>>He’s pushed out the update to all level ones and twos.

“We couldn’t stop him, Jinx.”

>>You did your best, Lacey.

Jinx curls his tail, projecting what seems like a hundred different screens in front of me, each showing a different news outlet reporting on the update. The news is overwhelmingly positive, Eric’s smiling face front and center. Jinx pushes the positive ones to the back and shows me a few dissenters, who are questioning Monica’s absence and are skeptical about the changes to the terms and conditions.

>>Look, there’s still something we can do. We can get in touch with these journalists, tell them the truth, try to stop it. We should run away from here tomorrow, set up a base somewhere, from a different city. Maybe if the city won’t listen, then the country’s government will? You can’t give up, Lacey.

I wipe the projections away. “Anything we do will be for nothing if we can’t reverse the update. And we don’t have Monica to ask.”

Slick pipes up from my pocket.

>>You have a message from Zora.

I scramble to take him out of my pocket, and he projects the message to me: MY PARENTS UPDATED is all that it says.

The weight of today comes crashing down on me. I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life. There’s no one to ask for help. The people who were supposed to care—our parents, teachers, the rival firms, the government—they’re already under Eric’s influence.

Even Tobias went behind my back, wanting his family’s approval. Kai, Ashley, River—this isn’t really their fight. They couldn’t risk losing their bakus, and in a way I understand that. Their bakus are their companions.

Only Zora is with me.

And I worry it might not be enough.

I push Jinx away, turning my face from his. It’s only a matter of time now before he is destroyed too. I can’t save him.

I can’t save myself.

I can’t save Monica.

I can’t save my mom. My dad. Zora’s family.

And I certainly can’t save the world.

Slick quivers on the countertop. Maybe I should just leash him. Allow the update to go through. Then everything would be fine. I wouldn’t feel this pain, this anxiety and uncertainty. One tiny push of a button and it would all go away forever. I could be content. I would forget this whole messed-up situation.

But I know I will never do that. I feel it growing, a seed burrowed deep into the bottom of my skull. If it means never having a baku again, then so be it. But I won’t let myself become a mindless drone of the Moncha Corporation. The new Moncha Corporation.