So much depends on each one of us doing the right thing, which mostly means not acting like ourselves. Will Proto calmly drive up to the worker and wait, or will he break into the parking lot and race around with Car’s powerful engine and go chasing off after a bird, honking the whole time?

Proto drives up to the worker, only a little too fast. The worker looks at us, Trashbot in ADA’s body behind the steering wheel, Car in my body beside her in the passenger seat, me sitting in my own lap, and ADA’s brain occupying Trashbot’s body in the back seat.

The worker waves his scanner at us.

There is no beep.

It is more of a blorp.

The worker looks at his scanner, frowns, scans us again.

Blorp.

“Hey, it’s you! The runaways!”

I can smell sweat off his skin. He is very excited.

The worker calls over to another ferry worker, who hurries over. “What’s up?”

“Look for yourself, boss.” He shows her the scanner. “See? The runaways.”

She bends down to peer at us through the window. To ADA’s body, she says, “You biomatons look really real.”

Now everything depends on Trashbot. We have worked with him, instructing him to say things that ADA might say, or to say nothing at all. The important thing is that he not give away our switched bodies and brains by saying the kind of thing only Trashbot would say.

I find my tail wagging with nervous energy.

With ADA’s voice, Trashbot says, “Do you have any waste you wish to dispose of?”

My tail sags.

The two uniMIND workers look at each other.

“Nope,” says the one with the scanner.

“Me neither,” says the other. “Oh, wait, actually . . .” She reaches into her pocket and takes out a wad of gum in a crumpled wrapper.

Trashbot reaches out with ADA’s hand, accepts it, and eats the wrapper.

“Robots are weird,” says the one with the scanner. The other nods in agreement. “So what are we supposed to do with them?”

“We let them on the ferry and take them to the island. What happens to them after ain’t our problem.”

The workers stand back and motion for us to go forward.

Proto brings Car’s body onto the deck, and soon the ferry is underway.

The plan is to get ourselves onto the island, into the Tower, and closer to bad experiences.

So far, the plan is working.

Several uniMIND workers are waiting for us on the island. Only the logo on their uniforms tell me they are uniMIND. Otherwise, I would think they are police. They dress all in black and wear belts with pockets and pouches. Radios are clipped to their shoulders. They have batons and holsters containing guns. A few of them come up to us and peer into Car’s windows.