Urban scrambled backward and away from the cracks spidering across the iceshelf.

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh.

The sound of beating wings jerked her gaze upward.

Urban’s mouth fell open. “Ash? What are you doing here?”

Ash landed on the ice next to her. His normally slicked back hair was disheveled. “Oh, you know, just scouting out a good study spot for midterms.”

Urban stared.

“Rescuing you, dummy. Now hurry and climb on!”

Urban scampered onto Ash’s feet as his arms wrapped tightly around her. His body tensed as they leaped into the air and began flying.

Snap!

Beneath them, the ice shelf disintegrated into a hundred tiny pieces. Jaws gnashed up through the gap where they had been standing. Goosebumps spread across her arms.

“Remember those aerial tricks we did?” Ash yelled above the commotion.

“The ones that nearly killed me?” Urban tightened her grip on him.

“Consider those practice.”

“What do you mean?”

A thundering roar drowned out Urban’s voice.

Ash flew faster. “One ton of artificially inseminated flesh coming our way!”

Behind them the dragon’s eyes gleamed as it stared fixedly and flew with determination.

“Faster!” Urban cried.

Ash grunted and his wings beat quicker.

As they reached the edge of the arena, the space between the two closing barriers narrowed to a thin gap.

“Hold on!” Ash dove toward the space. At the last second, he tucked in his wings, and they shot through.

The barrier smashed shut behind them. A moment later it glowed red as the dragon spewed flames against it.

Ash peered down at the chaos below as they flew out of the coliseum. “Sure am glad I skipped studying tonight for this.”

Cool air greeted them on the other side of the arena where students were flooding out.

“Promise me you’ll try and be safer?” Ash asked as he landed gently on the lawn in front of her dorm.

“I’ll do my best,” Urban said earnestly. “And, Ash—thanks.”

“What are wingmen for?” He winked, then took off into the night sky.

Urban considered going back to the dorms but knew she’d be bombarded by her roommates and others as well. She wasn’t ready for that yet. She sent a quick ping to Lillian, letting her know she was okay, then climbed wearily into an XRD pod and promptly fell asleep.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she awoke. When she got out of the pod it looked like midday, and her retina display flashed 1302. Groggily, Urban made her way back to the dorm.

Blossom and Hazel were already awake and had the news projected on the wall. They leaped up at Urban’s arrival.

“Urban!” Hazel ran to her. Blossom even gave Urban a welcoming smile. “Are you okay?”

Urban nodded. “Yes.”

“Can you believe it?” Hazel squealed. “The one time I wasn’t at the Games I miss all the excitement!”

Urban turned to Blossom, suddenly reminded she hadn’t had a chance to watch her performance. “I saw you also tried out, but I didn’t get to watch. How’d you do?”

“Not as good as you.” Blossom eyed Urban lazily. “That was no ordinary feat you accomplished out there.”

“Yes! What enhancements do you have that allowed you to do that?” Hazel demanded.

“Uh . . .” Urban realized she hadn’t thought up what to say.

“We’ve been watching the news. They’re saying you knocked the trials out of the sky,” Hazel went on excitedly. “Nothing like what you did has ever been seen before. Your sosh already jumped crazy high.”

Blossom watched her curiously. “How were you able to do that? You must have a pretty rare combo of enhancements to break Samson.”

“You can tell us,” pleaded Hazel. “We won’t tell anyone about your special enhancements.”

“Sorry, but I like to keep them private.” Urban smiled sympathetically.

“Why do you have to be so mysterious with us?” With a sigh of resignation, Hazel motioned to the wall projection. “Come watch.”

She unpaused the broadcast, and a gorgeous woman with thick black hair and horns protruding from her head, continued speaking.

Urban’s brain raced. What had happened back in the arena? Lillian and Coral had switched Samson to training mode. So why had it crashed?

Samson’s never tested someone like me. Because I don’t have any enhancements, and Coral hacked it, it must have detected so many areas to challenge, it just spit out everything possible and glitched in the process.

She suppressed a sigh. Now everyone thinks I have some sort of incredibly rare enhancements that broke Samson. I’ll have a million people trying to figure out what my enhancements are.

She thought back to her genetic-engineering class, where Ash had managed to trip up the probot. Something isn’t adding up. I shouldn’t have broken Samson. Even in training mode, it shouldn’t have acted like that. Samson has had years of experience. It shouldn’t have gone crazy like that. Surely, they would have programmed it to handle a Natural.

Unable to come up with any answers, she turned her attention to the broadcast.

“Miraculously, only a few students sustained injuries. Beijing authorities are still tracking down a variety of escaped animals, including three timber wolves, a mammoth, several hundred snakes, two pterodactyls, and the abominable snowman.” The announcer stopped at this, her face reddening as she checked that she’d read the last “animal” correctly.

“Yes. Well, if you happen to notice any of these creatures, please stay away and report to the authorities immediately. In the meantime, PKU president Dr. Gong has announced all classes for the rest of the day are cancelled while authorities remove animals from campus. Until then, students are advised to stay indoors. As for the upcoming Games, looks like they’ll be postponed until PKU can import more animals and fix—”

Hazel cut the live stream. “This is awesome! You broke Samson and shut down the whole school.”

Blossom pulled up a real-time sosh tracker of PKU’s KOLs. “You’re the top-trending PKUer right now. Wait. Actually, you’re the top trender in all of Beijing.”

Urban leaned back against the couch, stunned.

“Have you not checked out your sosh recently?” Hazel twirled one of her blond ringlets. “It’s at 87.”

Urban’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“You’re going to help me boost my sosh, right?” Hazel asked hopefully.

Ping! For a second, Urban hoped it was from Everest, but then her heart sank as she remembered their talk. Had they really broken up? Was it really only yesterday? She swallowed hard.

[Orion: Are you safe? What happened?]

Urban’s eyes welled up. She’d give her sosh of 87 just to have Everest back. She wanted to ping him now. To tell him about everything she’d just been through. Instead, there was no one she could genuinely trust. No one except Lillian, and Urban was already dreading that conversation.

She was alone.

Urban blinked back her tears and sent Orion a quick response.

[Urban: I’m fine. Thanks for checking.]

She scrolled through her other pings and was amazed to see she had hundreds. Anyone and everyone she was linked with seemed to want the inside scoop or to check in on her. There were pings from Brooke, Olive, her classmates, and others. Even Lucas had sent her a note with a screenshot of her looking terrified in the arena, which he had turned into a ridiculous meme. Urban deleted that message. There were also several invites from KOLs to hang out. She stared.

“What is it?” Blossom asked, noticing Urban’s wide eyes.

“I got a ping from the school’s president.”

“Dr. Gong?”

“Let us see,” Hazel demanded.

Urban projected her pings on the dorm wall. “It looks like some sort of invite . . .”

They read the message together, and the room went silent.

Blossom was incredulous.

“You’re invited to PKU’s exclusive Key Opinion Leader Celebration!” Hazel began jumping up and down on her bed. “Only the very top KOLs will be there. You will say yes, won’t you? This is sooooo exciting! And you’ll bring us as your two plus ones, right?”

Another ping came in. [Orion: Can I bring you anything to eat?]

“Orion is pinging you? Slipped into your private messages, huh?” Urban had never seen Blossom so excited before.

“Are you two talking? He’s such a shuai ge. What I’d give to have the Inceptors gene-pool head pinging me,” Hazel sighed.

Urban flinched. The thought of dating anyone other than Everest stung. I’m not ready to move on.

Blossom had plopped down, and her cardigan opened slightly. Something inside caught Urban’s eye. It was a badge of sorts, sewn onto her clothes. Urban tried to make out the words, then gasped.

SAS member.

It was the badge she’d found on the floor in their dorm room the first day. Blossom was a SAS member. Did she know what Urban was? What would she do if she found out?

Blossom caught sight of Urban staring and frowned. She looked as if she were about to say something when a pounding on the door interrupted them.

Without waiting to be let in, Lillian burst through, rushing straight to Urban.

“You’re safe.” Her face was ashen. “Last I saw, you were getting whisked away, and I couldn’t find you. There’s something wrong with your SCA, and we couldn’t track you, and I wasn’t sure where you were, and all of us were freaking out, and I thought—” Urban had never seen Lillian so rattled.

Urban put a hand on her sister’s arm. “It’s okay, Lillian. I just got back.”

Lillian looked like she was about to cry but then held it in.

“Is this your sister?” Blossom gave Lillian a cursory glance.

“Yes.” Urban drew Lillian closer. “Meet my roommates, Blossom and Hazel.”

Lillian nodded politely but her eyes kept darting to Urban.

Hazel projected a screenshot she had taken of the invite from Dr. Gong to the KOL Celebration. “Look what Urban just got invited to!”

“You took a screenshot?” Urban was dismayed. “Don’t show anyone.”

“Why not? You’re a top KOL now. You should be proud,” Hazel said, unphased.

Lillian had stiffened. “Let’s go. Mother and Father are at home and want to talk to you.”

Hazel turned on her cutest pout face. “Do promise us you’ll take us with you to the KOL Celebration?”

“I don’t think she’ll be going,” Lillian cut in. “Come on, Urban, let’s go.”

Lillian didn’t say anything more as she led them to the Wasp G9.

Once they were in the car, Urban looked at her sister. “Go ahead and say it.”

“Say what?”

“I told you so and you never should have signed up for that race, or something else equally big-sister-like and annoying.”

Lillian gave a short laugh. “I mean, I wasn’t going to say it but . . .” Seeing Urban’s expression she stopped short. “Listen, let’s just forget about that. What I wanted to ask you was how you ended up in the Inventor luxury suite? At our mandatory Inventor House meeting, Hawk announced our house would be taking a new approach to the Games. Then, during the tryouts, he told us our next contestant would be walking through the doors . . .”

“And it was me,” Urban finished ruefully.

“I nearly had a heart attack.”

Urban let out a deep breath. “That explains a lot. Though I don’t know why the Inventor’s would waste one of their house representative spots on me.”

“I found out later Hawk lost a bet to Orion. The loser had to accept the loser of the race you competed in as one of their two candidates for the tryouts. Filling one of their two spots with a dud contestant would really hurt them. Or so they thought. After your performance, I’m sure Orion is kicking himself for not having you represent his own GP.”

Urban rubbed her temples.

“In the meantime, do you have a plan for what you’re going to tell our parents that won’t get you grounded for the rest of your first year? I’m sure they’ve already seen the feeds.”

“Working on it.” Urban chewed her nail. She wondered if Everest had watched her experience in the arena as well. What was he thinking? Should she ping him to let him know she was okay?

She quickly rejected the idea. He’d broken up with her. If he was worried about her, let him reach out.

When they arrived home, the maids informed them the family was in the tearoom.

Lillian led the way past the silk paintings and down ornate halls. “I forgot to give you this.” She dropped something into Urban’s palm.

“The bracelet you gave me.” Urban looked up with confusion. “Where did you find it?” She tried to remember when she had lost it.

“Dr. Gong has been messaging Mother and Father about you. He wanted to make sure they weren’t upset or going to give the school a bad name. He visited them actually. Apparently, you lost your bracelet in the arena.”

“It’s amazing I got it back.” Urban fastened it on her wrist. “I’m going to call this my lucky bracelet.”

Lillian smiled, then quickened their pace.

Outside, on the roof, gray, overcast skies and cool air swept over them as they entered the garden. Bonsai lined the square slabs of stone leading the way over black pebbles.

At the other end of the garden stood a large circular door made of intricate wooden patterns. At its base on a straw mat lay four sets of shoes.

Urban gulped. The whole family was here, but who was the fourth person?

As they drew closer, a portion of the wooden door automatically opened, allowing the girls to enter.

The tearoom only had one true wall, the one they had just entered through. The other three were all smart glass, which could be lifted at any time. Currently, they were all down, keeping in the room’s warmth but displaying the lush garden beyond their transparent walls.

The room was simple and had bamboo matting and one low dark wooden table at the center. Mother, Father, and Lucas sat on the floor around it with steaming cups, tea pots, and jars of tea before them.

On the other side of the table, a man sat with his back turned to Urban. Mother and Father sat rigidly, staring at him. Even Lucas’s eyes kept shifting to the man and then back down again.

“Ah, the hero returns.” The man turned to face the doorway.

Urban recognized the head of the board for the Games at once.

“Urban.” Mrs. Zhou’s voice was hollow. “Lennox has graciously paid us a visit.”