The stickers. The voice. The attitude. And yet Leo wasn’t fully convinced, not until the robot’s head turned, displaying a sly-looking, cockeyed smile painted right over the voice emitter that she used to keep shouting at her departing customers. “Could you maybe find a way to squeeze another measly dollar out of your bottom holes, you butt-backward, Earthbound, ungrateful little meat bags?”

There was no doubt about it now. Leo stepped into the robot’s visual sensors. “Skits?”

“Who wants to kn—” she began, spinning around. It took her processors a full second to identify him. “Ship rat? Oh. My. God!” she exclaimed. “I thought it was you, but I wasn’t sure because of the lack of blood or dirt and everything . . . plus, I think . . . Have you gotten taller?”

It was possible, Leo thought. It had been more than a hundred days since the Icarus made its descent and every last scrap of Earth’s ventasium was stripped of its power. A hundred days of potato chips and fresh strawberries and honest-to-god-chicken. “Yeah. I’ve been eating everything I can get my hands on since I got back,” he admitted. “You’re looking different yourself. Is that a new . . . um . . . everything?”

“Pretty much. Stickers included. Got this one just yesterday,” the robot said, pointing to one plastered to her torso. I’m Not Treading on You, it said. This Is Just How I Roll.

Leo thought back to the first time he’d met Skits, the robot discovering him in the storage compartment of the Icarus, shutting the hatch on him, and then trying to persuade Boo that they should just let Leo starve in there. That Skits had been a mishmash of parts all fused together, Baz’s hodgepodge creation. At the time Leo was amazed that the robot didn’t just fall apart at the seams. Now she was decidedly more streamlined and symmetrical, minus the advertisements, of course. “It looks good. You look good. Seriously, I didn’t even think . . . you know . . . with the ship and everything. . . .” Leo stumbled through his words. “I mean, how did you even . . .”

“Survive?” Skits filled in. “I asked myself that same question the moment I was reactivated. Apparently, Bastian backed up my personality matrix at some point and uploaded it to a drive. He gave the key to Kat and she gave me this rockin’ new bod.” The robot spun around on her treads, showing off her improved maneuverability.

Leo smiled. It didn’t matter what chassis you put her in, Skits was going to be Skits. “Well, I’m impressed,” he said.

“What can I say, this girl glows. Thankfully boss lady didn’t make too many adjustments when she uploaded me, despite all her talk of rewriting my personality.”

Of course not. All bark, no bite. Though Leo knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“Come on. She’ll be happy to see you. She talks about you constantly.”

“Really?”