When I came to, Father was prepared with excuses.
“You left me no choice,” he explained. “I was under a great deal of stress, Marietta. But see? You’re all right now.”
“Shut the hell up,” I told him.
I ran my fingers against the base of my neck. My Cog was back in place, no thanks to him. At least he’d only dislodged it, not removed it entirely. My head felt sore, though. Like it’d been through a rollercoaster or a bumpy ride.
Penny was the one who’d helped put my Cog back where it belonged. After Father had attempted to unplug me, she told me that she’d shoved him out of the way—which prevented my Cog from getting unplugged completely—but it hadn’t stopped the strange mental discombobulation that occurred right afterwards. Already, the images from my limbo were fading. There was some hidden loudspeaker, and a whole lot of pink wire …
Although Father took the glory for everything in the lab, Penny was always the one doing the day-to-day work. All implemented ideas required people to maintain them. If you looked, you’d see that there were always people behind machines. People like Penny, who were even sympathetic to machines when I wasn’t. I like to fix things, she’d told me, patting her old CD player.
Father’s glasses were broken. There was a long cut running down his nose, probably from when Penny had shoved him out of the way. I knew he deserved much worse than that for what he’d tried to do to me.
There were stitches along the base of my neck, sealed together while I was unconscious. I ran my fingers against the new seam, still a bit groggy.
“Now no one can take away your autonomy, because the skin flap is gone.” Penny told me while glaring at Father. She held a tiny sewing needle in hand, brandishing it like a mighty weapon. Anna backed up Penny, her cell phone trained on Father with her hand hovering over the record button.
Father, meanwhile, was red and wordless. I got up from the surgical table and walked away before I could punch him in the face.
“Are you okay, Helga?” Anna asked, pocketing her phone. She pressed the back of her hand against my forehead. She was standing close enough for me to see how she’d meticulously done her winged liquid eyeliner, which I immediately committed to memory.
“I think you feel fine, but I’m not actually sure,” she finally admitted, without a shred of embarrassment. “I wish my family doctor was here to help, though.”
But I knew the problem was more internal. Taking my temperature wouldn’t fix the situation. The problem didn’t reside on the surface of my skin. It went deeper. It was inside my Cog. It still hurt—in there, and in my stomach too.
“At least you’re trying,” Penny mumbled to Anna. “At least you’re not actively trying to ruin Helga’s life.”
Father drew himself upright. Even now, he couldn’t bring himself to admit the extent of the harm he’d caused me. “I did what I had to. I gave you life, and in turn, I expect your obedience.”
“You mean eternal servitude,” I corrected, again repressing the urge to punch him in the face.
I didn’t owe Father anything. Just like Hugo didn’t owe me anything. There was no guarantee of love or obedience just because someone made you. You couldn’t demand fealty from someone. Or at least, you shouldn’t. Acts of love were supposed to be given freely.
Poor Hugo was still on the table, looking worse and worse by the minute. His tongue lolled, swollen and black. My mistake had been trying to create someone to love me when I should’ve just looked for it in the world around me.
And obedience … That wasn’t what people should demand of each other either. I’d seen how it had affected Penny. People with power often tried to wield it over people with less, dangling promises—promises they never meant to honor—for a better future that was actively disappearing due to the increasingly hostile world they’d created. If the Institute succeeded, we’d all be indentured workers, forever. Objects made to serve the system, not people with dreams of our own.
That wasn’t the world I wanted to be a part of. There had to be a better way forward.
“You don’t have to forgive him, Helga,” Anna muttered darkly. “I wouldn’t.”
Father looked at Anna and scoffed. “Your parents spoil you. Your connections give you the gall to speak on things you don’t even understand. You have no idea how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve sacrificed to get to this point.”
“I think she probably gets it,” Penny said. Her voice dripped with pure acid. “You’ve said this to everyone you’ve ever met, Doctor—including me. It’s always about you and your sacrifices and your achievements. Well, guess what? You might’ve just sacrificed your relationship with your daughter because of it. Was it worth it?”
Father shook his head. I’d never truly realized how frail he was. To me, he’d always been some larger-than-life character. Bigger than anything else. He’d been like a god figure, creating me. This was how he wanted me to see him too. The absolute truth. The absolute law.
“I want nothing to do with you,” I said. My skin crawled just looking at him. I wanted to get as far away as I could from him. The revulsion was overwhelming.
At this point, I had to separate myself from him if I wanted any life at all.
“You can’t leave me, Marietta.” His voice hovered between a demand and a plea.
“Forget it, Helga,” Penny sighed. “We should go.”
I had no idea where I could even go from here. The top executives at the Institute would have questions about how the rooms in this building had been destroyed. After one look at the security cameras, it’d be clear who was responsible for the damage. And then I’d really, truly be screwed.
I’d probably be permanently unplugged. Someone would unstitch the flap that Penny had so carefully put back together. They’d reach in, and that would be the end of me. The best shot I had at a new life was starting off as a fugitive.
Anna cleared her throat delicately. She played with the ends of her braids, a flush spreading across her face. “You know, I did mean it about my parents, Helga. They could get you a good lawyer.”
I didn’t know anyone who could possibly stand up to the Institute. The Institute literally had institutional power that extended through this island and beyond. Father had come here from East Asia because of the dazzling recognition this place gave him. Other top scientists, engineers, marketers … they’d done the same thing.
Even with the best lawyers on the planet, my case looked bad. I’d destroyed a ton of intellectual property, and I’d tried to make myself a boyfriend using that same property.
I had to escape.
I pulled on a white lab coat from the coat rack. Maybe I could disguise myself as an Uphiller until I made it to the edge of the island. I had no idea how much time I had left. The authorities might already be on their way right now.
I swear, helicopters were circling the building. Something was methodically and evenly cutting through the wind. Big, heavy blades. I fell into a brief daydream about being swarmed by authorities and dismantling them one by one. High kicks to the stomach, karate chops to the head. I could throw vat juice on them and somersault out.
Penny frowned, staring down at the floor. “Does something about this look weird to you?”
There was plenty of ooze and debris from when Hugo had knocked jars over. But she was right—there was something else strange going on too. Some of the puddles were running in the wrong direction. They were dipping inward in the floor, instead of spreading out.
The lab floor had new cracks and bumps running through it.
“It’s because you’ve ruined the structural integrity of this building,” Father informed me. “You and Penny have wrought so much chaos. In my lab.”
He was unbearably inflexible. Also, there was no way Hugo’s breakdown could’ve led to this. Maybe my rampage through the Institute had created some cracks in the building, but what was happening now was beyond even that.
The floor was uneven. The puddles were running backwards. But I couldn’t think of an explanation, not even with my Cog whirring as quickly as it could process.
We all stared at the warped floor.
“I’ve thought of a new plan,” Father finally said, after a spell of silence. “Penelope, I’ve decided not to fire you.”
I had no idea what he was getting at. Father’s face was tight and serious, his brows knitting together. He stood there like he was about to reveal a big presentation. An exciting new breakthrough.
I had to get out of here. There was something going on outside and inside of this building, both seemingly bad. But no one budged an inch since we were waiting to hear what Father would say.
“We could work together on Marietta,” he suggested to Penny. “She likes you, and I am ready to do anything if it means achieving a better result in the end. Together, we can mold her into the best version of herself.”
“I don’t want to work for you, and I don’t want to do that to Helga at all,” Penny said. The puddles continued to ooze. The sounds outside were getting closer. “If you’re not firing me, then I quit.”
Father wasn’t ready to give up. He wasn’t going to turn me in, but he also didn’t seem like he was going to stand up to the Institute on my behalf. His solution was what it had always been: fixing me.
But I wasn’t the broken one.
He was.
“I don’t want to be what you make me,” I told him. When he looked at me with those reflective glasses, it felt like shards of glass stabbing into me. Piercing my skin. Piercing my Cog. Piercing my heart.
“I could help with your student loans,” Father said to Penny. “I’m sure the Institute could work something out, on my behalf. You wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Anna hissed. “This is a shitty corporate bribe. And trust me, I know all about bribes, because of … uh, never mind.”
Penny didn’t say a word. Confusion creased her brows. “You could help me with my debt?”
Penny, I wanted to scream. Look at me. But if I said a single word, pleaded my own case to her, it would’ve shattered me. Father was making her choose between me and her own future.
Father was offering her a way out. And I didn’t have a single thing I could give her. Still, I wanted her to choose me. As pathetic as that was.
“All of my debt, canceled?” Penny asked. “You could really do that?”
Father smiled. “I could really do that.”
More silence. The ooze continued in its strange patterns. Fluid trailed toward the middle of the room. The floor creaked. In some places, it even looked stretched.
I loved her, I realized, quite suddenly. I love Penny.
I was looking for love everywhere, but it’d been next to me this whole time. I didn’t need a fucking soul mate. I just needed a real friend.
“All of your debt, canceled,” Father emphasized. “Think about it, Penelope. You’d be in a much better position if you stuck with me. So many new opportunities would open up.”
I vaguely remembered promising someone that I wouldn’t choose violence anymore. But Father was really tempting me.
Penny’s eyes narrowed. “Then why the fuck didn’t you offer me this before?”
Anna crossed her arms, face aghast. “Right? It’s like I was saying, this is total corporate bribery!”
Penny grabbed my hand. “Let’s go,” she told me. A rush of warmth flooded through me. Even with all he’d offered her, Penny chose me over him. Me over the Institute.
Father stepped in front of the door, blocking it with his skinny frame. “I’m afraid I can’t let anyone leave. I’ll have to turn you all in.”
Okay. Sometimes violence was necessary. I pushed him out of the way without hesitation.
Father staggered through the goop before falling to the ground. I heard something snap. An ugly, low crunch. He looked up at me, furious and wincing. “You broke my ankle.”
I paused at the door with Penny and Anna. Fuck, even now I was a little conflicted. He was an older man, and I’d injured him. I felt myself wanting to help, even though all he’d ever been in my life was a barrier—to my happiness, my autonomy, the life I wanted.
His coat was splattered with goop. He looked genuinely hapless, struggling to get back to his feet. He managed to pull himself up by using a steel table as leverage. When he made accidental contact with Hugo’s bloated hand, his face darkened with rage and disgust.
“You are not a good daughter,” he told me. “You never listen.”
“There’s no way to be a good daughter to a bad man,” I told him.
Father’s mouth twisted into a retort, but he didn’t say a word. He was staring at the shifting floor, continually cracking underneath the soles of his shoes. The lab floor was warped. But not only that, something was happening to the Cogs and computers as well.
The Cogs sputtered in their vats, almost like they were being electrocuted. The computers flickered. Then all the power went out.
“Holy shit,” Penny breathed. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”
“Hello?” Anna said, her voice an octave higher than it usually was. “What’s happening?”
The ground started to shake. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking the fear in Penny’s eyes. “Earthquake,” she said grimly. “We have to get the fuck out of here, right now.”