He pointed to a small icon.
She tapped it. The calculator disappeared, replaced by the grid of colorful squares she'd started with.
"This is maddening." Tamira set the phone down on the table. "This thing has a thousand different functions, and I don't know what any of them do."
"They are called applications." Eluheed picked up the phone and studied it. "I had a cell phone before I was sold to Navuh, but it wasn't nearly as fancy or complicated to use. Perhaps we can go back to William's lab and ask his assistant to teach us."
"He's much too busy." Tamira glanced around at the other villagers enjoying the pleasant weather. Several had taken advantage of the self-service vending machines that dispensed surprisingly good coffee, sandwiches, and pastries on weekends when the café wasn't staffed, and most of them were doing things on their phones.
"They make it look so effortless," she said. "And since they are immortals of varying ages, I know that they didn't grow up with phones glued to their hands."
"They've had them since they were first introduced, and they've learned and adapted as the devices got more and more complicated." Eluheed handed the phone back to her. "What do you want to do with it?"
"I want to send a message to Kalugal." Tamira took a deep breath. "I need to talk to him about Darien. He knew him, fought with him, he could tell me about my son."
For so long, Tamira hadn't allowed herself to think about Darien, to wonder what had become of the baby who had been taken from her arms over a century ago. It had been easier topretend he didn't exist than to live with the constant ache of missing him and not knowing his fate.
It was cowardly, she was well aware of that, but that had been the only way she could deal with his loss and continue living. If she'd allowed herself to dwell on what had been taken away from her, she would have thrown herself off that cliff decades ago. But now she was free, and she no longer needed to pretend.
She was no longer helpless. Now she had at least some agency, and she was going to do all she could to find her son.
"A text message," Eluheed said. "I used to have an old-style flip phone that could send messages, but it took forever to type them. I guess it's much easier on these new devices."
They huddled together over the small screen, and after several wrong turns, including accidentally taking a photograph of their faces, they finally found the messaging app.
"Now we need to find Kalugal's contact information," Eluheed said. "William's assistant showed us where to find it, but I forgot what it looked like. Do you remember?"
"I think it's here." She pointed to an icon with a silhouette of two heads. "This is the icon for contacts.”
"Seems like the right one," Eluheed agreed.
She tapped it, and a list of names appeared. William's assistant had set up the phone, preloading it with the contact information for every resident of the village. There was a way to make a list of favorites, so she wouldn't have to scroll through all the contacts when looking for someone specific, but she didn't remember his instructions and didn't want to bother with it now.
Besides, she didn't know if Kalugal would become one of her favorites. He was Areana's son, and he'd been Darien's commander and the one who had helped Darien escape the Brotherhood, so he had a lot stacked in his favor, but he was also Navuh's son, which was why she preferred to reserve judgment until she got to know him better.
Thankfully, the contacts were listed alphabetically based on the first name because she had no idea what last name Kalugal or any of the others were using.
"There." She found him and tapped on his name. When his information appeared, she turned to Eluheed. "Now what?"
"I think you need to tap the little envelope icon to send a message."
She shook her head. "It says mail under it. The little bubble says message." There was also one for calling, and another one for video.
She clicked the bubble, and a blinking cursor appeared.
"Now I type." Tamira stared at the tiny keyboard on the screen. "How am I supposed to hit these letters with my fingers? They're so small."
"Use just the tip of your finger."
Tamira painstakingly tapped one letter at a time. H-e-l-l-o. The word appeared on the screen.
"I did it!" A small surge of triumph warmed her chest. "Now what do I say?"
"Tell him you'd like to meet with him to talk about Darien."
"Easier said than done," she murmured as she began the laborious process of typing out her message. It took forever to compose two sentences:Hello, Kalugal. I would like to meet with you to talk about Darien if you can spare the time.
"Should I add anything else?" she asked.
