The Lottery in Babylon

Part 1 At seven o’clock in the evening, Steven Leung’s mother knocked on his apartment door. When he opened it, the corridor’s air came in first—a faintly salty, faintly dusty Southern Californian autumn breeze that had been going on quite happily without him for almost a week. Behind it followed his mother, three overstuffed suitcases advancing in a wedge formation, and then her hand, cool and a little damp from travel, rising at once to pinch his cheek. “Steven!” She burst into a broad grin, her eyes shining with the satisfaction of having found him exactly where she expected him to be. It would be nice to smile and help her with the luggage. The sentence arrived, not as a thought of his own, but cleanly, like a subtitle appearing just beneath reality. It came from just behind his right ear, in the space where the tiny speaker rested against his skin. Steven ignored the part about smiling. He stepped forward and took the handles of the suitcases without a word, rolling them over the ...