It would be easier if they could just kill the Messiers, but then they’d be no better than murderers. Lord Rasovant had preyed upon sick people during the Plague twenty years ago and uploaded them into Metals. For years, the kingdom praised him for creating the perfect AI, but as it turned out they weren’t AIs at all.

It rather sickened him.

He glanced around the bar, racking his brain for some sort of plan. Think. What could disable Metals? What could—

His gaze caught sight of the exit door.

Who says we have to fight them?

It was a terrible plan, but he couldn’t think up another one that wouldn’t end in their immediate demise. He anchored himself against the table. “I got an idea. On the count of three, we push the table back into them and make a run for the door—got it?”

“That’s your plan?” Jax hissed quietly.

“One,” he mouthed.

Jax gave him an incredulous look and shook his head.

“Two.”

Jax anchored himself against the table begrudgingly.

“Three!”

Together, they rammed the table into the Messiers, pushing them flat on their backs.

Then he grabbed Jax by the hand and yanked him toward the exit door. They stumbled into the alleyway where their skysailer waited. Jax vaulted into the driver’s seat and started up the engine, Robb in the passenger seat. The engine hummed, lights igniting on the console, as golden and black wings fanned out.

Robb tapped his comm-link. “Captain—Ana? We have a problem. Some cheating piece of spacetrash ratted on us—”

The two Messiers exited out the back door after them, aiming their Metroids.

“—and Messiers know we’re here everything’s fine tell Ana to call us right now bye!” Jax finished, slammed the disconnect button, and, with a jerk from the controls, lifted the skysailer off the ground and into the neon lines of traffic above.

Ana

Ana glared down at the shadowy figure—Starbright. “As you can clearly see, I’m not a Messier.”

“But that does not mean you are harmless, either.”

She ground her teeth. She hated that she’d fallen for something this stupid—and she’d just walked straight into this trap. “Yeah, and you’re a coward, hiding in the shadows. Why don’t you come out and show yourself?”

“Very well.”

Then—like twin stars igniting—moonlight-colored eyes flickered to life on a face made of metal slats, forming angular cheekbones and mouth and chin. There was a horrible, deep scrape across its temple that had been soldered closed.

A Metal.

“You . . . are Starbright?” she asked cautiously. “Then—is it true? You know how to bring a Metal back from the HIVE?”

“Correction,” the Metal said. “I am the Metal who was brought back from the HIVE.”

Her heart leaped into her throat, so bright and buoyant it felt like—

Like—

Hope.

She tried to pry her arms from the magnetic plate again, but they wouldn’t budge. She needed to tell her captain that it was possible. And if it was possible for this Metal, then . . .