We slowed down as we ran into an alley as wide as my outstretched arms. The coordinates had led us two blocks to the west and back a few streets, but we hadn’t been too far off before.


    “Is she here?” Boyband’s feet stomped as he came to a stop.


    “The coordinates say so, but she could still be a street over. Do you see any light?”


    “Only the same red dread.”


    I pushed aside empty trash cans and other remnants of a destroyed society. Black hid under black.


    “Zeg.”


    I turned back to see if Boyband had whispered the curse, but he just scowled at me.


    My attention shot back in front of us as a piece of blackened rubble broke as it hit the asphalt.


    We both looked up. Naoma’s violet eyeliner still glowed as she looked at me from the rooftop.


    She moved back from the corner and I climbed up the fire escape like an adrenaline-fueled ape.


    She had moved to the other side of the roof as I reached the top. Her eyes checked the ground below too many times for me to trust her.


    “We’re not going to hurt you.” Zeg, even that makes me cringe. “Please, Naoma. You helped us, I want to help–”


    “You zegging freaks! Get away from me!” She stepped atop the edge of the roof.


    She wouldn’t believe anything sappy, even though I actually wanted to reward her kindness. Forced kindness. It didn’t matter. She saved us.


    “Why would we hurt you if you’re our only way out of here?”


    She stepped down but still held close to the roof.


    “There we go. I’m going to step closer to you. If you try to move back, I will reach you before you can jump.”


    She moved back, defying all logic.


    Zeg me, girl. I kept quiet, praying that Boyband didn’t hear my next words. I needed to win her with something other than intimidation, so I tried something antithetical to my personality.


    “I’m a huge fan. I think I would die if you stopped making your music.”


    “Ew, I mean–”


    I wanted to jump off the edge myself. I was an awkward person by nature, but my conversations rarely went this poorly. There was a reason Ralia did most of the talking on assignments.


    “I’m sorry. Just–just please.” I checked back, but Boyband hadn’t reached the roof yet. “Help us out of here and we’ll leave you alone.”


    She brushed her ruffled hair behind her ears. Only a few of her fingernails still glowed.


    I stepped forward. “Remember the room with your boss and Bank? You told us not to forget.”


    “And you haven’t.”


    “Right! We’re here to follow through on… whatever that was.”


    She sat with her back against the short wall on the edge of the building.


    I took a step forward.


    “Stop and sit. I hear your friend coming up, too. Keep him down there and keep your distance. If you want to talk, we''ll talk, but it''s going to be under my demands.”


    I put my palms out to her in surrender, nodding as I sat.


    “Tell you friend to back down.”


    “He won''t hurt you either.”


    “Don''t care.”


    “Boyband, wait down there.”


    “Okay.” He grunted and mumbled as he climbed down.


    “What kind of a name is Boyband?”


    “Maybe I''ll tell you later.”


    She scowled. “If I get close to him, I don''t want him to make me do anything. I can feel when he uses that modded voice. I don''t care how it works, but you don''t need it anymore. Anton doesn’t control me anymore.”


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    “Thank you?”


    “What?”


    “You can thank us for breaking the control.”


    “Piss off.”


    I chuckled. Warmth filled my chest as she smiled. “So he was controlling you?”


    “What tipped you off?”


    “You were curt, condescending, ignorant of our suffering–”


    “All the attributes of a celebrated idol? Yeah, I hated it.”


    “But you reached out in humility after the kid spoke to you. You were… I don''t know if vulnerable is the right word.”


    “It is. If you were forced by a neurovirus to act with the diva attitude of ‘the Neon Idol,’ you would also reach out in vulnerability if someone had given you a glimpse of your true self again. Zeg, it''s like I was a spectator to some pompous slut. All I could do was watch her crude behavior as she acted on Anton''s every whim. If it means anything, I''m sorry I acted like a jerk of a shac.”


    “I know how it feels.”


    “Really? Is that your excuse for killing everyone down there? Yeah, let''s talk about that. I saw the kid do something and have reason to believe you would do the same. Why would that bowl-cut freak eat the Techvax reps? Sure, they were being dicks, not to mention the Finians, but why in the good light would he, you, eat your captors?”


    “You can''t make me hate myself more than I already do.”


    “Is that an excuse?”


    “No, just a statement. Your people use you for what, propaganda?”


    “Propaganda, advertising, it''s all the same today, isn''t it? They controlled me with a virus while my inner self watched it all. My songs, talent, all programmed. Dress me up nice and hide controlling messages on my chart topping music. I''m better than the best shacs or billboards out there. Sorry to ruin your love for me, ‘number one fan,’ but I''m just Reef’s product and property of their countless clients.”


    “I knew you were fake already.”


    “I can see that smirk. You''re still disappointed. Still, don''t think that your admiration hides what happened back there.”


    “Rather than being programmed for propaganda like you were, we were forced to complete assignments for another medical company. Seems that everyone is in the race for power these days.”


    “Political small talk is almost as bad as talking about the weather.”


    I chuckled. “So you want a meaningful conversation?”


    Her smile dropped. “I want to know why you eat people. I don''t care if you''re paid or programmed assassins.”


    “Give me a moment while I repeat myself, but everyone is in the race for power. What is power in a world where tech implants turn your bones to dust? Medicine. Treatment. We work for someone who created a “cure” that he forced into us. It''s an implant that heals the bones, but requires continual nourishment of pure, human-derived calcium. Why not gallons of milk or supplements? I don''t know.”


    “So you eat the bones?”


    “Teeth.”


    “You''re like zegging vampires.”


    “If we needed iron instead of calcium, I suppose we would be.”


    She looked away, lips quivering with nausea.


    “I told you, I hate it. Whatever your owner did to you was worse because it was his choice.”


    “That doesn''t mean I liked him.”


    “But you worked with him.”


    “I had no choice.”


    “Now you do.”


    “You want me to help you?”


    “We''ll get out the Red. Help us out of our ownership and we''ll help you out of yours. We both have a start. We''re off the grid and we killed your owner.”


    “But that''s just one piece of the Conglomerate.”


    “Like I said, a start.”


    “I have no reason to trust you.”


    “We broke you out of your trance the first time. Coming from similar circumstances–”


    “I don''t think they''re that similar.”


    “Coming from similar circumstances, we both know what it would mean to have freedom.”


    “Who says I don''t want to return to the Violet heights? I had everything I could ever want.”


    “Under a simple proprietorship, right? Don''t you want to be a real girl?”


    “Zeg off.” She swatted her hand and chuckled. She looked at their dimming nails and sighed. “I''ll follow you out of here. We''ll see what happens next.”


    She started to stand.


    I did so as well. “So you trust me?”


    She stepped back. “Are you saying I shouldn’t? I don’t even know your name.”


    “It''s Petya, but no. By all means I want to give everything so that you will trust me, but–”


    “Tone down the obsession.”


    “Sorry, I don’t mean that. I just–we just need your help if we are going to change anything.”


    “Change? An ‘ask later’ kind of thing, right?”


    “Exactly.”


    “I am never quick to trust and would not say that I ‘trust’ you, but you are my most likely way out of here. A few glowbones on the way here almost took me out.”


    “I could have warned you about them.”


    “But you didn’t. You weren''t here, were you? You were too busy killing the rest of Techvax and the Finians.”


    I stared at her and shrugged. “I already told you why we did everything.”


    She sighed and started towards me. “Just keep the kid in check.”


    His appetite control isn’t well developed. I held that back. “I’m his superior. He’ll do what I say.”


    “Take out the Neon Idol and you’ll have the whole world after you.”


    She stopped a foot in front of me. Even with messy hair and clothes torn by the sharp boney fingers of the glowbones, she represented beauty perfected. Even with the purple glow paint that had gone dull and worn off of her lips, they were real. If she had any beauty augmentations done to her skin, I couldn’t see them. Raw, natural beauty, with only fashionable additions such as her violet eyes that bit me with the temptation of Eden’s viper.


    “What if I take her away from the world and give her her own life?”


    “We’ll see what our future holds.”


    I smiled. It felt like the first hopeful one I had shown in months. Even years.