Dataran shook his head in disbelief and glanced back toward the ship. Then, on the verge of a smile, he took Miko into his arms and kissed her.
Star pressed her fingertips against her own lips. Imagining.
Her arm weakened and she let it fall to her lap. It wouldn’t be long now. She could feel her body beginning to rebel. It was in the pain that was almost constant now, a stabbing sensation that tore through her legs even when she was only sitting. It was in the frequent loss of control in her twitching limbs. It was in the blackness that clouded in around her vision, and how she always thought this would be the last time, before, after a long, agonizing moment, she returned to consciousness again.
Footsteps thumped in the common room and paused in the doorway. Star turned her head away.
“One minute to takeoff,” said Ochida-shìfu. “Do you want to come sit with me in the cockpit?”
She shook her head and adjusted the sleeve of the silk kimono so that he was sure to see the metal plating of her arms. The synthetic skin had been easy to remove, and though seeing her android insides was disconcerting, the limb reminded her of the three-fingered prongs from her Mech6.0 body, and there was a comforting familiarity in that.
Ochida sighed heavily behind her. “I’m doing this for you, Miko. It’s better this way. And he’s just a boy—you’ll get over this.”
When Star didn’t respond, he huffed and withdrew from the doorway.
“Fine. Be angry. Throw your tantrum if you have to. Just put your skingraft back on before you snag that material. Whatever point you’re trying to make, it isn’t working. The reminder of what you are just further convinces me that I’m making the right decision.”
Then he was gone.
Star returned her gaze to the window, the hangar, the crowd. Hundreds of mech-droids lined up against the charging wall. Miko. And Dataran.
Not minutes had gone by before she heard the magnets engage and felt the ship rise off the ground. The crowd cheered. Dataran wrapped his arms around Miko and she was beaming. Though Star didn’t think Miko could see her, she felt almost like they were looking at each other in that moment, and that Miko knew precisely the decision that Star had made. And she, too, knew it was the right one.
Then the thrusters engaged, and the ship was climbing up out of the hangar, over the glittering, sprawling city of New Beijing. And Dataran was gone.
Suddenly weary, Star leaned her head against the window. Her audio input dulled to a faint, distant hum as the Child of the Stars speared through the wisps of clouds and the sky turned from bright blue to blushing pink and pale orange.
Her fan was struggling inside her torso, moving slower and slower …
Then, so suddenly she almost missed it, space opened up before her. Black and expansive and endless and filled with more stars than she could ever drink in. More stars than she could ever compute.
It was so much better than a holograph.
Her wires quivered as the last dregs of power sizzled through them. Her fingers jolted and twitched and then lay still.
She was smiling as she imagined herself as one more star in the sea of millions, and her body decided it had had enough, and she felt the exact moment when her power source gave up and the hum of electricity extinguished.
But she was already vast and bright and endless.
The Mechanic
The hover was waiting outside the palace’s northwest gate. Kai feigned nonchalance as he made his way through the garden’s path, Nainsi’s lightweight android body tucked under one arm and a pack carrying a hooded sweatshirt slung over his opposite shoulder. He didn’t hurry, but he wasn’t meandering, either. He pretended that he was unconcerned about being noticed. It wasn’t like he couldn’t be tracked. He had not one but two identity chips hidden beneath his skin, and his security team were experts at keeping tabs on him.
It wasn’t a secret that he was leaving.
But he didn’t want it to be public knowledge either.
The day was hotter than it had been all week and the humidity made his hair cling to the back of his neck. The garden gate opened without a sound, though he could feel the security camera overhead following his movements. He ignored it and approached the hover with the same straight-spined confidence he’d learned to do every task with, no matter how trivial. He waved his ID-embedded wrist over the hover’s scanner and the door whispered open, revealing a spacious interior behind the tinted-glass windows. Hidden speakers emitted the soothing notes of a flautist. Though the air inside had been cooled to a pleasant temperature, an ice bucket in the corner was still slick with condensation. It displayed an assortment of flavored waters and cold teas.
Kai pushed Nainsi in first before settling onto one of the upholstered benches. The door shut, and he realized that, despite the tranquility of the hover’s interior, his heart had started to pound.
“Good afternoon, Your Imperial Highness. What is your destination?” the hover asked in an artificially feminine voice.
He rubbed away a bead of sweat before it could drip down his temple. “The market at city center.”
The hover lifted off the street and glided away from the palace, taking the looping drive around the protective exterior wall before dipping down the hill toward New Beijing. Through the dark-paned glass, Kai could see his city shimmering with waves of heat, the windows and metal structures glinting beneath the afternoon sun.
He loved his city. He loved his country.
He would risk anything to protect it.
Inhaling sharply, he unclipped the portscreen from his belt and pulled up the net. The profile he’d looked up days ago greeted him on the main page.
LINH CINDER, LICENSED MECHANIC
LOCATION: NEW BEIJING WEEKLY MARKET, BOOTH #771
480 RATINGS; 98.7% CLIENT APPROVAL
There was no picture of the mechanic or the shop, but Linh Cinder had a reputation of being the best mechanic in the city, and the approval rating was higher than anyone else Kai had looked up. He’d first heard of Linh Cinder from one of the mechanics at the palace who was charged with keeping the royal androids well maintained. When they had failed to properly diagnose Nainsi after running the basic tests, Linh Cinder’s name had come up as the best chance for fixing the android.
Of course, they had all thought Kai was crazy for being so invested in an android.
We’ll order up a new one, they said. Run it through the palace budget. Standard procedure. She’s just a tutor android, after all, programmed with a few assistant apps. Easily replaced, Your Highness. Not for you to worry about.
But they were wrong. Nainsi was not easily replaced. The information she had—or that Kai hoped she had—was not easily replaced at all.
He returned the portscreen to his belt and pulled the android toward him, peering into the sensor light that had been black for days. Once again, he sought out the minuscule power button. Once again, nothing happened.
He sighed, though he’d long given up hope that Nainsi would just wake up and spill all her secrets. Her power cell was fully charged, and according to the diagnostics tests, everything was working properly. No one could figure out what was wrong, and the timing couldn’t have been worse.
“We’re so close,” he whispered to himself. Leaning back against the bench, he dragged a hand through his hair. Frustration had been growing behind his rib cage for weeks now, ever since that Lunar thaumaturge, Sybil Mira, had come to visit for her “ambassadorial mission.” She was a witch. A creepy, mind-controlling witch. Just knowing that she was in the palace set Kai’s teeth on edge. It was like he could feel her eyes following him, or sense her breathing down the back of his neck, even when she wasn’t in the same room. He didn’t know if it was his own paranoia or some Lunar trick, but he did know that he couldn’t wait for her to leave him and his family and his country alone.