Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

"Just say hello," said Aunt Margaret, "so she'll know she can write to you at my address."

Just in time he realized she didn't mean "say hello," she meant "write hello." Chinma looked for the H. He found it. It disappeared. He looked again, and this time kept his face very close to the keyboard. It stayed visible. He pressed it.

"No, no, just press the key once and let it go," said Aunt Margaret.

On the screen were the letters "hhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

"You seriously don't know how to type an email, do you," said Aunt Margaret.

Now he had shamed himself. He shrugged, keeping his head down and trying not to let tears come into his eyes.

"I have an idea," said Aunt Margaret. "Why don't I type the letter for you, and you just tell me what to say?"

Chinma gratefully got out of the chair and stood aside so she could sit down.

She immediately put her hands over the keyboard and began to move them so fast Chinma couldn't even see what she was doing. But words appeared on the screen, lots of words, and then she took the mouse, moved it on the table, and made the whole letter disappear.

"There, I've told her she can write to you at my address."

"Thank you," said Chinma. He started to leave.

"No, she's there right now, she's going to answer, I think it was rather urgent."

So Chinma waited.

So did Aunt Margaret.

Finally Aunt Margaret laughed. "Well, we're not doing any good sitting here staring at the computer, are we?" She started to get up. He started to leave the room.

There was a click from the computer. "Wouldn't you know it? I get up, and her letter comes. I think the computer was just waiting for me to stand up."

"Why would it do that?" asked Chinma, marveling that she would keep a machine so perverse.

"It doesn't, really, that's just how it seems sometimes. Yes, it's her letter, and it isn't long, she just wants to know from you … oh, she can't mean this." Margaret swiveled in the chair. "Chinma, it seems that nobody in the place she's at has any idea of the course of this disease, this nictovirus. She knows it might be very painful for you to talk about it, but she has to know what actually happens in the disease. How it progresses. Since you've actually had it."

These were questions the scientists had asked him over and over. He knew he could answer them. He immediately started talking. "It starts with a tickling in your nose, and you sneeze. More and more. But then you have to keep swallowing … " Chinma struggled for the English word. "In your throat, nose stuff."

"Mucus. Snot. I get it."

Chinma registered the words and moved on. "While that's happening, you get … stopped up."

"Stuffed up, I think we say here."

Chinma knew what "stuffed up" was, and that wasn't what he was talking about. "No, I mean—stools don't come."

"Oh, constipation. That's interesting, I've never read anything about that."

"Very bad constipation," said Chinma, trying out the word. "Days and days, and your stomach gets full and heavy and you don't want to eat."

She was typing furiously. "You're fine, I'm keeping up."

"You just want to lie there and your stomach hurts, but you can't sleep because it's so hot."

"The weather? Or your temperature?"

Chinma touched his head, his chest. "Everything."

"Fever then."