TWELVE

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines of sportive wood run wild

—William Wordsworth

Cloey’s JPV

Gliese, Date: 2373

The sun was so hot and bright, Asami didn’t expect the fog. It was a thick, foamy sky expanding flatly from the line of hot horizon where the red dwarf crouched, glowing upon the edges of the world, fading only at its zenith, and gradating into shadows at the opposite horizon.

Rub the inside of a banana peel over a wart every night and it will go away in a week or two.

—Maxi (Lisk) Four

Cloey’s JPV

TEN

Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear,

Fuzzy wuzzy was kind of bare,

Fuzzy wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy,

Was he?

—Erika (Sanse) Five

Cloey’s JPV

Cordon Bleu is too a color.

—Mandy Twelve

Cloey’s JPV

Mandy said that the stuff in your eye after you sleep has color meanings. Yellow you dreamed of love, brown death, green wealth, colorless fame, and black death. Why do I always dream about death? I don’t even remember doing it. I should have logs of my dreams!

I’m pretty sure that’s just your mascara . . .

—Cloey & Asami (Hadano) Five

Cloey’s JPV

Seven

Why do you have a face? None of the other androids look like you.

You like it?

Well, yeah, I guess.

I’ll try not to stop your heart too often.

—Alec Ten & Cloey

Cloey’s JPV

People are gonna tell you terrible things all the time, because you’re different, because you threaten their ideas and values. The trick is knowing when to bother listening.

—Sam (Rundle) Four

Cloey’s JPV

Four

Fact: one tablespoon of soil contains over seven billion organisms.

Ok . . . eww.

I could literally eat seven billion organisms in one swallow.

Why do you think of these things, sweetie?

Is this for that dumb joke volume again?

No . . .

—Asami (Hadano) Five & Cloey

Cloey’s JPV

“What happened to him?” Asami asked, relaxing slightly.

Four

Fact: one tablespoon of soil contains over seven billion organisms.

Ok . . . eww.

I could literally eat seven billion organisms in one swallow.

Why do you think of these things, sweetie?

Is this for that dumb joke volume again?

No . . .

—Asami (Hadano) Five & Cloey

Cloey’s JPV

“What happened to him?” Asami asked, relaxing slightly.

TWO

Rule numero one: eye contact. Keep it connected, smooth, suggestive, but not too suggestive. You’re inviting, you know? Nothing creepy. You see? . . . we will work on that.

—Sam (Rundle) Four

Cloey’s JPV

Sixteen years later

Earth, Resolute, Date: 2332

The familiar scrape of a rock three times on glass in the dark of night. It might have frightened her if it hadn’t been their signal since forever. Cloey’s power cell glowed and faded like a slow heartbeat illuminating and dowsing her room into darkness. She had blinked, poking bits of sleep from her eyes, and turned drowsily towards the noise at her window.

ONE

Willy the Whale will whistle and this whale’s will, shall will it all away. Now stop asking me for rhymes.

—Asami (Hadano) Five

Recorded by Cloey in the Joke Phrase Volume

Moon, Date: 2316

The Space Whale Museum looked like a white, ribbed mountain with a craterous hole in it. Sapers had been triggered and disintegrated the wall. The Growth Project children were gathered around the front entrance of the museum to view the charring remnants of a neighboring chip factory, minders herding them so that no one wandered off into the rubble.