Iko blew kisses and waved—a fluttery, five-fingered wave—as the podship
coasted off the road and merged with the morning traffic. It was
not a far walk to the warehouse, but she could feel her internal processor
humming with excitement the whole way.
By her calculation, she would be arriving at the warehouse by 07:25.
The delivery hover filled with the palace's order of sixty escorts was set
to depart from office by 07:58. Half of the escorts would be
dropped off at the catering office by 07:58. The rest would be delivered to
The florist at 8:43, to be taken to the palace along with the human staff.
Iko expected that she would be inside the palace by no later than
09:50.
The industrial district was mostly deserted. Much of the city, and perhaps
the whole world, had taken this as a holiday in order to watch the
royal wedding. No one was around to notice Iko as she strutted down the
alley toward the warehouse or hopped blithely over the chain-link fence
into the yard where five delivery ships were backed up to the warehouse
loading docks.
She was dressed simply in black slacks and a white blouse. She was
still a little disappointed that she couldn't wear a fancy ball gown, but
she felt stunning in her own way.
She couldn't wait for Emperor Kai to see her. The thought put an extra
bounce in her step as she rounded the front of the first ship and darted
cup the stairs into the loading dock.
The sight before her madder pause and almost crash face-first onto
her perfectly shaped nose.
The warehouse was filled with escort-droids, mostly girls, of all
different skin tones and hair colors. Most were unclothed, sitting on
the ground with their arms wrapped compactly around their knees and
their heads tucked down. There were well over two hundred androids
lined up in neat rows. Some had packing tape and protective tissue
wrapped around their limbs to protect them during shipping. Some had
been loaded onto pallets and settled onto plastic crates. Packing foam
and cardboard littered the floor around them.
On the wall took's left there were three stories of metal shelving filled
with the packing crates, all labeled with the escort's makes and models
and special features.
"Is this all of them?" said a man.
Iko ducked behind the wall of the warehouse, before inching
forward and peering around the doorjamb. She spotted sixty androids
—forty-five female and fifteen male, all standing in neat rows. They were
all dressed in identical black pants and blush-toned silk tops, simple
mandarin-collared dress shirts for the men, and elegant wraps for the
women that tied at the waists and draped kimono-style on their arms.
Each girl had her hair pulled into a tight bun with an orchid tucked into
the side.
"Checking off the order now," said a woman, who was marching between
the rows and making notations on a portscreen. "The order form
specified a petite model of make 618, not the medium."
"I know, but our last petite got shipped out last week. I cleared the
change with the palace on Thursday."
The woman tapped something into the port. "Fifty-nine ... sixty.
That's all of them."
"Great. Let's log them up. Can't let them be late for their royal mission."
The man pulled up the massive rolling door, opening the bay to
one of the delivery ships, as the woman began making her way through
the androids again, opening a panel in each of their necks. Their postures
softened.
"Enter single file," ordered the man. "Squeeze in tight. It'll be a close
fit."
The androids marched one by one into the ship.
There was no way Iko could get all the way over there without being
noticed, and her different clothes would make it clear that she didn't
belong.
The idea that they could mistake her for a rogue android and send her
out for reprogramming made her wiring quiver.
Keeping low, she slinked along the wall, away from the employees,
and ducked beneath the first towels of industrial shelving. Hidden
behind the crates, she made her way toward the rows of escort-droids
that were waiting to be packaged up reaching the last row, she crouched
down behind an android and felt for the latch on her neck. Iko glanced
up to see that half of the rental escort droids had already settled into the
ship.
Humming to herself, she turned the android on. The processor
whirred and her head raised. This one had white-blonde hair tipped
with fluorescent green that hung to her waist. Iko brushed her hair off
her shoulder and whispered, "I command you to stand up, scream, and
run for the exit."
The girl launched to her feet almost before Iko finished speaking. She
started to scream, a spine-chilling, ear-bleeding sound.
Iko threw herself to the ground behind the row of still-seat and
oblivious androids and adjusted the volume on her audio processor, but
it was too late. The android had already stopped screaming and was
now running full speed for the exit, knocking her statue-like brethren over as
she passed.
Iko heard the two employees' cries of shook, and then their footsteps
pounding as they chased after the android. As soon as they jumped
down into the loading yard, Iko bounced up and scurried through the
rows of androids. The rental escorts said nothing, only blinked at her
lazily as she pushed her way into their midst.
"Sorry, sorry, don't mind me, coming through, oh why hello there—"
This to a particularly handsome Kai look-alike droid, which had no more
reaction than any of the others. "Or not," she muttered, brushing past
him. "Pardon me, a little space, please?"
By the time the two workers had returned, winded and ranting about
faulty personality chips and those imbeciles up in programming, Iko
had comfortably in the back of the ship, squeezed between two of
her stint cousins and finding it difficult not to grin like a lunatic.
As it turned out, being human was every bit as much fun as she'd always
thought it would be.
It was easy to grasp why the government of 126 years ago had chosen
this spot for the royal family's safe house it was less than ten miles of from
the city of New Beijing, but they were separated by such jagged cliffs
that it seemed as though they had entered another country entirely. The
house itself was built in a valley carved out with overgrown rice terraces,
though Cinder doubted any rice had been cultivated there in generations,
giving the house a sense of abandonment.
Jacin settled the podship beside the farmhouse and they stepped out
onto a patch of land still soggy from heavy summer rains. The world was
silent around them and the air perfumed with fall grasses and wildflowers.
"I hope the girl was right," said Jain, moving toward the house.
Despite its boarded-up windows, it appeared well maintained. Cinder
stretch that a crew was responsible for checking on it a couple times
a year, to patch roof tiles and ensure that the power generator wasn't
malfunction so that if a catastrophe ever did occur, it would still be a
safe place for the emperor to retire too.
It was probably monitored, too, but she hoped that today of all days,
the country's security team would have their hands full elsewhere.
"One was to find out," she said, walking around to the side of the
house, where iron doors rested over a cellar entryway. If Cress was right,
these doors didn't lead to a dank strange cellar at all, but to a tunnel
that would run beneath the cliffs and lead them straight into the palace
sublevels.
Cinder pried open the doors and whipped her built-in flashlight
around the stairs. The light caught on cobwebs and concrete and an old-
fashioned switch that would light up the tunnel beneath, at least for a
little distance.
"This seems to be it," she said, glancing back at the group. Thorne,
blindfolded, was resting his elbow on a scowling Dr. Erland.
It was going to be a long walk.
"All right," she said. "Jacin, come back with the Rampion and circle the
city until you get my comm."
"I know."
"And keep an eye out for anything suspicious. If you detect anything
at all, keep flying and wait for us to contact you again."
"I know."
"If everything goes as planned, we'll be at the palace landing pad by
18:00 but if something goes wrong, we might have to come back here, or
though one of the escape tunnels to the other safe—"
"Cinder," said Thorne. "He knows."
She glared at him and wanted to argue, but going over their escape
plan one more time wasn't going to do anything but remind her of all the
things that could go wrong. Jain did know—they'd discussed the matter into
the ground, and everyone was all too aware of how easily this
plan could fall apart without him. Without any of them.
"Fine. Let's go."
YOU ARE READING
Cress
Teen FictionTheir best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being force to work for Queen Levana, and she...
