To his credit, Nik didn’t argue this time. He just grabbed my dad’s body and heaved it over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
“Nice. Thank you.”
“Not nice,” my father snarled, his furious voice barely louder than a whisper in my ear. “I don’t want that filthy gutter human touching me!”
“You’re in no position to complain,” I whispered back as I led Nik out the door, wincing when the restaurant exploded into excited chatter behind us.
“This is just great,” I grumbled, striding up the alley. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? You just had to go and pour gasoline on the fire.”
“This isn’t my fault,” Nik said.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to him.” I pointed at my unconscious father since Nik clearly couldn’t see the smoke one standing beside me. “But while I’m at it, you’re not off the hook. Why the hell did you do that in a restaurant? Did it not occur to you that there could be a reason I hadn’t called, and maybe I’d rather not discuss it in front of an audience of strangers?”
“What do they matter?” Nik grumbled, though his face was turning red. “This is between you and me.”
“Exactly. You and me. Not you, me, my dad, and two hundred other people who are probably posting this on social media as we speak!”
Holy crap, I hoped no one filmed that. My dad was toast if they had.
“No worries,” Sibyl said proudly in my ear. “I got you.”
My whole body sagged in relief. “Thank you,” I replied breathlessly. Then I frowned. “Wait, how?”
My AI’s voice grew sheepish. “I, um, might have been a little desperate for internet, so I kind of accidentally on purpose took over the restaurant’s WiFi.”
“You can do that?” I asked, shocked. I’d never installed any hacking suites on her.
“I wasn’t hacking!” Sibyl protested. “Their security certificate was years out-of-date. I almost couldn’t not take it over! But before you yell at me, I kept my location data deactivated the whole time and I turned off camera permissions for the building the moment you and Nik started engaging in your public display of affection. I couldn’t stop people from posting text, but no one should have been able to record video or take pictures so long as they were signed into the free network, which everyone there was. Gotta love cheap places!”
“Oh, Sibyl,” I gushed. “I love you! Great job!”
If my AI had had a face, it would have been grinning. “So this means you’re not mad about the internet thing?”
I was, but it didn’t matter. Thanks to Nik and my dad’s gratuitous display, our cover was mega-blown. What was a little internet connectivity after those fireworks? Especially since it made my AI so happy. She was already getting back to work, humming to herself as she processed all the updates I’d forced her to postpone. Shaking my head in defeat, I left her to her bliss and turned my attention back to my own mess.
We’d just reached the front of the alley where my dad and I had originally come in. Now that Yong was no longer goading him, Nik seemed to be calming down, but his face was still a dark scowl when I motioned him to stop at the corner.
“Where are we going?” he asked, eyeing the wall of tourists, which had only grown thicker while we’d been at dinner.
“I’ll explain everything in a moment,” I promised, scanning the shops for a usable door. “But we’re not safe here. I just need—ah-ha!”
I grabbed his hand and bolted across the crowded sidewalk, nearly getting us run over by an auto-cab as we crossed the busy street to the other side. It was much darker and quieter over here. 8 Mile Road was the DFZ’s official border, but the fence didn’t actually begin until the other side of the sidewalk. At least, there was supposed to be a fence. The United States government put up a new one every spring, but the DFZ kept tearing them down because border fences went against everything she stood for. This late in the year, the chain-link barrier was so full of gaps that it could barely hold itself up, but it still had the one important feature I needed. It had a door.
Well, a gate, really. But I was feeling lucky after coming out in the middle of a sidewalk earlier, and unlike the rest of Loveland, there was no one over here to gawk at me. Other than the cars racing by behind us, this side of the road was dark and dead, which was exactly what I needed.
“Okay,” I told Nik as I linked my fingers through the fence gate, which was already so loose it nearly fell over when I touched it. “This is going to look really weird, but I need you to roll with me, okay?”
Nik nodded and secured a firmer hold on my dad, which made me smile. This was why we made such a good team. I could trust Nik to handle anything I threw at him, and this one was going to be a doozy. I hadn’t even reached for the magic yet, but I could already feel the city twisting under my feet, ready to bring me home.
“Here we go,” I said, getting a tight hold on the chain-link gate as I pictured my apartment. “On three. One. Two—”
I yanked the gate open. As it creaked on its hinges, the darkness on the other side—which had been a dirty alley behind a gas station—swirled and vanished, replaced by the cheery chaos of my pieced-together living room.
I stepped through the moment the image settled, waving for Nik to follow me. He did, albeit more slowly, easing his armored body through the door I’d just opened in space like he was stepping into the mouth of a giant beast, which, technically, I supposed he was. The door I’d opened led into the DFZ,
