Droids And Bots

Chapter 40

Nora clenched her jaw against the onslaught of questions and took in a slow breath before asking, steadily, “Are you a Unar spy?”

“No! Of course not! I mean…well…sort of. ”

“Sort of? What do you mean—”

“Please, listen to me!” The girl clenched her hands together, as if fighting an internal battle. “Yes, I programmed the chip, and I am working for the queen, but it’s not what you think. I’ve programmed all the spyware that kumal’s used to watch Emperor Rikan these past months, but I didn’t have a choice. Mistress would kill me if…stars above, she will kill me when she finds out about this. ”

“Mistress who? You mean Queen kumal?”

The girl squeezed her eyes tight, her face contorted with pain. When she opened her eyes again, they were glistening. “No. Mistress crimson. She is Her Majesty’s head thaumaturge…and my guardian. ”

Recognition pinged in Nora’s head. Tim had suspected the queen’s thaumaturge of putting the chip in Nainsi in the first place.

“But she’s more like a captor, really,” the girl continued. “I’m nothing to her but a prisoner and a sla-ave. ” She hiccupped on the last word and buried her face in a bundle of hair, sobbing. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m an evil, worthless, wretched girl. ”

Nora felt her heart tug in sympathy—she could relate to being a slave for her “guardian,” but she couldn’t recall ever being afraid that Gabi might actually kill her. Well, other than that time she sold her off for plague research.

She clenched her jaw against the mounting pity, reminding herself that this girl was Unar. She had helped Queen kumal spy on Emperor Rikan, and on Tim. She briefly wondered if the girl was only manipulating her emotions now, before she remembered that Unars couldn’t control people through the netscreens.

Blowing some hair out of her face, Nora leaned forward and yelled, “Stop it! Stop crying!”

The crying stopped. The girl peered up at her with big, watery eyes.

“Why were you trying to get a hold of the palace?”

The girl shrank back and sobbed, but the tears seemed to have been startled out of her. “I need to get a message to Emperor Tim. I need to warn him. He’s in danger, all of Earth…Queen kumal…and it’s all my fault. If I’d only been stronger, if I’d only tried to fight, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s all my fault. ”

“Stars above, would you stop crying?” said Nora before the girl could dissolve into hysterics again. “You need to get a hold of yourself. What do you mean Tim’s in danger? What have you done?”

The girl hugged herself, her eyes pleading with Nora as if she alone could offer forgiveness. “I’m the queen’s programmer, like I said. I’m good at it—hacking into netlinks and security systems and the like. ” She said this without a hint of arrogance on her wavering voice. “For the last few years, Mistress has been asking me to connect feeds from Earth’s political leaders to Her Majesty’s palace. At first, it was just court discussions, meetings, document transfers, nothing very interesting. Her Majesty wasn’t learning anything that your emperor hadn’t already told her, so I didn’t think much harm could come of it. ”

The girl twisted her hair around both sets of knuckles. “But then she asked me to program a D-COMM chip that she could install in one of the royal droids, thinking then she could spy on the emperor outside of the netlinks. ” She raised her eyes to Nora. Guilt was scrawled across her face. “If it had been any other droid, any droid in the entire palace, she still wouldn’t know anything. But now she does know! And it’s all my fault!” She whimpered and pulled the lock of hair into her mouth like a gag.

“Wait,” Nora held up her hand, trying to slow the girl’s rapid words. “What exactly does kumal know?”

The girl pulled the hair out as tears started to slip down her cheeks. “She knows everything that droid knew, everything she’d been researching. She knows that Princewillss Selene is alive and that Princewill—I’m sorry, that Emperor Tim was searching for her. She knows that the emperor wanted to find the Princewillss and instate her as the true Unar queen. ”

Dread squirmed in Nora’s stomach.

“She knows the names of the doctors who helped her escape and this poor old woman in the European Federation who housed her for so long…. Her Majesty’s already sent people to hunt her down, using the information Tim had. And when they find her—”

“But what will she do to Tim?” Nora interrupted. “kumal’s already won. Tim all but said he was going to give her what she wants, so what does it matter now?”

“He tried to usurp her! You don’t know the queen, her grudges. She’ll never forgive this. I have to get a message to him, to somebody at the palace. He has to know it’s a setup. ”

“A setup? What kind of setup?”

“To become empress! Once she’s in control of the South lake, she intends to use her army to wage war on the rest of Earth. And she can do it too—her army…this army…” She shuddered, ducking her head as if someone had swiped at her.

Nora shook her head. “Tim wouldn’t allow it. ”

“It doesn’t matter. Once she’s empress, she’ll have no more use of him. ”

Blood rushed in Nora’s ears. “You think—but she would be an i***t to try to kill him. Everyone would know it was her. ”

“Unars suspect she killed Queen Channary and Princewillss Selene, but what

can they do about it? They might think of rebellion, but as soon as they’re in her presence, she brainwashes them into compliance again. ”

Nora rubbed her fingers over her brow. “He was going to announce it at the ball tonight,” she murmured to herself. “He’s going to announce his intent to marry her. ” Her heart was racing, thoughts spilling over in her brain.

kumal knew he had been searching for Princewillss Selene. She would kill him. She would take over the South lake. She would wage war on…on the whole planet.

She grasped her head as the world spun around her.

She had to warn him. She couldn’t let him make the announcement.

She could send him a comm, but what were the chances he was checking them during the ball?

The ball.

Nora peered down at her drab clothes. Her empty ankle.

Peony’s dress. The old foot that Iko had saved. The silk gloves.

Her head bobbed before she knew what she was agreeing to, and she used the shelves to pull herself to standing. “I’ll go,” she muttered. “I’ll find him. ”

“Take the chip,” said the girl on the screen. “In case we need to contact each other. And please, don’t tell them about me. If my mistress ever found out—”

Without waiting for her to finish, Nora bent over and pulled the chip from its drive. The screen went black.

. .-Three

THE SILK DRESS FELT LIKE POISON IVY SLIDING OVER Nora’S skin. She stared down at the silver bodice with its trim of delicate lace, the full skirt, the tiny seed pearls, and wanted to shrivel inside the gown and disappear. This was not her dress. She was a fake in it, an imposter.

Oddly, the fact that it was wrinkled as an old man’s face made her feel better.

She snatched the old foot from the shelf—the small, rusted thing she’d woken up with after her operation, when she was a confused, unloved eleven-year-old girl. She’d sworn to never put it on again, but at this moment it might have been made of crystal for how precious it looked to her. Plus, it was small enough to fit into Pearl’s boots.

Nora fell into her chair and whisked out a screwdriver. It was the most hurried fix she’d ever done, and the foot was even smaller and more uncomfortable than she’d remembered it, but soon she was on two feet again.

The silk gloves felt too fine, too delicate, too flimsy, and she worried she might snag them on some poorly placed screw. At least they too were covered in grease smudges, completing the affront.

She was a walking disaster and she knew it. She’d be lucky if they let her into the ball at all.

But she would deal with that when she got there.

The elevator was empty as she made her way to the parking garage. She rushed toward the abandoned car, the boots clipping awkwardly on the concrete floor as she tried not to trip on the too small foot and sprain her ankle. She could feel it precariously attached at the end of her leg. Not having had time to connect it to her wired nervous system, she felt like she was dragging around a paperweight. She tried to ignore it, thinking only of Tim and the announcement he was supposed to make that night.

She reached the dark corner of the garage, already sweating from her exertion, and knowing it would only get worse once she got out into the city’s relentless humidity. Before her, the car was sandwiched between two sleek, chrome-accented hovers. Its awful orange paint was dulled by the garage’s flickering lights. It didn’t belong.

Nora knew how it felt.

She slipped into the driver’s seat, and the smell of old garbage and mildew embraced her. At least she’d replaced the seat’s stuffing and covered it in a scavenged blanket so she didn’t have to worry about sitting on rat droppings. Still, she could only imagine what stains the car’s frame and floorboards were leaving on Peony’s dress.

Shoving her thoughts to the back of her mind, she reached under the steering column and grasped the power supply and circuit wires she’d already stripped and wrapped. She fumbled for the brown ignition wire.

Holding her breath, she tapped the wires together.

Nothing happened.

A drop of sweat rolled down the back of her knee. She flicked them together again. Again. “Please, please, please. ”

A spark lashed out from the wires, followed by unhappy clattering from the engine.

“Yes!” She pressed her foot down on the accelerator, revving the engine, feeling the car thrum and rumble beneath her.

Nora allowed one overwhelming cry of relief, then jammed her foot into the clutch and pulled the transmission out of neutral, reciting the instructions she’d downloaded a week ago and had been studying ever since. How to drive.

Maneuvering out of the garage proved the most difficult part. Once on the road, her way was guided by solar streetlamps and the pale yellow glow from apartment windows—the city’s constant light was a blessing, as the car’s headlights had been busted out. Nora was surprised at how rocky the roads were, how much garbage and debris littered the pavement since hovers no longer required an open path. The ride was jerky and harsh, and yet Nora felt a surge of power with every turn of the wheel, press of the accelerator, rattle of the stick shift, screech of rubber.