SiSU: - Homeland - Cory Doctorow

Homeland
The first words he said weren't “What's wrong?” or “Do you know what time it is?” or “You
owe me, buddy, big time.”
The first words he said were, “It's great to see you again, bud.”
It was the best thing he could have said. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, it's great to see you,
too.”
I tried to find some words, some place to start the story. He knew about the darknet, had
been going through the docs. Presumably, he'd seen the Zyz docs, helped to assemble
them. But there was so much to say, and I couldn't figure out where to begin. I closed
my eyes to think and the next thing I knew, he was shaking me awake. I ungummed my
eyelids and looked around. We were outside his dad's place, which had once been as
familiar to me as my own home.
“Come on, bud,” he said, “up you go.”
I stumbled after him, scuffing my boots on the ground, kicking them off in the doorway,
trailing after him up to the bedroom.
I barely registered that Van was in his bed, sitting up in the dark, wearing a T-shirt, hair
in a crazy anime-spray. “Hey, Van,” I said, as Darryl steered me to the narrow camping
mattress that was already laid out at the foot of the bed. I flopped down on it, eyes closing
before my head hit the pillow. Someone -- Darryl -- tried to make me roll off the bed so
that he could pull the spare blanket out from under me and cover me with it, but I wasn't
budging. I was made of lead. My body knew that it was somewhere safe, with people I
could trust, and it was not going to allow me to keep it awake one second longer. A halfformed
thought about setting an alarm so I wouldn't be late for work crossed my mind, but
my hands were as heavy as cinder blocks, and my phone was a million miles away in my
pocket. Besides, I was already asleep.
-..-
I woke to the smells of bacon and eggs and toast and, most of all, coffee. The bedroom
was empty, filled with grey light filtering through the heavy blinds. I pulled them aside and
saw that it was broad daylight. I checked my phone, noting the ache as I pulled it out -- I'd
slept on it -- and saw that it was 11:24. I was incredibly late for work. My adrenals tried to
fire and fill me with panic, but I was empty. Instead, I felt a kind of low-grade anxiety as I
had a quick pee and headed downstairs into the sunny kitchen.
The light dazzled me and I shaded my eyes, provoking laughter from Darryl and Van,
who were dancing around the kitchen in a clatter of pans and plates and glasses and
mugs.
“Told you that'd get him up,” Darryl said. “The boy thinks with his stomach.”
Van giggled. “That's a good six inches higher than most boys' thought-centers.” They
smooched. Were Ange and I this sickening? Probably, I decided.
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