“I shouldn’t have left.” Clare’s husband Sam sat at the small table in the kitchenette of the Echo Chamber, his jaw set and his hand in Clare’s. “I knew better. I shouldn’t have gone.”
“I’m the one who talked you into it,” Clare said, reaching with her free hand to rub his shoulders. “Honey, I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have listened to you and Granddad when you told me I needed to be better prepared.”
“No, it’s my fault,” Dan said. “It started with me. I knew—”
“You’ve all been lax,” Ji interrupted. “You’re all at fault. And now that we’ve established that, let’s decide how we can fix it.”
Sam looked up at where Ji stood across the table from him, a sardonic smile playing across his lips. “You’re not one to beat around the bush, are you? Colloquialism,” he added when Ji’s brow furrowed. “Means you’re forthright.”
Ji inclined his head. “May I take that as a compliment?”
“It’s how I intended it.” Sam stood and extended a hand a hand across the table. “Sam Washington, previously Saneym Fiel s’Ishim.”
Ji studied him as they clasped wrists in the formal greeting of Prism. He stood a few inches over six feet, broader and fit than most other technicians of his ilk. The sleeves of his crisp linen shirt had been rolled to his elbow, the tails untucked from his jeans, his dark hair cropped close, and he had a welcoming face, his eyes creased by laugh lines. Impulsively, Ji reached out to place his free hand on top of Sam’s, changing the formal greeting to one of friends.
Sam’s grin was quick and genuine. He returned the gesture before both let go. Then his smile dimmed and he sat back down. “How long, do you think, before we’re relocated?”
“We’re not leaving,” Clare said. The words had a panicked edge despite the confident way she spoke them.
“I’m sorry, albé, But from what you told me about the last couple of days, we’ll be reassigned so you can be formally trained. It’s standard procedure.”
“Ji said we wouldn’t,” she said, glancing at him.
“I said I can help, but I can’t make any promises. Not now.”
“I don’t care who you know on Prism,” Sam said, “But I don’t appreciate you giving my wife false hope. As soon as you get back and sync with Mother, we’re gonna get reassigned.”
“I don’t off what I can’t provide.”
“Look, unless you have a backdoor, I don’t see how—” he stopped, blinked. Studied Ji with unabashed fascination. “That’s it, isn’t it? You have a backdoor.”
He didn’t bother to answer.
Sam leaned forward, his forearms pressing against the edge of the table. “Who set it up for you? When? How does it work?”
“What’s a backdoor?” Clare asked.
“It’s like a computer virus. Or, better yet, like a Trojan horse. It gives Ji control of his own mesh.”
“You don’t have control now?” she asked Ji.
“It’s…complicated.”
“And illegal,” Dan said, watching Ji.
He merely looked at him.
“Well, hell.” Clare threw up her hands and sat back. “What isn’t in your world?”
Strange Candy 
The music was cool. The story rocks!