I put down my crayons. “It is good that you believe us. Now will you help us avoid capture by uniMIND?”

The social worker shakes his head. “We’ve already been in touch with them, and they’re on their way.” He checks his watch. “Should be here in an hour or so.”

My circulation pump works hard. Coolant chills my tubing.

ADA and I attract a great deal of interest at the police station. People peek into our little room. They whisper things like “Wow, they look so real” and “They must be expensive” and “I’m sorry, I think they’re creepy.” One police officer mutters, “I’m not sure handing them over is the right thing, since they said they don’t want to go back.” But like the others, he closes the door and locks us inside. I believe he is following rules.

I turn to ADA. “Are your offensive capabilities sufficient to escape from this place and avoid recapture?”

“I have counted at least eight different humans armed with guns,” she says. “And there may be more humans and more weapons than I have seen. We cannot escape without suffering tremendous damage.”

I go through all the things I have learned since my earliest memories of being home with Gina, searching for some lesson that will help us overcome the odds and keep us out of uniMIND’s possession. I know a lot about the history of space missions and the migratory patterns of water buffalo and about strange smiles, but nothing about combat tactics.

I question my usefulness.

The door opens again. “Thank God you’re all right,” Nathan says, smiling widely.

Chapter 15

A HELICOPTER WITH THE UNIMIND logo chops air in the lot behind the police station. Car sits in a nearby parking space.

“Well, kids, you’ve had a fun little adventure,” Nathan says over the sound of the helicopter’s rotors. “And just in case you’re thinking of having another one, I want to show you something.”

He holds a device that looks like a phone. It has two buttons. “I press the yellow button, and it turns you off. No big deal. But I press the red one, and you’re bricked. That means permanently deactivated. Memory erased. Fried. Turned off so thoroughly you can’t be turned on again. Understand?”

“I understand,” says ADA. “If I had another wrist missile I would brick you.”

Nathan’s face arranges itself in a way that makes it difficult to think he could ever smile.

“Get in the chopper,” he says.

He is accompanied by three more uniMIND workers. They all have devices and facial expressions like Nathan’s.

Nathan puts his hand on ADA’s shoulder. From a distance, it might look like he is being protective of her. But I can see how he’s holding the device against her neck with his thumb hovering over the red button.