She looked at Glenn sidelong, feeling a swell of gratitude and warmth toward him. He was so unheeding of his own danger—both from people like Alexia and from her uncle, who still hadn’t told Glenn his plans. She squeezed his arm a little, but Glenn didn’t look around; he was concentrating on looking out for other threats, attackers that might charge down a side street to surprise them. Park felt a tremor like a sob move through her chest. His flesh was so hard, so dense. She sometimes felt that he must be the strongest being in the world. That he could lift cars, mountains, if he wanted to. But why would he want to? He’d asked her that when she questioned the limits of his strength.

“Lifting a car would most likely incur property damage,” Glenn had said at the time.

“But you could do it,” Park said. “If you wanted.”

“I can’t predict a scenario where I would want to.”

“What do you want?” Park had asked.

“To guard you,” Glenn had answered, simply.

No wonder she felt so safe with him. She’d thought then that he could stop a bullet. She thought that now, walking with him.

How naïve she was, Park would think later. She had never stopped to consider the dangers that such strength posed. How easily it could destroy as well as protect.

—

“You’re late,” Park’s uncle said when she arrived back home.

Park didn’t hesitate. “I was busy at school.”

“Busy threatening people with a gun?”

She paused, processing. Glenn had gone somewhere else in the building, presumably to hide his prop gun. “It was fake,” she said eventually. No use questioning how he’d found out so quickly.

“I’m aware,” her uncle said. “And you’re lucky the police arrived at that conclusion just by watching the footage. Still. That’s terrorism. Disorderly conduct, at the least.”

“Not if it’s done by an android.”

Park’s uncle was shaking his head. “Grace. Come on. Even if there were no legal complications—and they’ve told me we still might be facing a fine, if that’s what the legal counsel decides—come on. Even you don’t have to be told what happens when a robot waves a gun around in public. You remember the riots?”

“I was here for them,” Park said coldly. “You weren’t.” She felt the heat of the door at her back; she wondered if he would chase her if she bolted without another word. She said, gritting it out: “You won’t do anything to him.” I won’t let you.

Her uncle paused, watching her—as if he knew her desire to run. Maybe that was the feral side of her, Park thought, looking at her reflection in his glasses—an old-school vanity he still allowed himself. Maybe she got it from her mother.