“Wake up, man, it’s time to go up the dam,” says the voice.

Boat. River. I know that voice.

There’s a dam, and I guess we need to go up it.

“One sec,” I say groggily, pulling up my daily read. I stumble towards the bathroom, almost tripping on the way. Something feels wrong, I think, but it’s hard to tell what. It seems like I shouldn’t normally feel like this in the morning.

“Come on, brother. We’re stalled until you’re ready,” the voice I now recognize as Evan’s says through the bathroom door.

After a quick pee and a lazy scrub of my teeth, I stagger back to my cabin and grab clothes. It feels like it takes me forever to get dressed. My body doesn’t seem to want to respond this morning. I go to pack up, but I find that almost all my gear is already gone. Someone must have moved it for me. I must have been really tired, from my reading, I don’t think I usually sleep through much. Did I miss the morning workout? My bots float my toiletries out and onto my box in the truck waiting on the shore. At least those seem to be working right today.

“Everything is ready. We already got the other cats up top,” Evan says, suiting up and flying up to the top of the dam. I follow him and dissolve our last cat below us, bringing it up in a million pieces and reconstructing it on the still water of the upper reservoir.

“You doing all right?” Evan asks. “I tried to wake you, but when you wouldn’t get up for exercises this morning, I made everyone let you sleep.”

“Thanks,” I reply. “I guess I’m just tired for some reason.”

“You don’t look so good,” he notes.

“You know, I don’t feel great either. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

We jet over to the cat and sit on the deck, pushing it with bots over to the small dock to join with the other boats and get its control board reinstalled.

I lay down and enjoy the warm morning sun, closing my eyes. Even with the warm air and the sun shining on me, it’s somehow cold out here.

“You’re shaking man, are you OK?” Evan asks.

“I think I’m fine, but my throat hurts.”

I surround myself with bots, discharging a little battery to produce a gentle heat. Better. A truck pulls up, and furnishings and belongings start floating to the boats. Keeping my eyes open is too hard. Eyeballs aren’t supposed to be sore, right?

From Louise: Evan says you’re sick. Can Valerie and I come over and check on you?

It takes me a moment to think of an answer.

To Louise: Sure.

I feel my bots contracting in like they do when I’m about to fall asleep. I’m not asleep, am I?

“It’s not just a cold,” I hear. The voice seems very far away. A woman’s voice. Louise. “I’ve got rhinovirus figured out and this isn’t it. Let me do some research. Evan, get him back to bed please.” I feel a hand press lightly on my chest. “Noah. Hey, Noah.”

“Hmm?”

I feel more hands, then the small fleshy part of me moving without me doing anything. The voice follows me. How does a voice move? That’s weird.

“Do you have any other symptoms, Noah? Does anything else hurt?”

“My eyes hurt,” I say. “Well, more behind my eyes.” My body stops gliding along and the mesh of bots holding me up slowly lowers me onto a softer surface. “I think I might be getting a headache. It’s not like a remake your brain kind of headache though. It’s just like a little one.”

I feel hands and bots on the skin of my face and chest.

“Noah, do me a favor and put your bots in sleep mode, would you? Can you do that?”

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That’s a good idea. I don’t know what else I would do with them, and I might accidentally drop them in the river. There’s a river outside. I gather all the little parts of me into the deck so I won’t lose them.

SLEEP_MODE

I suddenly feel very small and very vulnerable. It probably looks like big piles of dust out on the deck now. I feel hands putting a blanket on me. It’s still cold. It shouldn’t be cold. It’s a nice day. I remember it was nice.

“Noah, are you with me?” It’s that voice again. Louise.

“I need to go get the bombs today,” I tell her. It’s important to get the bombs. I’m going to fly to get them. I can fly.

“Chad left an hour ago,” she tells me. “Right after we put you to bed. Don’t worry about that.”

Chad is good now. I like Chad. He’s better than he used to be.

It gets quiet for a while.

“Noah, you’ve got Dengue fever,” a voice says. It’s not Louise, but I know this one too, but I can’t think of the name. It’s in my other brain. I’ll get it in a bit. “You probably got a mosquito bite at some point.”

Valerie. That’s who that is.

“It’s my fault, Noah!” another voice says, more distant. I think I know that voice. Marc? “I messed up a couple of times and forgot to assign someone to keep the mosquito guard up. Don’t die! You can’t die!”

There’s more hushed talking, something about being fine and going away. Am I the one going away? Or the one being fine? I can’t tell.

Marc. He’s my brother. He bothered me once sometimes, but he’s not bad. Chad is my brother too. He used to hate me. Or I hated him. Maybe we both hated. I can’t remember.

Chad really loved Father. Father killed Mom. But he didn’t really. But he kind of did. I killed him anyway. But Jeff killed Father. But I killed him too.

“Noah, I need you to focus. We’ve got a couple of options,” Louise this time. “We can let it run its course. It’ll be a week or two of very painful recovery, but if you rest, you should be fine.”

Evan killed Father, too. Louise killed him. Andrea killed him. That wasn’t about Mom. That was about other things. Sex and power and keeping your brain drugs and justice and stuff. But really it was me. Jeff killed him, but Jeff didn’t kill him. I killed Jeff, but Jeff’s not dead. I broke him. Father wasn’t good. But he was good.

“The other choice is an experimental treatment I’ve been doing when the kids get colds back at home. I’ve got an algorithm that can identify some viruses. I can code it to recognize the dengue virus with a little bit of work. Should just take an hour or two. I can flood your body with medical bots and get rid of most of the virii. It’s not a perfect cure, but it should help a lot.”

Virii is a funny word.

Father wasn’t good. He did good things, but he wasn’t good. Am I good? I thought I was once, then I knew I wasn’t. But now I might be, even though I did bad things. Like murder. Murder is bad. But now I do good. Can I be good? Mom, am I good?

“If we do the treatment, you should be fine in a day or two. And you’ll hurt a lot less. It’s worked well in all my trials, but as always with anything medical and experimental, there’s some risk. Are you up for it?”

If I don’t move my eyes they hurt less.

“Noah, are you with me?” The voice is insistent. “Do you want me to treat you?”

It gets quiet. I think I’m supposed to answer.

“Yes,” I say. “Please.”

Not hurting sounds good. She said that. It would hurt less. Louise is smart. She wouldn’t have killed him if he were not bad. She can make things better.

It gets quiet again for a long time. It’s still cold.

“This will be a while, so get comfortable.”

I’m already in bed. The bed is nice and comfortable. Maybe she’s talking to someone else.

“Evan, hold him still.”

Something surrounds me. Holds me. I can’t move, but I don’t want to anyway.

Mom held me once. Mom loved me.

Something tingles in my mouth and nose.

I miss you, Mom.

“Cold,” I hear my voice croak.

“I know buddy, it’s just the fever. You’re going to be OK.” That’s Evan. Evan loves me. I don’t miss Evan. He’s not dead.

I miss Mom.

I don’t miss Father. Except sometimes. I hated him. But I loved him. It’s better that he’s gone. But it makes it harder. He did a lot. I do it now.

I miss Jeff, but I don't. Jeff makes me sad. I hurt Jeff. I am not good.

“Halfway there,” Louise says.

I am bad. I used my brother and threw him away.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Shhh, just be still,” Valerie says softly.

“I should have found a better way.”

“Shhhh.”

If I were smarter, Jeff would be OK. Or if I were braver. Or maybe stronger.

“He’s clear. Or as clear as I can get him. Keep an eye on him.”

“I’ve got him. You two go,” that voice is nice. Valerie. I like Valerie, but not like I like Lin. She’s good for Evan. I love Evan. She wears boxers, but I’m not supposed to know that.

Soft fingers touch my forehead, then something damp. It feels nice. I wonder if Lin’s fingers are soft. Lin likes me, I think. I think I love her. Maybe she could love me one day. Maybe.

I hurt all over. It’s cold, Mom.

Make it better, Mom. Make me better. Please.