I weighed the dead woman's tools carefully in my hands. They felt at home there. I smoothed my thumb over the edge of the EverCube, remembering the last time I'd used one and trying not to feel all the eyes that kept glancing my way. I couldn't blame them. But it didn't help my nerves that Cam insisted on me walking him and Deeka through it, step by step.

"When did it die?" I asked.

"About five days ago," Cam said.

Deeka laughed ruefully. "And let me tell you, it's been an awful long week since then."

I grimaced. "Know the feeling," I said. I unclasped one of the panels and saw it had been sitting crooked. Odd. I doubted that a woman who'd kept her tools in such good condition would have kept her beloved machine like that. I sat back on my heels and regarded it carefully for a moment. "So, what have you already tried to do?"

Cam shrugged uncomfortably. "Nothing much. I remember Xi'en used to scare the kids away from playing with it because of some capacitor thing, so I was careful. Just wanted to see if there were any broken wires."

I lifted the panel off carefully and set it aside. "Good start," I said. I held up the EverCube. "See this? We use it to discharge the system so we don't get electrocuted."

I walked them through it, feeling some indefinable part of me relax as I went. I'd missed this. Something I could fix. Something I could hold in my hands. And it was in surprisingly good shape. Xi'en had kept everything updated with working parts, apparently salvaged from the junkyard. Since MERCE rolled out new upgrades every two years, it was doing well for a machine only four years younger than me.

So why wasn't it turning on?

I pulled my head out of the Leviathan's belly. "All right," I said. "I can't see anything obvious. No cracks. Everything's plugged in. Nothing's burnt."

"So what now?" Deeka asked, impatient.

I held up the EverCube again. "This would be quicker with a UConn," I said ruefully. "But now, we test every component and see what the problem is."

What would have taken me three minutes at home with a functional UConn took me what felt like two hours. Luckily, Xi'en had thought this all through before. She'd done extremely well for someone who wasn't a mech-head. She had another MERCE shell she used for testing. I pulled out everything. Graphics. Sound. Memory. Processing. Power. Then, finally, the motherboard that linked everything together.

The EverCube glowed red.

"Well then," I said. "Looks like the whole system's dead and it took half the memory along with it."

Cam grinned, lopsided. He looked like a child, surrounded by all the parts. "Now why does that sound familiar?"

"Whatever," Deeka muttered. She had run out of patience a while ago. "How do we fix it?"

I straightened and cracked my neck, groaning as my spine aligned after hours spent hunched over. "We're lucky," I said. "We can just slip the motherboard and memory Xi'en was using for testing into it and it'll run smooth. Then the next time you're at the junkyard, you can pick up better pieces."

That was enough to bring a grin to her face. "You mean we can get it working now?"

"That's right."

"Show us," Cam commanded me.

It took another hour or so to coach them through it and get everything back in place. By then, I was so tired that closing my eyes made the ground jump up at me like a ghost. But it was worth it when we finally closed it up. I let Cam have the honor of trying the switch, and suddenly everyone who wasn't asleep crowded around, holding their breath. When the screen woke and played MERCE's jaunty tune, reflecting light back onto the circle of faces, everyone cheered.

Some Ad came on, something with guns and hovercar races. I would have flinched at the noises, suddenly skittish, if it hadn't been for the laughter filling the room. The sudden warmth. People stopped staring at me and started smiling. Lika, the little boy, even hugged my leg. I soaked it all in for a brief moment before Cam took me aside.

"Thank you," he said with feeling. And then, "You're dead on your feet," and suddenly he sounded so much like my father I almost cried. I realized then that his energy had lent him a youth he didn't have. He was old. Or he had aged rapidly out here. There was no softness in any of the lines that carved out his features. "You should rest."

Rest. That sounded like a good idea. Even with the few hours of sleep I'd snatched in the Library, my knees were buckling under me. I looked around. The spaces between the blankets and people seemed like lonely islands. Eventually, I closed my eyes and just sat down on a spot on the floor. I felt the corpless moving around me like I wasn't there. I didn't feel alone, though. Not like I had in Unilox. The low murmur of chatter ran through the room. The old men had finally finished their third game and were starting another. I heard two of the couples on their shared blankets begin to kiss, slow and languid. The rest were still crowded around the Leviathan, cheering and whooping whenever there was a particularly exciting explosion. I listened to them all living until at some point, the weariness reached my bones and I leaned my head against the wall and slept.

When I woke minutes later, gasping and disoriented—the image of Professor Cellowen and the dead merc burned into my mind and the feeling of running, always running from something following me, inexorable—I realized that somebody had covered me with a thin blanket that looked like it had been scavenged from a scavenger. I clutched at it and fell back into a troubled sleep.

A hand wrapped around my arm. It shook. Sleep vomited me out, dazed. I lurched drunkenly to my feet, my heart pounding. Another hand gripped my shoulder. I realized someone was repeating something over and over again in my ear, like they were trying to calm a frightened child.

"Hey. It's me. It's me."

The image of Jake blurred behind my lids, but when I opened my eyes, Cam was the one staring back at me in the gloom. "What is it?" I gasped.

He shook his head. "I think you should see something," he said, and gestured to the Leviathan.

I looked around blearily, still trying to orient myself. The room was mostly empty. It must be daytime, or at least what passed for daytime when you were hiding out in a basement. The Leviathan's bulk somehow seemed more monstrous without people around to soften it. I blinked again. I could see the screen from here. Cam had captured a transmission. I moved toward it slowly, like it might sprout fangs and attack. The Leviathan itself was whirring away contentedly. I was still myself enough to summon up a small measure of pride, but that vanished as soon as he flicked a control and a news reporter from Entertainment Limited sprang into life with a grin, all blue hair and powdered eyes.

Not an emergency announcement, then. Just . . . entertainment.

"Good evening again, Unilox!" he said. "Next up, breaking news on the ANRON case."

The screen zoomed to an image of ANRON Tower, glittering in the sun. The reporter's voice ran merrily over it. "The Corporation's staying tightlipped, but they have confirmed that they've arrested three individuals: two ANRON employees and one from Gaudron & Mason who has been bought outright by ANRON and taken into custody. Who could they be, and how are they connected to the criminal on the run? Stay tuned for our next revelation!"

I had the curious sense of the world slowing down on me, even as the man on the screen kept speaking. The words went in one ear and bled out the other. He didn't need to tell me their names. I knew.

I knew.

". . . and now, here's the First Shareholder himself, with a special message to Unilox."

And there he was—John Whittaker Charles Anron—in his office in the sky.

I stared at him now like I was looking at another person. Or another ghost. I wondered how much he looked like his great, great, great, great grandfather, whether I could squint and look sideways and he would suddenly turn into the man who had made people into property and built a city on illusions. Perhaps even trying to look was another illusion. I didn't know anymore. The face I had grown up with was sterner this time, severe.

"I want everyone to know," he said, "that we're taking this criminal's escape from justice seriously. That's why I am personally offering up a reward of two thousand credits for any information about the whereabouts of Product XKC2501, and three hundred thousand credits for its capture. All you have to do is call this number."

The number flashed on the screen, and then the camera switched back to the reporter. But I wasn't listening anymore. I was numb. I took a step back, and then another, and then another. Cam caught my wrist before I toppled over and fell. I looked at him as if through a wall of water. Bizarrely, he was smiling. I tried to compute why, and I failed.

"You're very, very lucky," he said. "If Chase and her boys or Maniah's crew had found you, they would have sold you back to ANRON in the blink of an eye."

I stared at him.

"Don't you get it?" he said. "You're free. Free and clear. They're not going to find you out here by arresting people in the city." He jerked his finger back at the Leviathan. "And after fixing that, no one's selling you out."

I swallowed. It felt like the world was speeding ahead and I was lagging, that my connections had all sparked out. "Not even for three centuries?"

Three centuries. I thought of the Auctioning stage, thought of the faces staring back at me from the screens, their data rolling over their skin. I thought of Professor Cellowen. How much? I thought of the merc lying like a little boy on the ground, his skull split open. And then I thought of Mom and Dad and Jake, and all the different ways a pharmaceutical company could torture someone.

Cam looked at me, hard. "I'm not a Plugger," he said shortly. "And now that I've met two, I don't want to be." He straightened, eyes glinting, and in that moment I thought he might have given the First Shareholder a run for his money in pride. "After I met Xi'en, I decided that I'd rather live out here with my family and forage for scraps than be plugged in and constantly worrying about who's going to sell me out."

I shivered. It felt like Professor Cellowen's ghost was standing in the room with me. I thought of her lying on the floor against that bright gush of blood. I was in a basement of corpless. I was in a Library of knowledge and illusions. "Everyone has a price, though," I said softly. "What's yours?"

I might as well have slapped him. He dropped my wrist. "What?"

Thoughts were piecing themselves together behind my eyes. My head hurt, but it was a good hurt, like looking into a bright light. "Would you sell me out for extra food, or water?"

He looked at me in disgust. "No."

"Would you sell me out to bring Xi'en back?"

He lifted his chin and stared at me, as if he was really seeing me for the first time. I knew that I had crossed a line. But some lines were meant to be crossed. "Yes," he said. "I would."

I felt the truth of it rush through me like a flood. "Good," I said. I felt like Professor Cellowen for a moment—old, knowing, bitter. "Now, yesterday you made me walk you through each step. I bet you made Xi'en teach you everything she knew too."

Cam looked at me warily. "Maybe I did. Why?"

I swallowed. "I fixed the Leviathan," I said. "Will you help me try to fix Unilox?"

A/N: Just one week left, and Dissolution will be over. That's right, there's two chapters left for me to share with you. I'm elated and I'm excited. Thanks for sticking with me on this journey all the way. We're almost there!

As always, if you're looking for some more good #SciFic, check out @SciNation. 

See you soon!