“Kalei, you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet,” Oka said. Kalei was still staring at the path Nikki took when she left.

  “Yeah…” Kalei said. “Cool…”

  Oka and I looked at each other. Kalei had still been on and off weird ever sihe club day, and I was starting to piece together why. I was also starting to piece together that Kalei was not as far along pieg together why she’d been really weird.

  “I think I just figured something out,” Amara said.

  Kalei whipped her head around. “What? It’s nothing. What are you talking about? I don’t…you’re all staring.”

  “What did you find, Amara?” I asked.

  “I did want to defend this spot," Amara said, fidgeting with one of her hair ties. "But I’m sure like you three natural curiosity takes over in a situation like this. And Aira and Laenie never said we couldn’t figure out what this mystery they want us to guard is, right?”

  “So your realization is more of a personal decision to try and figure it out than a clue.” Oka said.

  “Oh, I found this cord too.” Amara said, pulling a cable out of the sand. My gut instinct said it was some kind of bomb fuse and we were all about to explode, but nothing happened when Amara pulled on it.

  “Kalei, your theory that it’s a secret hidden video game sole prototype may be right.” I said.

  “That was like fifth or sixth on my list!” Kalei said. “And Zates, you get bonus points for saying ‘sole prototype’ and not ‘video game thing.’”

  “I’ve learned a thing or two from you,” I said.

  Amara was still straining to pull on the cable, which weirdly wasn’t breaking from how hard she ulling.

  “Maybe we should take a look at this cord instead of pulling it that way,” Oka said. “How far does it go?”

  Amara grunted, and finally stopped pulling. “I suppose we could try that.” She started cheg the cable, pulling more of it out of the sand away from the first spot it was ected to. She hit another spot where the cord stopped.

  “This doesn’t feel as anchored as the other side,” Amara said, and started pulling with all her might again. We all joined in to help her, with Kalei pulling on the cord with Amara as Oka and I worked at the sand. Finally, something popped out of the sand. The cord was attached to a small metal device.

  “It’s a little geor.” Amara said. “Almost as cute as Rain! But definitely not as cute as Rain.”

  “So…” Oka said. “Aira and Laenie found some kind of meism. And they wao guard it, so they buried it?”

  “Or they found it buried,” Amara said. “That also wasn’t clear from what they told me.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem like it’s on if it’s electric.”

  “Yeah, it’d be humming or something then, right?” Kalei asked.

  Suddenly I had an idea as I looked at the e point on the smaller geor device thing.

  “If I know anything about teology,” I said. “The solution here is to unplug it and plug it ba!”

  I reached for the plug, and mid-motion had the sudden panic thought of being instantly electrocuted and killed. But It just felt like the plug for the big desktop puter Stel got for work and gave me i time on a few years before smartphones were affordable. Oime I clicked a popup I shouldn’t have and Stel got hht as some really unfortunate images appeared on s, so it was unplug city time. Luckily I didn’t have Stel breathing down my neck as a bnk s slowly loaded, mercifully not on what it froze on. When I plugged it in, something made a dinging sound that sounded almost like our wristbands.

  The ground shook, and I went full like fetal position immediately on the sand, expeg to get instantly exploded and killed. Finally, the shaking stopped. A few seds after, I worked up the o lift my head. The others luckily didn’t notice my c, they were too busy looking at the big silver not quite sphere thing that had risen from beh the sand, ected to the cord. A big ‘09’ rojected in front of it.

  The front of it began to open before any of us could say anything. I expected the pod to open and an alien to step out and instantly ser bst and kill us. I couldn’t decide if it was better to go bato fetal position or not as something stepped out of the pod.

  The figure before us that stepped out of the weird silver mae that rose out of the sand…looked like a girl. But not even a normal girl by i standards; she had por white skin, pierg red eyes, and cotton dy blue hair. There was a faded blue pattern on her face; it almost looked like a butterfly. She looked at all of us, and as she spoke, I expected full on ser death bsts, but instead I only heard a soft voice.

  “Is there something on my face?”

  I couldn’t process any of this. None of us could, as we stood sckjawed and fused.

  “I’m kidding, that’s just my protective coating imprint!” The girl said. “Nothing? Tough crowd.”

  “I think if she was going to kill us, she would have by now,” Oka said, in what I assumed was an attempt to ease my obvious terror. “Probably.”

  The girl ughed. “OK, phew, so you guys do know jokes. Aira and Laenie are pretty funny too. I take it you all go to Rising Shards?”

  “I uh,” Kalei said.

  “Y-ye…” Oka said.

  Amara suddenly took a battle pose, stepping in front of all of us.

  “As an amateur security hobbyist perso Rising Shards,” Amara said. “I must know why you’ve decided to trespass on private property!”

  The girl looked a bit surprised by Amara’s suddeion, and again my mio “she will instantly ser electrocute explode us” mode. She held her hands out, and I started mentally praying and generally babbling thoughts as all our wristbands lit up.

  “Alright, that tells me what I o know,” She said. “I guess I should introduce myself! I’m what’s known in the biz as a clybrid android.”

  “Something this cool is at our school?” Kalei asked.

  “I’m not a something, I’m a someohe girl said. “And ially, I’m a i like all of you, and will be attending Rising Shards with you provided the rest of the day goes as pnned.”

  Amara slowly lowered her arms. “Once I see proper dotation of that, I—I suppose I let you go.”

  “Clybrid?” I asked.

  “It’s short for i e Hybrid,” the girl said. “But the hybrid part is also hybrid with the android part.”

  “Oh…that kinda makes sense,” I said.

  “Then…androids,” Oka said, strumming her . “I have heard of cybs from Tower of Hate and Love, aa and Kalei talk about that robot show sometimes where the guy falls in love with the robot, are you like that? Like part robot?”

  “No, I’m entirely anic,” the girl said. “Synthesized anics, but outside of my skin being really white and the blue stuff on my face, I’m 99.999999% like you guys.”

  “My head kinda hurts,” Kalei said.