And in that second, Maya stopped. Her thumbs paused. She looked at the triangle, then at the cold, perfect message she had typed: "All good here."

Panic spread through the Glitch. The Smileys tried to shine brighter, warping into manic, toothy grins that frightened the few users who still saw them. The Thumbs-Ups overworked themselves, turning into frantic, jittering icons that annoyed more than they helped. A new, cold breed of Mobicons began to appear: the Zero-Response , a perfect, hollow circle that absorbed all light and warmth.

There, he saw it: a storm. A swirling vortex of unsent words. "I miss you." "I'm sorry." "Please come back." They were tangled with screenshots of old conversations and a photo of a person whose face had been blurred by time. Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard, but all that came out were dry, factual replies: "Okay." "Sure." "Busy."