What would you do if you had a warehouse full of decommissioned human-mimicking lifeforms and you walked in one day to find that they were missing? All of them—gone. Years of work, vast amounts of funding and resources, some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy, vanished without a trace, and right under your nose.

What would you do?

Would you go looking for them one by one?

Would you start pointing fingers, interrogating everyone until you had something to go on?

Or would you look for the leak?

I stare up at the giant palm leaf dangling high over my head. It makes so much sense now, why someone would want us to go to Pajorat Prime. They’re not looking for C-CIL, they’re not looking for me. They’re looking for the leak. After all, once an HML steps foot off of Seraphis, their life is their own. We have all the same rights as anyone else. We couldn’t be reclaimed like a faulty piece of machinery. We can’t even be forced to self-identify. Which raises another point: if HML can’t be tracked, how did they know where to find us? The answer is simple—the same way they tried to find Nifty. Specifically, by installing a long-range transceiver function into the lateral cortex.

My hand automatically goes to the patch of skin behind my right ear. It’s not technically tracking, but tune to the right frequency, and it pretty much becomes a game of hot and cold. It’s a loophole, and a damn obvious one now that I see it, but it would hardly be considered illegal. The good news is that it should be reversable. How, I have no idea. I’m no cybernetics specialist, but I’m starting to get a pretty good idea of what those notes written in the back of my book might be for.

The tip of the leaf bows downward under its own weight, the glossy green almost too perfect in the light of the atrium. The edges are smooth and perfect, at least from here. No yellowing of the membrane, no tattered edges.

What I need to do now is find Shae and that giant walking antenna of hers so that we can disable his transceiver function. But before I can, someone else finds me.

“Hey!”

I turn to see Jahdra running toward me. I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. She’s not who I want to see right now. I’m not ready to explain to her that all this running is my fault, that I’ve brought trouble to her door and whoever’s after us is a lot closer than we think.

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“Where are the others?” she asks breathlessly.

I raise my eyebrows, trying to swallow down my awkwardness.

“Did you lose them?” I ask.

“What do you mean, did I lose them? I didn’t have them to begin with,” she snaps. “Look we don’t have time for this. We’re gonna have to come back for them later.”

“What?” I ask incredulously, feeling my heart drop to my stomach at her words. She wants to leave Shae and C-CIL here on Pajorat? But why? My eyes travel to the person standing behind her. It’s the same man I saw her with earlier—Hiro’s boss. Does he have something to do with this?

“I’ll explain later,” Jahdra replies briskly, waving away my question as if it doesn’t matter. “They’ll be fine. Actually, it’s probably better if they’re not with us if we end up getting caught.”

“Who’s getting caught?” I ask. My heart begins to race, but not for my own sake. I don’t know if Jahdra realizes it, but if anyone’s getting caught, it won’t be the rest of us who have to worry.

“On the ship,” she answers brusquely. “We gotta go.”

Instead of arguing the point further, I turn around, a mix of confusion and concern, and head back toward the docking bay. As much as I don’t feel right leaving the Shae and C-CIL behind with no explanation, I don’t have much of a right to protest after the position I’ve put Jahdra in. To be honest, I’m not sure who to worry about more. Jahdra’s tough. The others…not so much. But I don’t think there’s much for them to worry about on Pajorat, and hopefully they won’t be stranded here for too long. Jahdra on the other hand, she might find herself in it pretty deep.

I feel a sudden pang of guilt. I came to Chrystanthemum thinking that it was the right thing, that I was supposed to be there, that I was there to help her. But more and more it’s starting to seem like all I’ve done is make things worse.

I walk through the doors of the bay and feel a shiver run down my spine. It’s that same nagging feeling that something isn’t right, that every step we take is a step in the wrong direction.

At least if C-CIL stays here on Pajorat, whoever’s been using him to try and find Chrysanthemum will find themselves at a dead-end, granted they haven’t already been able to identify the ship. If he stays here, so does the transceiver—and the signal, I realize with a sudden, unexpected delight. Chrys still hasn’t picked up the distress signal. So if there’s no C-CIL to detect it, Jahdra will have nothing to follow. She’ll have to give up.

I make my way along the docking ring to Chrysanthemum, the knot in my stomach beginning to dissolve at this new revelation. Maybe things are going to be okay after all. As I walk, I look out through the enormous panes of glass into the dense foliage of the Pajorat base—the lush, fragrant shrubs pressing closely along the walkway, the towering trees with trunks as thick as a nacelle, the winding vines tracing a glimmering emerald path to nowhere—and the last thought I have before I step onto the ship is what a perfect place to hide.