"Sure. Fine. I'm off to Asia. Ta!" Bertie's voice ended with an exaggerated click.

Juan's father was home, of course. Luis Orozco was puttering around the kitchen. He gave his son a vague wave as the boy came in the room. The house had a good internal network, fed from a fixed station in the roof. Juan ignored the fantasy images almost automatically. He had no special interest in knowing what Pa was seeing, or where he thought he was.

Juan eeled past his father, into the living room. Pa was okay. Luis Orozco's own father had been an illegal back in the 1980s. Grandpa had lived in North County, but in the cardboard shacks and dirt tunnels that had hid amid the canyons in those days. The Orozco grandparents had worked hard for their only son, and Luis Orozco had worked hard to learn to be a software engineer. Sometimes, when he came down to earth, Pa would laugh and say he was one of the world's greatest experts in Regna 5. And maybe for a year or two that had been an employable skill. So three years of education had been spent for a couple years of income. That sort of thing had happened to a lot of people; Pa was one of those who just gave up because of it.

"Ma, can you talk?" Part of the wall and ceiling went transparent. Isabel Orozco was at work, upstairs. She looked down at him curiously.

"Hey, Juan! I thought you were going to be at finals until very late."

Juan bounced up the stairs, talking all the while. "Yes. I have a lot to do."

"Ah, so you'll be working from here."

Juan came into her work room and gave her a quick hug. "No, I was just gonna get supper and then visit the student I'm doing the local project with."