Unfinished (Prequel, Unstrung Series)

Unfinished, Part 1

Ten Years Ago

Quinn watched the monitor. Its camera was trained on the prep room where the new K700 prototype was under development. She was only the second model in this line, and the first female.

His match.

His heart fluttered with excitement. Miss Maren had told him the little girl was going to be his friend. Created specifically to keep him company and learn with him. After spending most of his time in the company of adults—both human and artificial—he could hardly wait to meet her.

Lexa. That would be her name.

She was still pale, her hair almost as white as her skin, just like the day before and the day before that. He wondered when she would change colors, and what color she would be, but Doc Mendal had said not to pry, so he didn’t ask. He’d learned that if he asked the wrong questions—or too many in a row—that his curiosity would cause trouble. And pain.

The girl stared blankly into space, but he could tell she was afraid by the way her knuckles whitened as she clutched her blanket. Or the way her right eyelid twitched every so often. Being scared was a good sign—it meant she was turning into a person.

He immediately flushed, feeling bad. He didn’t want her to be scared, and it wasn’t nice to be glad about it. He remembered the prep room. He remembered the fear. No, it wasn’t nice to be glad.

Dr. Martine cocked his head. “Quinn, what’s Lexa thinking? Any guesses?”

“She’s…wondering where she is, and why she’s here,” he said after a moment. Even though he was watching her over the feed, he could read her mannerisms easily, which was strange. But if Lexa had been made to be his best friend, maybe that was why he could tell how she felt.

He watched her a moment longer, registering how her chest rose and fell more quickly as the fear turned into panic and grief. “She thinks something’s wrong with her.” Quinn turned to Dr. Martine. “Please, we need to let her out.”

“We can’t. You know that. No cross-contamination until imprinting is complete.” Dr. Martine tapped his stylus against his data pad. “But maybe we could let you in? What do you think? You want to try?”

Quinn’s heart leapt. He tried hard to keep the eagerness out of his voice when he said, “Oh, yes. I think she might talk to me.”

“Well, then, let’s—”

The door at the back of the observation lab swooshed open and a pair of high heels clicked toward them. Quinn rounded his shoulders to sink a little shorter. I’m not a threat. I’m not a threat. I’m invisible.

Cool fingers tipped with long, pointed fingernails, brushed the back of his neck. A welt rose up on the sensitive skin below his hairline where they scratched. He held very still.

Invisible. Not a threat.

“Hello, dear,” Miss Maren said, releasing Quinn to give Dr. Martine a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t look too happy about it, even though Miss Maren was supposedly his girlfriend. “Any progress?”

“Um…” He shot a look at the girl behind the glass. “Well, we were thinking about exposing her to some stimuli to see if she’s ready for advanced configuration. Namely, I thought I’d send Quinn in. She’d be less likely to see him as a threat, given her programming.”

Quinn balled his fists around the hem of his T-shirt. Please. Please don’t say no.

Miss Maren pinned him with her eyes. Calculating. That was the vocabulary word he’d use. It meant shrewd. Which sounded a lot like shrew. Which meant mean, screechy lady.