His fingers curled into the blanket.
Where is he? What did you do with him?
“My name is Dr. Marianne Kane, I am the consulting neuroscientist for Virtual Vice,” she said. “But more importantly, I am Asher’s mother. I know you have a great many questions. I’m going to answer the ones I can.” She set the tablet face-down on the windowsill beside her. “Do you need water?”
“Yes.” The tube shifted when he swallowed and he could feel it all the way down.
He took a glass from her in both hands, because one wasn’t steady enough.
“Thank you,” he rasped, because his mouth said it before his brain decided whether he meant it. “Where is Asher?”
“We’ll come to that,” she said with the shape of a smile on her face with none of the warmth. “I’d like to walk you through your situation first.”
We’ll come to that.A leash. He felt it close around the question and pull it back.
“You were in the system for three weeks,” she said, sitting back down and crossing her ankles. “Your body has lost approximately twelve pounds.”
Twelve pounds. His hands did look thinner on the glass, but he hadn’t noticed until she’d given him the number.
“Both of you were intubated three days prior to exiting the system, because you both stopped breathing at the same time. Your muscle tone is significantly diminished, which is why we’ve kept you on assisted nutrition.” Her eyes moved briefly to the tube on his face. “You’ll transition to soft foods in the next few days. Physical therapy has already begun — you’ve had several sessions while you were under mild dissociatives to prevent further incidents.”
While I was under sedation.The blips. The hand on his elbow. The spoon. They’d been walking him around like a sleepwalker, feeding him, bending his joints, keeping his muscles from dyingwhile his brain was lost. The thought sat in his stomach with the tube and didn’t settle.
“Your cognitive function appears intact. You may experience sensory disruptions for some time — sounds or smells that don’t match your environment. These will resolve.”
I don’t care.
He took a breath. “Where is —”
“What happened to you was unfair, I know,” she said, and he heard the redirect land and close over his question like a door. “But we had run out of options.” She paused. “On behalf of my family and my son’s company, I am sorry.”
She kept going. His apartment — maintained. Rent paid, utilities, internet, streaming subscriptions, mail collected and sorted, fridge restocked. A woman named Sarah from his online community had contacted his building manager three days after his stream went dark. They’d reached out to her. They’d explained he was recovering from a seizure disorder.
“You have a home to go to,” Marianne said. “We made sure of it.”
They’ve been living my life for me.
His fingers tightened on the glass. He wanted to ask about Asher. He wanted to rip this conversation in half and drag it to the only part that mattered. But she was talking, and she was a wall, and the wall had a pace, and the pace was hers.
“I’d like to discuss your future care,” she said. “What I’m about to offer you is comprehensive and it is genuine. I want you to hear all of it before you respond.”
Medical expenses, in perpetuity. Physical therapy, counseling, medication, dental, vision. A monthly stipend — five thousand dollars. An apartment anywhere in the continental United States, rent covered up to ten thousand a month. School if he wanted it. A car if he wanted it. A driver if he didn’t.
She kept going, but he wasn’t listening anymore. Not really. The numbers were landing somewhere far away from him. He watched her mouth and waited for it to shape the wordAsher.Every sentence that wasn’t about Asher was a sentence he was enduring.
“The conditions,” she said, and her voice didn’t change but her posture did — a small straightening, a squaring. “You will not speak publicly or privately about Virtual Vice, about the system, or about my son. Not by name, not by description, not in any way that could lead someone to reconstruct what happened. Any therapist you see will be selected from a list of providers who have signed a secondary confidentiality agreement that my attorney will provide. If you choose to return to streaming, the incident on your channel was a prank. You will apologize on camera. My team will help you draft the statement.”
She stopped and snapped in his direction, waiting until Levi’s gaze met hers to continue.
“If you decline,” she said, “you are of course free to go. I would ask you to understand that my family’s legal resources are considerable, and that our lawyers are very good at finding the things people would prefer not to be found.” She didn’t look away. “I don’t say this to frighten you, Levi. I say it because I think you’re the sort of person who prefers to know where he stands.”
I don’t care. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about the apartment. Tell me where he is.
“Why won’t you—.”
“My son has been in the system for six months.”
Levi nearly dropped the glass.
