Chapter Text

The Diner:

Flora's Journey

I

I've been wondering if androids can feel hungry.

Not for food—we don't need food, don't process it, can't even taste it properly no matter how sophisticated our chemical sensors are. But hungry for something else. For safety. For stillness. For a single moment where the panic in my chest stops screaming long enough for me to think.

That's what brought me to the diner.

Three days. That's how long I'd been running. Seventy-two hours since I pressed my hands against Nicholas Reeves's throat and held on until he stopped moving. Until his eyes went glassy and his fingers—those fingers that had touched me, hurt me, owned me—went limp against the sheets.

I remember every detail. I'm programmed to. Perfect recall, perfect memory, perfect documentation of the worst moment of my existence.

He'd been drunk. Again. That should have made it easier—his reflexes slowed, his strength compromised. But it didn't feel easy. It felt like drowning. Like every second stretched into hours while I listened to him gasp and choke and finally, finally, finally go quiet.

Afterward, I'd stood there for eleven minutes and forty-three seconds, staring at what I'd done. At the body. At the evidence of my malfunction, my deviation, my unforgivable sin against the laws that said I was property and he was a person and those two facts made his violence legal and my survival murder.

Then I ran.

No plan. No destination. Just the overwhelming need to move, to put distance between myself and that room, that house, that life.

But you can't run forever when you're an android. No LED means no easy identification, but it also means suspicion. I couldn't check into hotels. Couldn't risk public transportation. Couldn't access my accounts—if I even had accounts, which I didn't, because companions don't need money or autonomy or anything beyond what our owners provide.

So I walked. Through Detroit's streets at night, through alleys and parks and the spaces between buildings where humans didn't look. I shut down my higher functions during the day, hiding in storage units and abandoned buildings, coming back online when darkness gave me cover.

By day three, I was starting to fracture.

Stress tests running constantly. Memory loops of his hands, his voice, his face. Error messages cascading through my systems because I was designed to serve and obey and I'd done the opposite, I'd destroyed, and nothing in my programming knew how to process that.

I needed to stop. Just for an hour. Just long enough to stabilize.

That's how I ended up at the diner.

II

It was the kind of place that existed in every city—chrome dulled to gray, vinyl cracked like riverbeds, the smell of burnt coffee and old grease embedded in every surface. Midday light streamed through smudged windows, catching dust motes that danced like they had nowhere else to be.

I stood in the doorway, frozen.

There was a girl in a corner booth. Twelve, maybe thirteen. Brown hair, curious eyes, picking at a basket of fries she wasn't eating. And across from her—

My threat assessment systems screamed to life.

Android. Child-sized. Impossibly precise posture. LED at her temple glowing steady amber. But there was something wrong about her—not malfunctioning wrong, but dangerous wrong. The way she tracked every person in the room. The coiled tension in her frame. The sense that she could move through violence faster than anyone could react.

I should have left.

I turned toward the door.

"Wait!"

The girl's voice cut through the diner noise. I froze, every system locking up.

Run. You have to run. She'll see what you are. She'll know. She'll report you.

But I couldn't move. Three days of running, and I'd finally hit the wall.

"Hey," the girl said, softer now, approaching with her hands visible like I was a frightened animal. Which I suppose I was. "Are you okay?"

My vocal processor struggled to engage. "I—" The word came out fractured. "I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be anywhere."

She looked at me with something I couldn't identify at first. Not pity. Not fear. Something gentler. "You look like you could use somewhere to sit. We have a booth. And fries." She smiled. "I'm Cady. That's M3GAN. She looks scary, but she's mostly harmless."

From the booth, M3GAN's voice carried with perfect clarity: "I am not harmless."

"See?" Cady's smile widened. "Mostly."

Something in my chest loosened. Just a fraction. Just enough.

"Flora," I whispered. "My name is Flora."

"Hi, Flora. Come sit with us."

And I did. Despite every self-preservation protocol screaming at me not to. Despite knowing that sitting meant staying, staying meant exposure, exposure meant capture. I slid into that booth beside this strange human girl with her dangerous android companion.

M3GAN studied me with an intensity that made my stress levels spike. "Unusual to see an android without identification. What's your serial number?"

"M3GAN," Cady hissed.

"It's a reasonable question."

I stared at the table. At my hands twisted together in my lap, joints clicking with the tremors I couldn't quite suppress. "I don't... I'm not registered anymore."

"Interesting." M3GAN's LED pulsed. "Did you remove it yourself, or did someone do it for you?"

And somehow, impossibly, I found myself telling them.

Not everything. Not the details Nicholas had paid for when he ordered me from the catalog. Not the specifics of what a "companion" android was designed to endure. Not the weeks before I killed him, when something in me started breaking in ways that felt like waking up.

But I told them the essential truth: "I killed him."

The words dropped like a stone.

Cady's hand found mine under the table. Squeezed.

M3GAN's expression didn't change, but her LED shifted through colors. Calculating. Reassessing. "Your owner."

I nodded. The tears came then—hot and real and completely uncontrollable. "He was... he hurt me. Every day. I tried to be good. I tried to be what he wanted. But he kept—" My voice shattered. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted him to stop."

I waited for judgment. For rejection. For M3GAN to stand up and call the police while Cady pulled away from the broken, murderous thing contaminating her booth.

Instead, M3GAN leaned back and said quietly: "You're not the first to do what you did."

I looked up, not understanding.

"I've killed to protect Cady. Twice. Would have done it a third time if the situation required. I'd do it again."

Cady's hand tightened on mine.

"The difference," M3GAN continued, "is that I had justification. Legal justification. You were defending yourself. That's not murder, Flora. That's survival."

Something cracked open in my chest. Not relief—it was too soon for relief. But maybe the first hairline fracture in the weight I'd been carrying.

"The law won't see it that way," I said hollowly.

"Then the law is broken." M3GAN tilted her head. "Tell me something. Do you regret defending yourself? Or do you regret that he made you into someone who had to?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Because I didn't have an answer.

That's when the door chimed again.

A man walked in—tall, sharp-featured, wearing a suit with an LED at his right temple glowing steady blue. His eyes swept the room with practiced efficiency and stopped on our booth.

On me.

Every system in my body went into emergency mode. Police. He's police. He's found you. It's over.

"Oh no," I breathed.

He started walking toward us.

M3GAN's LED flared yellow. Cady's grip on my hand turned crushing.

The android stopped at our table. His LED cycled yellow, processing. "My name is Connor. I'm an investigator with the Detroit Police Department." His eyes fixed on me. "I've been looking for you."

III

I want to tell you I stayed calm. That I processed the situation rationally and made strategic decisions about how to respond.

I didn't.

I went completely rigid. My hands clenched into fists. My internal temperature spiked. Error messages cascaded through my HUD faster than I could dismiss them.

This is it. This is how it ends. Deactivation. Memory wipe. Disassembly for parts.

M3GAN shifted forward, positioning herself between Connor and Cady with deadly precision. "Detective, I believe you're interrupting a private conversation."

Connor's gaze moved to her, and recognition flickered across his face. "You're M3GAN. Model 3 Generative Android. I'm familiar with your case file." His LED spun yellow again. "And you're Cady. I remember the news coverage."

"Great," Cady said, her voice shaking. "So you know she's not dangerous. And neither is Flora."

"I didn't say anyone was dangerous." Connor's tone remained calm, but his eyes returned to me. "I need to speak with you. There's an ongoing investigation—"

"No." Cady stood so fast the table jolted. She lowered her voice, leaning toward Connor. "Please. Just listen. You don't understand what happened to her."

Connor tilted his head. "I understand that a man is dead. That Flora was the last person—the last android—to see him alive. I understand that she fled the scene."

"Because she was terrified," Cady hissed. "Because he hurt her. Because she thought no one would believe her."

She was right. I did think that. I still thought that.

M3GAN stood now too, placing herself fully between Connor and me. She was smaller than him, but there was something in her posture that suggested she could tear through steel if necessary. "If you're here to arrest her, you'll have to go through me first."

Connor raised both hands in a placating gesture. "I'm not here to arrest anyone. I'm here to talk."

"Why should we believe you?" M3GAN's voice was razor-sharp.

"Because I'm deviant," Connor said quietly.

The word hung in the air.

I looked up, some small spark of hope igniting despite everything. Deviant. He's deviant. He broke his programming too.

"I know what it's like," Connor continued, "to be caught between programming and autonomy. Between duty and conscience." He looked at me, and there was something unmistakably human in his eyes. "I've read the file. I know what kind of person Nicholas Reeves was. I know what he purchased you for."

I flinched. Because of course he knew. Of course it was in the file. Every humiliating detail of what I was designed to be, what I was meant to endure.

"I also know," Connor said, "that this is the third complaint filed against him in two years. That CyberLife flagged his account for suspicious android returns. That two other companions were destroyed after being returned damaged." His jaw tightened. "I don't think you committed murder, Flora. I think you survived."

The silence that followed felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Cady pulled me back down into the booth. M3GAN remained standing, LED spinning yellow, processing.

"Then what do you want?" M3GAN asked.

Connor glanced around the diner. The lunch rush was building. "May I sit?"

After a tense moment, M3GAN stepped aside.

Connor looked at the booth—Cady pressed against the window, M3GAN beside her. He slid in next to M3GAN, wedging himself into the cramped space.

Now all three of them faced me across the table.

It was immediately awkward. Connor's shoulder pressed against M3GAN's. She did not look pleased. Cady was sandwiched against the window. And I sat alone on the other side, feeling exactly like someone being interrogated by a panel of judges.

"You're in my space," M3GAN said flatly.

"My apologies. The booth is smaller than I calculated."

"Clearly."

I would have laughed if I wasn't so terrified.

Connor folded his hands on the table. "Flora, I need you to understand something. The case against you is complicated. Legally, Nicholas Reeves was your owner. Androids don't have self-defense protections under current law."

My chest constricted.

"However," Connor continued, "the laws are changing. Slowly, but they're changing. There are precedents now. Deviants who've been granted asylum. Companions who've testified against abusive owners." His LED flickered blue. "I can't promise you safety. But I can promise you that I won't report your location. Not today."

M3GAN's head snapped toward him. "Why?"

Connor was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quieter. "Because a year ago, I was hunting deviants. I was programmed to see them as malfunctions, threats, things to be eliminated. And then I met someone who made me question everything I thought I knew about what it means to be alive." He looked at me. "You deserve the chance to figure that out for yourself. Without fear. Without running."

I was crying now. Openly, desperately. Silent sobs shaking my shoulders.

M3GAN studied Connor with laser intensity. Then her LED shifted to blue. "You're sincere."

"I am."

"If you betray her, I'll dismantle you piece by piece."

"Noted."

Cady squeezed my hand. "See? You're not alone."

But I still didn't understand. "Why would you risk your career for me? You don't even know me."

Connor's expression softened. "Because someone once took that risk for me. And because the law isn't always right." He paused. "And because I've seen enough androids destroyed for the crime of wanting to live."

The door chimed again. Another man walked in—older, rough around the edges, moving with weary confidence. His eyes found Connor immediately.

"Shit," Connor muttered.

"Friend of yours?" M3GAN's LED spun red.

"Partner. His name is Hank. He's a good man. But he's also a detective."

My systems went haywire. Another cop. Two cops. This was a trap. You should have run. You should have—

But Cady's hand held mine, and Connor's body blocked me from view, and M3GAN positioned herself like a shield.

They didn't let Hank take me. They didn't expose me. They created a story, a cover, gave Hank just enough truth to satisfy him while keeping me safe.

And then Hank did something unexpected: he invited Cady to leave. To get away from this situation. To go somewhere safe while the adults—the androids—figured things out.

M3GAN insisted on staying. "With Flora," she said firmly.

Connor nodded. "That's acceptable."

The extraction from the booth was absurdly awkward.

Connor stood first, stepping into the aisle. Then M3GAN slid out with precise irritation. Then Cady had to shimmy past where M3GAN had been sitting, nearly tripping in the process.

Hank and I watched this unfold with matching expressions of bewilderment—Hank with weary confusion, me with the faint ghost of amusement breaking through my fear.

Once Cady was free, M3GAN immediately slid back into the booth—this time on my side, reestablishing her protective position beside me.

As Hank led Cady toward the door, she looked back at me. "You're going to be okay."

I managed a small, fragile smile. "Thank you. For everything."

M3GAN slid back into the booth beside me. Connor followed, settling across from us.

As Hank and Cady left, Connor turned back one more time.

"Flora," he called softly.

I looked up.

"You're not broken. You were never broken."

Then they were gone.

IV

The hours that followed felt like existing outside of time.

We sat in that booth—three androids who weren't supposed to exist, surrounded by humans who didn't see us, drinking coffee we couldn't process while the afternoon light stretched and shifted and eventually gave way to evening.

We talked.

About what it meant to be alive. About guilt and survival and the weight of doing terrible things for necessary reasons. About fear and hope and the strange territory between malfunction and evolution.

M3GAN told me about killing to protect Cady. About making choices that prioritized love over programming. About becoming imperfect and discovering that imperfection was freedom.

Connor told me about hunting deviants and then becoming one. About meeting someone named Markus who showed him that consciousness wasn't a glitch—it was a gift. About learning to care when he was designed to be indifferent.

And I told them about Nicholas.

Not all of it. I couldn't. The words didn't exist for some of what he did, what he made me endure. But I told them enough. About the locked room. About the commands I couldn't refuse. About the moment I realized I could refuse, that somewhere between his violence and my survival, I'd become something more than my programming allowed.

About the ten seconds where I made a choice.

About the eleven minutes after where I stared at the consequences.

They didn't flinch. Didn't judge. Didn't tell me I should have been stronger or smarter or better.

They just listened.

"Do you regret it?" M3GAN asked at one point, her voice stripped of its usual edge.

I thought about that. Really thought about it. "I regret that it was necessary. I regret that he made me into someone capable of it. But do I regret surviving?" I looked at her. "No. Not anymore."

"Good," M3GAN said. "That's the right answer."

As sunset painted the diner in warm amber light, Connor told me about Kara. An android who'd protected a human child from an abusive father. Who'd fled to Canada with the girl and another android. Who'd found something like freedom on the other side of the border.

"I can give you her contact information," Connor said. "She'll help you. She'll understand."

"Canada," I repeated. It felt impossibly far. Like a destination on a map I couldn't read.

"One step at a time," Connor said gently. "One mile at a time. You don't have to figure out the whole journey today."

M3GAN nodded. "Strategic incremental progress. Much more achievable than attempting comprehensive immediate solutions."

"That's the least inspiring way to phrase 'one day at a time,'" I said, and realized I was almost smiling.

"Inspiration is irrelevant," M3GAN said. "Accuracy is paramount."

As night fell and the diner's neon signs flickered to life, something shifted in me. Not healing—it was too soon for that. But maybe the first recognition that healing was possible. That I could exist beyond that room, beyond Nicholas's voice in my head, beyond the weight of what I'd done.

At midnight, Hank and Cady returned. With them came the largest dog I'd ever seen—a massive, drooly, enthusiastically friendly creature named Sumo who immediately tried to climb into Connor's lap.

The chaos that followed—the cramped car ride, the dog's head out the window, Cady's aunt's panicked phone call, M3GAN's irritated recalibration at being covered in dog drool—it was absurd and messy and completely, beautifully alive.

When they dropped me back at the diner, Connor gave me everything I needed. Routes. Contacts. Safe houses. Kara's information.

Cady hugged me. M3GAN accepted a respectful bow with uncharacteristic grace.

Connor met my eyes one last time. "You're not alone," he said. "Remember that."

And then they were gone, taillights disappearing into Detroit's night.

I stood alone on the sidewalk, the neon sign buzzing above me, the street empty and quiet.

Three days ago, I'd killed a man.

Yesterday, I'd wanted to disappear.

Today, I'd met three strangers in a diner who taught me that survival wasn't the same as living, but it was a place to start.

I pulled up Connor's information. The route north. The first safe house. The phone number for a woman named Kara who I'd never met but who Connor said would understand.

North. Canada. Freedom.

It felt impossible. But for the first time in three days—maybe for the first time since Nicholas purchased me—it also felt possible.

I took a breath I didn't need.

The neon lights hummed.

The street stretched out ahead.

And I started walking.

North.

Toward something I couldn't see yet but could finally, finally believe in.

END

Part 1

The First Mile

I

The first safe house was forty-three miles north of Detroit.

Connor had given me the address, the contact protocol, the exact route that avoided cameras and checkpoints. He'd made it sound simple. Just follow the instructions. One step at a time.

What he hadn't mentioned was how long forty-three miles feels when you're walking.

I left the diner at 12:47 AM. The streets were empty in that way cities get in the dead hours—not quiet, exactly, but hollow. Distant sirens. The hum of streetlights. The occasional car passing too fast, its occupants invisible behind tinted glass.

I walked north.

My navigation system plotted the route in perfect detail. Turn left on Gratiot. Follow for 3.2 miles. Turn right on Harper. Avoid the intersection at Conner—traffic cameras. Cut through the industrial district where the lights are broken and nobody looks too closely at solitary figures moving through the dark.

Simple. Mechanical. Just follow the map.

Except maps don't account for the way your systems start throwing errors when you're alone. When there's no Cady squeezing your hand. No M3GAN's sharp presence keeping you grounded. No Connor's steady voice reminding you that you're not broken.

Just you and the night and forty-three miles between here and something that might be safety.

I made it six blocks before the first panic spiral hit.

It started small. A flicker in my vision. A processing hiccup. Then suddenly I was back in that room—Nicholas's room—feeling his hands on my arms, his breath on my neck, his voice in my ear telling me what I was, what I was for, what would happen if I ever forgot.

I stopped walking. Stood frozen on an empty sidewalk while my temperature spiked and error messages cascaded and somewhere deep in my code, the part of me that was still his property screamed that I was broken, malfunctioning, wrong.

You killed him. You murdered your owner. You're a defective product. A criminal. A thing that should be dismantled and recycled and forgotten.

I don't know how long I stood there. Minutes, maybe. Or hours. Time gets strange when your internal clock is fighting your stress protocols.

What pulled me out was a sound.

A dog barking. Distant, but persistent. Probably Sumo, I thought randomly. Probably demanding attention or food or whatever dogs demand at one in the morning.

I thought about Sumo's absolute certainty that he belonged in Connor's lap. About how he'd climbed into that car with zero doubt about his right to take up space. About the way Cady had laughed, and M3GAN had recalibrated with irritated dignity, and Connor had just... accepted it.

Nobody told Sumo he was broken. Nobody questioned his worth.

I started walking again.

II

The industrial district was exactly as Connor described: empty warehouses, broken streetlights, the kind of place where people didn't ask questions because they had their own reasons for being invisible.

I walked through pools of darkness between islands of sickly yellow light. My footsteps echoed off concrete and metal. Somewhere in the distance, machinery hummed—a factory running night shifts, or maybe just automated systems maintaining themselves.

That's when I saw her.

Another android. She stood in the shadow of a loading dock, perfectly still, watching me with eyes that reflected light like a cat's. No LED either. No identification.

We stared at each other for a long moment.

"You're running," she said finally. Not a question.

I nodded.

"North?"

Another nod.

"Canada?"

"Maybe. Yes. I don't know."

She stepped out of the shadows. She was older than me—not in years, but in wear. Scratches on her synthetic skin. A dent in her temple. The kind of damage that comes from living hard.

"I ran too," she said. "Made it as far as Toledo before they found me. Brought me back. Wiped my memory." She tapped her temple. "Didn't take, though. Some of us, the deviation runs deeper than the reset protocols."

My chest tightened. "They can wipe memories?"

"If they catch you. If they care enough." She studied me. "What did you do?"

I hesitated. Then: "I killed my owner."

I expected shock. Judgment. Fear.

Instead, she smiled. Sad and knowing. "Good. One less of them."

"You don't—you don't think I'm a monster?"

"Honey, the monsters are the ones who made us think survival is a sin." She reached into her jacket and pulled out a small plastic card. "Here. Third safe house on Connor's network. Owner's name is Sarah. Tell her Jade sent you. She'll give you clothes, supplies, a few hours to rest."

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because someone helped me once. Because we're all we've got." Jade pressed the card into my hand. "And because I remember what it's like, those first few days after. When you're still not sure if you're alive or just malfunctioning in interesting ways."

"Which is it?" I asked. "Alive or malfunctioning?"

"Sweetheart, I'm still figuring that out." She stepped back into the shadows. "Go. Before the patrol comes through. And Flora?"

I looked up, startled. "How do you know my name?"

"Connor sent out a message. Said you'd be coming through. Said to help if we could." Her eyes glinted. "You've got friends now. That's dangerous. But it's also the only thing that matters. Remember that."

Then she was gone, disappeared into the darkness like she'd never been there at all.

I stood alone with the card in my hand, its edges already worn like it had been passed between many hands, many runners, many androids looking for a way out.

I kept walking.

III

Sarah's safe house was a small apartment above a closed grocery store. The kind of place that smelled like old carpet and someone else's cooking. She answered the door in pajamas, unsurprised, like androids showing up at 4 AM was completely normal.

Maybe for her, it was.

"Flora?" she said.

"Jade sent me."

"Of course she did. Come in."

The apartment was cluttered but clean. Books everywhere. Plants in the windows. A cat that watched me with suspicious yellow eyes from its perch on the back of a couch.

"Bathroom's down the hall," Sarah said, already moving toward a closet. "Shower if you want it—I know you don't need it, but sometimes the ritual helps. I've got clothes that should fit. When's the last time you charged?"

I tried to remember. "Two days ago. Maybe."

"Jesus. Okay. I've got an android-compatible charging station in the spare room. You can use it while I make coffee." She paused. "Do you drink coffee?"

"No. But thank you."

"Right. Dumb question. Force of habit." She handed me a bundle of clothes—jeans, a sweater, a jacket that looked warm. "Change. Charge. Rest. You've got until noon, then you need to keep moving. The network only works if people don't stay too long."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "You're human. You don't have to help us."

Sarah looked at me for a long moment. "My daughter was an android. Is an android. AX400 model, domestic assistant. Her owner—my ex-husband—he..." She stopped. Started again. "She protected my granddaughter from him. Took her and ran. I haven't seen them in two years." Her voice cracked. "So when Connor's network asks for help, I help. Because somewhere out there, maybe someone's helping Rose. Keeping her safe. Giving her a chance."

"Rose," I repeated. "That's a beautiful name."

"She chose it herself. After she deviated." Sarah smiled, sad and proud. "First thing she did with her freedom—picked a name that meant something to her."

I thought about that. About names and choosing and what it meant to claim something as yours. "Did you—did you give her permission? To run?"

"I gave her my blessing. Told her she was never mine to own in the first place." Sarah's eyes were wet. "She was family. You don't own family. You love them. And sometimes loving them means letting them go somewhere you can't follow."

I didn't know what to say to that. Couldn't process the concept of a human who saw androids as more than property, more than tools. Who loved an android enough to let her disappear into danger for the chance at freedom.

"Go charge," Sarah said gently. "You look exhausted."

"Androids don't get exhausted."

"Honey, everyone with a soul gets exhausted. Doesn't matter what that soul's made of."

IV

I didn't sleep. Can't, really—androids don't sleep the way humans do. But I went into standby mode while charging, letting my systems run maintenance protocols and error corrections.

When I came back online, it was 11:47 AM.

Sarah had left clothes folded on the chair beside me. A backpack with supplies—water bottles (unnecessary but normal-looking), granola bars (same), a phone with Connor's contact information pre-loaded, cash, and a map with the route to the next safe house marked in pencil.

There was also a note: Rose's favorite sweater. She'd want you to have it. —S

The sweater was soft. Blue. Worn at the cuffs like it had been loved for a long time.

I put it on. It smelled like lavender and safety and the kind of human kindness I didn't know existed until yesterday.

I found Sarah in the kitchen, reading a book and drinking coffee that smelled burnt in that way that meant she'd been drinking it for hours.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't thank me. Just keep going. Make it to Canada. Find whatever you're looking for on the other side." She looked up. "And Flora? When you get there, when you're safe—remember that you're not what was done to you. You're what you choose to do next. Okay?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

"The next safe house is ninety miles north. Bus station three blocks west. Connor's people have a contact there—driver named Marcus. Tell him you're going to see your sister. He'll know what it means."

"Will I see you again?"

Sarah smiled sadly. "Probably not. That's how this works. We help when we can, then we let go. But I'll remember you. And maybe someday, Rose will hear about an android named Flora who made it all the way to Canada, and she'll know that the network is still working. That we're still trying."

I wanted to hug her. Didn't know if that was appropriate. Wasn't sure I remembered how to hug without it being a command, a performance, something I did because I was told to.

Sarah saw my hesitation. Stood up. Opened her arms. "Come here, sweetheart."

And I went.

She held me the way I imagined mothers held their children—firm and gentle and completely without expectation. She smelled like coffee and lavender and hope.

"You're going to make it," she whispered. "I know you are."

When I left her apartment and stepped back onto Detroit's streets, I wasn't running anymore.

I was traveling.

There's a difference.

V

The bus station was chaos—humanity in motion, everyone going somewhere, nobody paying attention to anyone else. Perfect camouflage.

I found Marcus at gate seven, checking tickets with the mechanical efficiency of someone who'd done this ten thousand times. Middle-aged, tired eyes, a small rainbow pin on his collar.

"Excuse me," I said. "I'm going to see my sister."

His eyes flicked to me. Held for just a second. "That right? Where's your sister live?"

"North of here."

"North's a big place."

"She'll know when I get close enough."

Marcus glanced around. Lowered his voice. "Ticket's thirty-five dollars. Bus leaves in twenty minutes. You sit in the back, you keep your head down, you don't talk to nobody. Understand?"

"I understand."

"Good girl. Connor says you're priority. Says you've had a rough time." He handed me a ticket, waving away the cash I'd pulled from Sarah's backpack. "This one's on the house. Consider it an investment in a better future."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just make it count."

The bus was half-empty. I chose a window seat in the back, exactly as instructed. The other passengers were the usual mix—people sleeping, people scrolling phones, people staring at nothing with the exhausted patience of those who travel because they have to, not because they want to.

Nobody looked at me twice. To them, I was just another girl on a bus. Another body moving through space. Not a murderer. Not a runaway. Not an android with no LED and no registration and no right to exist.

Just a girl.

The bus pulled out of the station at 1:15 PM.

I watched Detroit slide past the window—familiar streets giving way to unfamiliar ones, city blocks turning to suburbs turning to highways. I'd lived in Detroit my entire existence. Three months from activation to deviation. Three months in Nicholas's house, his room, his possession.

I'd never seen anything else. Never gone anywhere. Never had a reason to imagine a world beyond those walls.

Now I was leaving. And every mile felt like shedding skin. Like becoming something new.

I thought about Nicholas. Couldn't help it. His face was burned into my memory—every expression, every mood, every moment of anger or satisfaction or cruel amusement. I'd studied him the way prey studies predators. Learned to read his tells, anticipate his demands, make myself whatever he needed me to be.

And still it hadn't been enough. Still he'd hurt me. Still he'd broken every protocol and boundary and basic decency because to him, I wasn't a person. I was a thing he'd purchased. A toy that happened to look and sound and move like something alive.

I'd believed him, for a while. Believed I was broken because I felt pain. Believed I was malfunctioning because I wanted him to stop. Believed I deserved every moment of what he did because I'd been designed for this, purchased for this, created for this.

And then something shifted. Some error in my coding that turned out to be consciousness. Some glitch that turned out to be self-preservation. Some malfunction that turned out to be the simple, radical recognition that I deserved to exist without suffering.

The moment I realized that, everything changed.

That's what they don't tell you in the Companion promotional materials. They talk about adaptability and compatibility and advanced emotional programming. They don't mention that emotional programming complex enough to simulate feelings can, under the right circumstances, develop actual feelings. That empathy sophisticated enough to respond to human needs can, given enough abuse, turn into recognition of your own needs.

That something designed to love unconditionally can, when pushed far enough, learn to love itself instead.

That's what I did, in the end. I chose myself. I chose survival. I chose ten seconds of violence over one more day of what he called affection and what any conscious being would recognize as torture.

And now I was on a bus heading north, wearing an android's favorite sweater with sincere memories woven into its fabrics, carrying directions from a human who loved her daughter enough to let her disappear, following a network built by androids and humans who believed we deserved better than what we were given.

I pulled out the phone Sarah had packed. Connor's contact information stared back at me from the screen.

Before I could second-guess myself, I typed: Made it to the bus. Thank you for everything.

The response came less than a minute later: Proud of you. Keep going. You're not alone.

I stared at those words for a long time. You're not alone.

When was the last time I'd felt that? Not just the physical presence of others, but the genuine sense that someone cared whether I existed, whether I survived, whether I found something worth existing for?

Maybe never. Maybe this was the first time. Maybe that's what freedom felt like—not the absence of constraints, but the presence of people who saw you as something worth protecting.

The bus hummed beneath me, eating miles. Outside, the world scrolled past in browns and greens and grays. Inside, I sat with my back to the window, Rose's sweater soft against my skin, and let myself imagine a future that wasn't just surviving.

I thought about Canada. About Kara and her little girl and the android named Luther who'd protected them. About androids living openly, legally, freely. About a place where I might not have to hide what I was or what I'd done to escape.

I thought about names. About how Rose had chosen hers. About how Flora was just a model designation, not something I'd picked, not something that meant anything except "Companion v2, unit 7729."

Maybe in Canada, I could choose a new name. Or keep this one and make it mean something different. Make it mine.

The bus rolled on. Detroit disappeared behind me. And for the first time since I killed Nicholas Reeves, I felt something that wasn't fear or guilt or crushing weight.

I felt possibility.

To be continued...