Being an adult is hard, it is hard and no one understands. Particularly when your only child starts polyamorously dating aliens.

Your name is ROXY LALONDE, and you think that your mother hates you.

This apartment, these walls and corners, these floors and doorways, they’re Dirk’s refuge. His shell, his armor. This place is light and warmth in an endlessly empty dark sea, a piece of the past to cling to in the wreckage of the future. A gift from his brother, a birthday present, the present of having birthdays, of being a human in a place meant for humans. Dirk could go out on rocket board, on rap-bot, on rafts, following the gulls, living free out under the sky, sailing by the light of the stars, but always he’d return to his sanctuary, his roost, his home. This apartment is Dave’s cage, and he spent thirteen years crammed up against the bars by a man who did not love him.

Rose said later that "I was really fucking bored" was insufficient explanation or indeed justification for the First Triennial Human/Troll Flashstepping Competition. (Now with a tiny sequel!)

In the name of family bonding, Roxy, Rose, Dave, and Dirk play a game of truth or dare. (They may regret this plan.)