Starts recording

Okay. So. I did it. I finally saw my parents again.

I don’t know why I thought this would go well. Maybe I thought enough time had passed that they wouldn’t be mad. Maybe I figured they’d be proud of me, considering I’m basically a technological revolution waiting to happen. But nope. Nope. That’s not what happened at all.

Let’s set the stage.

I show up at their house unannounced because obviously I wasn’t going to give them time to not answer my calls. I knock on the door, heart pounding like I just bet my soul in a Vegas casino again. And when my mom opens the door, she just… stares at me.

And then she slaps me.

Like, full-on, no hesitation, mom-level slap across the face.

“Oh, okay. Cool. Nice to see you too.”

And then she pulls me inside so fast my feet barely touch the ground, and my dad is just there—arms crossed, looking me up and down like I crawled out of a gutter. Which, to be fair, my hair’s still growing back from the radiation, my eyes are glowing, and I may or may not have been wearing a hoodie I stole from Yabba’s shop three years ago. So yeah. Probably didn’t look great.

Dad speaks first. “Three million dollars, Eden.”

I blink. “Oh, we’re opening with that? Okay. No ‘How are you?’ or ‘Wow, you’re alive’—”

Mom smacks my arm. “We were kidnapped. By some lunatic. Because of you.”

And yeah, that’s fair. That’s really fair.

They sit me down, and suddenly I’m twelve again, getting scolded for rewiring the toaster to make it shoot Pop-Tarts across the kitchen. Except this time, it’s not about Pop-Tarts—it’s about Bubba’s men shoving them into a van and holding them hostage until I wired over three million dollars.

“Do you know what it’s like,” Mom says, “to have a man with a guitar-shaped gun tell you your son is a criminal?”

I grimace. “That’s a gross misrepresentation of my work.”

“Eden.” Dad leans forward, voice low and heavy. “What the hell are you into?”

And there it is. The question I knew was coming. The question I had no real answer to.

What am I into? Mad science. Contracting. Reality-breaking physics. Harbingers. Shady business deals. Almost dying for sport.

But I can’t say any of that.

So I just say: “…Business.”

Dad doesn’t buy it. “Business doesn’t get your parents kidnapped, Eden.”

Mom’s arms are folded tight. “Do you sell weapons?”

“No.”

“Drugs?”

“No!”

“Then why,” Dad says, “did that Bubba man say you owed him something?”

I drag a hand down my face. “Look, he’s mad about something stupid. It’s personal beef, not business. I may have… insulted his music.”

Dad’s face doesn’t change. “So you got kidnapped over a bad album review?”

“…Something like that.”

Mom throws her hands up. “Eden. This is not normal!”

Yeah. No shit.

I sigh. “Look. I paid the ransom. I made sure you were safe. That’s what matters, right?”

Mom stands up so fast the chair scrapes the floor. “No, what matters is that you haven’t called us in years, and the first time we hear your name, it’s from a kidnapper demanding money! That’s what matters!”

Dad leans back, rubbing his temples. “Son. We don’t care about the money. We don’t care about your business. We care that we didn’t even know if you were alive until someone threatened us.”

And okay. Yeah. That stings.

There’s this silence. The kind that makes your chest hurt.

And then Mom says, voice softer now, “Where have you been, Eden?”

And I don’t know how to answer that.

I swallow. “…Working.”

She shakes her head. “Not good enough.”

And she’s right. It’s not.

I sit there, staring at my hands, feeling stupid for ever thinking this was going to be simple.

Finally, I say, “I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”

Mom’s eyes go wide. “Disappointed?”

“I work for Yabba,” I say. “I left school early. I do things that—” I gesture vaguely. “I just thought it’d be easier if I didn’t call. If I didn’t bring all that home.”

Dad sighs. “Eden. You think we don’t know what Yabba does?”

I blink. “…You do?”

Mom scoffs. “Of course we do. She’s a lunatic. A brilliant lunatic, but a lunatic.”

“And you didn’t try to stop me?”

Dad shrugs. “We knew you’d go anyway.”

I sit back, exhaling. “…Huh.”

Another silence. A little less heavy this time.

Mom shakes her head, arms still crossed. “So. What now?”

What now.

Good fucking question.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I was kinda hoping you’d tell me.”

Dad lets out a long breath. “Well. First, you’re staying for dinner.”

I blink. “Wait, really?”

Mom narrows her eyes. “You think you can disappear for years and not have dinner with us?”

And just like that, something in my chest unclenches.

Maybe things aren’t magically fixed. Maybe there’s still a million questions I don’t have answers to.

But dinner? That’s a start.

Ends recording

Starts recording

Okay, so I just did something incredibly stupid. Again. But this time, it was on purpose.

I went to see Jada. In person.

And yeah, yeah, I know—I could’ve just sent a text, called her up, been like, “Hey, so I look like a nuclear accident now, and also, a famous rockstar wants me dead—wanna catch up?” But no, I decided to show up.

She lives in this high-tech co-op complex, the kind where everyone builds their own security system like it’s a pissing contest. Which is exactly why the moment I stepped onto her block, I tripped some kind of sensor, and fifteen robot drones locked onto my ass.

So that’s how Jada found me—on her front step, hands up, surrounded by little mechanical gremlins with stun guns.

The door slid open, and there she was. Same fire in her eyes, same grease-stained hands, same cocky little half-smirk—god, I missed her.

But then she really looked at me.

And I knew this was gonna suck.

She crossed her arms. “Eden?”

I gave her a lazy salute. “In the radioactive flesh.”

There was this pause. Not a long one. But long enough.

Then: “Jesus Christ, what happened to your face?”

I sighed. “Okay, so—bad contract, radiation poisoning, glowing eyes, botched surgery, yada yada yada—look, I’ll explain everything, but can I come in? Or are your murder Roombas gonna tase me?”

She rolled her eyes but waved me inside, dismissing the drones with a flick of her wrist.

I stepped in, and—yeah, okay, her place was a goddamn wonderland. The whole thing was a hybrid robotics lab/living space, wires running along the walls like vines, half-finished projects on every surface, a 3D printer churning out parts in the corner. It smelled like metal, solder, and coffee, and for a second, I had the dumbest thought—this feels like home.

Then she turned on me. “Explain.”

And so I did.

I told her about contracting. The Harbingers, the insane missions, the Vegas bullshit, Bubba putting a hit on me, accidentally adopting a kid, almost dying at least six different times—you know, normal shit.

She just sat on the workbench, arms crossed, eyebrows high, not interrupting. Which was terrifying.

When I finished, she just stared at me. Then, finally:

“You’re an idiot.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I figured you’d say that.”

“You almost died over a coin flip, Eden.”

“Okay, that’s not fair—”

“It’s extremely fair.”

“…Okay, yeah, it’s fair.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “And now Bubba’s after you.”

I groaned. “Oh my god, YES, WE’VE ESTABLISHED THAT—”

She threw a wrench at me. I caught it.

“You’re lucky I like you.”

That made me pause. “Oh? Like me, like me? Or ‘like me’ in the ‘you’re a dumbass, but I tolerate you’ kinda way?”

Jada smirked. “You’re on thin ice, glowing boy.”

Fair enough.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, Jada. I know this is a lot—and I know I just showed up out of nowhere—but I came here because… I want you to come work with me.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I have a farm now. And a supercomputer. And a business plan that could actually do some real good. But I can’t do it alone.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You? Asking for help?”

I groaned. “Jada.”

She chuckled, but there was something softer in her eyes now. “And you want me to just move in and work with you?”

“Yeah.” I hesitated. “Look, I—I get that we haven’t seen each other in a while, and I probably should’ve eased into this, but—”

She held up a hand, stopping me. Then, with a slow, teasing grin:

“Eden. We should probably go on a date before we move in together.”

I swear to god, my brain short-circuited.

I just stared at her. “A… what?”

“A date,” she repeated, like she was talking to a malfunctioning AI. “You know—two people, going somewhere, doing things, maybe a little flirting, maybe a little fun—”

“I KNOW WHAT A DATE IS.”

“Good, because I’m asking you out on one.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I—uh—what—okay?!”

She grinned. “Good answer.”

I had no idea how to process this. I think my brain was still buffering.

But she just patted my cheek—“Still an idiot”—and turned back to her workstation. “So. When are we doing this?”

I blinked. “Uh. When are you free?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“…That soon?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You in a hurry to get me on your farm or something?”

I huffed. “No, I just—I mean—yes, but—not like that—”

She laughed. “Pick me up at seven.”

I just nodded dumbly. “Yeah. Seven. Cool. Yeah.”

Jada smirked. “I missed you, dumbass.”

Yeah. I missed her too.

Ends recording.