We both froze. I looked up into his eyes. His breath was like rust. He hesitated for a moment and I twisted away from him, swiping my screen and turning it to speaker, feeding it back into the frequencies Cam had tuned for me.

"Hello?" I said.

The voice on the other side was not the voice I remembered from interviews, from Ads, or even from our Auctioning speech. It was a human voice, one that dipped and shook with fury, that rang out across Unilox and echoed in the sudden silence of the Promenade. "What do you want?"

"I want you to sign their licenses over to me, and I want a meeting," I said immediately. "Face to face."

There was an incredulous pause. "What?" the First Shareholder demanded.

I hardened my voice. "It's pretty simple. Yes, and I come. No, and I show the citizens of Unilox exactly what this body can do. It's your choice."

Another pause. I felt each second like a cut, like wire twisting around and around my neck. I struggled to breathe. Mr. Sharp's eyes glinted in the sun. He raised a hand. I saw the needle nestled in his palm and I almost lost it right there and then, almost split and lost everything.

And then John Whittaker Charles Anron's voice rolled through the city. "Fine," it snarled. "Yes." And the line went dead.

I had no time to celebrate my victory. Mr. Sharp's hand clamped around my arm again. "Get in the car," he said shortly. The words tasted bitten off, chewed. "We'll take you there."

I didn't want to get in the car. I could imagine just how easily a needle could be slipped in, how quickly I'd be destroyed. I gritted my teeth and pulled away with half my strength. He stumbled, almost fell, and let go. I took a moment to enjoy the shock on his face. "Thanks," I said politely. "But I'll walk." And before anyone even thought about stopping me, I had started the short stroll to ANRON Tower.

The last walk of my life was like a circus. The suits pulled up around me in formation, but not too close, because they also wanted to watch the crowd following us. The people in the Promenade had turned out in force, eagerly watching this new drama unfolding before them, uploading images and text so furiously to their profiles that I was sure the connection speeds across Unilox took a temporary dive. Only Mr. Sharp stayed at my shoulder, my shadow. He felt like repressed words now, a quivering gun in its holster. But his presence alone made the rats inside eat away at my stomach and start on my liver. I tried to focus on other things. The way the air tasted. The buzzing of my implants. The rush of being alive, of hearing my own breath expand my lungs and knowing that my blood was still steadily pumping through my veins. And when the shadow of ANRON Tower brushed against me like a living person, when it blocked out the sun and made me cold, I was no longer afraid.

We entered the foyer. I walked past the great columns and still water pooling inside marble basins. I walked past the wall-length paintings and the shadows of statutes reaching out for the sky. Mr. Sharp tried to shepherd me toward the client lifts. I'd never been inside them before. When they opened up they were rich and red, like the smooth inside of a blood vessel. I walked straight past their open mouths to the stairs, enjoying this one last act of mini-rebellion. I had never, in all of my eighteen years, seen anybody use these stairs. They were ornamental, beautiful, built like two strands of DNA twisting around each other. I gripped the rail and used the cold to center myself. Behind me, I heard Mr. Sharp's indrawn breath. I waited for him to say something, to object. But he didn't. He just hesitated, and then his footsteps dogged mine again, following at my heels like death, and the rest of the suits scrambled to follow.

We went around in circles, in silence. Up and up. I watched every floor slip past me in a burst of glass and color. I wondered if anyone else had ever experienced ANRON this way before, as a biological being, circling around its ankles, up through its guts, climbing to its cranium. After the wonder of the foyer there were huge machines that I only glimpsed the outlines of, gleaming in the lowlight. The laboratories came next, lined with rows and rows of greyed-out windows and security scanners. I wondered what I would see if I could look through them. Whether I would see bodies, parts of bodies, blank eyes, roving hands with scalpels. Mr. Sharp's breathing grew harsher. We were at the thirtieth floor now. I felt each spring and contraction of my muscles, the pulling of my lungs as they drew in air, my body working like a machine. My fingers fluttered on my own arms and for a moment, I hugged myself. I would miss this body, which I had never appreciated. I would miss everything.

But it would be worth it if I could get my parents and Jake out alive. Alive and free. Forever.

The rats settled in my stomach as we went higher and higher. I didn't look down. There was no point. Everything was so far below, so untouchable. We climbed even higher. We hit the levels of the Experimentals, the ones I would have joined in another lifetime, with different luck. I glimpsed the huge hall my mother and father had told me about, the ones where everyone lined up and got sorted into groups. Control, Experimental. I wondered if they'd drawn my lottery ticket there.

Up, and up, and up. Next came the office and administration floors. I saw the backs of empty chairs and flickering screens. I wondered how many collective thousands of years had been spent inside those walls. Then higher still. The suits gasped behind me, holding on to the sides of the helix like they were going to fall or vomit over the edge. I felt like I'd gone for a light jog, warmed up and ready.

And then the stairs stopped, and a single, unadorned door led to the final level. Level 55. Where John Whittaker Charles Anron was waiting.

I didn't wait for anyone. I opened it and stepped through, straight into a narrow, unused corridor. I followed it until it opened out into a beautiful reception room. Statues littered the ground. Artwork floated. The walls were all floor-length glass, looking out into the distance.

"This way," Mr. Sharp said behind me, but his voice no longer sounded like a gun.

I opened my mouth to reply, but all that came out was: "Oh."

Oh.

My feet moved. They took me to the floor-length windows. I touched my nose to the cold glass and looked down. Unilox lay quivering below me, so far away. So small. I looked up and the sky was no closer, but I felt its space in a way I never had before. And then I looked straight ahead, and for the first time in my life, I saw past the Wall.

My eyes adjusted, zoomed, panned. The desert rolled away, up to the horizon, up to the afternoon sun. The world stretched on forever around its curve. Perhaps it was filled with dead, silent cities. Perhaps it wasn't. But I felt its space nevertheless. I felt it step into me and open up a sense of wildness, and when I turned away from that window, Mr. Sharp took a step back. Tears blurred in my eyes. I wiped them away and walked into the office blindly.

And he was there.

John Whittaker Charles Anron. Sitting behind a desk so rich it looked like it was bleeding. With enough priceless pieces adorning his walls that it looked like a museum. In a suit so sharp it almost shone in the sunlight pouring in from the floor-length windows. I wondered what it would be like to live in this office. To look down on the city every day. I wondered if that made it easier to call people numbers, to bundle them up into sheets of paper and text. Our eyes met from across the length of his office and we stared at each other, the First Shareholder and I.

I cleared my throat. I mustered up as much swagger as I could. It wasn't much, this high up. I felt light-headed. "My name is Madeline," I said. "And I would like you to sign my parents and Jake over to me now. Please."

John Whittaker Charles Anron sucked in a disbelieving breath and swung burning eyes over my shoulder. "Why is this here?" he asked Mr. Sharp, waving his hand at me. "Did nobody think to just sedate it on the way?"

There was an uncomfortable rustle behind me. "Sir," Mr. Sharp said respectfully, "we all heard you agree to her deal, so we thought . . ."

"No, you didn't," the First Shareholder spat. "You didn't think at all, otherwise you wouldn't be here, wasting my time."

Wasting his time? Anger lodged like a bullet in my gut. "You son of a bitch," I said quietly. "I'm right here."

That made him look at me again, once, cursorily, like I was an unexplainably glitching program he couldn't be bothered to deal with right now. He turned back to the suits. "Well?" he demanded. "What are you waiting for?"

Before they could move, I walked over to the largest, most expensive thing I could see. A vase of some sort. Tall enough that it came up to my waist, with an elegant, graceful neck. Patterned white and blue, like the sky outside. And I pushed it over.

The smash was immediately, immensely satisfying. The vase trembled for a moment—like a body—and then it shattered into a million pieces over the hard marble ground. The First Shareholder cried out and leapt up from his chair.

"Oh good," I said sarcastically, "I seem to have gotten your attention."

He sputtered for a moment, and then the gears kicked back in. "What are you . . . are you insane? Do you have any idea how much that thing is worth?"

I closed the distance between us in three quick strides. Before the suits could even move, I hauled him up and over the desk by his shirt. It was like lifting the husk of a doll. He kicked against me; I barely felt it. My blood was roaring in my ears. I tasted the sudden fear rolling off him with savage joy. Good. I had been afraid, but now I was in a place beyond fear.

"Do you?" I demanded, shaking him. "Do you have any idea how much this is worth?" I dropped him in disgust. He landed awkwardly. We were close enough now that I could smell him, the bitter scent of fear. "Now," I growled, "sign my parents and Jake over to me. I want to see them walking out of this building alive, with a contractually binding promise sent across the city that in exchange for me giving myself up, none of them will ever be harmed by Unilox or its subsidiaries again."

He stared at me, stunned. I smiled back at him, a hard smile. But it dropped off my face when his settled into stone. "No."

My heart jumped. "Are you breaking the deal?" I asked him slowly.

He looked at me with distant pity, the way the sun might look on a comet, careening crazily through space and burning itself to pieces. "There was never a deal, you stupid girl."

I grinned.

He wasn't expecting that.

I held up my UConn. "Would you like to say that again, Mr. Anron? For all of Unilox to hear, one more time, how the First Shareholder doesn't keep his promises?"

The air curdled. He glanced sharply at his display. I didn't need to check my own to see that the Leviathan was still going strong, beaming out to everyone on the emergency feed. Several expressions flickered across his face, finally settling on something close to hate. It was the most expressive I'd seen him get, and I was fiercely glad.

"What exactly do you think this will achieve?" he demanded, his voice low and ugly. "Who cares if they can hear us? No one's storming in to demand your freedom. None of them care. They didn't care when we grew. They didn't care when we changed the laws. They won't care now."

I shrugged. "They don't have to," I said. "That's not the point. The point is, at the end of the day, they're people. And people make up this company, Mr. Anron. On its own, the company's just a piece of paper. People built these walls. People hunted me through Unilox. People watched that video. And maybe one day, people will change their minds and realize that they should care. That they do. That if you break your word to me, maybe you'll break your word to them. There must be other Experimentals you're eyeing, Mr. Anron. Other licenses. Other people. And when you come for them, maybe they won't be so content to let you take them either."

He stared at me like I was a ghost. I didn't blink. His tongue worked, licking dry lips, and then he dragged his finger across his UConn. "Collins," he said. "Please transfer the following licenses to the ownership of XKC2501: 8993X, 7213T, and 10931."

There was a pause as the person at the end of the line spoke into his implants. And then the First Shareholder looked back up at me. "Done," he said.

I shook my head. "The contract. And I want to see them walking out of here."

He looked like he was about to argue, but then he stopped. "Fine," he said, and then he smiled pointedly at me. "That will give the Medicals enough time to get up here."

I gave him a carefully blank look and walked over to one of the windows. The suits parted around me. I watched the city, fifty-five stories below. I thought idly about taking a running leap, crashing through the glass, falling. I didn't. But a few moments later, far below, I saw two figures pushing a struggling third one out. My eyes focused in on him. Flying hair, rimmed glasses askew, angry tears. He had his head turned back toward the building, and I saw my name in the shape of his mouth. For a moment, I thought his eyes focused impossibly on mine, but in the next breath he was shoved away and sent stumbling off into the Promenade.

I touched the glass carefully, as if it might break. My breath misted. I felt hollow, but also replete. I waited.

And then two more figures staggered haltingly into the afternoon light. They clutched each other's hands like newborns. They stopped, glancing back at the building. They were small, so small. I looked down at them, my parents. The ones who had sold me so long ago, before I even existed. I could see the defeat in them even from here, the slumped shoulders, the dragging steps. A sea of emotion rose in me. Betrayal. Anger. Guilt. Love. The waves battled in me for dominance and in the end none of them won. I watched my father and mother walking away until I couldn't anymore. I turned back to the room. The Medicals had arrived in their smocks. I wiped my face.

"All right," I said thickly. "All right." I stood up straighter. I spoke into my UConn, so the words would transmit into the ether and exist forever. "I hereby grant the following licenses in perpetuity to their rightful owners: 8993X, 7213T, and 10931. Their contracts are dissolved and their collars are to be removed." The words tasted light, real, beautiful. A weight lifted from me and the sudden rush of joy almost knocked me off my feet. I smiled. My eyes blurred again behind my tears. "They're free."

The office rang with the word, vibrated. The ripple of shock knocked everyone back on their feet; I felt like the only one left standing. John Whittaker Charles Anron stared at me, horrified. "You . . . you can't do that," he breathed.

I grinned back at him, euphoric. "But I just did."

He looked as if I'd just murdered someone in front of him. He stumbled up from his chair. "You can't do that!" he repeated. He looked wild now, afraid. "You . . . do you understand what you've done? What you've done to Unilox?"

I smiled. I thought of the room in the Library, of the illusions twisting back and forth across those walls. I had an idea of what would happen. I just wished I could have been around to see it.

"I don't notice a collar around your throat," I said mildly. "And you seem to be doing very well. In fact, that reminds me. Just one last thing."

John Whittaker Charles Anron's face mottled. He drew himself up. "I've had about enough of your crazy demands and attempts to destroy Unilox, I think," he snapped. "It's time we ended this farce."

I opened my mouth to snap back, but something in his face stopped me. I exhaled. I straightened. I looked him in the eye, forcing him to look back into mine. "Fine," I said. "Then I'll ask you, please. Take off my collar."

Something flickered across his mottled face. Surprise? Disgust? I didn't know. He looked at the ragged red thing around my neck, the coil that felt so heavy on my skin. Then he raised his eyes to meet mine, and we looked at each other from across that space between us, that gulf. He was the first to look away. He looked sallow in the light streaming in from high above the city. Nobody could hide in that light. I had a feeling it would one day burn everything away.

Something pulsed in his temple. A nerve. A vein. Something human.

"No," he said.

My heart clutched. "Please," I said, sharper now. "I just . . ." I don't want to die with this on. "Please."

There was a deliberate step behind me. My body knew before I did. I froze, fear replacing the blood in my veins, my heart hammering out terror. The feeling of death ghosted past my skin.

And then there was a click, and the twisted remnants of my collar fell to the marble floor.

I was free.

I felt light. Insubstantial. I turned around in shock. Professor Cellowen's killer looked back at me coldly, inscrutably. I swallowed.

"Thank you," I said.

Mr. Sharp said nothing. Just inclined his head, so slightly that I could barely call it a nod. But it was there. It was the last human contact I had. And then he turned away, and the smocks came in around me.

My body trembled, wanting to fight. To run. To leap through that window and soar above Unilox. But I didn't. I thought of Jake and my parents walking out, free, and I stayed.

It was the hardest thing I'd ever done.

"Sedate her," the First Shareholder ordered, and then he looked at me and smiled. A hard, cold, vicious smile. I blew him a kiss and watched his face go an interesting shade of red, and then I stepped into their arms before they could grab me. The material they wore felt funny on my skin, and next to their plastic gowns I felt suddenly exposed in my defiant clothes.

But it was my funeral, damn it, and I was going to play it by my rules.

"This is my choice," I said aloud. I couldn't see the First Shareholder anymore; the smocks were pressing in close around me. I spread my arms as their gloved hands fell on me and squeezed, propping me like a puppet until I was in the right position for them. I was in danger of being smothered by the medical gown of whoever was in front of me, so I looked up at the closing space above me, at the smooth grey ceiling of the highest floor of ANRON Life Limited. "Sedate me," I said to the ceiling, and I imagined soaring through it and looking down at the city below, ablaze with lights, and then flying further into the lonely world and exiting into the illusion of the starless sky that Jake and I had once watched. Dissolving.

They were grabbing my arm. I was letting them. They were turning it toward the ceiling and pulling out a needle. I felt cold metal slide through my skin and winced. I was glad I was looking away. Even after everything I'd done, I didn't like thinking about the human body and all the violence that could be done to it, from a simple pinprick to a murder.

The plunger pressed down. I felt the cold shoot through my arm, diffusing into my blood. I felt sick almost immediately. Woozy, like my blood was reforming and coagulating around my body. The dull fuzz of a headache hit me, and then my throat went dry. I tried to say something, maybe ask for water, but it was as if an immense hand had gripped me, weighing down my muscles and laying me down. The circle of smocks closed, and I couldn't breathe.

Finally, almost tenderly, someone closed my eyes.

THE END