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let’s get something to eat. You’re probably just faint from hunger. And that vampire grandpa with bad aim didn’t help.”
    The smile I hoped for doesn’t come. Dyl’s quiet despair is almost physical, blanketing both of us as we walk back in our room. She curls up on my bed and lets me tuck her under the sheets.
    I punch in an order for some food at the efferent. Hydroponic chicken salad, hot peas with butter, and steaming mini-loaves of cheddar sunseed bread. But she won’t touch any of it. After a few more hours, Dyl is still half catatonic on the bed, and she doesn’t complain when I rub her back gently.
    I wish I knew what to do. We’re both afloat in our own brand of uncontrolled misery, and I can’t make it go away. There’s no protocol in my lab files for dealing with grief.
    “Come on. Why don’t you listen to some music on your holo. Cheer you up,” I suggest, and she nods. I squeeze her foot under the covers, and she wriggles back in acknowledgment.
    I chew the inside of my cheek to distract me from that black hole of a feeling, the absence of Dad. He said to take care of myself. But all I can think of is Dyl. I have never seen her so withered, in such a dark place. While Dyl chooses some quiet, depressing music, I flick on my own holo. I can’t look at cell bio sites, and the thought of political science channels makes me ill, so I stare instead at a blank screen.
    Suddenly, my holo screen goes fuzzy and matching static fills the air.
    “Clear,” I command, to reset the holo. My stud is an older model I keep forgetting to update, and occasionally it’s too slow to handle the information. But the holo stays fuzzy. I reach up and pinch the earpiece, turning it off.
    “My holo just died,” Dyl says, pulling the thick silver stud out of her earlobe. She walks to the bathroom, where she can examine it under the brighter light, checking the pin-sized battery in the core. I start to pull my black one out too.
    “Weird. Mine did too—”
    But before I can finish my sentence, the door opens.
    Two strangers walk into our room. In the hallway behind them, a fancy electrostatic hoverchair bobs, as if waiting to serve a disabled person. One of the strangers is a young woman dressed in black. She wears her paper-white hair in a sleek ponytail, and her eyes are so pale blue they look white too, as if she dunked her whole head, eyes wide open, into a bucket of bleach.
    The other guy is heavyset with a baby face, curly orange hair, and a scattering of scruffy beard. He withdraws a handful of black jelly beans from his pocket, popping them one by one into his mouth and chewing like a cow. For some reason, he keeps a wide distance from the woman. A bored expression flattens his features.
    “Can I . . . help you?” I ask timidly. Dyl peeks from the bathroom.
    “Your foster family is here to pick you up,” the girl says, but not kindly.
    This is not what I expected. Now? It feels wrong in every way—her tone of voice, the way her eyes won’t look at me, the chubby companion and his black candy.
    I shake my head. “But we only just did our tests today. I thought—”
    She ignores me and beckons to my sister. “Come with me.”
    Dyl looks to me, fear entering her eyes. She doesn’t move forward, instead whispering so low that only I can hear her.
    “Zel, stay close to me.”
    I give her the tiniest nod, and turn to the pair. “Where are we going, exactly?” I ask.
    “Not both of you, just her.” The woman sounds irritated, and I can feel the blood pounding in my chest. I start breathing faster and faster to match the demand of my heart. They’re going to separate us, after I just silently promised my sister. I stand my ground in front of Dyl, like a guard. A tiny one.
    “Can I confirm this with Micah? Or maybe the New Horizons director?” I say, failing to keep my voice steady. I pinch my holo on. “Micah? Can you—Micah?” My screen is still fuzzy.
    A tidy smile stretches the strange