Ram rubbed his fingers in his eyes, as if wishing to pop the orbs from their sockets. Or more accurately, tear the bones from his ears. Or maybe just break his phone. That would solve his problems, right?

The Render had bought a language app. It didn’t have ALS but it did say it was the best way to learn things like Spanish or Italian. It let you listen to native speakers. It supposedly had all the useful phrases. He’d decided to start with Italian and at this point he was (at the very least) disillusioned with the useful phrases part. The app didn’t teach near enough curse words to describe the process of trying to memorize (much less pronounce) all the words being thrown at him. Trying to get the app to recognize his speech as being correct. It was like talking to one of those new automated phone robots.

“Now Say, ‘Sì’.”

“Si.”

“You almost got it. Say ‘Sì’.”

“Si.”

You almost got it. Say ‘Sì’.”

“SI!”

The screen cracked.