Most cybernetic limbs came in two pieces, and Marisa’s were no different: the arm itself, which was removable, and the dock, which was grafted directly into her body and laced into her nervous system. Sandro worked silently on the point of attachment between the Jeon and the dock, undoing a series of precise bolts, until finally he unplugged it with a click and laid it on the bed. Marisa felt the sudden loss of weight, like someone had taken an iron chain from around her neck. She stretched her shoulders, the cone-shaped dock turning tiny circles in the air. It was barely three inches long. They wouldn’t be able to get all the SuperYu’s sensors and perks working with the Jeon dock—every company had its own proprietary hardware—but it would work well enough for the time being.
“Anja made some modifications when I had it replaced,” said Marisa, handing Sandro the SuperYu. “The sensor ports aren’t in the same places, or even the same shape, so you’ll have to plug in some wires.”
“Great,” said Sandro dryly, grimacing at the tangled connectors on the end of the arm. “An Anja project.”
“She does good work,” Marisa protested.
“She does great work,” said Sandro, shaking his head and diving into the process of hooking up the wires. “I just wish she wasn’t so messy about it. Half of these aren’t even labeled. Move your fingers.”
Marisa flexed her fingers—or, more accurately, she thought about flexing the fingers she didn’t have—and watched as, instead of a finger, the SuperYu wrist rotated. It was bare chrome, smooth but weathered from use.
“That’s not good,” said Sandro, and switched one of the tiny wires. “Try it again.”
The metal thumb moved, and Marisa smirked. “That was supposed to be my pointer finger.” Sandro switched a few more plugs, sorting out which wire corresponded with which rotor, and they set about the process of lining them all up correctly. They were almost done when Marisa spoke again.
“I don’t understand you,” she said.
“I asked you to move your thumb.”
“I mean I don’t understand how you think,” said Marisa. “How are you happy all the time?”
Sandro looked at her with his typically simple pragmatism. “What’s not to be happy about? The restaurant is successful, we have food and a place to live, we all get along—occasional fights between you and Dad excepted.”
“Is that how you define happiness?” asked Marisa. “Just . . . existing? In a situation that makes existence easy?”
Sandro plugged the last wire into place, and looked at her with a frown. “I’ve never thought about it, but I guess I define happiness as having the right opportunities. To be able to achieve things.”
“To get what you want,” said Marisa.
“That’s the worst possible characterization of what I said,” said Sandro. “It’s not the getting, it’s the doing. Achieving things makes people happy.”
“It figures you’d pick work as something that makes you happy.”
Sandro fit one of the bolts into place and secured it with his socket drill. “What about you?”
“Honestly?” asked Marisa. “The same as you, really. I like doing things—achieving things, like you said. But I like choosing what I want to achieve. I don’t think I could ever be happy dedicating my life to someone else’s ideas—to making somebody else’s product, or telling someone else’s story. You’re going to grow up and get a job with Ganika or Zhang or whoever, and you’re going to make a zillion dollars, and that’s what everyone does, I guess—everyone who can get a job. They work for someone else. Even if you have your own business, like Mom and Dad, you still end up slaving away for people like the Maldonados. I don’t know how you can do it.”
“Unless you’re planning to be homeless, your options are pretty similar,” said Sandro. “Try the elbow.”
Marisa flexed her mental elbow, and the SuperYu moved in perfect sync. Sandro nodded, obviously pleased but too serious to smile. He finished bolting the arm to her shoulder dock, and when he was done she flexed it, testing the feel and the weight. It wasn’t as smooth as the Jeon, but it worked. She smiled.
“Thanks, Lechuga.”
He rolled his eyes, shaking his head as if she were a child. She grinned and stood up, hugging him tightly. “You’re brilliant, Sandro, but don’t forget I’m a whole year older than you.”
“Ten years ago that meant something,” he said solemnly. “The difference between six and seven was everything in the world. Ten years from now, though, the difference between twenty-six and twenty-seven isn’t going to matter at all.” He stepped toward the door, but paused and looked back. “Promise me you’ll live that long.”
Marisa froze, shocked by the plea. It was the same sentiment, the same tone of voice, that she’d used on Chuy the night before. But Chuy was selling drugs and running guns and who knew what else. He was a gangbanger in thrall to an organized crime boss. She wasn’t anything like that.
Was she?