Sawyer stood and examined himself. Red looks good on you, he could hear Cari saying, the payday kick making her loud. You should definitely buy that.

He nodded. He smiled. He was gonna do great.

Tessa

‘Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’ Pop grumbled, slumped and spread-legged in the clinic waiting room. They were the only ones there, thank goodness. The last thing this ridiculous to-do needed was an audience.

‘Nope, I’m here,’ Tessa said, idly scrolling through a news feed on her scrib. Stars, was there ever a day when the news was good?

‘Don’t you have a shift?’

‘I swapped with Sahil for the afternoon.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Tessa saw his arms cross and mouth scowl. ‘I would’ve gone,’ Pop said.

‘You haven’t gotten a checkup in six tendays. You’re supposed to go every three.’

‘I’m fine.’

Tessa’s eyes shifted to the wall across from them. ‘Can you read that sign?’

‘What sign?’

She nodded at the assertive yellow notice on the wall, informing people about the new imubot models that had become available. ‘That sign.’

‘Oh, so you’re my doctor now?’

‘Pop.’

‘Sorry, but only a medical professional can ask me those kinds of questions.’ He looked her up and down. ‘And I don’t see your credentials.’

A twinge appeared in Tessa’s left temple. He was acting infantile, but she was also fairly certain he couldn’t read the sign, and that meant she had to stick this out.

The office door opened, thank goodness, and Dr Koraltan stood waiting with a broad smile. ‘M Santoso, at last!’ he said in a tone that suggested he knew exactly what the score was. ‘I was beginning to think you didn’t like us.’

Pop stood; Tessa did the same. ‘You’re not coming with me,’ Pop mumbled.

‘Oh, yes, I am.’ She put her scrib in its holster and gestured toward the door. ‘After you.’

Dr Koraltan’s smile grew larger. ‘Nice to see you as well, Tessa. How’s your back?’

‘Behaving,’ she said, following her defeated father onward to the examination room. ‘Amazing how not twisting my spine while lifting my toddler has helped.’

The doctor laughed as he waved the exam room door closed. ‘Up on the table, please, M. Tessa, make yourself comfortable.’ He gestured at his scrib. ‘All right, M, it looks like it’s been . . . wow, almost nine tendays since you were last here.’

Tessa’s head snapped to her father. ‘Nine, huh.’

Pop scowled at the floor. He looked for all the world like Aya when she’d gotten into something she shouldn’t. It might’ve been funny if it weren’t so damned embarrassing.

Dr Koraltan cleared his throat. ‘I really do recommend coming by every thirty days, M. I know it’s not fun, but—’

‘I’m not having another surgery,’ Pop blurted out. ‘I’m fine.’

The doctor exchanged a glance with Tessa. ‘Do you think you need one?’ he asked.

Pop was quiet a beat too long. ‘How should I know?’ he said.

The twinge in Tessa’s temple made its way to her eye socket.

‘Well, let’s see if I can settle the matter,’ the doctor said. He wheeled over a bot scanner; Pop placed his wrist in habitually. For all his protesting, he was entirely compliant as the doctor performed the exam. Tessa had seen this play out many times, but there was always something disquieting, something sad about watching Pop submit to the pokes and prods. In childhood, he’d been awesome, invincible, the guy who could pick you up and spin you around and make your fears melt away. Superhuman, him and Mom both. It had been an eternity or two since Tessa had thought of Pop like that, but he was, after all, still her dad. And while her mother’s too-soon death had been a brutal confirmation of mortality, it had also been fairly quick. Watching someone succumb to an unexpected disease over the course of a few tendays wasn’t the same as standing witness to decades of decline. Pop wasn’t ill or anything. He’d be a pain in everyone’s ass for a good while yet. But she looked at him now, wrinkles and spots and hunched shoulders, here because of problems that kept coming around. She thought of her back, which was better, but still woke her up in the night sometimes. There were lines in her face that weren’t getting shallower. Grey highlights were taking over her black curls. She looked at Pop, entropy incarnate, and wondered if his present would be her future. She wondered which of her kids would sit in the extra chair in the exam room and lament the days when she’d been awesome.

Dr Koraltan studied the live feed from the imubots reporting within Pop’s eye, and he sat back with a neutral look. Tessa held her breath. Their doctor was an affable sort, and the only time he didn’t show his cards was when the news was going to suck. ‘I’m sorry to say it, M,’ he said. ‘But the growth around your cornea’s come back.’

Pop didn’t look overly surprised, but his mouth twisted. He said nothing.

‘This is the trouble with Kopko’s syndrome,’ the doctor said. ‘We can remove the errant tissue, we can have your bots clean out the remnants, but this is about your genes. You didn’t get the prenatals that your kids did, and performing gene therapy on someone your age is often too much of a system shock. It’s not worth the risk.’