Cress

“Enter single file,” ordered the man. “Squeeze in tight. It’ll be a close fit.”

The androids marched one by one into the ship.

There was no way Iko could get all the way over there without being noticed, and her different clothes would make it clear that she didn’t belong.

The idea that they could mistake her for a rogue android and send her out for reprogramming made her wiring quiver.

Keeping low, she slinked along the wall, away from the two employees, and ducked beneath the first tower of industrial shelving. Hidden behind the crates, she made her way toward the rows of escort-droids that were waiting to be packaged up. Reaching the last row, she crouched down behind an android and felt for the latch on her neck. Iko glanced up to see that half of the rental escort-droids had already settled into the ship.

Humming to herself, she turned the android on. The processor whirred and her head raised. This one had white-blonde hair tipped with florescent green that hung to her waist. Iko brushed her hair off her shoulder and whispered, “I command you to stand up, scream, and run for the exit.”

The girl launched to her feet almost before Iko finished speaking. She started to scream, a spine-chilling, ear-bleeding sound.

Iko threw herself to the ground behind the row of still-seated and oblivious androids and adjusted the volume on her audio processor, but it was too late. The android had already stopped screaming and was now running full speed for the exit, knocking her statue-like brethren over as she passed.

Iko heard the two employees’ cries of shock, and then their footsteps pounding as they chased after the android. As soon as they jumped down into the loading yard, Iko bounced up and scurried through the rows of androids. The rental escorts said nothing, only blinked at her lazily as she pushed her way into their midst.

“Sorry, sorry, don’t mind me, coming through, oh why hello there—” This to a particularly handsome Kai look-alike droid, which had no more reaction than any of the others. “Or not,” she muttered, brushing past him. “Pardon me, a little space, please?”

By the time the two workers had returned, winded and ranting about faulty personality chips and those imbeciles up in programming, Iko had settled comfortably in the back of the ship, squeezed between two of her distant cousins and finding it difficult not to grin like a lunatic.

As it turned out, being human was every bit as much fun as she’d always thought it would be.

*   *   *

It was easy to grasp why the government of 126 years ago had chosen this spot for the royal family’s safe house. It was less than ten miles from the city of New Beijing, but they were separated by such jagged cliffs that it seemed as though they had entered another country entirely. The house itself was built in a valley carved out with overgrown rice terraces, though Cinder doubted any rice had been cultivated there in generations, giving the house a sense of abandonment.

Jacin settled the podship beside the farmhouse and they stepped out onto a patch of land still soggy from heavy summer rains. The world was silent around them and the air perfumed with fall grasses and wildflowers.

“I hope the girl was right,” said Jacin, moving toward the house. Despite its boarded-up windows, it appeared well maintained. Cinder suspected that a crew was responsible for checking on it a couple times a year, to patch roof tiles and ensure that the power generator wasn’t malfunctioning, so that if a catastrophe ever did occur, it would still be a safe place for the emperor to retire to.

It was probably monitored, too, but she hoped that today, of all days, the country’s security team would have their hands full elsewhere.

“One way to find out,” she said, walking around to the side of the house, where iron doors rested over a cellar entryway. If Cress was right, these doors didn’t lead to a dank storage cellar at all, but to a tunnel that would run beneath the cliffs and lead them straight into the palace sublevels.

Cinder pried open the doors and whipped her built-in flashlight around the stairs. The light caught on cobwebs and concrete and an old-fashioned switch that would light up the tunnel beneath, at least for a little distance.

“This seems to be it,” she said, glancing back at the group. Thorne, blindfolded, was resting his elbow on a scowling Dr. Erland.

It was going to be a long walk.

“All right,” she said. “Jacin, come back with the Rampion and circle the city until you get my comm.”

“I know.”

“And keep an eye out for anything suspicious. If you detect anything at all, keep flying and wait for us to contact you again.”

“I know.”

“If everything goes as planned, we’ll be at the palace landing pad by 18:00 but if something goes wrong, we might have to come back here, or through one of the escape tunnels to the other safe—”

“Cinder,” said Thorne. “He knows.”