Page 103 of Light Leech

“Look at how flustered she is now,” Koro said. “You think she had time to watch that in her periphery on the way down?”

Kyo shrugged. “Maybe she likes to multitask.”

Koro rolled her eyes. “Kao is right, give yourself time to catch up on the coverage. Especially you.” She pointed at me. “We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”

“But drop the partition if you want to chat about it!” Kyo leaned forward, almost worrying me that she was going to slide herself between us. “I want to hear all about your little political side, Petya Nebokov.”

Koro smacked her arm. Kyo just laughed.

Kao ignored her sisters. “Take your time.”

Naoma smiled. “Thank you.”

I pressed the button and breathed out as the sounds from 3Rochi turned to a muffled silence.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“What do they know about you?”

“Is it that bad if they–”

“Not them, the whole neuronet! Did they find your old political guk? Sorry, I don’t mean it—“

I laughed. It was the only way I knew how to cope with the tension. “It was guk.”

“I’m sure you were inspiring.”

I shrugged. “I complained about things and people thought I knew what I was talking about.”

“Well, did you?”

“Yeah, but I vastly underestimated my country’s corruption.”

“Wow, sounding edgy now, huh?”

“Whatever. I was in the right mindset and lucked out with the algorithm.”

“I know you were probably doing your best.”

“I was, but I was young and thought I understood everything.”

“You’re still young.”

“But now I know I don’t know anything. Medislavia is a mess of an oligarchy, but it sounds like it’s nothing compared to the Gongtide.”

“Maybe it’s a part of it? It sounds like a lot of the world’s problems are connected to it.”

“Probably in some way or another.”

“Like Deleon being part of Cut’s plan?”

“Exactly.”

“Should we see what the news had to say?”

“I’m sure it’s guk but go for it.”

I took her hand and we jumped into our neurospaces, then initiated a neurolink. I gave her control as she navigated us on the net to something titled: Naoma’s back with a Former Medislavian Neuronet Extremist?