"I live here," he says, with all the impatience of an eight year old somehow combined with the world-weary affect of a much older man. With that important fact tossed out, he dashes up the stairs to the apartment, expecting Daneel to follow, to come and help him.

Throwing open the door to the tiny apartment -- it's really only two and a half rooms, and it's cramped -- he looks around expectantly for his brother, for his mother, for someone, but the crying has stopped, and it's eerily silent. The silence almost seems more oppressive than the crying had, somehow, and his eyes dart around the apartment nervously, as though expecting something to jump out at any moment.

"They're not here," he says. His tone is flat.