The Girl Who Started the Revolution

2 | u n l o c k e d

After stabbing the robotic woman in the eye, I dragged her synthetic body and stuffed it in one of the many utility closets of Toran's capital building. The janitor could deal with it.

If they even had janitors to do their dirty work.

Half of this building's population were robots. You couldn't be human and work here, I supposed. Too much of a liability. Humans thought for themselves. Robots didn't. Or for the most part, at least. Manipulating artificial intelligence only went so far.

I pocketed my utility knife and checked the holowatch integrated into my suit. It was 23:55. I had several more hours until the human officials came back from their "meeting."

I made for a glass door that said STAIRS, and quickened my pace when I saw the camera eyeing me. Literally eyeing me because it had an iris within the lens.

Toran's cameras had artificial intelligence, but they could only record when a human conductor was present.

That was one thing Toran really needed to work on. They were too immersed in technology that they couldn't even trust their own species.

I reached the third level of the building and exited into a wide hallway with several doors. I wasn't lying to the robot when I said I needed to go to Level Three. I may have been a thief who stole a library key from the government, but I was an honest thief. For the most part, anyway.

A lot of people would think the most secret room in Toran's capital would be in the highest level. That's what I thought when I first heard the rumors of a library. But our government is filled with slimy mongrels who will trick you at the tip of a hat.

Naturally, I knew it couldn't be as easy as the top floor or the bottom floor, so I looked into it further by perusing the slums for wisps of truth and eventually found where the library was located after months of sneaking out into the black market. Info smugglers were, well, informational.

Section 2, Room A6 on Level Three.

Easy as pie. If pie even existed anymore. I read it in a cooking book once, but a guard took it from me and I never saw it again.

I figured if citizens could taste or think of pie, wouldn't they want to eat something better than what the government was giving them?

That's why I was doing this. I had to do it for my city. For my friends.

But not for my family.

If my father saw me now, he would have me executed.

I shook those thoughts from my head and continued to Section 2. The door to the library was made of a dark brown oak. A perfect blend of normalcy and suspicion.

I extracted the key from the front compartment on my suit. Just as I set my hand on the knob, the door moved inward as I pushed it.

It was unlocked.

Every fiber in my being screamed at me to run in the other direction.

Doors to top-secret rooms are locked. Are always locked. You can't get your sorry butt into a top-secret room without some serious espionage.

And yet the door to this classified room was unlocked.

That meant someone was in the library.

But you need this information, Lira.

That stupid little voice in the back of my stupid little head wouldn't stop badgering me. I leaned against the outer wall and sighed.

You need—

"Yeah, shut up already," I muttered as I moved to push the door open.

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A/N: Woo! This is the shortest chapter I've ever written on Wattpad. What do you guys think of Lira and the robots so far? I'll be updating on Mondays and Fridays, so stay tuned! The future chapters will be exciting. *wink wink*

Dedicated to @lara9988 for being such an enthusiastic fangirl! Thank you, Lara! <3

Chapter Image of Lira, generated by me on Midjourney!