Eventually, they reached a town large enough to have a bus station, and Gretta used some of her hoarded cash to buy them tickets to the town nearest to their family home. Once there, they walked to the enclave, ducking off the road every time they heard a vehicle. It was near dusk when they reached the gates of the enclave. They circled around it and entered through an unmonitored gap in the fence Gretta had found on one of her walks.

After dark, they slipped around to the back of their family home, keeping out of range of the alarm sensors. Gretta entered the door code for the guesthouse at the back of the family estate. Mama had used it as a painting studio. It hadn’t been used since her death, except as a place for the children to play on rainy days.

“We’d better keep the lights off,” she said. “Just in case someone goes out for an evening stroll and sees them.” She pulled the string to bring down the attic stairs. Her stash was untouched. After she realized her new stepmother was going to confiscate her screens every time Gretta talked back to her, she’d started hiding useful items in various places.

“Let’s take this to the kitchen,” Hans said. He propped a chair against the front door to give them some warning if anyone came in. In the small kitchen at the back of the building, Gretta spread out the contents of her stash on the table while Hans went through the cupboards looking for food. All he found was an unopened canister of roasted peanuts four years past the expiry date.

“What do you think?” he said, rattling them enticingly.

“Live dangerously,” Gretta said, and he sat down at the table and opened the nuts. Gretta had opened the cheap screen she’d had stashed away, and connected it to the charging station.

“Right, I’m on the house network,” she said, crunching on a nut. “They haven’t even changed the password, the idiots. Oh, good. Looks like they’re in Monaco for the next two weeks. All their mail is being forwarded.”

“This is interesting, though. Our ids are still active in the house system. I guess it’s safer for them to pretend we’re still around.”

“So how do we get inside without the system recording us?”

“We identify ourselves as residents and then update the system once we’re inside so it doesn’t log our visits. After Stefania grounded me for two weeks last summer, I stole the master key-card for the house. No-one ever needs it, so they never noticed.”

They crept up to the back door of the mansion. A security sensor tripped and buzzed, demanding they identify themselves. Gretta held the key-card up for it to scan and it subsided.

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Gretta let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Let’s hope they didn’t change the internal alarm code either,” she said, tapping the keypad. The door opened silently, and no siren went off.

“I’ll see to the house computer,” Gretta said. “Why don’t you go see if our clothes are still there? We could both do with a change.”

Hans went upstairs, while Gretta went to work in the maintenance closet where there was a diagnostic terminal for the house computer.

She was scrolling through the security settings when she heard a muffled thump from upstairs, and a yell from Hans. He came back down the stairs.

“You really need to see this,” he said. Gretta got up with a sigh, and followed him back up the stairs to his bedroom. He swung open one of the closet doors and pointed dramatically. Gretta took a step back, startled.

“Wow,” she said. “So that’s why Stefania wanted to scan us. You know, it’s actually a good likeness, except for the lack of pimples.”

“Hey!” Hans said indignantly. He gave the android standing in the closet an experimental prod. It didn’t move. “You know, I always wanted an identical twin brother. Just think of the pranks we could have played at school.”

“Did you check my room?” Gretta asked, and when he shook his head, she went to check. In the back of her closet there was also an android standing on a charging platform. She stared at it critically. “It doesn’t look anything like me,” she declared.

“She is better looking,” Hans agreed, and she punched him in the arm.

“I wonder where the power switch is,” he said, peering into the closet.

“Leave it alone,” she said. “We don’t have any of the control codes for them. They might report us as intruders. I need to keep working on the house system.”

“Well, at least now we know how they planned to get away with murder,” Hans said.

Gretta was still immersed in the system when Hans came back down the stairs with a couple of bags. He dropped them by the back door then went into the kitchen to rustle up some food.

“Here,” he said, handing her a warm cinnamon roll. “The freezer and the cupboards are full of real food. I don’t think they’ll notice one packet of pastries is gone. Of course they haven’t used the food printer since we left, as far as I can see.”

She nodded her thanks, and bit into it as she studied the screen. “Got another job for you,” she said, rummaging in her pocket. She withdrew a set of metal keys and handed them to him.

“See what you can find in Papa’s gun locker,” she said.

“Mostly great-grandpa’s antiques, I’ll bet,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter how old they are, so long as they work when you pull the trigger,” she said.

She’d finished with the house computer when he came back. He showed her an ancient projectile pistol and a compact needle gun.

“All the other weapons had thumb locks on them. He keeps these two boxed up at the back of the locker, so he’s not likely to notice them missing.”

“Good. I’ve set the house system to ignore any activity from us. I’ve also set the house network to not log any traffic from the guesthouse system.”

They stopped in the kitchen to collect a bucket of food printer feedstock—since if they took too much real food, it was likely to be missed—and went back to the guest house, which had its own food printer.

“Guess we’ll have to wait a little longer for that pizza,” Hans said, looking at the tub of grey gloop without enthusiasm.

“I’m going to try and get into Papa’s accounts tomorrow,” Gretta said. “I might be able to move a few credits into a joint account for us to use to order supplies.”