I opened my locker door, eyes still smarting from the storm of tears. I couldn’t take another day of this. Even if it was the best opportunity I’d ever had.
I’m done with this place. I seized my bag and scrubbed my eyes—the source of most of my trouble—with my sleeve.
Purple rings lined Human’s eyes, darker than usual. Yyinx clicked his tongue as the boy walked into the main deck. “New look?” he asked.
Human stared at him, then slowly twisted his face into something he called a smile. “Yeah, man. Doesn’t it do great for my lovely complexion?”
Yyinx studied him.
Gaela clacked down the street, heavy on her four legs after a long workday. Even her prickles ached. Her tabular dinged and a message floated up. She scanned the holographic text hoping her 338—er, 335—kids hadn’t eaten one another again. Because that’s what happened when there wasn’t enough money.
Read it now
Danil raised his binoculars to his eyes, scanning the buildings below him. From his perch in the clock tower, he could see the necessary details from a great distance.
Apartment 203’s curtains were pulled back, allowing him to survey a tidy living room. He panned his binoculars to a church across town.
Olivia held a test tube up to the gray sky. Diffused light filtered through the greenish water. Please, let today be the day. She propped the glass against a rock and dug out a pack of litmus strips. “Maybe once the silt settles—”
“Probably not.” Mari’s hazmat suit crinkled as she walked past.
You okay? Eli’s voice tickled Iris’s mind.
She rubbed the itchy spot behind her ear where the purple telepachip had been inserted. Just nervous. About the dive, about this new telepathic technology…
He chuckled. Aren’t you a pilot?
She glanced out the plane window at the clear lilac-blue sky. Somewhere, thousands of feet
“Your blood is purple.” I stared ahead, absolutely dumbfounded. “Your blood is purple,” I said again. I was going well over eighty miles per hour, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even see the road ahead.
“Shut up and drive!”
Somehow, I got us onto a highway. Draiyan directed me to a bridge
Horace’s toes tapped to the rhythm. They inched toward the DJ and tried coaxing Horace from his table. He dragged the insistent digits under his chair. They pranced forward again. With one last sigh, Horace tossed away his beer and slipped into the throng of swaying couples.
His feet followed the rhythm perfectly
Yesterday was the awfullest day in the history of awful.
Morning light intruded on my doze, bringing back another rehash of those bullies tormenting my almost-friend, and me doing nothing about it. “Stay out of this, Ade-lame!” they taunted, so I did.
Any minute now, mom would yell, “Adelie, get up!”
I pulled
The rowdiness in the mall stretched for miles. I watched from a distance as people flocked the hallways, leaning over balconies to gape at the waving, smiling bot in their midst.
Thomas900.
Thomas’s robotic voice matched mine. He was tall like me, but with inward curves in the middle and a spherical base.
A drum beat throbs, anchoring the guitar riff spilling out the front door of Maisy’s Blue Dandelion. Only Charlene can play the blues like that—with her soul riding on each note, her very life poured into the music. Exposed. Honest. Alive.
I pull in a breath of moisture-laden air. Lightning flashes in
Kylie had never seen so much bot blood.
There were drops of it, splashes and pools of it, all leading farther into the house like Gretel’s breadcrumbs. Toting her medical bag high, she watched where she placed her boots. There was nothing like getting cobalt blood on leather. It was the consistency of
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