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working a lot of hours.”
    This is not the conversation Chance wants to have with Leap. Now that the illness is a reality, and Leap knows, Chance wants to talk about the stress after the preliminary diagnosis, about premonitions of disaster. Chance wants to tell Leap about her anger and about wanting to distrust the data, about suddenly becoming furious with a saltshaker because high-sodium diets are associated with poor stress management. In fact, she took the saltshaker with her during her commute this morning and then felt absurd, holding it white knuckled before stuffing it into a public waste processor.
    Leap says, “Have you thought about putting a second drive into storage for a while?”
    Of course Chance has thought about it. And this is what Chance needs—a review of the data, a consideration of options, an analysis of possible outcomes. But Leap’s voice is wrong. What should sound sympathetic is anything but.
    Chance doesn’t look at Leap. She focuses on her job.
    Leap Two says, in an irritated tone that’s almost threatening, “Should I be worried about you?”

    â€œYou’d think this stuff would get easier,” Chance Three grumbles, not sure and not caring what he really means by “this stuff.”
    When Chance Three finished his sixteen-hour shift at Shine University’s Join Praxis Center, he ended up here, at Whatever You Want, the restaurant and bar across the street from the hospital. Bottles behind the well-stocked bar diffract an occasional sparkle. The walnut furniture is dinged and comfortably worn. Weak parabolas of blue- and red-tinged light hover around glow bulbs shaped to imitate twentieth-century lamps.
    Chance looks at a small drop of condensation on his glass and at the bent image within it. He’s thinking about Chance Three’s parents, Angela and Sarawut. Chance Three was an only child. His parents married late in life, and he was born to them late. He now believes that having a child was an early attempt by his parents to bridge their differences. But they fought ferociously throughout his childhood, shouting terrible things at each other, whatever might wound. Throwing things. Chance wished for different parents.
    And then, right after he graduated from high school, they joined, becoming Ultimate. The parents who had raised him both remained and disappeared. Ultimate was a calm, realistic, grounded, and loving individual. Ultimate was magnificent. It was very weird. Chance had to think of the two of them differently, as one person. His imagination balked at it. He did learn to see them both in Ultimate, but they were healed and happy. Ultimate never joined again, and now Ultimate is gone.
    A few feet from Chance Three, the bartender is leaning back against a heavy shelf, arms crossed. The waitress is sitting to Chance’s left. The two of them are a join named Apple. There’s only one other customer in the bar, so Apple has been killing time with Chance.
    A big chunk of human mental resources are mapped to facial recognition, the subtle detection and decoding of emotion. What Apple is doing right now, watching Chance Three from two perspectives and integrating impressions, is referred to as “triangulating” or “reading through.” Practically, it means that it would be very difficult for Chance Three to successfully lie to Apple.
    It’s uncomfortable to be the focus of both of their attention.
    â€œI’ve just found out I’m sick,” Chance says.
    â€œOh?” says the waitress, Apple One. “Nothing contagious, I hope.”
    â€œNot contagious, but possibly terminal,” says Chance.
    â€œOuch. That’s too bad,” says Apple One. “Hey, at least you’re not solo.”
    It’s a defensive response and almost shockingly uncharitable. As Chance has discovered, joins want to believe that because they can defeat mortality, the loss of a single drive is easily