’t be—or maybe the neighbors are waking up, and things are about to turn awkward. Roger grimaces as he puts his arm around Dodger’s shoulders and half-guides, half-pulls her into the apartment. “We’re going to have coffee, and you’re going to let me wake up, and then you’re going to try this again, slower and with more words, until I understand you.”
Dodger doesn’t resist. If anything, Dodger seems relieved to be pulled, to let someone else take responsibility for what she does next. She’s trembling, a movement so slight and so comprehensive that at first he doesn’t notice. There’s no part of her that isn’t shaking. She’s an earthquake forced into the shape of a girl, and as the door swings shut behind them, he wonders whether the fault lines at the heart of her are about to give way completely.
The hall runs from his bedroom to the front door, with the bathroom, kitchen, and small living room branching off at various points. He leads her to the kitchen, their footsteps