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the worst of it,” said that screen voice. Knox tried to turn his head to see, but his head wouldn’t turn. He was locked into some sort of brace. “We’ve closed the punctured lung; the ribs are mending. Some ligaments need to be reattached and muscles rebuilt. He lost a piece of intestine and one ear. We had the cells on file, so we could reattach most from his own. The liver was in sorry shape, causes beyond the accident I think. We had a healthy one from a donor. Replaced his, gratis.”
    “There was no need,” said his father. “We could have paid for the liver.”
    “You’ve been so generous with our institution. It’s the least we could do.”
    “I appreciate your assistance with this.”
    “Boys need a firm hand. He is lucky to have a father who cares so much.”
    Knox’s father grunted.
    “He should be stable to transfer in a few hours,” the other voice said. “We’re just waiting on a blood transfusion to arrive from the Lower City. That should get his strength up.”
    “Good,” his father replied. “Message me when he’s awake.”
    “Of course, sir.”
    Knox managed to twist his head, to see his father, blurry through the plexi tube. Their eyes met and his father shook his head, just once, and put on his dark glasses. He turned his back and left the room without a word. Did he know Knox could see him, could hear him?
    Of course he knew.
    Knox closed his eyes, wishing he could press his face against the shark tank one more time. He saw himself, so young, on the other side of the plexi tube, his ear pressed against it, his mother’s hand on his back. His missed his mother.
    He tried to speak to himself, to ask himself what was happening. Where was he? Why was he in this tube, restrained? Why was his father so disgusted with him? Why did everything hurt?
    But his voice gurgled like a column of bubbles. He saw himself run off, felt his mother’s warm hand on his back as she led him through the grown-up party. Sharks swam around him, but she kept him safe with her touch.
    Knox slept and dreamed he was still awake.
    Then he woke.

[7]
    KNOX WAS LOOKING AT a room someplace. It hovered in a holo at the end of his hospital bed, like a window hanging in thin air, a window into a dump.
    There was junk everywhere. Pieces of robots and computer parts, strange tools, bits of grime in the corners. There was an old guy, hairy. Talking. The volume wasn’t on yet. No sound. It didn’t matter. Knox didn’t want to hear what he was saying.
    He tried to focus past the holo projection at the wood-paneled wall behind it, but the double focus made his head spin. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Everything ached. He felt himself drifting off to sleep again when a rush hit him.
    The nurse had her own holo projection up, off to the side. She tapped it and the patch on his arm glowed as it installed whatever biodata they were using to keep him awake. The patch made everything sharper, brighter. His veins tingled with the signal shift. It would have been fun if it didn’t also make his pain more vivid, like a thin knife blade stuck into his belly button. He groaned, mostly for effect. They’d hacked his biofeed and could keep him awake as long as they wanted. They could have made the pain go away too, but they didn’t. He groaned again.
    “This is for your own good,” Knox’s father said with that same tone he probably used to fire people.
    Knox looked over at him. His father sat in a mod chair next to the hospital bed. He wore a dark suit and hid his eyes behind dark glasses so no one could tell if he was looking at them or at his datastream or both. Even out of the office, he was never away from the office. Knox felt ridiculous wearing a hospital gown while his father was in a suit and dark glasses.
    It struck Knox that he wasn’t in a tube anymore. He was in some kind of lux hospital room. He didn’t recall being moved. Everything was hazy. A hose stretched from his arm to some sort of bag. Bright blood