Hullmetal Girls

by Emily Skrutskie

  “Hey, Aisha,” Zaire finally says with a wave. “You guys really going for it today?”

  “Depends on Key,” I reply, baring my teeth.

  “Oh, I’m ready.” She rolls her shoulders, stretching the fabric of her jumpsuit. We decided on no full rigs. No metal to weigh us down or risk tearing Key’s still-healing musculature.

  This afternoon is the first time she’ll see her parents after the night she was dragged from their apartment and turned into a weapon. They’ve been reluctant to meet with her ever since she started reaching out, no doubt filled with resentment over the dissolution of the General Body and their daughter’s role in it, but they finally agreed to a reunion. She’s scheduled to depart on a shuttle for the coastline where the Antilles has settled in just a few hours. There’ll be hell to pay if Key has to miss it for an injury.

  Her mind is abuzz with the thought of seeing them for the first time since her conversion, and the rest of us have spent the whole morning reassuring her with our own experiences. But first Key has to vent all the pent-up nervous energy out of her system, and there’s nothing better for it than running the open plains around these landing sites. Already I can feel her muscles shuddering, ready to launch herself forward.

  Isaac looks up sharply from his datapad. “Don’t you dare undo all my hard work just for a little fun, Tanaka,” he warns. “I’m getting tired of stitching you back together.”

  “If she collapses, I’ll drag her back by her ankles,” I promise.

  Zaire rolls his eyes and offers an arm to the medic. “They can take care of themselves, Isaac,” he says. Then he passes a wink over his shoulder and mouths To be continued at Key.

  The humans head back up the ramp into the ship, leaving us on the dusty plain with nothing but the curdled embarrassment and delight running through Key’s thoughts.

  We set off at a jog through the settlement. I shorten my strides to make it easier on Key, and she pushes hers longer and longer until warnings ping through her body. We weave around the massive forms of the starships scattered across the plain, the first stages of humanity’s rebirth. New structures have cropped up in their shadows, assembled out of star-baked bricks, and the routes between them are halfway to becoming roads.

  It will be long and hard and complicated. It may take our entire lifetimes or more to figure out exactly how our civilization will manage. But after everything we’ve been through, I think we know one thing for certain between the four of us.

  It’s just a matter of time until we find our balance.

  We round the last hull, and our cameras fill with nothing but open plain. A Scela-wide smile spreads over Key’s face, and our systems slip into perfect alignment. We break into a sprint, tearing toward the horizon, with nothing but the stars above and the future ahead.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This was a hard book for me. But the nice thing about that is it’s so clear how much I owe to other people for the fact that you’re sitting here reading it.

  First of all, this book would not exist without Thao Le, my outstanding agent. Thank you, Thao, for putting this story on track, for sticking with it through thick and thin, and above all, for loving it before I’d learned how.

  This book would also not exist without my massive privilege of being my parents’ daughter. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for being patient with me in the long months after college when I did nothing but write this book and fail to get a job. Sorry it took so long for either of those tracks to pan out, but I’m forever grateful that I had you to support me before I took the leap. Sarah, study hard and don’t be like me. Ivy, be good.

  Thanks to my wonderful editor, Monica Jean, for asking all the right questions, and to the whole team at Delacorte—including Barbara Marcus, Beverly Horowitz, Colleen Fellingham, Tamar Schwartz, Natalia Dextre, Regina Flath, Stephanie Moss, Dominique Cimina, Elena Meuse, John Adamo, Kim Lauber, Kate Keating, Adrienne Waintraub, Lisa Nadel, and Kristin Schulz—for investing in my angry cyborg girls. Thank you, Larry Rostant, for the badasses on the cover. And an additional thank-you to Tiff Liao, whose notes were invaluable to this story’s development.

  Thanks to Tara Sim, for being there through all of it. To Jessica Cluess, who tells me I’m good, and to Traci Chee, who makes me better. To Cobbler Club—Gretchen Schreiber, Alexa Donne, and Alyssa Colman—for every needed vent session. To the Sweet Sixteens, #TeamThao rock stars, and all the other authors in my network who make this gig easy to love.

  Thank you to the booksellers and bloggers, the reviewers and other cheerleaders who’ve supported my work through the years. I owe my career to their enthusiasm.

  And of course, thanks to you, the reader, the one who’s seen this story through. Thank you so much for picking it up. Sorry about the body horror.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  EMILY SKRUTSKIE was born in Massachusetts, raised in Virginia, and forged in the mountains above Boulder, Colorado. She attended Cornell University and now lives and works in Los Angeles. Emily is the author of Hullmetal Girls, The Abyss Surrounds Us, and The Edge of the Abyss. To learn more about her and her books, go to skrutskie.com or follow @skrutskie on Twitter and Instagram.

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  * * *

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.