Both of us race to Miro's room, hearts pounding in our ears as his screams intensify. Once Auntie Morgan flicks the lights on, a chaos greets us.

Miro's blanket is tangled with his pillows. Spots cover them like a plague, but they're actually Mantis shrimps. Scratches and blood taint his gray pajamas. His glasses are on the floor, badly grazed. "Mom, Allice... help me!"

No sounds exit my mouth. Rage washes over me, swallowing my insides.

When there's a tug to my t-shirt, I've readied a punch. Turns out it's Auntie Morgan, a broom and a watered bucket on her hands. Tears glimmer her enraged cheeks, snot pouring from her bruising nose. "What on Dogson is going on?"

Before she weeps further, I charge to the shrimps, knocking them off with the broomstick. Some claws and feet graze my arms, some are snapped under my force. Steeling my heart, I toss them into the bucket. I avert my gaze from the unmoving ones.

Lucky I'm still wearing a sweater, or the wounds won't only reach my palms.

Once Miro's body and bed are clean of the harmful creatures, I snap my vision to Auntie Morgan. Clutching the door frame, she welcomes a trembling Miro who dashes straight into her arms.

"You're okay, right?" She brushes a brown strand from his blushing face, before observing the swollen, bitten-and-clawed skin. Miro shakes his head, sobs clambering between his words. Fear purses Auntie Morgan's lips as she sends me a wary stare. With quickened shambles, they enter her room, where she treats his wounds.

I look at the crowd of shrimps in my bucket. They climb on each other's backs, as if forming a ladder to escape. How vicious are these creatures? Are they this aggressive because of the Chiroquin?

"Uh, some died, Auntie. How should I remove them?"

"Why should you separate them?" The once quiet and seemingly-unoccupied flat emerges to life at the ruckus she causes. "They might bite you. Worse scenario: they'll use your arm to escape."

"There are thirty of them, ten dead. The rest are trying to escape. What if we return them to OCZ?"

"Don't you even think of that. You never know what they'll do to upgrade these monsters," she squeaks, "there's nothing we can do for now." Miro's screech cuts her speech short, but it soon resumes, "We must move them to another place to sort them out. Unless so, they'll bite your fingers off."

Silently nodding, I scurry to the storage room downstairs with the bucket in tow. A few days ago, on an episode of Auntie Morgan's random traveling around the city, she found a dusty metal cube with a hole on the lid. She told me that she'll try turning it into both an alarm clock and a safe, but she dumped it into the pile of junk in the storage not long after.

Will the shrimps survive inside the waterless cube? What if the space is too small for them?

I'm about to skitter back to Auntie Morgan, but Miro's train of complaints is buzzing upstairs, colliding with her gentle voice. When Miro raises his tone, she doesn't chide him. Neither does she when he yelps in exaggeration, as if she's burning him with a poker.

I smile at how her motherly side comes out in the most unexpected moments. It must not be the right time to intrude.

Lowering the bucket to the musty storage floor, I set the cube next to it. I fumble for a wide-piped funnel amidst the hills of trash, which costs me aching backbones. Moving the shrimps to their new cage tempts my temper since they can stick their claws to the surface and won't budge down wihout a shove. Separating the dead from the living also challenges my patience; how can I tell that they're really dead, not pretending?

Once the last living shrimp slips down the funnel, I clog the cube with a square cork—wherever Auntie Morgan found it—and I stretch my back against the cool storage wall, cringing at the cracks and twists that follow.

Land of the Asleep almost successfully beckons me in when a shrill knock taps the door three times. "Excuse me?" The woman's voice lures me out of the stuffy den.

A curious, nest-haired head peeks from the top stairs. Auntie Morgan, wearing knitted brows, approach me and snatch the bucket of dead shrimps, along with the noisy cube, back upstairs. A flick of her head to the door already sends her signal. Unlike other days, she bothers to silence her elephant-like footsteps.

What kind of woman visits on—I glance at the clock on the wall—2 AM? Braving my nerves, I unlock the door. Behind the cheap wood is a uniformed girl, her shoulder-length hair colored platinum and her face pallid. A professional smile appears as she focuses on her holographic clipboard. "Is Mrs. Sweds in?"

Auntie Morgan's sneaky behavior appears in my head. Why did she send me out instead of facing this herself? "She's out. Um, how can I help you?" I stand awkwardly on the doorway, trying to resist her charm.

Why am I getting these feels from a stranger? This is more embarrassing than misspelling my client's name out loud.

That's when something shiny on her ranger uniform grabs my attention. A badge of a panda's stone head and an acronym above it—OCZ's logo.

My heartbeat lurches. OCZ is responsible for this mess, right? If Auntie Morgan is right, none of these disasters are unplanned before.

Her eyes wander around the flat. Driven by instinct, I stuff my stinging palms to my pockets. "I'm Lin-Irene from Ornamental City Zoo, and on their behalf, I apologize for the inconvenience we've caused." Focus, Allice, you're not supposed to pity them. "I need to search the flat and find if there are our missing animals." She takes a smaller cube, similar to Auntie Morgan's, from her pocket. It gradually increases in size, until it's big enough to keep a seal.

"I've been asleep with my cousin." I choke back a gasp at how smooth my lie comes out. "There's nothing to look in here."

Her eyes linger on the muddy flood. "Some of our aquatic animals are known to reside in shallow and muddy waters. Like the Mantis shrimps." Her brief smirk jolts me awake. What's that for?

"I don't know what they are, but they aren't here. It's also 2 AM—"

There's urgency in her voice that makes her not ignorable. "I promise I won't mess up. Can you call Mistress Sweds and let her know? We'll deal with the land animals tomorrow," she speaks rapidly, boasting her impatience. "I'll bother you only for a few minutes." Then she mutters under her breath when I lower my gaze to the floor, "Why is it so hard for these scavengers to obey?"

She must be from Highlife community since she's so unenthusiastic the longer she stays. Ignoring the pain in my chest, I open my mouth to further protest, but I back down once she strokes the quill-like device tipped with blue sparks—a taser rod—on her belt.

If I pass out, no one will help Auntie Morgan and Miro. The shrimps may return to OCZ. And if Auntie Morgan's theories are true, if they're kept for more upgrades in the future...

Hoping Auntie Morgan has figured out a trick, I step aside, welcoming her. She scowls at how her trousers get wetter than before. Tapping the clipboard with her fingers, she examines every nook and cranny sharply.

Will she get to the second floor?

May God spare me... I'm never a good liar, and lying this far drains my energy already. It might be for the greater good, but the weight of sins tugs at my heart.

"You're done, right?" I ask, faking my boredom. As much as I hate to say it, her babyish face isn't one to be bored at, even if she's a stuck-up Highlife. "Do you find something?"

"No." She blushes a shade redder. "But I might find something upstairs."

I spread my arm to halt her. "You said you'll only search this mud—"

"I said Mantis shrimps usually live there. But they can move anywhere they want to. See, look at the stairs."

I can only gawk at the rushing shrimp, tumbling with its short legs down the steps. How... how could it escape? Like a newborn longing for its mother, the shrimp climbs her wet trousers, perching on her shoulder and gazes at her lovingly. Nausea whirls inside my stomach. So this killer machine still has some affection? Is it possible that... they know each other well—this monster in claws and the spicy-tongued woman? It's like traces of violence are wiped clean during their interaction... how?

"I must go upstairs. Are your friends here too?" I fight back the tremors in my body as she focuses on the shrimp. "You didn't lie to me, did you?"

"You believe in that thing more than me?" I chuckle harshly.

She passes my outstretched arm and ascends the stairs before a word leaves my mouth. "Of course. It's an undeniably smart creature."

This girl should get a medal for having a rich vocabulary of harassment words.

Switching the light in Miro's room, she glances around, pursing her lips at the messy place. I silently curse as blood I'm yet to scrub blooms on several items. Hopefully, she doesn't suspect anything.

After searching the room, accompanied by my thumping heart, she moves to Auntie Morgan's.

I can't take the anxiety anymore as she pokes her head through the doorway. My heart might explode into particles soon. Where is Auntie Morgan? Will this devil-of-a-girl find the remaining shrimps here? Where is the cube?

For lying to an official, I might meet my parents in prison cells. If she ever finds the cube and notices the slight modifications Auntie Morgan made, she might be charged with Copyright Breach. Those dead shrimps will surely throw me behind bars... Biliya Republic rarely tolerates those who harm animals and plants.

Now I regret for pinning Auntie Morgan's explanations of Biliya's highest laws in my head. My stomach can't stop churning.

"This room smells like mud," she mutters, a brow arching with displeasure. The bucket and the cube are gone. Turning to a sour-faced Miro on the bed, she sweetly asks, "A quick question for you: have you seen more shrimps?"

He shakes his head, to my relief.

A grumpy scowl replaces her sugarcoated smile as she reaches Auntie Morgan's closet and tries to jerk it open. Temper quickly saps all her good impressions away. "Why is this locked?"

"Mom keeps her inventions there. She takes the key with her." Miro slinks into the blanket, hiding his wrapped arms from her view. He closes his eyes, as if not wanting more business, or questions, from Lin-Irene.

Infuriated, either by how Miro treats her or by Auntie Morgan's disappearance, she leaves the room. I keep a victorious grin under my lips as I guide her downstairs, open the door, and beckon her to leave.

"Sorry about the shrimp. Didn't notice that." I play my innocent facade, hoping she'll buy it.

Instead, she pivots to me in a blink. Up close, she looks more psychopathic than Auntie Morgan in her research mode. Yet, there's still charm in her lengthy lashes and her bat-black eyes. I root on the spot, refusing to cower back at her further intimidation. "You'll regret messing up with me, Allice Worke. You're a terrible secret keeper." She turns on her heels, her soles carrying her through the intense dawn.

There's more to Lin-Irene. She's more than OCZ's aquatic caretaker; she must be hiding something. Otherwise, how can she know my full name when I never tell her—and most people—about that?