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vision as robotic hands snatch up the spilled contents of my bag.
    “Stop!” Rurik’s boots smack against the stone.
    The bots whoop and yell, sprinting down the alley and vaulting over the wall. They clear the six-foot structure effortlessly.
    “Androids,” I say and Rurik’s hands ball into fists. He starts after them, but I catch his sleeve. There’s no point.
    “Are you all right?” Rurik’s face creases with worry, his eyes wide and searching as he sweeps me into his arms. I’m shaking, my teeth chattering castanets.
    “Think so,” I manage.
    “Walking scrap droid pieces of crap.” Rurik spits out a string of invective at the shadows as he dusts off my knees.
    “I hurt my elbow.” The joint is numb and the skin smarts.
    He cups my arm in his hands and rolls up my coat and shirtsleeve to inspect the damage.
    “You’re bleeding and it’s already swollen.” He places a tender kiss above the injury. “Can you move it?”
    “I think so.” I try straightening my arm. Pain blossoms in the joint, but I force my arm out.
    “Not broken then.” Rurik rubs my shoulders as I shiver.
    “I’m sorry.” I bury my face in Rurik’s chest and he hugs me. He’s so warm. Our earlier fight seems so meaningless now, his apparent callousness for Nana totally overwhelmed by his love for me. He came for me even though I left him.
    “I’m sorry too.” He wipes tears off my cheeks with his thumb. “Home?” I nod. He kisses my forehead, and it no longer matters that my moby and handbag are gone or that blood is staining my new shirt. All that matters is that he came for me.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    “Tyri!” Mom flings open the door and smothers me in a hug. “Are you all right?” She pushes me away, hands still on my shoulders, and studies my face.
    “Fine, just a bit banged up.” Mom already knows I was mugged. Rurik made me call her from the bug despite my protests that she’d freak out.
    “Let me see this elbow.” She leads me into the lounge, and I surrender to her ministrations as she pokes, prods, bends, and straightens my arm.
    Mom takes my face in her hands. “You had me so worried.” The tears in her eyes make me ache with guilt.
    “I’m sorry, Mom.”
    “Don’t ever do it again.” She gives me another hug and kisses my hair. “I’ll get some HealGel.”
    Mom heads to the bathroom while Rurik makes me hot chocolate, banishing Miles to the pantry in case his robotic presence causes me further trauma. My protests go ignored. They were just kids, nothing more than pickpockets. Humans have been known to do far worse than steal a handbag. Still, resentment lurks on the edge of reason, clawing its way inside. Glitch snuggles on my lap and my fingers stroke her fur, tracing the ridge of scar tissue on her leg where fluff meets mechatronics.
    “You should report this.” Rurik hands me the cup.
    “You haven’t already?” Mom comes back with the HealGel and wraps it around my elbow, the graze there already healing.
    “I just want to shower and go to sleep.” I ruffle Glitch’s ears and am rewarded with a hand lick.
    “You need to report this.”
    “And what’ll that achieve? I don’t think I’ll get my moby back.”
    “No,” Rurik says. “But enough reports of robots committing crime might inspire our pissant law enforcers to actually do something about that squatter camp.”
    Mom fusses some more over my elbow
    “It’s not broken,” I tell her.
    “No it isn’t, but I think Erik should take a look.”
    Erik, who I only recently stopped calling Uncle Erik: my mom’s boss and apparently my private physician even though he runs a division of M-Tech, not Baldur General Hospital.
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “Best to get you checked out,” Mom says. “Have you been taking your serum?”
    “Inject it every morning.” I’m a regular junkie, some blood platelet issue. If I don’t dose up every day, I risk internal hemorrhaging.
    “Extra dose tonight, please.” Mom uses her stern