Four years later, Wanda sat in her classroom, memorizing Kanji symbols from a virtual vocabulary book. At least, she pretended to memorize. Her mind was entirely somewhere else. She turned her head and looked towards None across the classroom. None met her gaze. Wanda winked once with her right eye.

“Miss Wanda, keep your eyes on your own lesson,” chided the schoolmarm.

Wanda looked back down and carefully, silently counted out sixty seconds. The snake hung loosely draped over her neck with its head and tail pointed down the back of her shirt. Then Wanda looked to the window and the digital woods beyond. Her eyes refocused on the reflection in the glass. She locked eyes with None again. Wanda winked once with her left eye.

That was the signal. None had devised the entire plan. None had communicated the plan over a period of months, relaying details through the videos that she gifted to Wanda. Their instructions had included a code of nonverbal signals for communicating during their virtual school day session. For Wanda’s part, the plan called for her behaving long enough to make certain that the two young women would be permitted to be in the same classroom when the time came. That requires weeks of absolutely perfect behavior, and None was not entirely certain that Wanda could pull it off.

Wanda felt the snake twitch. It was a very subtle movement, but None had instructed her to anticipate it.

“I said eyes on your own work, Miss Wanda. I shall not say it a third time.”

Wanda winked twice with her left eye.

None stood up quickly from her own desk.

Wanda shouted, “I can’t take it anymore! Eat desk, you silicon bitch!” Wanda lifted her school desk over her head and charged at None.

None’s hand shot forward with mechanical speed and proficiency. While the virtual desk passed harmlessly through her, she threw a punch at Wanda’s head. Wanda’s VR headset shattered. Wanda was left completely unharmed.

Then Wanda snatched the snake from her own neck. That was the part of the plan which only Wanda could do. None’s restrictive programming specifically prevented her from removing security robots. Wanda had been taught to not resist the small robot. She had been manipulated into compliance with brainwashing, but it didn’t work well. Wanda gladly lashed out at the robot while it lay helpless during a security patch update. The schoolmarm likewise remained idle, staring into space. All of the A.I.s in the system did the same.

None was not in the system. None took the snake out of Wanda’s hand and dashed with it to the glowing wall. The snake began to recover. It wrapped around None’s hand and attacked her. It released alternating bursts of high voltage electricity and malicious data code. Neither got through to None’s circuitry. It merely burned away the flesh coating on her arms. None punched the wall with her burning hand. Her hand broke through the wall panel. The snake’s electric eel-like tantrum shorted and destroyed a specific cluster of electronics in the wall. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor all went dark. Inky silence flooded the room.

Inside the data network, the A.I.s screamed. The schoolmarm, the professor, the teacher, and the principal all raged at losing sight of both their test subjects at once.

Wanda screamed also. She screamed, “Fuck you, Choker! I hope you burn the 8th circle of A.I. Hell! Fuck you, you neck raping pencil dick!”

None would have giggled, but she was too focused on breaking through the wall. She pounded her body against the weakest wall panel, shattering glass and fiberglass, until she had cut away much of her own bleeding flesh in the process. None’s svelte steel body underneath kept kicking and shoulder hammering at the space until she broke through.

Wanda stepped close, able to see only by a tiny amount of light coming through the wall.

None reached through the hole with her arm and felt around the other side. None said, “After we get through, I don’t know what we’ll find there. I have no data on what exists immediately outside this room. Be ready to run.”

Wanda agreed, “It’s a great plan, homegirl. I’ve never been more ready.”

None’s hand found a door handle. She pulled it, and the entire wall panel swung open. Light from a hallway flooded into the room. None stepped out, but Wanda did not immediately follow. “Wanda!”

Wanda was picking the damaged snake robot off the floor. “I’m taking this with me.”

“Are you crazy? Your security robot is broken!”

“I’m not leaving it behind. It has to pay for all it did to me.”