Some Assembly Required by Cory McCarthy

Author:Cory McCarthy [McCarthy, Cory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

Step Two: Assemble

Leo

8

Leo + Bixonics

Leo was free.

Well, Leo was prowling through the air vents of ToP but after being held in space for so long, this did feel like freedom. They pulled themself through a tight turn, flashlight in their teeth. Silence was important; that and having Otis on their side, which was step one. They were on step two: find a new chair.

By Leo’s significant mental calculations, they should be right over box 242 . . .

Leo turned another corner. They paused over the place where the slits let air and heat pass from chute to room. This was Grayson’s old box. Leo used to hang out in here all the time. That wasn’t exactly true; the two of them always hung out in Leo’s room, which was generally cleaner and not full of Bixonics bribery gifts from Gray’s dad.

Those presents were always such a slap.

All Gray ever wanted was to hang with his dad in person, but his dad hadn’t been around for more than a flash visit in years. Leo paused. Their aug spun, folding together old information and new data. If both of Gray’s parents had gotten Bixonium poisoning—his mom simply from being around his dad—of course they wouldn’t have let young Gray be around them.

Otherwise he would have been poisoned too.

So, they were trying to protect him.

Leo tried not to get distracted, one of the real problems with the Sherlock aug. They decided to focus on scaring the hair off Siff’s scalp instead. With a few twists of their universal tool, the vent swung open. They dropped down, hanging from their arms and then—oof. They landed in a puff of pillows on the foot of his bed.

Siff yelped, stood up, and spun around. His blond hair was tall and his eyes were covered by a sleep mask. “Who’s there?”

“Siff, it’s me,” Leo growled.

Siff lifted off his eye mask. He had three night-lights in his room, each one a different brilliant color. It felt like sleeping next to holiday lights. “Leo? What are you doing?” He sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes huge. “There are a lot of people looking for you. They searched our box yesterday.”

“The security detail has moved on to searching the surrounding buildings forty-two minutes ago. I’ve been listening to their feed.” They grinned. It really was fun to be able to see ahead of other people, though they had to try not to get impatient with others like Felix did.

Someone knocked on the door. Leo pulled the blanket over them and muttered, “It’s your boxmate. You woke them up. Say you had a loud dream.”

Siff answered the door and spoke to whichever boxmate had come to check on him. He sold his line beautifully, and then returned to his bed. This was why Leo had come to Siff. The boy was a born liar, though not a bad person, even if that kind of duality was tough for people like wholesome Ace to figure out.

Siff shut the door and lowered his voice to a whisper.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.