If I were them, Aegis said, and all I cared about was trying to get you to play the game again and not letting on about whatever secret, and I were a little stupid, I'd try cutting off your desk privileges, telling everyone not to talk to you, and giving you nothing at all to do but go play the game on the simulator.

Well, they cut me off all right, he says. I still get class shit, but nobody says a word to me.

Are you going to classes? she asks.

Tutors, is his one-word answer. Not in the last week or so, now it just comes through my desk.

They want you to save the world and their idea is solitary confinement. Smart, smart people, says Aegis derisively.

He sends a concurring snort.

I'm going to ask somebody official where you might be located if they haven't put me in a room with you on purpose inside a week, and if they won't tell me, I'll see if I can pry it out of the computer system. Are you allowed out of your room at all?

Yeah, but only to go down the hall and pee. The corridor section doesn't let me out.

There's not even anything else on the section?

My room, a bathroom, and a bunch of doors that don't open.

Wow. They couldn't just own up about being shits and put you in the brig, huh?

Guess not.

When you turn eighteen they have to, legally, allow planetside leave and invite you to re-up, even if you or them determined that the leave at age twelve could go hang - what do they think they're doing? If they want you they shouldn't be antagonizing you when you're two years away from telling them all to fuck themselves and if they don't want you they could ice you now.

Ask them, he suggests. Except don't, 'cause then they'll know we were talking.

Maybe I can steer the conversation around if they don't let me see you for long enough that it makes sense for me to ask. Of course, maybe they'll cut me off, maybe the faction which doesn't think I'll do any good is in charge here and they just plan to put me in classes and not in contact with you at all.

Maybe they're trying to see if we're talking, he hypothesizes.

...I hope not.

Me too.

You probably wanna look up the effects of solitary confinement - it's a more reasonable thing for you to do than me - and fake them? Aegis suggests.

They might be able to tell, he says. And then if I got them for real I could be extra fucked.

I don't... think you should wind up with them for real, since I can keep you company. It shouldn't be that much about people being physically there, should it?

Don't know, he says, with a shorthand shrug.

It'd make sense for you to look it up either way, you don't necessarily have to fake it just because you read about it, she points out.

I think... I wouldn't look it up unless you suggested it, or I was going to fake it. So I shouldn't.

Ooh. Okay. Pause. Even if I couldn't talk to you, I might look up that - well, and a lot of unrelated stuff, like, legal stuff - if I got a suspicious answer after asking for you. So I might do that.