Zaharah awoke from the dead as she always did. With a start. The blue-back lights inside the chamber wavered, distorted by her post-humus stupor. Her smart skin hummed and tingled against her skin, the nodes warm. Dr Will had said something about the vibrations being a healing frequency first observed in purring cats or whatever.

The chamber lid hissed opened, allowing the bright white light to pierce her eyes and the cold air to bite her skin. Dr Will stood over her with a cup of steaming coffee. If all else failed in the Entochamber, she could always rely on him being at her side with coffee when it was through. He offered her his free hand and helped her sit up. "Any dizziness? Nausea?"

She shook her head. "Just a little groggy." The coffee cleared some of the fog from her head and fought back against the cold seeping into her skin. Even after a yeah and a half of these sessions, the after-effects still made her feel like garbage. But because her treatment had been experimental, she'd have these sessions for the foreseeable future.

Somewhere else. The thought made Zaharah's stomach turn over. Dr Cyan and Will had been with her from the beginning. They knew her, inside and out, in the literal sense. She couldn't imagine anyone else on the other side of the chamber. She didn't want anyone else.

"Is it done?" The Director asked. She sat cross-legged in front of the screens, scrolling through her cell.

The whir of the chamber disappeared as Dr Cyan shut it down. "Can I do my fucking job, please, Aleesha?" She pulled a stool up to Zaharah, blocking Director Sanders from sight. "All right Zaharah. Anything you want to talk about? Issues with your diet?" Her tone had done a one-eighty, from scathing and sharp to soft and almost motherly.

"Uh... no." Zaharah shook her head. "My diet's fine."

"What about the dizzy spells, the numbness?" She turned the screen of her tablet on and scrolled through.

"Yeah, it happened a few times this weekend." She hunched over and rubbed her eyes. "They weren't debilitating. Just annoying."

"Scans are normal as far as I can see." Dr Will said. "It could be stress related."

You don't know the half of it. Zaharah shrugged a shoulder. "Exams are coming up and I've been scrambling to finish my portfolio." And Cammi has been playing mind games with her. And Dwight had been lying to her. And she was confused and angry and tired.

Dr Cyan patted her knee. "All right. Go ahead and get dressed."

Zaharah grabbed Skorpi from the table and made her way across the cold tile to the bathroom. She felt the Director's eyes on her back, and her feet itched with the urge to run in. And slam the door shut. And lock it and bar it. And climb into the vent and escape to another part of Denden.

She settled for a less suspicious casual stroll, and eased the door close, but still locked it. The thin metal barrier couldn't protect her from the Director, but it gave her a moment's solace. She turned on the sink and ran warm water over her hands. The thought of going out there to face the Director made her heart stutter, but she couldn't stall. Her class started at eleven and who knew how long their little meeting would take.

Even now Zaharah could make out her muffled voice filtering through the door as she exchanged words with Dr Cyan and Will. Likely discussing her fate. The UEC was an island much like The 700, except stationary. It was a coalition of several European states formed after the rise as a refuge for those displaced by the sea. Now it was a bastion of research in medical, biological and cultural advancement.

Zaharah had researched the art institute there, considered applying, but the students who got in there made her look like a hobbyist. She didn't even bother. Even if the Director could work a miracle to get her in, she wasn't ready to relocate, to start over.

Acclimating to Denden had been easy. It was still in the Bahamas, and she was still amongst Bahamians. The only thing it had in common with the EUC was being in the Atlantic.

Zaharah planted her elbows on the counter and rubbed her face. "Who should I trust?" she asked Skorpi. "Who's telling me the truth?"

Skorpi pointed at himself, and she breathed a laugh.

"Always."

Someone rapped on the door, and she jumped.

"Zaharah? Is everything all right?" Dr Cyan asked through the door.

"Yeah. I'll be out in a moment." Zaharah rushed to get out of the smart skin and shrugged into her regular clothes.

When she stepped out into the suite, she found Dr Will in front of the screens, rotating the scans with his hands. He had a penchant for the more experimental side of medicine. Or maybe that was how he was programmed. Doctor Cyan was the opposite, very by the book, stuck to best practices.

"Any damage?" Zaharah asked Dr Will.

He shook his head. "You're doing just fine, Zaharah. It seems we've resolved most of your complications. The dizziness and numbness, I'll keep looking into. We—"

"Zaharah," the Director called from across the room. She stood near the door to the office with Dr Cyan. "With me please." She turned and disappeared into the office, without checking if Zaharah followed, because Zaharah wasn't that bold.

It was easy to say she didn't give a fuck in the heat of the moment, when the Director wasn't there. But right here, right now, her feet faltered and her throat dried up. The white tile of the suite seemed to stretch forever, her eternal walk of shame. Dr Cyan gave her an encouraging nod, undercut by the pity shining in her eyes.

The Director sat behind Dr Cyan's desk, coffee in one hand and phone in the other. "Please sit." She gestured to the two chairs in front of the desk without looking up.

Zaharah settled into one, her butt half off the chair, ready to run. Skorpi jumped from her shoulder onto the desk, and his legs clicked against the metal as he skittered around.

Dr Cyan kept her shit neat; Zaharah couldn't spot a speck of dust anywhere on the computer console, the paintings on the wall, the small shelves or the anatomically correct models they held.

"I'm sure these past few days have been quite stressful." Director Sanders said. "I apologise. I may have... underestimated the gravity of the situation."

She shrugged a shoulder and watched Skorpi climb into a giant mug of pens.

"Zaharah, why didn't you say something to me?"

Zaharah finally looked up at the Director. There was no anger in the woman's countenance, just quiet attentiveness. But it could be hiding under there, waiting to jump out and burn Zaharah to a pile of ash.

Zaharah braced the balls of her feet against the tile, as though running would help. As though she could gather the nerve to do it. "I don't know..."

"Have I done or said anything to make you believe you can't trust me. That I'm "not your friend" as Cam so eloquently put it?"

"Well, technically you aren't. You've been incredibly nice and accommodating to me and to Jade, but you're the person in charge of this place. I mean... you were just doing your job I guess." She squeezed her hands into fists, her metal arm groaning. "I'm not trying to be ungrateful. I..."

Director Sanders leaned back in her seat. "I'm just trying to see where your head is at, because I didn't believe you were the type to entertain nonsense."

"I just wanted answers. Dwight wouldn't give them to me, and..." Zaharah had to take a deep breath, square her shoulders and meet the Director's steady gaze before uttering the next words. "I don't believe you will either."

Director Saunders waved a hand. "Try me."

Zaharah's eyebrows shot up. That was it? All this time, butting heads with Dwight could've been avoided if she'd just asked the Director instead. She wanted to slap herself for being so stupid. "Who is Cammi? How does he know me, and you, and Dwight?"

"He's a colleague of your father's. They worked at the same cybernetics company together for a while. Dwight worked under his tutelage for a few years. And I..." She exhaled through her nose, lips curling as though recalling an unpleasant time. "I was forced to work with him once or twice."

Zaharah frowned, thinking back to what Cammi said about not letting Jade put bugs in her arm. "A colleague? Just a colleague?" She shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense. He knew something... Something he wouldn't have known unless he was close to my family."

"Are you sure? Your father used to gush about you and your sisters all the time. It could have come up in conversation."

Zaharah couldn't refute that. Numerous people who'd met her father told her he never shut up about them. "But... he was able to voice command Skorpi." She held up her metal hand. "And fix my arm."

"Which is why I'll need Dwight to check them both for malware."

"Director Sanders—"

She put a hand up. "I don't believe you're grasping how dangerous this situation is, Zaharah. He stole your information, and you're treating this like it's some kind of scavenger hunt."

"You think Cammi is dangerous?"

"Oh I know he is," she said, leaning forward in her seat. "Which is why I brought you here. Denden is no longer safe for you. You're leaving."

The words hit Zaharah like a truck, left her reeling from the impact. Leaving Denden? "But my classes... and Jade is still in school. I can't just... uproot her like that."

"I've already contacted the University and the Ministry of Education to make arrangements for both you and Jade to finish the semester remotely. From the UEC. You'll have the rest of today and most of tomorrow to pack. We leave tomorrow evening."

Tomorrow evening? Zaharah had expected a gentle uprooting, time to process what was happening, finish her classes at least. Not to be yanked out of the ground and chucked end over end into another field. The joints in her metal hand strained as she squeezed her fist tighter. A burning settled in her chest, and climbed up her throat, stung her eyes. "No. I'm not—"

Director Saunders slammed a hand on the desk, the sound ringing out in the room like a gunshot. "Zaharah. I'm going to need you to stop being childish about this. I don't know what Cam's endgame is, and I'm not risking your safety to find out. You can listen to reason or you can listen to force." She fished Skorpi from the mug and set him on the table. "Now go home. And pack."