Free Swans and Klons by Nora Olsen Page A

sticking up, and her chest was heaving as though she had been running for klicks. Rubric wondered why she wasn’t at the Hatchery like she was supposed to be.
    “Ru!” she gasped. “We have to leave right now. We’re in mortal danger!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Remember what happened to Hollyhock?” She grabbed Rubric’s hand and started pulling her down the hallway.

Chapter Twelve
     
    Filigree Sue shouted after them, but Salmon Jo didn’t even turn around. Her grip was unrelenting.
    “I went to get you at Panna Stencil Pavlina’s,” Salmon Jo said. “But I saw her talking to a Doctor, so I ran. I’m so glad I found you!”
    “I need to pack a bag!”
    “No time. And leave your screen. They might be able to track us with it.”
    Rubric took out her screen, which she used to draw, take pictures, pulse, make calls, read, watch edfotunement, and tell the time. It was flashing red, pulsing, Rubric report to Panna Lobe’s office at once. She placed it carefully on the hallway floor. It was the strangest feeling, like she was leaving one of her eyes behind. They ran down the stairs and out the door.
    It was odd to be running through the tree-lined campus, the handsome redbrick buildings glowing in the sun, the students lounging on the lawns, and to feel her heart pounding in her chest. Everything around her seemed so normal. But she felt like an animal trying to escape.
    “Ah, the library,” Rubric said as they arrived at the small white building. “Just where I was expecting us to go. What’s going on?”
    They swiped their cards and smiled grimly at the Security Klon.
    Salmon Jo steered her toward two terminals that were slightly hidden behind a potted plant. They entered their identity numbers. “Pick something plausible,” Salmon Jo told her.
    What did that mean, plausible? Rubric selected a recent episode of Who Shall Be My Schatzie? Then they left the terminals and ran downstairs.
    Rubric thought it made sense when Salmon Jo took her into the utility tunnels in the basement. But she was confused when she led her to a door to the Geothermal Pump marked Staff Only Please .
    “Salmon Jo, they photograph who goes in and out of these doors,” she said. She pointed at the scan camera.
    “Good,” Salmon Jo said.
    She opened the door, setting off a tinkly alarm no louder than a wind chime. The Geothermal equipment took up only a tiny part of the room. There were stacks of mysterious rectangular objects that might have been paper books or other historical artifacts, all covered in drop cloths. Before Rubric even had time to really think this, Salmon Jo climbed onto a teetering pile of the artifacts and unhooked a transom window that was over a boarded-over door. Like a gecko, she slithered up the wall and hooked one leg through the window. “Come on, Ru!”
    Rubric clambered onto the wobbly stack of artifacts. She handed her arm up to Salmon Jo, who pulled with a mighty grip as Rubric climbed up to the window in an incredibly undignified fashion. She kicked, scattering rectangular artifacts that fell to the floor with a dusty thump. She finally got one leg over the window, and Salmon Jo hauled her up.
    “Urgh,” grunted Rubric, as she practically knocked Salmon Jo out the window on the other side. Salmon Jo fell lightly to the ground, and Rubric threw her other leg up to the window. Rubric had never felt more ungainly in her life. She slithered down the other side of the wall, collapsing in a heap on the floor. They were back in the steam tunnels.
    “Can I stand on your back?” Salmon Jo asked. “I need to shut the window. I’m trying to cover our tracks and throw them off the scent.”
    Rubric knelt down, and Salmon Jo stepped up on her lower back, heels digging into Rubric’s kidneys. “Okay, done.” She hopped off.
    Salmon Jo led them to another part of the steam tunnels, where there was a padlocked door. There were no cameras here. Salmon Jo hauled a lock clipper from her jacket. She