“Corporate culture?” Hank says. “What’s that? I mean, I know what culture is. It’s the food that comes from the country where you or your ancestors immigrated from. Or it’s music and art, like, paintings and stuff. But if uniMIND’s culture forbids harmless little pig toys, then I don’t want no part of it. Everybody thinks uniMIND is this perfect place to work. Everyone’s friendly there, as long as you look the way they want you to look and act the way they want you to act. Just obey, and you’ll be fine. But step out of line—like, for instance, with a pig-a-day calendar— and all of a sudden they’re roasting you on the spit. And that’s just the California campus. I hear there’s worse. They got a secret place on Hogan’s Island. It’s private property and you can’t even land on the shore without uniMIND’s say-so. They call it the Tower. Nobody even knows what they do out there. But I bet it’s spooky. I bet they got a lot of corporate culture, and no pigs allowed.”

“Cog, that human girl has been watching us since we sat down,” ADA says. “I assess her as a threat.”

I look up. The girl who was staring at us before is still staring at us. She is still removing the same book from the shelf she was removing before, as if frozen.

“She is probably just curious. I sometimes stare at people when I am curious, even though Gina instructed me that staring is a form of nonstandard behavior called rudeness.”

“I am going to eliminate her,” ADA says, taking a step.

“ADA, that will attract attention.”

“In that case I will execute my plan of pulling off my finger and burning down the library.”

“It seems like you just want to destroy the library.”

“Don’t you?”

I blink at her.

“I was built for violence. ADA stands for Advanced Destructive Apparatus. Or Assault Deployment Array. Actually, I’m not sure what ADA stands for. But it’s probably something like that. I am a weapon.”

“I believe we should take a different course of action.”

ADA pauses, gripping her index finger with the opposite hand. “Yes?”

“I want to find the secret tower.”

Chapter 10

HOGAN’S ISLAND IS IN OHIO, halfway across the country, in the middle of Lake Erie. If we don’t stop for fuel, food, sleep, or restroom breaks, it will take us thirty- eight hours to get to the Tower.

ADA has spent the first six hours of our journey complaining that she is hungry: “I used energy during our escape, and I have not consumed biofuel since I was last put into sleep mode.”

Proto rarfs, and a sound comes from deep inside Trashbot that’s similar to the rumble my biofuel container makes when it is empty. Which it is now.