The Fox Inheritance by Mary E. Pearson Page A

Tunnel. And if--"
    "Dot, okay, I get it. You don't need to tell me more. It's going to be tough, but--" I shift in my seat. How can I begin to explain something I don't really understand myself? And should I be explaining to a Bot at all? This whole world is crazy--I never asked for it. Neither did Kara. I thought we had escaped one hell, but maybe we were only transported to a new one. For 260 years, we've had only each other. Maybe we didn't touch or hold each other, but we had our thoughts. Kara's voice held me when there were no arms to do that. A voice, even a tormented one, is something, when it's the only thing you have outside of yourself. Kara kept me sane. I have to get to her before she makes a mistake like mine, one that can't be undone.
    Dot is still looking at me. She patiently waits for me to finish, like I haven't lapsed at all but have only inhaled an extra breath. "I trust you, Dot. But please hurry as much as you can. It's important."
    Her smile returns. "I know, Customer Locke. I know."

Chapter 28

    One thing that hasn't changed in all these years is spring. The landscape around us is just beginning to burst into lime greens and feathery blossoms. I find it strangely comforting that some things stick to the same rules century after century, eon after eon. I guess the universe got a few things right the first time around. Shoes, on the other hand--along with roads, houses, laws, countries, and people--always seem to need improving.
    I think about what I told Dot. Trust. It's ironic that I trust someone, some thing that isn't even human. I am trusting a machine. I think that's what she is. And yet she has hopes . That's what she said. How can a machine hope for something? My success is her success. I am the last person in the world anyone should pin hopes on. Or maybe she is pinning her hopes on a machine too.
    I try not to allow myself these thoughts. From the moment I woke up with a body, I've avoided even thinking about it. I had freedom, at last, when I had lost hope. I had arms to hold Kara. Real arms. I didn't care if they were made out of pigs' ears and putty. They were a gift. But now I have to wonder what kind of gift. I look at my hands in my lap, my left hand bandaged where I slashed through the iScroll. I unwrap the gauze and look at the jagged lines with bits of dried blood still clinging to them. I close my hand into a fist and open it again. My dad always used to say never look a gift horse in the mouth when something good and unexpected like free tickets to a Red Sox game came our way. Don't look to see which section they're in, Locke. A gift is a gift . I wrap the gauze back around my hand. I always trusted what my dad said, but some gifts aren't really free.
    "We're almost at the transgrid," Dot announces. "Then we can really fly."
    I notice that Miesha briefly closes her eyes and shakes her head.
    "You don't have to go, Miesha," I say. "We can drop you off somewhere. Maybe that would be better for all of us."
    She looks up at me in the mirror, and a brief second expands like I'm watching her move in slow motion. I am seeing things in a way I didn't see before. It's as though, without the coddling of the estate, my 500 billion biochips are finally waking up and doing what Gatsbro wanted them to do all along, something exceptional. A microsecond becomes a blink, a wrinkle around the eyes, a tightening of the lips. I see the hurt on her face. And then, just as quickly, she covers it with a scowl.
    "And where would I go? I have no life to go back to now."
    "You must have family. A home. Something." I am instantly ashamed that I've never asked Miesha about her life outside of my closed, privileged world on the estate.
    The hurt flashes briefly in her eyes again, but again, she quickly recovers. She has practice at this. "No, Einstein. Why else would I work for Gatsbro taking care of two--"
    I raise my hand to stop her and wince, still feeling the pain in my ribs. "I know. I know. Two spoiled