Cassie stays tched onto my arm the entire night. Even when she grows uncomfortable and is forced to shift into another sleeping position, she still always comes back to my arm.

  An hour before sunrise I’m forced to gently shake her off me.

  She wakes with a start, quickly pushing herself away from me. I can see the conflict on her face before she realizes what she was doing, and she quickly turns her face away from me.

  “Sorry, I need to turn off the generator before sunrise.”

  Cassie nods at the window, but doesn’t say anything.

  I climb out of the car, remove the adapter between the rge pot with the burning oil inside and the turbine itself, and pace a ft metal sheet over it. I then pile a few rge chunks of stone atop it. That should prevent new oxygen from feeding the fire, smothering it.

  I watch it for a few minutes, ensuring no gaps form between the pot and the sheet. After a while, I remove the stones and pull off the pte. A massive plume of smoke escapes, but no more comes after that. There we go, easy.

  When I return to the car, Cassie has already grabbed her breakfast. She’s eating more of the prepared Kudzu. We still have a few bars, but they’ll st longer than the leaves and roots will. We’re saving as many as we can, just in case.

  “How close are we to the mainnd?” She asks into her food.

  “We’ll be arriving about an hour after sunrise. Corax is scouting ahead as far as he can right now.”

  “Alright, good.”

  It takes her a while to finish her food, and she begins to silently check her guns.

  “Anything on the radio?”

  “Nothing super important.” I say. “Apparently someone is trying to report that they killed us?”

  “What?” She looks at me for the first time since waking up. Her cheeks are still a little red, I hope she’s not too angry.

  “I don’t know either. Someone reported killing a group with our exact description, but can’t get to a ranger outpost to submit the bodies. Everyone’s been talking about it.”

  A grin repces Cassie’s confusion.

  “That has to be Ivy. We owe her the world when all this is over.”

  “You think so?” The person who reported the kill sounded like a man, but I’m not going to ruin her hope. It’s possible she just got someone else to send in the report? I don’t know how she would manage that though. Mara is an AI, and I’d be amazed if every room wasn’t bugged, just like Vegas.

  “It can’t be anyone else. We don’t have any other friends out here.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I have no doubt she’s managed to keep Vince alive, and I shouldn’t have any doubt now. “In other good news, they’re still reporting you having a metal arm and me having hair and skin. Leah hasn’t sold us out.”

  “Bullshit. Just because she didn’t do it publicly doesn’t mean anything. She got what she wanted from us, people like her couldn’t care less what happens after that.”

  “But why keep it secret then?”

  “So we don’t hear about it, and to save her own skin. She’d be fucked if word got out that she let two AI into her town. The safest thing we can do is to assume they know everything about us, that those kids realized who we are and reported us, and the rangers can read our thoughts. We can’t even assume Ivy’s misdirection worked.”

  “Right.” If we make an assumption and get it wrong, we’re dead. If we’re too paranoid, then we’re alive and anxious. I know which one I’d prefer. Despite that, a small seed of hope has already taken root in my mind and I won’t be able to easily remove it.

  Cassie ends up taking the headset from me while I continue to drive. Despite her warnings, she can’t help but smile at people discussing our death.

  Corax returns only a few minutes before sunrise, skimming across the surface of the desert.

  “Busy.” He reports.

  Of course it is.

  “Is anyone stopping cars or anything?” I ask.

  “No. Snipers.”

  “Fuck!” Cassie’s loud swear fills the car.

  Don’t panic, we just need a pn.

  “There’s a few passes through the mountain range. Are any of them safe?” I ask. We’re not out of options yet.

  “No.”

  Fuck. Don’t panic. We can solve this.

  “Alright, how are we getting through this?” I ask, trying and failing to conceal my growing worry. “If we wait until just before the next storm, we can sneak past when everyone returns to their bases.”

  “And then what? We have no extra oxygen, no CO2 scrubbers, hell, I don’t even think this thing is sand tight. If we get hit, we’re dead.”

  “It’s 400 miles to Vegas from the start of the path onto the continental shelf, 16 hours. Do you think we can make that if we wait for them to leave? How te do you think they’ll stay out?”

  “For a million fucking dolrs? They’re going to stay out until the st possible moment.”

  “Then we’ll stay out longer. We’ll sneak into Los Angeles or San Diego with the storm.”

  “And how are we going to get into one of the skyscrapers?” She asks. “Nowhere else in those cities are safe from the storm. And we have the same problem as Denver, even if we make it inside we’re still fucked.”

  Cassie draws her knife and stares at it for a few moments, her face unreadable.

  “Our only option is to look like normal travelers. I should have done this a long time ago.” She grabs a small tuft of her hair that didn’t get sanded off in the storm, and slides the knife across it, cutting it easily. She does the same to every other piece of her remaining hair, ending with an uneven buzz cut.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yes I did.” She sets to work gathering up every strand of hair she can and dropping them into a small gap between the glovebox and the rest of the car. Nobody will be able to find them. “You two need to hide, I’ll drive.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” I ask.

  “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Corax will keep everything away.” I don’t look at him, I’m too afraid he’ll say he feels like he can’t. “Should I remove the steam generator? Does it look too advanced and will make someone suspicious?”

  “No, it’s perfect actually. Lots of wanderers have modified cars.”

  “Ok. Here,” I lean over to reach into the glove box and carefully remove Kara’s letter. The writing on the front is so faded it’s nearly impossible to see it once had my name on it. “If anyone asks, you can be a long distance mail woman. Just please be careful with it, and don’t open it.”

  “Mailmen don’t do that.” She says with a smile. “I won’t even touch it if I don’t need to.”

  “Alright.”

  It’s time to take another risk to make her safer, time to jump in front of another bullet.

  I grab the tablet I found in the first car I stole. I set up as many barriers in my mind as I can and plug myself in. No data is sent back over the line into me, there’s no virus on here. I’m lucky.

  I spend just a moment to memorize anything important or interesting on the tablet before reformatting it and flooding it with data, generating hundreds of letters, and leaving behind fragments of thousands of deleted messages. If anyone looks, it’ll look like this tablet has been in use for years.

  “Here’s your mailbag. I added a route to it, starting in the middle of the pacific and heading east. It has a path going to Vegas, a dozen different small towns in the Grand Canyon, swings by Albuquerque and Denver, to Arc City, and continuing on to the east coast. Every city has a few fake letters that need dropped off. I also gave you a whole history if anyone goes digging too deep, but that’s all hidden and has been incompletely deleted. Do you think that’s enough cover?”

  “That’s perfect, thank you.” The pn has helped her rex a little, but not entirely. “I just need your help making a fake arm for me. To wrap my metal one and pretend it’s broken in a sling.”

  “I can do that.” I grab the st of our cloth, pack it tightly together, and start to wrap bandages around the whole thing, right until I’m interrupted.

  “Use the bloody bandages.”

  “Alright.” Yeah, that makes sense. Nobody will think it’s a robotic arm if it’s bleeding.

  It only takes a few minutes to finish it. It looks good, and unless someone actually touches it, it’s indistinguishable from an arm.

  “Alright, I need to attach this.” I ask for permission before touching her.

  “Go ahead.” She quickly strips off her shirt for me and watches intently out the window.

  I put the car in park while I work. I don’t want to get any closer and risk someone seeing us.

  I grab the remaining bandages and use them to pin the fake arm to Cassie’s side. From there, it’s just a matter of covering the remnants of her mechanical arm and using a few strips of cloth to make a fake sling.

  It only takes a few minutes to get everything perfect.

  “There, that should work. Do you need anything else?”

  “Yeah, don’t hide in the trunk, it’s too obvious.”

  “Alright.” We have so many supplies in the back seat, I can bury myself safely in there. Plus, if I’m lucky, a little bit of light should be able to make it through. “I’m going to need your help rearranging everything.”

  “Alright.”

  I put the car in park and begin to unload most of the back seat. All the water containers are sealed. All I need to do is y some of the rger ones horizontally so they’re sitting off the edge of the seat, and leaning against the driver’s and passenger’s seats. That creates a small gap below them on the floor just big enough for Corax and I to crawl into.

  I plug in Lucas’ light, hold Corax close to my chest, and climb inside.

  Don’t panic. I can move. I can see. Corax is here with me. It’ll be ok. It’s just for a few hours. I can survive that.

  “Alright.” I call out of my hiding spot. My voice is shaky and weak, but I’m sure she can hear me. “Just make sure I’m hidden I guess.”

  A few scraps of cloth and supplies begin to be moved. Each one piled on steals more of my sunlight. She even goes so far as to pce a box at my head and feet. Soon I’m left only with the dim handheld light. This is going to be like the bus. I survived that. I can survive this.

  “Alright, you’re hidden. Do you need anything else?” Her voice sounds so distant through the supplies.

  “I’ll be ok.”

  JanePtinum