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Hours had passed by then.

It was daylight.

I sat in the back area of a series of connected residence rooms, relieved beyond words that I didn’t have to be the one to talk to any of the people who had come there, looking for me. I didn’t have to answer the door. I could just sit there, on the couch, watching Sasquatch play first-person-shooter games on the wall of a residence room they’d turned into a common space.

Every now and then, someone would hand me a beer.

Sometimes, they’d hand me something stronger than beer.

I’m not sure what I told them exactly.

I don’t remember saying anything in those first few hours.

I still hadn’t slept, but I felt calmer, if only because no one was bothering me. No one asked me anything. No one tried to get me to do anything. No one wanted me to decide anything. No one needed me to solve their problems.

Four bedrooms connected into the common space where I spent the night.

The occupants living in those rooms came and went, along with those of the four rooms across the hall and a few others in this part of the human residency area. I should have known but didn’t until then, that my old friends from San Francisco now formed a social focal point for the younger crowd making up the human Displacement List.

They were mini-celebrities among the human Listers.

Jaden lived in one of those four rooms.

Being my ex-, a minor feed celebrity prior to C2-77, and now one of the main comp-nerds working for Dante, he was already high up on the food chain. Sasquatch and him shared a room. Angie and Frankie shared another.

The humans were doubled up, like most of the seers, especially those not in sensitive positions. I knew some of the seers were four to a room, so this wasn’t unusual, but it still created a feeling of unreality, like being transported back to the dorms at San Francisco State.

Every now and then, someone knocked on the door.

I heard voices I recognized.

Usually Angie answered, and when I shook my head after the first few times, she stopped asking me if I wanted to see them, and just told them to go away.

I heard them tell her things, too.

Don’t let her sleep. Not until she starts to act more coherent,Balidor said.

She should get checked out by one of us before she sleeps. A seer, I mean…I heard someone else say, maybe Yumi.

It’s a form of light shock, maybe connected to the events of the previous year…

She’s not to be left alone. Make sure she gets enough water to drink. Keep her calm, and warm. Don’t let her fall asleep…

Someone else said those things, maybe several someones. Male voices that time, maybe Balidor for one of them, Wreg for one, or Jon.

I heard Jon again, not long after.

His back hurt. So did the stab wound I’d ripped open.

His light hurt, too, but I felt his frustration more than anything, his wanting to talk to me. I felt him mad at Revik, at Balidor, at Kali, at Ullysa. I felt him wanting to talk to me, but I told Angie not to let him in, either.

Someone else came to the door, too––later, I mean.

Hours later.

That person didn’t say much, at least not where I could hear it.

I didn’t hear his actual voice at all, not at first.