Kit

Half of the occupants of the house were sleeping. Eleanora and I, in the whisper-quiet hours before dawn were camped in Victor's office, plotting. I claimed a spot by the open window, watching the rain fall through thin trees and turn the sidewalks black. Eleanora lounged in my leather chair with a laptop against her knees, she was quiet save for keyboard clicks and an occasional frustrated sigh. When pressed about our market trip, I insisted to Eleanora that we keep things quiet until we knew more. I told Eleanora everything about Mar I could, but fear prevented me from talking with Victor about her.

Telling him made her more real. It also made our existence that much more strange and unpredictable.

"You should tell Victor." It was more of an order than a suggestion from Eleanora. She twisted to face me, her eyebrows pinched in frustration. "Perhaps he would have some idea of how to help the girl."

"What about helping her friend?" I asked. I had not forgotten the look on the girl's face as she was dragged away, nor the hollowness of Mar's face on the ride back to the market.

"Misty,"Eleanora said, supplying the name like I had forgotten.

"Yeah."

Eleanora pursed her lips while she considered the idea.

"If we were to save her and the sister, then maybe Mar would trust us," she said, agreeable but unbelieving. "But is it worth the danger it could put all of us in? What if Godwin comes sniffing around?"

I shrugged. I didn't have an answer for her or really to anything right now. I was still focused on the sensation of her touch.

"We can't just wait around for it to rain, Kit," Eleanora chided. She snapped her computer shut and rose. Frustrated fingers pulled at her short-cropped hair as she braced her elbows against her knees. "Things are growing darker in the city. The crackdown on security, the sharp increase in drones buzzing in the sky, now this? It's leading up to something. The city changes before our eyes and we can no longer ignore its growing pains."

I turned away from her to stare back out the window, to pause for a moment without her glare on my face. I sighed.

"Have you talked to any of our friends?" I asked, nearly between my teeth. Eleanora was known to keep strange company, namely androids that were a bit too twitchy and selfish for my tastes.

"Jin didn't have much to share last time we spoke," Eleanora explained. "And Tuck is being Tuck."

Dirty bastard, I thought to myself. That droid just wanted to watch the world burn and he didn't have a preference who or what was consumed by the chaos.

"They're besides the point. What are we,"Eleanora said, motioning between us, "going to do?"

I closed my eyes and sighed.

"I don't know."

"Perhaps, I can be of help," a voice from the hallway chimed. My eyes opened to catch Victor in the doorway, still in his night clothes and leaning heavily on his walker. I bolted across the room to help carry him to his chair.

"It's funny," he said as I set him into his plush desk chair. "The older I get, the less I want to sleep. I'm tired of sleeping."

He chuckled and a memory of childhood dominated my thinking. Victor loved sleeping. On Saturdays, he was impossible to wake before 10 am. And as a child who had no real need for sleep, it cramped a lot of my plans. I spent so many Saturday mornings either trying to watch cartoons or spying on Victor from the crack under his bedroom door. On rare occasions his sister would show up at a crisp 7am and demand to claim me for the day. Victor would groggily answer the door whileI waited in the living room, my eyes glued to the cartoons but sharp ears listening for the sound of my aunt's exasperated voice.

"Are you still sleeping?" Clara would ask in a judgmental sneer. "Sleep when you're dead, Vic, there's an entire world to explore out there!"

Then she would push past my father to stomp into the living room, usually wearing something colorful and mismatched. Aunt Clara reminded me a lot of Eleanora in many ways. They were both loud, forbidding, dominant women, not shy to make what they desired known.

"'Sleep when you're dead,'" I quoted to Victor, and we shared a gaze, remembering Clara.

"How much did you hear of our conversation?" Eleanora asked, growing frustrated with our father-son bonding. I rolled my eyes and went to return to the window. Eleanora remained in my favorite chair just to irritate me.

"Enough to hear you two plotting something," Victor said. "You're worried about the city, but what about the girl? Any leads there?"

Victor expected an answer from me, but I remained silent.

"We think we may have found her," Eleanora said. I opened my mouth to protest.

"That's great!" Victor boasted, cutting me off.

"We're not a hundred percent sure," I explained, measured.

"It doesn't matter. It's the only thing we've had to go on for years now,we must act quickly, even if it means being wrong."

"We cannot risk everything for one girl," I reminded her, though the words felt wrong, like they weren't really coming from my mouth.

"One girl who might be able to set the world back the right way," Eleanora scoffed. "Think about it, Kit. If you're wrong, if it is her and we let something happen, we have to live with that guilt for the rest of eternity."

I sighed and turned from her.

"She has a point, son," Victor said.

"So you're on her side now?" I asked, exasperated.

"There are no sides here. I trust you to make the right decision," he said, his eyes soft.

"You think too highly of me," I said, annoyed.

"We leave the city with her," Eleanora said suddenly, not caring about the tension between Victor and I. She continued, "Smuggle her out and then ascertain if she can do what we hope. If not, we can release her to freedom. But, if we want any chance to get out of the city before it implodes, it'll have to be sooner than later."

I looked to her then Victor, his fingers pressed against his chin as he considered Eleanora's words. "Is this the best option?"

Briefly, I considered it. Leaving the city for a while, a break from the monotony, from Godwin's oppressive reign. It would be like a vacation. Even if Mar wasn't the one, I could at least feel good about saving her. But the logistics stacked against us. Surely she wouldn't leave without the boy. And somebody needed those pain-pills. It wouldn't just be five people to get out, it would be as many as she demanded for her participation.

"It is the only option I can see as working," Eleanora explained,reopening her laptop. "I've been doing some sleuthing on Godwin,per usual, but something isn't adding up."

"What do you mean?" I asked, suddenly rejoining the conversation.

"Well, he's fairly predictable this time of year. For years, Godwin spends the weeks leading up to Dead World practically locked in his office to make sure everything is perfect."

"But?" I interrupted, wanting her to explain quicker.

"But he's left the city. Multiple times in the past week."

"Where's he going?" Victor asked.

"Tuck saw him up north," Eleanora said dismissively and I fought a groan. "And I picked him up on security cams just outside the border regularly for the past two months."

"So? Can't he travel?" I asked, aggressive. I didn't trust Tuck to have given Eleanora that information for free and I was frustrated with Eleanora for not mentioning this earlier.

"Well, he can,"she said, her tone dripping with contempt. "But he doesn't normally. He makes his one trip east a year to check on Hank, we assume, and that's it. In the past 6 months he's made 10 trips thatTuck knows of."

"And how does he know that?" I questioned.

"They share a hangar," Eleanora quipped, her gaze on her screen.

"Tuck has a ship?" I asked, surprised.

"It's new," Eleanora brushed, then met my gaze. "Regardless, we both think he's up to something.

"Well,he does love to scheme," I added bitterly. Godwin had a problem with boredom. It didn't sit well with him, not with such an endless internal clock.

"So we pursue the girl," Victor suggested. He looked to me for my opinion, but I couldn't face him. The ceaseless rain demanded my focus.

"It won't be easy to get her out of her current situation. Hatsuimoto seems serious," I explained. After the tracker went live, I did some sleuthing of my own on the location. Hatsuimoto's MechanicalRepair company had a few city registrations that I pilfered through.Then, I watched the tiny tracker disappear momentarily before it cascaded on a very high speed journey through the city. Very clever, I thought of Mar. She knew how to at least try to cover her tracks; it comforted me, slightly, to know she had these survival skills.

"Wait," Victor interrupted, a strange chuckle escaping as he asked, "she works for a Hatsuimoto model? I thought they were all destroyed in the financial crisis."

I waited for him to continue, wondering which crisis he was referringto. Victor chuckled again, heartier.

"Hatsuimoto model?" Eleanora asked.

"They were banker bots," he said. "Very basic, practically over-glorified calculators. They were in circulation before I was even born, one of the first facets of the working androids. Oh, but they were bitter;even as I knew them before the awakening."

"What does this mean for us?" I asked, trying to relate Victor's information.

"It means that every banker bot can be persuaded, for the right price,"Victor explained, pausing to reflect. "I bet he enjoys gambling."

"So what, we should bet against him for Mar?" Eleanora asked. "Do they still have those underground casinos in this city? I was under the impression Godwin had all those cleaned out a couple decades ago in favor of his own betting facilities."

"I don't know about those, but I was thinking a simpler approach. Maybe we should purchase her?" Victor suggested.

"No,"I said immediately. "That leaves a trail for Godwin to follow.He'd be suspicious if he saw my name or Eleanora's pop through the registry."

"We don't know he's keeping an eye on that," Victor chided.

"If it has to do with us," I said, "then Godwin is watching it.That much we can be sure about."

"An under the table purchase?" Eleanora suggested.

"With what funds? We're barely scraping by here," I reminded the room.What limited income we had went keeping the lights on and enough food for Jake and Victor.

"Where does this leave us?" Eleanora asked, sighing with heavy exasperation.

Where,indeed. I needed time to think, time to consider all the possibilities, all the ways things could go wrong. But what I needed most was time to understand Mar. I couldn't deny myself that anymore. It took a lot of reflection, but I was finally beginning to understand what her touch felt like. The sensation was like before, when I was asleep, but instead of feeling trapped, I felt purposeful. Our paths would be meant to cross. I would make sure of it to satiate this selfish curiosity.

"We could steal her away," I suggested, curiosity dominating over fear. "It wouldn't be too hard. They sneak out under Hatsuimoto's nose all the time. We could grab her, maybe all of them."

"She's our priority," Eleanora reminded me, but I didn't appreciate the coldness in her words.

"I don't think she'll go alone," I insisted, emphasizing each word.

"Perhaps not," Victor agreed.

"Then we'll try to help her and whomever she associates with, in exchange for cooperation," Eleanora said, folding her hands and growing still like she'd won this argument.

"Cooperation?She's not our prisoner," I reminded her.

"I know that, but she might need incentive," she said, already thinking through the plan and the next couple months. A packing list had probably started to form of the clothes she would bring.

"Eleanora,we are not our enemies. We must do this the right way, the humane way. We will try to help all of them get out of the city and then ask for her help. If she refuses or if she isn't the one, we let them go,no questions asked," Victor said. I thanked him with a glance.It was an even better plan, though my mind strangely roared against the idea of not figuring out her touch.

"Fine,fine, we'll do it your way," Eleanora grumbled. "But what's our first move?"

I deliberated, unsure if I could even move from my spot, let alone get on with an entire plan.

"You should visit the girl at Hatsuimoto's shop. Get a lay of the land and scope out exits. I suggest you go early this morning and stay for the day. Figure out what times he's there and how many androids cross in front of the shop. Leave no stone unturned," Victor instructed.

Eleanora nodded seriously while Victor looked at me for an answer.

"Sure,"I said, unthinking. "Though I should probably borrow our neighbor's car."

"Why?"Victor asked and then I launched into some details of the evening before, touching on the girl and what I did to help her flee fromUptown. By the end, Victor only nodded. Telling him about her didn't lessen my anxiety, but I was satisfied that, regardless, we were still going to help this girl, that we would get her out of the city. Eleanora left during our conversation, intent on packing things we would need and rousing Jake in the process.

I calculated the minutes until I would see Mar again.