Page 21 of Song of the Abyss

Then Bitsy added, “He’s an ass.”

It took every bit of her willpower not to laugh at that.

The General turned around and frowned at her expression. “And stop dressing like that. You look awful.”

The door closed, and she stuck her tongue out at the flat panel. For good measure, she also flipped it off. At least her back was to the cameras and no one would see her small act of rebellion against the man who kept her under lock and key.

Spinning, she rushed toward her bathroom and ripped the beaded curtain open.

No undine.

Not even the faintest stirring of water that would suggest he was still here. But she walked up to the edge all the same, peering into the water where the pipe came into her pool. She still had the hope that maybe, just maybe, he’d waited for her.

He hadn’t.

“Damn it,” she muttered. “That might have been my last chance.”

“Safer here,” Bitsy flashed, the words then outlined with a growing heart that popped at the edges of the screen. “We stay safe!”

“I don’t want to stay safe here. That safety is a lie. There is only a cage that I need to get out of.”

Maybe there were other options, though. Now that it was in her head, it was all she could think of.

She didn’t want to stay under her father’s thumb for the rest of her life. She didn’t want to help Alpha be this paragon of a city where only the rich lived. And she sure as hell didn’t want to be the figurehead for all the people to look at and say, “Wow, I want to be just like her.” Not when she wore the chains of an entire city around her neck.

“Bitsy, try to connect with Ace.”

Bitsy repeated Ace’s name in bright yellow.

“Yes, contact Ace. And do you still have that translation chip he gave you?”

Sitting down at her desk, she took the little droid off her head and let Bitsy splay out on the table. Obviously, the droid knew what Anya wanted to do. Bitsy stretched out her spindly legs and got comfortable while presenting the underside of her unit.

The lens she laid flat out on the desk so that Anya could still see it, even while fiddling around.

Her message was almost immediately received. “Queen of Hearts?”

“Hey Ace,” she said, pulling out all of her tools. “Any chance you know how to add a translation chip to a droid model Terra Lingua 4275?”

There was a long pause before more words appeared. “No, but I can find out. How soon do you need the information?”

“As soon as possible. I’ve got the droid open right now.”

“Let me get somewhere private and then I’ll figure it out. Why do you need this information?”

Anya had always trusted Ace. Since the first message had shown up on her lens and Ace had told her they weren’t a threat. The message had been sent in the hope that Anya might help them, and the rest was history.

They’d talked hundreds of times since. She knew that Ace was in another city, and that Ace had spent most of their life trying to figure out how to take Alpha down. Together, they had come up with a plan that was foolproof. Get someone into the city. Hack the systems. Spread all the terrible information about her father that they could.

Once that was finished, they could throw up their own candidate to replace the General. Someone who wasn’t the head of the military. Someone who wouldn’t take every problem and answer it with violence or death. That was the only way to heal what had been broken. They were both sure of it.

But she wasn’t sure what Ace would say if Anya said she was trying to speak with an undine. “Might be nice if we had a code. I found a new translation chip, not sure what language it is. But if I install it, no one will know what we’re saying to each other..”

“Smart.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, popping Bitsy’s bottom off and exposing all the delicate wiring inside there.

She wondered what was going through Ace’s mind. Did the other side of their operation believe her? Then the guilt set it, sinking into her gut like a fist wrapped around her intestines. They had a lot of plans and it might be harder for her to help make sure those plans happened if she wasn’t here.

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