Ready? Blue extends her dull silver hand to ask.

Ready. I confirm. You talk. For better or for worse, she's the one they want.

"Hello?" Blue's voice echoes through the distant pathways. If I had half the mods Ivy does, the sound is so clear I might have been able to make a rudimentary map from just the echo.

"Do it."

"Fuck!" Of fucking course it's a trap! I fucking told her! "Blue, fucking run!"

Blue begins to seize, her cloth covering quivering violently.

My legs freak out, feeling like they're switching between a thousand impossible positions, but still responding only to my commands. Unimaginably loud static assaults my ears.

She spins, shoving the limp remains of Corax into my chest.

"Run. Please." I can barely make out Blue's fading voice through the endless static.

She pushes me, and I fall backwards, unable to trust my own feet. I land hard on the ground just as Blue lands beside me, still convulsing.

I only have one fucking arm! I can't drag her and hold onto Corax. I can't fight and save either of them. Fuck! Fucking Zero!

She'd kill me if I left Corax behind to save her, or more likely, herself.

"I'm sorry Blue." I hope she can understand me. "I'll come back."

I stumble to my feet, unable to trust the feeling of yet another limb, and watch them closely as I try to run. I'm not fucking dying because I can't walk. Anything else, fine. But not fucking this.

With every step my senses return. My hearing clears, and my legs feel correct just a little more often.

"I thought you said there were two of them!" A man yells.

"There are!"

"Then how the fuck is one of them still running!"

The unmistakable sound of boots on stone echoes through the static.

How many? Focus. Seven. I can't fight seven, I don't have any cover, I don't have enough bullets, and I can't fucking reload.

I let my attention on my legs slip, and they slip from under me. I fall, twisting to land on my broken shoulder instead of Corax, and quickly stumble back to my feet.

I hit the stairs. I've run up so many flights. Don't trust my legs, just fucking do it. One motion I've done thousands of times. Don't fall.

Getting up the stairs isn't a pretty sight, but I make it work. If they let even me, stumbling my way through the hall, make it to the exit, whoever ambushed us barely had a second plan. I'm going to make sure they regret it.

I reach the top of the stairs, my legs entirely working and my hearing clear. I can hear it all, their footsteps, fabric being removed, metal carelessly dragged across the cold hard ground.

An instant after I reach the cellar I burst through the door and onto the busy street. I meld into the people, quickly weaving through the endless crowd. I'm not shy about forcing my way through, I don't have time to burn politely waiting for them to fucking move.

Corax begins to stir in my arm, and I hold him tight. The last thing I need is him freaking out and giving us away.

I barge into the bottom floor of our hotel, the ear splitting music doing nothing for my mood. The receptionist doesn't bother trying to stop me from marching back to our room.

I slam the door open and rip off my cloak, letting Corax fly to the bed.

"Where Blue." He asks.

"Zero!" I scream at the top of my lungs. Who the hell cares if I wake someone up. Serves them right for making me hear their shit from every room. "Get the fuck over here!"

"Where Blue." Corax reiterates forcefully.

"I'm going to get her back." I answer.

"Where-"

"I don't know! You both fell unconscious, Blue shoved you into my arms and told me to run."

Corax's eyes narrow in what I can only assume is anger mirroring mine. His wings extend and he crouches low, ready to fly directly at me.

"We're getting a fucking army and going back to kill every last one of them."

Corax pauses before taking off. Instead of a flurry of claws and beaks I'm expecting, he simply lands on my shoulder.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Go. Now." He growls.

"How do you expect me to kill at least seven people alone? They fucked with my legs just like they fucked with you."

"Now."

A sharp pain blooms from my ear as he bites it.

"Fucking bird!" I throw him off me and hold my hand up to my ear. It comes away bloody. His beak shines red as he sits on the bed. "Fucker." I mumble under my breath and draw my knife, cutting off a small section of my cloak and trying to use the fabric to stem the bleeding.

The faintest possible footfalls from outside the door get my attention only a moment before a knock comes.

I open the door for Zero and let him step inside. The moment the door closes, I draw my knife, and in one smooth motion slam the hilt into the side of his face. He barely reacts, but I leave a satisfying dent behind.

"Do you feel better?" He asks.

I do, actually.

"What the fuck happened down there?"

"That's what I sent you to find out." He says. "And I distinctly remember your instructions being to drop off the tablet at a dead drop for someone else to handle, not to scream my name."

"Blue had the tablet, and she's gone. What the hell did you expect me to drop off?" I take a deep breath. I need to calm down before I stab this bastard. "Look, whatever they did, they fucked with my legs, Blue, and Corax. Give me a dozen organic humans and I'll fix the problem."

"Like I said, Zero is in a delicate situation. Trust is a hard thing to be certain of right now."

"Then pay them enough to trust. You have more money than God, use it."

"Listen and think, stop jumping to conclusions." Zero's, or whoever this is, patience ends, their composure drops, revealing only cold fury. "What it sounds like, is that they're capable of manipulating a CPU remotely. If that's the case, neither Zero, nor my own decision making can be trusted."

"You fucking knew." It takes every ounce of strength I have to not end him now.

"I'm certain I wouldn't put Blue in a position with a large risk of dying. Perhaps I miscalculated, but I am separate from myself and do not have perfect information." He reaches into his pocket, and I jump to my feet, not even trying to hide the fact that I can end him at a moment's notice. He pulls out a playing card, a zero of swords, and a pen. He tries to push them both into my hands, but I won't let go of my knife. "There is a small crack in the wall in the Eternity Plaza. Write what you need on this and slide it inside." He places the card and pen on a small table in the corner of the room. "Whoever receives the message will help."

"You said yourself you can't trust your own mind. Just give me cash and I'll figure it out myself."

"I do not know who will pick up the dead drop, and have ensured I have no way of knowing until you activate the sleeper cell. This contingency has been in place since long before anyone started messing with me. Someone I trusted will help you."

"Get the fuck out."

"Very well." Zero is smart enough to not push me further. He turns around, disappearing into the hallway.

"Go now." Corax flies to my shoulder once again.

"If you bite me again I will stab you." I take a step over to the table and pick up the pen. What the fuck do I even say?

We need to talk. Come to room 512 at The Oasis.

-Scarlet and Bird.

That'll work. I'm not stupid enough to reveal who I actually am, but that description should be plenty to prove we're the ones who wrote the letter without any doubt.

"Go." Corax nudges my ear gently with the top of his head.

"Let me think first." I sit back on the bed, my foot thumping against the floor drowning out the music a tiny bit. "They knew there were two of us, which means they had eyes on us. I need a new disguise before I go out again." I have to assume that a picture of us made it all the way out here, so I guess I only need my face covered. My shirt hides my arm, and my pants hide my legs. Wearing the same head covering is a dumb idea.

Fuck it.

I grab the blanket from the bed and start cutting it into large strips. A white, uniform head covering is about as far away as it's possible to get from my patchwork cloak.

I wrap everything as securely as I can around my head. That's good enough.

"You're going to have to hide in my backpack."

"No." Corax says.

"Then you're waiting here."

Corax's eyes narrow.

"What the fuck do you want me to do? We're still wanted! You sit on my shoulder, and we don't make it out of the lobby." I know he's stressed, and I want her back too. But whatever he's doing isn't helping. "The longer you take to pick, the longer it is before we can save Blue."

I hold out my backpack for him, and he thankfully climbs inside.

"Thank you. Watch the wires." I wear my backpack on my chest, slip the card into my pocket, and draw my knife. It might be less intimidating, but it's just so much cleaner, especially in a crowded street. I want to kill my attacker, not whoever happens to be standing around them.

I head downstairs and onto the street, moving as quickly as possible without drawing attention to myself. I could sprint there and back pretty quickly, but that'd be like me screaming I'm trying to avoid someone. I'm lucky I'm short, and need to use that. Despite needing to blend in, I still can't stop myself from slipping between people when I can to get there just a second earlier.

Eternity is only a short distance away, and before I know it, I'm stepping into the courtyard. No obvious cracks sit in any of the walls. That's good though, if it's a dead drop it needs to be somewhere I'm not likely to be seen. My guess? Behind one of the statues in the corner of the palace.

Sure enough, the second one I walk to has a small crack in the corner. I wait until nobody is looking and slip behind the statues.

I put my knife in its holster only long enough to grab the card and slot it into the small crack. The card disappears, vanishing into the dark. I feel exposed, right up until the moment I have my knife back in my hand. I can't wait until I get my arm back. If Zero doesn't honor our deal, I'm going to kill him. I don't know how, but I'll figure it out.

The walk back to the hotel goes quick, and the second I enter the room, Corax climbs out of my backpack.

"Seen?" Corax asks.

For the love of god, just say a full sentence. Don't make me guess. How does Blue deal with him?

"What, was I seen?" Corax only stares blankly back. "There are people and cameras literally everywhere, so probably. We have to assume so at least." I sit on the end of the bed and check my pistol once again. The slide is crunchy and desperately needs cleaning. I should have written on the card to bring a cleaning kit, I'm not going to die from a jam.

I don't take my eyes off the door. That's not a chance I'm going to take.

"How long do you think it'll take?" I ask Corax.

He doesn't respond, instead, he just sits next to me, equally ready to attack whoever comes through the door.

It's only a few minutes before my mind begins to wander. I already miss her reading to me.

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