Chapter 26
What the hell?
I stared at my phone, waiting for an answer.
A moment later, Arabella appeared beside me, wearing orange again.
“Didn’t you throw that hoodie away?”
She smiled. “Classic misdirect.”
“Why is that man following Hiromi?”
Arabella didn’t answer, pulling me into the shade of a grocery-store awning. Next to us, a shelf full of sliced watermelons gave off a sweet, heavy scent. Hiromi and the target kept moving away.
Arabella was silent, letting me think.
“He works for Lyon,” I said.
“He’s a client. Sometimes they do things for their therapist.”
“Is that normal?”
“Like I said, Dr. Lyon doesn’t practice psychiatry. He gets inside rich people’s heads to control them.”
“Ah.” I finally saw why my family was focused on this man. His business model was too close to our own.
“We thought he was blackmailing his patients,” Arabella said. “But then we bugged his office—all he does is talk. No threats, just empathy.”
A shudder went through her.
Lyon was like some awful inversion of us.
“We’ve sent him the recordings,” she went on. “Proof that he abuses his patients’ trust—manipulates them, takes their money. But he doesn’t even react. He’s not afraid of exposure.”
I stared at her. My whole life, I’d been taught how to spot the vulnerable, the weak. This man was neither.
“Wolves don’t eat wolves,” I said.
“We don’t want to eat him. We want him to join us.”
“As a Morton?” Outsiders married into my family, and a few—like Uncle Orrin—found a home with us by simply being who they were. But to take over a whole psychiatric enterprise…
Grandmother Elizabeth was ambitious.
“What Lyon has is precarious,” Arabella said. “Cults of personality always crumble in the end. We can protect him from the law, the press. But first we have to find out what he wants.”
“Hiromi,” I said.
“His only weakness.” Arabella pulled out her phone. On its screen, a blue dot was traveling east through Chinatown. “Get close to her, and you’ll wind up in a room with him. Then we can talk terms.”
“Can’t wait,” I said, reaching for the phone.
She kept hold of it. “Jessica. Did you burn down Halcyon Hall?”
There was no way to answer without going into how the Lindqvists had corrupted our cousin. How Sebastian had been part of it, and how I was keeping his secrets.
Never hide things from the family.
“The Lindqvists are riled up about it,” Arabella said. “The Old Campus still means something to them.”
“It was Peter,” I said.
“Peter? Two months after he fell?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever,” Arabella sighed, and handed me the tracker phone. “This is your first time getting close to someone. Don’t lose yourself.”
I managed not to laugh. “You think I’ll fall for her.”
“I think you haven’t been out much.” She held up a hand to halt my protest. “Remember this, little prodigy: Whatever you’re feeling for Hiromi, it’s not about her. Those sparks in your brain aren’t because of who she is, but what she is.”
“And what’s that, auntie?”
“Prey,” she said.
Hiromi’s dot came to a halt on a side street in Chinatown.
I recognized the location from her socials—a weekly event called the Swap. She went there most Saturdays to trade spare parts with other robot makers.
What were the odds, I wondered, of bumping into your only friend in New York, miles away from where either of you lived. A thousand to one? Ten thousand?
Fortunately, ordinaries love to believe in fate.
The man following Hiromi wasn’t anywhere nearby. He’d trailed her to her destination, then gone back to his life. What Lyon demanded wasn’t constant surveillance, but the sense of possession that came from having her observed.
I straightened myself and turned the corner.
The street was lined with storefronts. Fish in wooden boxes outside, ice and scales glinting in the sun, a wavering claw reaching over the side of a crate. An herbal remedy shop, its shelves lined with jars, spilled out the scents of tea, mulch, and barn.
Hiromi’s blue dot was at the far end, inside a one-story brick building with an open roller door. The floor was concrete; shelves climbed the walls. People milled around folding tables strewn with scrap metal, mechanical parts, colored plastic. A rattling ceiling fan swirled the summer air.
“Jessica?” came a voice from the gloom.
My eyes adjusted.
“Hiromi?” I said. “What the hell?”
“Amazing!” She wrapped me in a hug, enfolding me in a gentle heat, the smell of grease, sweat, and something sweet. With her body pressed against mine, I felt that flutter again. Hiromi was a means to an end. A key to a door.
Prey.
“Sorry I’m so sweaty,” she said. “Summer in New York!”
“I’m a mess too. I’ve been exploring.”
“You look like yourself again.” Hiromi nodded at a woman who stood at the nearest table. “You remember Crystal.”
“I do.” The friend with pink hair, who had informed me about metaphors. “Hello, Crystal.”
“Jessica of the fancy drinks.” She was a few inches taller than me, a full head taller than Hiromi. “What brings you to the Swap?”
“What’s a Swap?”
Crystal raised an eyebrow. “You were exploring the streets of Chinatown and randomly wandered into an open garage door?”
A million to one?
“Well, maybe not randomly,” I said.
Hiromi burst out laughing. “A little light stalking?”
“You made me curious about robotics.”
She took my hand. “I’m flattered.”
Hiromi led me around the tables. The parts were muddled—big with small, electronic with mechanical, bright consumer plastic with industrial metal.
“How do you find anything?”
“By function.” She pointed at piles. “Sensors, controllers, effectors. Eyes, brains, and hands.”
I picked up a stray piece, a tiny headlight. “And this?”
“If it affects the world outside the robot, it’s an effector.”
I dropped the light in its proper pile. “Robots seem literal-minded.”
“Speaking of which,” she said, “this is Jonathan.”
A boy sat at the table, fiddling with an assemblage of gears and wires. He was twelve at most, with delicate hands and a childlike focus on his work—like Gertie when she drew.
“Looks like you’re making a motor,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Actuator.”
“You must use the magic words,” Hiromi whispered, “or the golem is just mud.”
As we continued among the tables, sifting the scrap, I noted that grease lined Hiromi’s fingernails, the folds of her knuckles. Her overalls were flecked with paint. I’d only seen her dressed up, glossy and stylish. She looked looser, happier in her element of castoff parts and grime.
She was choosing pieces with sleek lines, black plastic sensors, saws, and spikes—the makings of a robot slaughterhouse.
“This looks dangerous,” I said, feeling the sharp metal edge of an effector.
“I’ve decided to make warriors next. Are you pleased, knife-thrower?”
“Flattered.” I tried to imagine the pieces fitting together. “Where does all this stuff come from?”
“Toys, bikes, watches. Plumbing, elevators, phones. Cannibalism of the machines.” Hiromi fished a heavy spring from a pile. “When you make robots, you take apart the rest of your life. Did you bring candy?”
“I didn’t know for sure you’d be here.”
“I brought you candy,” she said. “Does this mean I like you better than you like me?”
“Possibly.”
“Flirting,” Jonathan said, two tables over.
Across the room, Crystal glanced up, noting how close we stood to each other.
Hiromi saw, but didn’t care.
“Lucky for you,” she said, “the best candy shop in the city isn’t far.”