“This early?”
“My parents’ restaurant closes in half an hour, and about a half hour after that they’ll get home. If I’m not in my room dutifully doing homework, they’re going to disassemble me one cybernetic implant at a time.” She held up her SuperYu arm, and realized he’d never even mentioned the loss of the fancier Jeon he’d seen in the club. She licked her lips, trying to think of what to do next. “Do you have somewhere to go?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, “but I’ll also be disconnected. If we’re going to meet again we have to plan it now.”
“I thought you didn’t want to meet again,” she said, feeling the tiniest flutter in her stomach. “I thought it was tonight and then done.”
“That was before I saw you in action,” he said. “I can’t help but think that . . . I want to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Give me some time to think this through.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “What is it? What’s going on?”
“Tomorrow,” he said again. “Somewhere new—we can’t go back to that VR parlor.”
“Tomorrow,” she said slowly, then shook her head. “No—the day after. If I slip out like this too many days in a row, my parents are going to have an aneurysm.”
Saif smiled. “Just one aneurysm between them?”
“They share everything.”
“Sunday night, then.”
Marisa nodded. “At the San Juanito restaurant in Mirador. It’s the best food in the city, which I say with no bias whatsoever.” She saw movement over his shoulder, and looked up to see Bao, now changed back into his black jacket, the clipboard and hat and microphone hidden in his pockets. She pulled away from Saif, not realizing how close they’d been standing, and called out to him. “You okay?”
“Happy and carefree,” he said, though there was a look of concern in his eyes she couldn’t quite place.
“Ready to go?” she asked.
Bao nodded. “I’m paying for the cab again?”
“I’ll pay you back as soon as I get home,” she said. “With interest.” She looked at the clock again. “Now let’s hurry, I’m down to fifty-five minutes before my parents go nuclear.”
TWELVE
Marisa made it home in fifty-two minutes.
She’d spent the ride home using Bao’s phone to coordinate a plan with Sahara, copying Marisa’s ID to Cameron and then sending him out to sit on the back of a long-distance hauler and ride away across the country. If the Bluescreen dealers tried to track her, they’d think she was fleeing—it wouldn’t fool them for long, but it would buy a few days at least. A camera nuli was a small price to pay. And if Marisa’s parents happened to check her on GPS, well, she was at home now, right? She’d pass it off as a glitch.
Marisa tried her front door, but found it locked. She closed her eyes, sighing at herself for forgetting—without her djinni, the house didn’t recognize her. It gave her a moment of sickening unease, imagining that all her devices were really only communicating with each other, and she was incidental; the house didn’t let her in, it let her djinni in. If all the humans disappeared one day, would the city still go about its daily business, busy little nulis running around building and cleaning and repairing, without ever noticing that the people were gone?
She shook the thought away. She had more pressing concerns. Marisa looked down the street, as if expecting to see a black van lurking in a shadow, ready to attack, but of course there was nothing. She stared at the door again, sighed, and knocked.
“Like the caveman,” she murmured.
“What on earth?” said someone inside. The voice was too muffled to identify. “Don’t answer it, and call . . . the enforcers, maybe? The police?”
“It’s me!” Marisa shouted. “It’s Marisa!”
“Why are you knocking?” And why are you . . . on the highway to Albuquerque?”
Marisa recognized the voice now. “Just open the door, Gabi. My djinni’s turned off, it’s a long story.”
Gabi opened the door, and stared at her with one eyebrow raised. “Do I want to ask?”
“Of course you do,” said Marisa, stepping inside and closing the door firmly behind her. “You just don’t want me to answer. Trust me.”
“Mari!” shouted Pati, running toward her at full speed. She was still dressed in Marisa’s old clothes from that morning. That seemed so long ago now. Pati checked herself at the last minute, merely grabbing Marisa’s waist in a hug instead of slamming into her full-force. “I knew you were out doing something awesome. Did you go dancing? Did you kiss a boy?”
Marisa thought about Saif’s chin on her cheek, and shook her head. “I did not kiss a boy.”
Pati’s eye’s widened. “Did you kiss two boys?”