The beetle flicks his wings, trying to wiggle its way out of Paul’s grasp. A moment later, he’s free and flying about the room. The scene is like something out of an old cartoon: I dive onto the desk to try to catch him, but he darts out of my cupped hands; Zora launches herself at the wire mesh, almost face-planting into the twists of metal.

The beetle settles on a high shelf, just out of my grasp. He crawls backward into the shadow.

“Slick, come back!” I shout. “Slick, to me!”

There’s a moment’s pause, and then Slick reappears, flying back down and landing in my hand, as if nothing happened.

>>How can I help you, Lacey?

“Tell me what that extra leg is for?” I say, trying to use my most commanding voice.

>>I don’t know what you mean.

I flip him over. “This!” I say, pointing at the space where we’d seen the needle-like limb. But it’s gone.

“What…what’s going on?” I ask Paul and Zora. “Did he get rid of it somehow? Is this some kind of built-in security to prevent people from tampering with their bakus?”

Paul shakes his head, his eyes dark. “Moncha would never do something like that.”

“But we didn’t just imagine it,” says Zora.

We’re all silent for a moment, no sound but a gentle buzz from the overhead lights. It’s broken by a series of electronic beeps coming from Slick.

He says:

>>There’s an update to my operating system. Please leash me as soon as possible.

I eye him suspiciously, but everything looks normal.

I look at Paul and Zora. “What should I do?”

“Maybe you’d better update before you make any changes? That might be why he’s acting weird. Moncha are always trying to fix any bugs…no pun intended,” says Zora.

I nod.

But just as I’m about to leash him up, he buzzes with a message from Tobias.

TOBIAS: I’ll be inside Moncha HQ in fifteen minutes. Get somewhere private and I’ll stream to you.

I turn to Zora and Paul. They don’t know about Tobias’s mission to find Monica yet, so I make up an excuse. “I have to take a call. Looks like we might have to give fixing up the beetle a rain check until tomorrow.”

Paul nods. “I’ll do a bit of research, see what I can find out.”

“Thanks,” I say, with a grateful smile.

“I’m not going to lie. Slick has me spooked,” says Zora. “Might be good to figure out what’s wrong before we tweak his code anyway. We don’t want to make a mess we can’t fix.”

I swallow. No matter how much I want things to go back to normal, it seems like all I’m able to do lately is create an even bigger mess.

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