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talk.” There was too much to say for one message. Hey, so I’m out of the crazy house for the third time, I’m on electrochemical probation, and oh, Edo’s cooking our old product.
    “Call soon,” I said. “It’s about … spiritual matters.” I signed off.
    I wasn’t sure the message would get through. This phone ID wouldn’t be on his white list, and Rovil’s spam filters might block me out of hand.
    The pen chimed. The screen was still extended, and now Rovil’s face—streaming live, no icon—smiled up at me.
    Shit. I’d sent the message, but I wasn’t prepared to have the conversation now . Who immediately calls back like that?
    I put on a pleasant expression, then clicked to answer. “How you doing, kid?”
    “I can’t believe it! Lyda!”
    Still the enthusiast. Rovil was our first and only hire at Little Sprout, our designated Rat Boy, though we had stopped calling him that when a visitor thought it sounded racist. He was fresh out of school then, but in no time became Mikala’s right hand. The chemistry wizard’s apprentice.
    “You look like you’re doing all right for yourself,” I said. “VP now?” Landon-Rousse was one of the Big Four pharmaceutical companies, with headquarters in Belgium but offices everywhere.
    He looked bashful. “Everybody’s a vice president,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the bureaucracy here.”
    We hadn’t spoken since the Greenland Summit, ten years before. That meeting hadn’t ended well. I told both Edo and Rovil to fuck off and never talk to me again. Rovil, obedient kid that he was, did as I asked. Even Edo gave up eventually—before disappearing completely.
    Every so often over the past few years, usually when I was drunk and feeling maudlin, I’d do a search on my friends from Little Sprout. Gil’s status was always the same—still incarcerated. And all the news on Edo Anderssen Vik was either (a) corporate PR-speak from his own company, or (b) speculation on why he’d disappeared from public view. But Rovil seemed to be leading an actual life. I was relieved when he went to grad school, happily surprised when he was hired at Landon-Rousse, then pleased every time his title changed to something more important. I wondered if he’d managed to hide his crazy, or if he was so good that the company kept him on despite it. Maybe Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles, had cleared the way.
    The small talk stuttered to a stop. He had to be wondering why I’d called him after ten years of silence, but he was too polite to ask. Did he know about my stints in rehab, the car crashes, the psych wards?
    I said, mock-casually, “So, have you heard from the others? Edo, Gil…?”
    He blinked. “Gilbert, no, of course not!” Poor Rovil, walking on eggshells just saying the name in my presence.
    “I hear he’s allowed to have visitors,” I said.
    Rovil’s eyes widened. “You’re not thinking of—?”
    “No, no. It’s Edo I want.”
    “Oh,” he said. “That may be difficult.”
    “I tried calling him on an old private number, but it’s dead now. Every address I’ve found online for him is corporate, blocked by either voicemail or receptionists. I’ve left messages, but he hasn’t called me back.”
    “I know, I know,” Rovil said. “A couple times over the years I tried to reach out to him, but he never responds.” He grinned. “Like some other people I know.”
    Wow, little Rovil yanking my chain. “I’ve had some issues,” I said. “But Edo … what happened to him?”
    “He hasn’t been seen in years,” Rovil said. “I’m not even sure what country he stays in. He’s a, what’s the word? Not a hermit…”
    “A recluse. Growing his fingernails, storing his urine in jars, that kind of thing.”
    “What have you heard?” Rovil said, shocked. Missing the reference entirely.
    “Never mind that,” I said. “I have a favor to ask.”
    Rovil considered this, then with complete earnestness said, “If I can provide it, it’s