I kept an eye on the founder girl out of the corner of my eye. Sun, the first daughter of the current head of the Choi family. Why was a founder girl so desperate to learn to control her life force? Why was a founder girl being enlisted anyway?
There were rumors about her family, sure. Rumors that they had lost all of their money on bad investments and that now, Master Choi was desperate to do anything to restore their status and honor. Enlisting his own daughter though, especially his oldest, seemed inane. How could he possibly take that kind of risk? How could he, as a father, send her to her death?
I frowned, staring down at my work. Founders were different.
Exhaustion was beginning to creep up on me. Although I had never exactly slept a lot, even as a kid, I hadn't been able to sleep for almost 48 hours, besides a short nap here or there on my breaks. I didn't normally come into the base two nights in a row, and even when I did, I never stayed too long. Of course, that wasn't the only way that this situation was out of my routine.
Everything about this girl was foreign.
I recognized her desperation, though. The need to do something, anything, to change the future. While my reasons were very different from hers, the feeling was familiar. I saw it in all of her movements and words.
There was no talking her out of it, even if she didn't have the power as a founder to blackmail her way to whatever she wanted.
My fingers hovered over the weapon attachment I had been working on. Scars and calluses marred every surface of my deep olive skin, but my hands certainly had the worst of it. My fingernails were short and boxy, grease and oil always clinging to the cuticles and nail bed. The rough calluses snagged on my clothing.
They definitely weren't gentle hands, but they looked the way they did so that my family could live the life they wanted, or however the saying goes.
I glanced silently over my shoulder, thinking about how soft and pale Sun's hands—all the founders' hands, really—probably were. When I caught sight of her, though, my brow drew tight. She was tucked away into the pilot's seat, the tangle of wired probes poking out of her skin and attaching to the bot. The bot's bright display, showing her vitals and life force levels, illuminated her face with a sickly blue glow. But she wasn't watching the display or screwing her eyes shut in concentration.
Her small form was slumped forward, her chin resting on her chest and her hands limp on the controls.
Without thinking, I lept off of my stool and hurried over to the bot. While its displays seemed to show that she was in good condition, she didn't respond, even when I leaned inside. A bright blue energy crackled and fizzled around her hands, funneling into the bot through her exhausted grip on the controls. I quickly grabbed her hands and lifted them away. As soon as I released them, though, they fell limply to her sides, swinging at the edges of the pilot's seat.
Shit. Shit. What did this girl do to herself? What was going to happen to me if she died in my garage?
"Hey!" I hissed, shaking her shoulder. "Hey, snap out of it. Wake up. Come on, you can't do this here."
She didn't stir. My throat tightened, my blood pumping faster. As quickly as I could, I began pulling the probes out of her skin, flicking them away without care for how they fell and tangled with each other. The ones in her wrists were deeply, blood trickling slowly from the puncture wounds when I tugged the probes out. Once I had gotten them all out, I pressed my boot against the inside of the bot and crammed myself into the tiny space in front of her. Her pretty features, lax with unconsciousness, showed no sign of seeing or hearing me. The paleness of her skin had been washed away with a deep flush that spread throughout her body.
