That Hara girl is different. When both her hands clasped my wrist, I identified distinct senses. Her right hand was warm against my skin, the kind of warmth that one can only associate with humans. Her left hand was warm, as well, but it felt hard, as if the pulse that weaved underneath her touch was forced.

She’s a human with an Exon’s heart.

I’ve heard of her. She is the phenomenon that the Institute told me about after I was released. They appraised themselves by flaunting the result of her successful surgery. They seamlessly connected her veins with wires and created a heart that was compatible with her body. She has a heart like us Exons, the Institute told me. We have a silver box of information that processes everything we see. Our brains and our hearts are one and the same.

She is a very intriguing character. Emer doesn’t like her. Emer is a rude person, but she doesn’t say anything she doesn’t mean.

I need to educate myself with the Argent region. I can’t function to my best potential if I do not familiarize myself with my surroundings.

I head for the front door and step outside. I make sure to close it firmly behind me before I step down the stoop and survey the neighborhood. Each house is separated by a half acre of land on all sides. Every house contains white walls, black roofs, and window panels colored according to the Argent’s class. The grasses are a constant, vernal green. There are no flowers. There are no weeds. There is only a house, built on an expanse of verdant land with other, identical houses as its neighbors.

Compared to the constant busyness in the Institute, the Argent region looks empty.

But when compared to the room in which I stayed for three months, this place is beautiful.

Wanting to return inside, I turn around and clasp the knob, but when I try to push the door open, it doesn’t move. I twist the knob. It’s locked.

Every main door of an Argent house has an automatic locking system. The only way to open it from the outside is by voice activation. I assume that the system is only programmed to recognize Emer and her mom’s voice. Since my voice has not yet been familiarized by the system and most likely never will be, I take the initiative of opening the door by other means.

I rip the door open. The act is effortless. A loud crack tears the air, and when I am finished, I prop the door against the wall. The broken hinges creak and shudder, and I pat them as a reminder to myself that I need to find the tools to fix the door.

Emer comes running down the stairs. When she sees me, a mix of anger and fear stirs her eyes. “What the heck are you doing?”

I look at her. I look at the disjointed door. “I opened the door.”

“You didn’t open anything, you ruined it,” she shouts, leaning down to inspect the door. She shakes her head and lets her hand hover over the splintered edge. “Couldn’t you have done this a different way?”

“Is there a different way?”

She asks right back, “Are you a defect?” 

I blink. “Pardon?”

She narrows her eyes. “I swear. If I get another defect … then I really must be bad luck or something.” She heaves a world-weary sigh and kicks the door. She winces at the consequence of the effort but covers it up quickly by scowling at me. “Fix this. And fix the floorboards.”

“Floorboards?”

“Yeah, the last step on the stairs. Fix it, since you’re doing this anyway. You can do at least that, can’t you?”

“Do you have something I can use?”

“Use your hands,” she mutters. “Since you can obviously use them to ruin something like this. Then you might as well use them to fix something, too.” She turns around and walks away, leaving me to stand there staring at my hinge-less mistake. I grab the door, making sure that I have a good hold on it, before I pop it back into the frame. The hinges refuse to comply, so I rip those off, too. I don’t know where to get a screwdriver. I don’t know where to get silver panels. I make do with what I have. I don’t think she’s willing to help me by telling me where I can get tools, so I