Chapter Three

“The other kids at school can be so mean sometimes,” Viktoriya said to her friend Choe. They painted at the craft table in the center of the brightly colored arts and craft room adjacent to Viktoriya’s bedroom.

“I just ignore them,” Choe answered from the other side, fiddling with some clay. Her jet-black hair swayed with each movement as she created her masterpiece. She shoved her hair out of her face behind her ear, exposing the Artificial Intelligence processing micro-mainframe attached to the side of her neck, where white wires traced up her neck and folded into her ears.

“I can’t seem to.”

Viktoriya sighed, splashing her masterpiece with more green hues. She couldn’t get her pine trees to turn out just right.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry. That’s awful! Are you okay? Can I do anything for you?” Choe asked and jumped up from her chair, raising both hands, pressing her fingers above both of her eyebrows.

“Nah, I’m all right. I can take a hit.”

“I’m sorry,” Choe continued. “I guess it’s unfair. I usually just ignore them.”

Viktoriya looked up from her painting curiously, wrinkling her eyebrows.

“Voxi,” Choe said, calling out into the empty air, into the room.

Though nothing visibly happened that Viktoriya could see, she knew exactly what her friend had done—she had turned her hearing AI off.

Choe signed the letters O and K. Viktoriya responded by bringing her hand to her lips and then moving it toward Choe—the American Sign Language for thank you.

Choe paused for a moment and then cleared her throat. “Voxi, on, please.”

“That’s amazing, Choe! I didn’t even know you did that!” she cheered. “You’re so clever.”

“The first time I did it was by accident! Belle and Bruce were making fun of my book report while I was presenting it to the class,” she said while chucking.

“I wish I had a way to turn off the bullies.”

“Maybe try being quiet for a few minutes. And imagine you’re somewhere else?”

Viktoriya paused, trying to understand what her friend was going on about. “Meditation?”

Choe snapped her fingers and pointed at her. “That’s the one, meditation! Don’t you practice that with Dr. Maribelle, too?”

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She nodded. She actually did meditation exercises with her doctor, but she didn’t really enjoy them.

“I hate the silence,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll be trying that anytime soon. No, not at all. And I’m sure that I cannot meditate a football out of existence.”

She was about to go back to her painting when she caught the look on Choe’s face, who had stopped playing with the clay and dropped it onto the table. It wasn’t how her face usually looked.

Viktoriya tried desperately to remember her sessions with Dr. Maribelle, who had been helping her to better identify emotions on people’s faces. She visualized the flashcards they used to recall the faces and words.

Not angry, no. Choe wasn’t angry. Certainly not excited; she wasn’t excited. The face of a frowning cartoon with tears and a sullen posture popped into her mind. Sad! Choe was sad. She was pretty sure she was sad.

“Choe, why are you sa—” she paused. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” she answered, but her facial expression didn’t change.

“I didn’t mean it about you. I meant it about me!”

“It’s okay, Vik,” she said, picking up her clay again, though it clearly was not okay.

“I know you didn’t say it to hurt me.”

“But I did… hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

Choe nodded and smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes—a method Dr. Maribelle had taught her to help identify genuine happiness.

The two played together quietly for a few minutes. Then, Viktoriya scolded herself for their silence because of her lack of empathy.

She shifted in her seat, trying to distract her mind from growing overwhelmed. She wasn’t careful with her words, which she was learning more about in her sessions, words that sometimes impact others.

Sometimes good, however occasionally bad, if she forgot about recognizing the environment of the conversation.

Choe decided to share a very personal experience with her friend and said, “Vik?”

“Mhmm,” she answered eagerly.

“Do you like that feeling?” she continued, motioning to her ears.

“Of the silence finally breaking after a long time?” Choe asked while pointing to her ear and making a hand-explosion gesture.

Viktoriya nodded in reply.

“Imagine that times a million. A trillion millions, Vik.”

Viktoriya tried to visually picture a trillion millions while still listening intently to her friend’s words.

Viktoriya didn’t know what to say. “I, I hadn’t thought of that before.”

She tapped the wires that traced up the side of her neck. “And I feel like that every time I turn Voxi back on, so trust me; I really hate the silence, too. I’m not mad at you for what you said, Vik. It just sort of reminded me of how I’m sometimes scared of losing Voxi, of losing my hearing. Scared of never hearing again.”

“But you won’t!”

“I know, I know.”

Viktoriya looked down at her painting. “I’m sorry again?”

Choe let out a chuckle and tossed a piece of clay across the table. “Stop saying that!”

The clay splat on Viktoriya’s shirt, sticking to it before it plopped onto the floor. Choe smiled wide-eyed and stared at her. She pointed and motioned a ‘one to zero’ score on her hands in sign language.

The friends laughed and laughed, and once they started, they couldn’t seem to stop. It was so infectious.

“Hey! What the heck is going on in there, girls?” Viktoriya’s mom announced over the house comms.

They stared at one another and began laughing even more. Viktoriya was so very thrilled to have a friend like Choe. She only wished it would never fade.

She wished she could keep the feeling from fleeing away, dissipating into nothing, leaving her stranded there with only a lingering, antagonizing memory.

She hoped she wouldn’t hurt Choe with her carelessness to the point where she alienated her one human friend.