We exit the elevator when it stops on the eighteenth floor and navigate the twisting hallways until we arrive at the Remote Brain Control Lab. ADA catches up to me, and even she seems excited, her dusting attachment vibrating.

We enter the lab.

It takes a moment for me to process all the things I see.

Like the rest of the Tower, it’s a dark room with black walls, black ceiling, black floor. Computer screens display numbers and graphs and, on some of them, diagrams of heads. They are similar to the diagram of my own head I saw at the campus. In the center of the room is a large, padded chair, reclined back. A robot with roughly human form, all plastic plating and steel joints, lies strapped to the chair. The top of its skull has been removed, and a uniMIND worker in a white coat holds its brain in her hands.

She turns to look at me. Unable to utter a sound, I stare into Gina’s face.

Chapter 19

THE ROBOT WITH THE OPENED head does not move and makes no sound. Maybe it’s in sleep mode. Or, more likely, it cannot do anything since its brain rests in Gina’s hands.

She must be fixing the robot. She must be helping it. Because that’s what Gina does. Now we will help her escape uniMIND, and then she will help me learn.

Step by step, tail slowly moving back and forth, I approach her. “Rarf?”

“What are you doing here? I’m in the middle of a delicate operation,” she snaps. “Report back to wherever you’re supposed to be.”

She sounds angry. Her voice and appearance are Gina’s, but somehow different than the Gina I know.

“It is us,” ADA says in Trashbot’s voice. “It is ADA and Cog. Our bodies are in closets.”

“I don’t understand,” Gina says.

“We switched brains. It is a strategy. We are here to rescue you.”

With the brain still in her hands, Gina blinks at ADA. She shakes her head, then looks at me. I want to tell her that I am here, seeing her, thinking, learning, happy to see her, wanting her to put down the brain and lead us away, to help us retrieve our bodies and then go back to Proto inside Car’s body in the garage and speed away and then return our brains to the correct bodies and choose a place where we can hide from uniMIND and be safe forever.

“Rarf,” I say.

“You have to get out here,” Gina says in a tense whisper. “Both of you, get out of here now.”

“Yes, you are correct,” ADA says. “We must all get out of here immediately.”

I turn to run, looking over my shoulder, waiting for Gina to put the brain down and follow us. But she does not move. She just keeps shaking her head.

“Get out,” she says again. “Now.”