On Friday, I went and picked up Violet at her house for the party. I hoped that the party would cheer her up.

I was used to the route, now, and I liked seeing all the stuff I passed, the antennas and chutes and vents, and my feed told me their names as I looked at them — Charming Lawn Observation Tower; Riverdale Exhaust Hood; Institute for the Study of Psychoeconomy; Bridgeton Playland and Compulsion Center — and after a while, I knew them by sight, and with each one, I could feel like I was getting closer to Violet, which was like a present which I didn’t know what was inside of.

While we flew to the party, she told me about weird things she’d read on the feed, while she was resisting it or whatev. She told me about the scales on butterflies, and the way animals lived in ducts, sometimes whole herds. People would hear the stampeding through their walls. There were new kinds of fungus, she said, that were making jungles where the cables ran. There were slugs so big a toddler could ride them sidesaddle. “The natural world is so adaptable,” she said. “So adaptable you wonder what’s natural.”

When we got there, people were drinking already and it looked pretty fun. Someone was being a DJ and broadcasting tracks on the feed, so we tuned in, because otherwise you just hear the shuffling while people are moving around with no music on the floor. I have a pretty good auditory-nerve hookup with my feed, so the sound is real spink, and it’s good to move to. So we got some drinks and drank them, and said hi to people, and then the feed was going, it was doing this song, I got some feet, and those feet, they’re gonna walk. Walk, feet, you walk, the ten toes, I walk with the feet, that one, and so we danced to it. It’s a kind of low-hips dance, with the draggy elbows, and we did it, it’s good for that.

It was all going pretty good until Quendy arrived. When she got there, it was like — silence . . . wwwwwwwwww (wind) . . . wwwwwwww . . . ping (pin dropping) — because her whole skin was cut up with these artificial lesions. We were all just looking at her. They were all over her.

She raised her arms. The cuts were like eyes. They got bigger and redder when she moved. “Do you like them?” she said, laughing. “I got it yesterday.”

“You’re,” said Marty, “you’re covered with cuts.”

“They’re not ‘cuts,’” she said, smiling like he was an idiot. “First of all, it’s the big spit. And second, for your info, it’s called ‘birching,’ and they’re lenticels.”

Marty and Link were chatting me and each other.

Unit.

Unit.

Whoa, unit.

Violet had her face in her hands.

People were starting to dance again.

I could tell Calista and Loga were chatting up a storm. People were dancing, and the feed was going, I walk these itty-bitty steps. Away from you. Just itty-bitty steps. I walk away. Quendy went over to the table with the drinks and poured herself some vodka and Tang. Some other girls were over talking to her.

Violet was standing next to me, like, I can’t believe she did it.

I went, It’s all for Link. I guess she wanted to outdo Calista.

Can you even think how much that cost?

I don’t know.

Each one of those incisions has to be capped off in plastic.

Yeah. It was probably pretty pricey.

It’s the end. It’s the end of the civilization. We’re going down.

No, it’s sure not too attractive. Lenticels.

I just hope my kids don’t live to see the last days. The things burning and people living in cellars.

Violet.

The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.

I looked at her. She wasn’t joking. Her face was full of lines.

Violet, I said. I took her hands. I had an idea, and I was like, Let me show you something.

She didn’t say or chat anything. We went away from all the people, up the stairs. The bedroom doors were closed. I took her up past the bedrooms, to the attic. I pulled down the attic, like, the pull, and this ladder folded out. I went up, and willed the light, but there wasn’t any feedlink to the light. The light was worked by a string. You pulled it sometimes, and the light went on.

There was all kinds of old shit up there. She came up behind me. When we walked, our footsteps, they were clunky. The boards felt old.

We used to come up here, I said. We played sardines in the closet. You got to hide, and then everyone looks for you, and when they find you, they hide with you. This was this meg good place, because only Link’s best friends, we were the only ones that knew about it. We would be up here, all together, and people who weren’t his good friends, they’d be walking around downstairs, and we could hear them, and we’d be laughing our asses off.

I used to, when I was hiding here, I kept thinking of when I was littler, you know, younger, before I was good friends with Link. I kept thinking of the time when you’re all racing around, and you pass people in the halls, like in cartoons where people go in one door and come out another one. And you’re like passing them all and looking in all the laundry places and shit, and it’s a big game, and people keep giggling, and then you don’t see them again.

Then you’re walking around alone. You know, there’s this weird moment where you realize that you’re alone, and no one else has been walking for a while. You realize that the moment, the exact moment, when you became alone is already over. You’ve been that way for a while. So you’re walking around this empty house, and all the towels are folded up, and the soap is still wet on the soap dish. That’s the creepy thing.

She sat down on an old thing.

I kept going. I was like, You’re walking, and everything’s empty, but the weirdest thing is that it’s not empty at all. The weirdest thing is that you know that you’re more alone than anyone, but that more people are thinking about you than ever before. They’re all just there, holding their breath, following your, like your every move through the house, listening to your footsteps and the doors opening and closing. So you’re more alone, but more watched. It can just go on and on for hours, you walking around, walking on the carpeting, picking up stuff and looking at it, alone, but thought about, until Link gets tired of it, and says the game is over.

That’s exactly it, she chatted.

I didn’t know what she meant, but I nodded.

She rubbed her eyes with her palms. I watched her. She stood up and brushed off the butt of her skirt.

She looked around, lifting things up. What is this junk?

Old shit, I said. All this old shit.

I walked over to one wall. There are some old pictures. I lifted them away from the inside of the roof. Paintings.

She came to my side. Whoa.

We looked at them. Ships at sea. Old-time faces, painted without smiles or anything, dressed in black, holding pieces of paper or big books. Link’s dead relatives from long ago. They had old-time names, ones from the past: Abram. Jubilee. Noah. Ezekial. Hope.

Jubilee was frowning. Ezekial was covered with pockmarks.

Hope was this fat old woman with a little dog.

Hope was looking off to the side, as if someone she missed was calling her name.