Both Iko’s personality chip and Peony’s ID chip were tucked safely in her calf compartment, where they would stay until she found a more permanent home for them.
She shut her eyes, suddenly tired. How was it that with freedom so close on the horizon, she suddenly had the overwhelming desire to lie down and take a nap? All those long nights fixing the car were catching up with her.
Shaking off the feeling, she finished packing as fast as she could, trying her best not to think of the risks she was taking. She would be considered a runaway cyborg for real this time. If she were ever caught, Adri could have her imprisoned.
She kept her hands moving. Trying not to think of Iko, who should have been at her side. Or Peony, who should have made her want to stay. Or Prince Kai.
Emperor Kai.
She would never see him again.
She knotted the blanket corners with an angry tug. She was thinking too much. She just had to leave. One step at a time and soon she would be in the car, and all this would be behind her. Settling the makeshift bag over her shoulder, she hobbled her way back to the hall and down to the labyrinth of underground storage spaces. Limping into the storage room, she dropped the bag onto the floor.
She paused for only a moment to catch her breath before she continued, unlatching the top of the handheld toolbox and shoveling everything off the desk into it. There would be time for sorting later. The standing toolbox that came nearly to her chest was much too big to fit into the car and would have to be left behind. Her gas mileage would have been ruined with all that weight in the back, anyway.
She surveyed the room where she’d spent most of the past five years. It was the closest thing to a home she’d ever known, even with the chicken wire that felt like a cage and the boxes that smelled of mildew. She didn’t expect to miss it much.
Peony’s crumpled ball gown was still draped over the welder. It, like the toolbox, wouldn’t be coming with her.
She moved to the towering steel shelves against the far wall and began rummaging for parts that would be useful for the car or even her own body should anything malfunction, throwing the pieces of miscellaneous junk into a heap on the floor. She paused as her hand stumbled across something she’d never thought she would see again.
The small, battered foot of an eleven-year-old cyborg.
She lifted it from the shelf, where it had been tucked out of sight. Iko must have saved it, even after Cinder had asked her to throw it away.
Perhaps in Iko’s mind, it was the closest thing to an android shoe she would ever own. Cinder cradled the foot against her heart. How she had hated this foot. How overjoyed she was to see it now.
With an ironic smile, she slumped into her desk chair for the last time. Pulling off her gloves, she eyed her left wrist, trying to picture the small chip just beneath the surface. The thought brought Peony to mind. Her blue-tipped fingers. The scalpel against her pale white skin.
Cinder shut her eyes, forcing the memory away. She had to do this.
She reached for the utility knife on the corner of her desk, the blade soaking in a tin can filled with alcohol. She shook it off, took a deep breath, and rested her cyborg hand palm up on the desk. She recalled seeing the chip on Dr. Erland’s holograph, less than an inch away from where skin met metal. The challenge would be getting it out without accidentally splicing any important wires.
Forcing her mind to quiet, her hand to still, she pressed the blade into her wrist. The pain bit into her, but she didn’t flinch. Steady. Steady.
A beep startled her. Cinder jumped, pulling the blade away and spinning around to face the wall of shelving. Her heart pummeled against her ribs as she scanned all the parts and tools that would be left behind.
It beeped again. Cinder’s eyes dropped to the old netscreen that was still propped against the shelves. She knew it was disconnected from the net, and yet a bright blue square was flashing in the corner. Another beep.
Setting down the knife, Cinder slinked away from her chair and kneeled before the screen.
On the blue square was scrawled:
DIRECT LINK REQUEST RECEIVED FROM UNKNOWN USER. ACCEPT?
Tilting her head, she spotted the D-COMM chip still inserted in the screen’s drive. The small green light beside it glowed. In the shadow of the screen, it looked like any other chip, but Cinder remembered Kai’s response when she’d described the chip’s shimmery silver material. A Lunar chip.
She grabbed a dirty rag from the pile of junk and pressed it against the barely bleeding wound. “Screen, accept link.”
The beeping stopped. The blue box disappeared. A spiral turned over on the screen.
“Hello?”
Cinder jumped.
“Hello hello hello—is anybody there?”
Whoever she was, she sounded on the verge of a breakdown. “Please, oh, please, someone answer. Where is that stupid android? HELLO?”
“Hell-o?…” Cinder leaned in toward the screen.
The girl gasped, followed by a short silence. “Hello? Can you hear me? Is somebody—”