Scrap stared into the open chest cavity of his former case.

“So what do you say, Scrap?” asked Mayor Highshine. “Instead of running from your future, why not be King again?”

“Scrap’s already King of the Robots,” said Gnat matter-of-factly.

Harmony turned to face her.

“But does he know that, I wonder?” she asked. “Doesn’t King deserve to be the best version of himself he can be?”

“You can’t be better than King of the Robots,” Gnat replied with a dismissive shrug. “Unless there’s a Queen of the Robots.”

“You’re not -zk- seriously givin’ me back my case,” said Scrap, jabbing his claw towards his old case suspiciously. “After everything I did? What’s the -zk- catch?”

“Memories are short, King. I’m sure the robots of New Hull have better things to think about than a falling-out that happened ten years ago – including their next upgrade. You are the least of their concerns … or mine.”

Scrap’s eyes turned to Morten, giddily shovelling his way around his apartment.

“I…” Scrap began. “I just—”

“I don’t blame you for having doubts,” said the mayor. “But don’t you owe it to yourself to be whole again?”

Scrap looked over at Gnat, and then to Domo, his strange, wiry fingers dancing in anticipation, and then finally at Paige. She shook her head.

She didn’t like it.

But what was she so afraid of? Scrap wondered. What was he so afraid of, for that matter? Why would Harmony lie to him? What if she really wanted to make amends … to let bygones be bygones? There was no denying that she was right about one thing – this was his chance to escape his case – to escape his life. But more than that, he decided – this was the only way he was going to help the humans. His old case was the only chance they had of making it through the Elsewhere to the rocket ship – the only chance he had to get Dandelion Brightside and her children off-world.

You’d be doin’ it for Gnat, he told himself. For Paige and for Dandelion. You wouldn’t be doin’ it for yourself, you’d be doin’ it for them.

“I—”

“Don’t,” Paige said. Her hands shook on the flight-cycle’s controls. “Please don’t.”

“Your choice, King,” Highshine said with a shrug. “Spend forever as ‘Scrap’ … or become King again.”

Scrap looked away from Paige, back to his old case.

“Paige…” Scrap muttered. “It’s the only -zk- way.”

“Don’t!” Paige pleaded, but she knew Scrap’s mind was made up.

“My code frees my core,” he said. “K1-NG.”

His chest panel creaked open, and two bolts pinged loose and fell to the floor. His core shone so brightly it lit up the room.

“It’s beautiful,” said Domo in awe, the whirling mass of wires that were once his fingers quickly dancing around Scrap’s chest. “Hold still…”

With his core unlocked, Scrap had no choice but to hold still – he was paralysed – frozen to the spot. It was all he could do to move his eyes, but then he had no need – he was already looking at the one thing that mattered to him more than anything else in all Somewhere.

His old case.

He felt his core separate, circuit by circuit, moment by moment from his case, and the world grew dim. Then as he felt his consciousness slip away, knowing that in a few moments he would wake up in the body he lost ten long years ago, he smiled.

Then, blackness.

“Separation is complete,” said Domo, lifting the core free. “I have never seen a core like it.”

“Cool as cooclumbers,” noted Gnat.

“Do it, shift his core,” said Paige, pointing at the great K1 case. “Put it in the case.”

Domo looked at Harmony Highshine. “Madame Mayor…?”

“Oh no” she replied. “No, we’re not doing that.”

“What?” uttered Paige and Gnat together. They watched Highshine reach out for Scrap’s core. As she took it, the whirling mass of wires that held the core aloft instantly retreated to reform Domo’s hands, and he nodded obediently.

Harmony Highshine gazed at the core, glowing and pulsing, its light glinting off her case. “Not all robots are created equal,” she said. “But now we’re a little more equal than we were.”

“The core…” Paige blurted in horror. “You wanted his core.”

“This? What would I want with this?” said Highshine, and flung Scrap’s core over her shoulder. She turned to Gnat, leaning low. “But the King of the Robots did bring me something I wanted … he brought me you.”

Paige didn’t pause. The roar of engines filled the air as she manoeuvred the flight-cycle off the floor and pivoted it towards the window. The cycle swept across the room, banking towards Gnat, close enough that Paige could grab her arm.

“Get on!” Paige cried, trying to drag her sister on board.

“We can’t go without Scrap!” Gnat shouted, pulling against her as the flight-cycle tilted in the air.

“I can’t hold it!” Paige screamed, desperate to keep the flight-cycle steady as she clung to her sister. “Gnat, come on!”

“Don’t go yet,” Highshine called out. “I have a surprise for you…”

Gnat and Paige could barely hear Mayor Highshine over the din of the flight-cycle’s engines, but her actions spoke loudly enough. There came a sudden, deep hydraulic groan and a loud hiss as the mayor’s entire torso began to unfold, opening like the petals of a flower. Paige expected to see wires and servos and cogs and, of course, her core.

In fact, the silvery robot was little more than a shell.

A lean figure stepped out from inside, clad from head to toe in black. An easy, confident stance. The hint of a swagger. Brownish skin. Reddish hair.

Paige’s jaw dropped open.

“Mum?”

There was no mistaking her. There she was, alive and well.

Dandelion Brightside.