Aaron lived closest to the Apiary, so we dropped him off first. Next was Sammi’s town house on the outskirts of Bullworth, but I found myself wishing she lived even farther away because there’s no such thing as an awkward silence as long as Sammi Khanna is in your car. There’s no such thing as silence, really.

“I heard Mr. Mulsoff came by Ms. Bailey’s third-period class today,” she said from the back seat. “Just to ‘swing by.’ It’s like they want us to know. And speaking of—”

But soon enough we were pulling into her driveway. Sammi wormed her way out of the back seat—mouthing good luck first to me, and then to Gus, as if neither of us could see her doing it to the other—and then she was punching in the code to her garage door, and there was no one left in the car but Gus, me, and (though I may have just been imagining this part) the two-thousand-pound invisible elephant between us.

“So, uh,” Gus said at last as I pulled out of Sammi’s cul-de-sac and onto the main road. “Sushi? Do we think sushi sounds good?”

And honestly, it did sound good. I’d always loved the family sushi joint a few blocks from Gus’s place. For one thing, their sushi reminded me of my grandmother’s, which she had loved to make for us, even decades after immigrating to the States from Japan. Second, Hiro, the owners’ son, was a senior at Bullworth and a family friend of the Iwatanis, and always slipped us a few extra rolls when he was working front of house. Real, nondigital food, served by real friends in a real and comfy corner booth sounded much better to me than fighting in, fighting over, or even spending one more minute thinking about HIVE.

*  *  *

BACK IN A MINUTE, read the handwritten sign. I’M IN HIVE.

“Well, at least he’s honest,” said Gus.

“I mean, presumably we’d have noticed,” I said.

Hiro sprawled out in front of us, flopped over a chair he had clearly dragged from the main floor. His right cheek was squished up against the greeters’ podium. His headset was strapped firmly over his eyes. His mouth was open and, yes, definitely drooling.

“C’mon, let’s seat ourselves,” Gus said, stepping carefully over Hiro’s feet and heading for our usual booth, which was currently unoccupied—along with every other booth in the restaurant.

“Where are his parents?” I said, glancing toward the kitchen as I grabbed two menus. “Where’s anyone?”

Gus took one of the menus and examined it carefully, which was odd, as I knew that both of us knew this menu back to front.

“I mean,” Gus said sheepishly, still not making eye contact, “everyone’s probably waiting for …”

“The Update,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Of course. Hold on a second.”

“Hello! Welcome to HIVE. How may we help—”

“Send message to HiroOfTheWeek,” I said. “ ‘Hey, California rolls, please.’ ”

There was a Bzzzz, and then there was a pause, and then across the room there was cursing and the thump of a headset being detached so quickly that it smacked into the podium.

“Hey, guys! Sorry! California rolls coming right up!”

Gus laughed, and I cracked at least part of a smile as Hiro dashed across the dining floor and disappeared into the kitchen.

Leaving us alone, once again, in a quiet room.

A very quiet room.

It seemed like the elephant had come in from the car and joined us in the corner booth.

“So, about the—” I began, at the exact same time as Gus said, “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry!” I said quickly. “You already said you were sorry! So we’re fine.”

“You were just about to say something un-fine!”

“You don’t know that!” I protested. “I was just going to say—uh …” My brain raced for something fine to say. “I had the weirdest conversation with Jason Alcorn today.”

“Okay, one, Jason Alcorn doesn’t have conversations,” Gus said. “Second, I know you, Kara. And I know you have a problem with HIVE, which is fair, especially because of your mo—”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” I interjected. “And I don’t have a problem with HIVE. I just— You’re smart, Gus. Really smart. And forgetting our date—our weekly, standing date—feels …”

“You’re looking for a nicer word than ‘stupid’?” Gus suggested.

“If you know any, that’d be really helpful,” I admitted.

Gus laughed again, and again, I felt some of the tension inside me melt away.

Or maybe that was just the elephant shifting in its seat.

“I don’t know,” Gus said. “I think, in some ways, I may be pretty stupid. Like, did you see me get wrecked by that dragon?”

I winced and suddenly found that I, too, was very interested in the menu.

“Yeah, but that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been there to surprise you,” I said. “I always have to stick my nose in things. Just like you’re always telling me.”

“Correct.” Gus smiled. “And I love that about you. But wait, why are we blaming you for things now? I thought we were mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” I said, still looking at the menu.

“Then why,” Gus said, still smiling, “are your cheeks turning so red? Why would you say you’re not—”

“Because I don’t want to be mad at you!” I slapped the menu down on the table with a laminated thwack. “I don’t want to have an argument!”

“She argued,” Gus deadpanned. “Madly.”

Finally, I looked Gus right in the face. In his stupid, smart, handsome face.

“I don’t want to argue with you,” I said. “Because in arguments there are winners and there are losers, and if we’re winning or losing, then we’re not really hanging out together. We’re just playing another game. Like we’re still in HIVE.”

Gus held my gaze, his smile slowly fading.

“Which I still don’t have a problem with,” I added.

“Uh,” said Hiro, looming over us awkwardly. “Hey, guys. California rolls?”

After a truly ridiculous number of rolls had been placed on the table—a silent apology to go with all the audible ones Hiro offered—Gus topped a roll with wasabi, popped it in his mouth, and regarded me thoughtfully while he chewed.

“Can’t it be both things?” he asked eventually. “I mean, playing a game can be hanging out. It is hanging out. And who says we have to win or lose whatever we’re playing? Look at Family Feudalism. That’s an open-ended game. No winners, no losers, just players. Really, my favorite games are the ones you can’t win.”

I paused, chopsticks halfway to my mouth.

“Just so I’m clear on this,” I said slowly, “you’re comparing our relationship to a game you can never win?”

“Oh. Ah. I.” Gus squirmed in his seat. “It seemed cute at the time?”

I shot a look over at the other side of the restaurant. Hiro was already back inside HIVE. We were, more or less, alone in the room.

“Okay,” I said, putting down my sushi roll. “Look. I get it. I play HIVE games, too.”

“Sure, like The Skims: Mind Your Manors,” Gus supplied helpfully.

“Right,” I said. (We’ll get to it!) “And those games are open-ended, too. And pretty addictive. So I understand, and I don’t want you thinking I’m, like, sensitive about it. But …”

“But you are sensitive about it,” Gus cut in. “And that’s okay! It makes sense! Because …”

I knew in that moment exactly where Gus was going, and I did not want to let him get there.

“Because the whole world’s obsessed with HIVE?” I asked. “Because the bookstores are all closing down, because no one wants to read anymore when they could just play the first-person shooter version of Les Mis?” (Okay, I’d played it. It was awesome. Moving on.) “Because Dad has to spend all day inside a HIVE office, because digital real estate is cheaper for businesses, so Kyle and I have to cook for him every night cuz he’s too buzzed to walk? Because my boyfriend and my friends totally lose track of our date ni—”

“No! Because of your mom!” Gus blurted. “It’s okay, Kara! It’s okay to talk about it! It totally sucks that she left you guys, but that’s not HIVE’s fault, and it sucks that I wasn’t there today, but I’m not her! I love you, Kara, and I’d never— Oh.”

I had squeezed my chopsticks so hard that a roll had exploded between them, spattering rice and avocado all over the table. Something somewhere far back in my head reminded me of the dragon exploding into a thousand gold coins.

“I mean, oh, shoot, Kara. I didn’t mean to imply that your mom, like, didn’t love you, I— Oh, that’s not— I just meant—Look, do you want help with that, or—”

Woof. Okay. Let’s talk about this.

It had happened six months after the December day with the headsets, and just a few weeks after the release of the BrainSTIM Card. I had come downstairs on a bright summer morning and found Dad sitting alone at the breakfast table. That wasn’t unusual—Kyle tended to sleep in, and this was well before Dad’s job was relocated to a corporate Apiary, so I was used to seeing him relax around the house most mornings before work.

Not like Mom, who hadn’t been around half as much recently. In the months since she had brought those headsets home, my mother had become convinced that this crazy HIVE startup was about to take off, and that she had to be there when it did. Which it did. Soon she was rushing from coding marathons to tech expos, working around the clock with Eric Alanick and the other biggest names in virtual reality to stay one step ahead of the world’s ravenous demand for HIVE. And ever since the BrainSTIM Card came out and changed the game, I was more likely to see my mom on the news than at home.

It thrilled me, watching interviewers stick microphones in Mom’s face and ask something inane about stock prices or sales numbers, only to be met with one of Mom’s highly passionate, completely incomprehensible rants about software patches and immersive reality theory. Sometimes it seemed like Mom had an easier time talking about virtual reality than actual reality, and as someone who was used to hearing these disquisitions over the dinner table, I loved watching someone else have to try to keep up. Sure, I missed having her around all the time; Dad was great but didn’t know the right ratio of butter to peanut butter in a butter-and-peanut-butter sandwich, the way Mom did. But if it meant she could be recognized publicly as the amazing woman she was, then I was proud to be a part of that exchange. I was happy to stand back and watch Mom go.

But that day, when Dad looked up from the table, some part of me had known right away, somehow, that the exchange had gone wrong. Mom had gone too far.

For one thing, my father, the most stoic man in the world, had red rings around his eyes.

For another, there was the note.

She hadn’t left the note on the table. Years later, that was still the worst part.

She had left the note in HIVE.

To Robert, and to Kyle, and to Kara,

I’m sorry to leave so abruptly, but something has come up at work. In fact, things have been coming up at work for a long time now, and it seems certain that things are going to come up more and more in the future. I’m sure you all have noticed: Balancing the demands of home and HIVE these past few months has been hard. I pray you all believe me: Writing this note is harder. I don’t know how long it’ll be until you see me again; I just know that I need some time to give all of myself to this work. That way, someday, I can give all of myself to all of you. I pray that day is soon, and I pray you understand.

I love you.

As it turned out, none of Mom’s prayers came true.

If it had been anyone else, it might not have seemed possible. But Mom really was that passionate, and HIVE really had gotten that big. And sure enough, she made good on her word. She didn’t come back to the house that evening, or the next day, or the day after that, and soon it became clear: The woman who’d always had one foot in the world of technology had just upped it to two feet, and then some.

Because she hadn’t just left her family to focus on her work; she had left everyone else, too. She stopped wasting time on interviews or even polite appearances at public fundraisers and showy sales panels. In short, she disappeared, and most of HIVE’s top team of programmers did as well, becoming invisible just as HIVE itself became increasingly inescapable. Only Eric Alanick, it seemed, remained willing to deign us unwashed masses with public appearances, and even then, he only did it rarely, and you always got the sense that he’d rather have been hidden away like all the rest of his friends. His fleeting appearances at tech conferences and investor meetings merely fueled his sense of mystique and added to the world’s hunger to know more about him. Rumors spread around him like viruses through source code: He slept in a HIVE chamber. He was secretly married to an incredibly advanced Sidekick. He was actually a vampire (this one didn’t have any HIVE twist to it; the guy was just handsome and pale).

It wasn’t long until the only time you heard about HIVE architects other than Eric—that was to say, architects like Mom—was when new updates were released. If you scrolled all the way to the bottom of the patch notes, you could find the names of the coders involved, written in the smallest font imaginable.

For a while, I scoured these notes obsessively. Sometimes I felt like a one-person bomb squad, sweeping for an explosive, except that whenever I found my target—the name “Kimi Swift,” attached with terrible nonchalance to the end of a long and dry document—the bomb would go off immediately, and I would be filled with an explosion’s worth of emotions: excitement, sadness, anger, confusion, and still, terribly, way deep down, the smallest spark of pride.

But that spark got smaller and smaller, and HIVE got bigger and bigger, and eventually updates stopped crediting individual coders—I guess there were just too many minds involved in HIVE for credits to be feasible. And then a year went by, and another, and another, and I came to accept that I had lost my last connection to my mother.

But please, don’t start going all “Oh, poor Kara” on me. I gained other things along the way, after all. Gus, for example. And a sense of perspective.

Because of course I didn’t have a problem with HIVE. Why would I? If I wasn’t so busy cleaning up rice and seaweed, I would have told Gus this: I didn’t blame HIVE for the monster it had become, demanding my attention, my time, my patience, and my mother.

That would be ridiculous.

I blamed Mom.

I blamed Mom when Gus apologetically offered to walk himself home from the sushi restaurant, seeming to think I wanted to be alone in the car with a two-thousand-pound elephant.

I blamed Mom when I got home and found Dad passed out on the couch, with a microwave meal sitting on the carpet below him—a sure sign he was incapacitated from another day in HIVE.

And I blamed Mom when I crawled under the covers that night, too exhausted from a day of dragon slaying to finish Pride and Prejudice.

But as I drifted off to sleep, I thought about all the other people in the world right now, tossing in their beds, waiting for the big Update. And I realized I really couldn’t judge them.

Because I also prayed that somebody could update my life.

As it turned out, all my prayers were about to come true.