Skin Nation

  ****

  The night came and with the night came dinner. Pasta and peas just like Lary promised. I decided to take the lamp into the room so we could actually see each other and our food while we were eating. I figured it'd be a nice first. We ate with plates in our laps around the small wooden table in the sitting room, for an odd change, and in the deadliest silence since my arrival. I expected the pasta to taste like chalk and the peas to be crunchy, but Z had done a good job again. It wasn't only half as bad as my expectations. He may have been heartless, but he could make a hearty meal out of the grossest and scarcest of foods.

  After dinner, I noticed Lary reach into his back pocket and tell Reno to pass it to me. It reminded me of a button on one of my mother's fancy work dresses, only it was clear and about the lightest thing I had ever held.

  “What is it?”

  “Go like this.”

  Lary formed his pointer and middle finger into a left angled V and spread them apart. I remembered performing the same motion to zoom in on a section of a page to look over on the TS-i's at school. Only this device was different; instead of zooming in on the word VERX scrolling across the screen, the tab expanded into a tablet the size of my hands. Three titles were in the library. I didn't read them. I was too happy to care.

  “Lary, this is awesome! This is...”

  As excited as I wanted to feel, there was still an indifference that filled me. Like haunting thoughts that wondered why Lary only brought me all of those miscellaneous presents. I wondered if that was only because the boys already had them. I knew that wasn't possible though. The place was dark, and judging from the envious looks on their faces, I was the newborn in a room of neglected stepchildren.

  “You'll have to share the VERX. I'm sure everyone around here would like to get some reading in and feed their minds.”

  Everyone agreed in a dreadful monotone except Z who just sat there like always. Dinner couldn't end fast enough.