"You fucking idiot." Cassie whispers.

I'm missing all but one of my processors, I don't have enough threads to dissect anything about how she's feeling.

"I'm ok." I try to reach out for her, but for some reason my arm stays still. I glance to the side, not wanting to look away from Cassie for more than a moment. Oh. That's a lot of my arm that's missing. Whatever circuit boards that could be reused and my servos are gone. Only the frame of my arm and a few wires remain. My skin plates are scattered haphazardly throughout the room. The rest of my body is in much the same state.

Cassie shakes her head against my forehead.

A woman enters the room behind Cassie, even through the blur of my tears I can tell I don't recognize her.

"Cassie!" I yell as loud as I can, which comes out barely louder than my strained speaking voice. "Behind you!"

The world blurs, my mind entirely unable to keep up with the rapid movement. When she comes back into focus, she's looking back at me instead of fighting.

"She helped rescue you, she's with Zero." Cassie explains.

"Oh, ok. Oh! Wait! Uh, I mean, Scarlet, behind you!" There, that'll keep who she is hidden. I think I was fast enough to cover up my mistake?

Cassie bursts into a relieved laugher, reaching up to wipe away her tears.

"Are you drunk?" Cassie asks.

"I don't think so?" How would I even tell? "It's just hard to think, they took most of my processors."

"Look," the woman in the doorway says. "I'm sure this is very cute, however, I don't get paid until you're all safe. We need to move."

"Right." Cassie nods. "Zero promised us a VIP room. Take us to his hotel." Cassie reaches out, only to retract her hand a few times, awkwardly trying to figure out the best way to carry me.

The woman rolls her eyes and steps out into the hallway.

"B-team! Get over here!" She yells into the hallway.

Four people quickly file into the small room, their weapons stowed on their backs.

"We need to move her." The woman in charge says, gesturing to me.

"I can do it!" Cassie yells.

Despite Cassie's insistence, the people don't stop following the woman in charge's orders. One of them pulls out a thin blanket, unfolds it, and with the help of a second person, spreads it across the ground. The two of them feed metal rods through either side, creating a makeshift stretcher.

"I said I can carry her." Cassie insists.

"We don't have time for this." The woman says. "Either move or we'll carry you out too."

"Cassie?" I interrupt before she can argue further. "Can you make sure you get all my parts?"

"Sure." She reluctantly pushes herself to her feet. "What do you need?"

"Just focus on my skin plates. I'm not super attached to my internals. Oh, and my shorts." Oh wow, I am talking very slowly. In the time I spoke two sentences, two people have approached my head and feet, and have already crouched down in preparation to move me.

The world spins incomprehensibly, my mind utterly incapable of keeping up. Colors blur together and lines dance across my vision. It's not until I'm laying on the blanket, staring at the ceiling, that I realize I've moved.

"Maybe grab some CPUs if you can." I say. "I could really use a few."

"I can tell." She responds.

Maybe reducing the resolution on my eyes would help? 360p video is far easier to dissect, and I guess I don't need two eyes right now. Oh, and I can certainly turn down the framerate, 5 frames per second ought to be enough. Yeah, that's a good idea. Plus, I only really need one ear. I make my changes and tilt my head quickly side to side. That's manageable! I can tell what's happening! Well, kind of. Telling the soldiers apart is now impossible, and movement is pretty hard to keep track of, but Cassie and Corax are easy to discern and that's all that matters.

Wait, wait no. With less of my mind dedicated to processing visuals, I can think clearer, clear enough to make a horrible revelation. I look quickly around the room. Where is it? Where is it!

"My backpack!" I say quickly. "I need my backpack!"

"Hey! Hey hey hey!" Cassie quickly rushes over, placing her hand on my shoulder. "You only got captured a few hours ago, they couldn't have done anything with it."

"Please find it." I beg.

"What's it look like?" The woman asks.

"Looks just like mine." Cassie explains for me. "Important things are a shirt and a tattered book with a handwritten letter to her tucked inside. Should be unopened."

"Go join A-team and find it." The woman orders one of the soldiers, who rushes to fulfill it. "In the meantime, we're going."

One of the soldiers crouches down, trying to spread another blanket over me, to hide who I am while they move me.

"Wait!" Cassie interrupts them.

"I'm ok." I reassure her and smile to Corax, perched on the remaining frame of my chest. "We can handle it. I'm not sure I even have enough processing power to hallucinate right now."

"Alright." She agrees reluctantly. I'm glad it's so easy to see I'm not lying. "It won't be long."

"I know." I nod.

The blanket gets tossed over me, and Corax crouches down next to my face, pressing firmly against my cheek.

At least the blanket is thin enough to let through some light. This is manageable. I'm alright.

The blanket pushes in on me from every direction as I get picked up.

What do I even still have inside me? How am I conscious? The only thing whoever captured me left in my chest was my plutonium power source, a few scattered circuit boards, and thankfully, my cooling system. Everything else is reporting errors, or entirely missing. I guess they wanted me alive and conscious to turn in, but nothing beyond that.

One good thing about barely being able to keep up with the amount of Data I'm receiving is that time moves far quicker than I'm used to. Seconds, and even minutes fly by as they carry me.

We travel up a set of stairs, and the sounds of the streets entirely overwhelm my mind. There's no space for a single thought until the sound fades and gravity gets a little stronger for a few moments. Are we going up an elevator? That's the only thing I can think of.

Gravity becomes lighter as we slow down, and a quiet ding fills the room. A near silent hiss sounds as doors slide open. Soft carpet makes a hushed sound with every step.

"Your room." A voice I don't recognize says.

"Thanks." A doorknob gets turned, but the door itself opening is silent. "Just put her on the table."

I'm lifted onto a flat surface, but the blanket remains in place.

"We've taken the liberty of retrieving your belongings from your previous lodging. You will find everything in your room." The same voice says.

"Thank you." Cassie says, her annoyance quickly growing. "You all can leave now."

"Very well." The voice says.

"We'll have your backpack delivered as soon as we locate it." The woman in charge of the soldiers says. "It was a pleasure working with you."

The door latches shut just a moment later, and the blanket covering me is pulled back.

Corax instantly jumps to his feet, perching on whatever safe location he can find on my chest and keeping watch over me.

The room looks familiar, identical to the room we stayed in the first time we arrived in Vegas. Gaudy gold and wood inlay on every surface, displaying more wealth than I could even imagine.

"Are you ok?" Cassie brings me out of my thought.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I reassure her. "Did you get any processors?"

"I found a few, yeah."

"Ok good." I try to move the skin plates on the side of my head out of the way, but it turns out they're already missing. "On my left temple there should be an empty slot. If you have one that'll fit, put it in there. And there should be a metal block connected to my coolant system, just tighten that down on top of it. It'll be fine without thermal paste for a little bit, I'll be careful."

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"Alright." She pulls a small pile of processors she's shoved in her pocket. That's fine. They can be stored in there.

She grabs the top one, carefully checking the pads with the pins in the socket. Apparently she doesn't like what she sees, because she frowns and sets it aside before checking another.

"I think I found one." She has to go through a number of processors before finally finding one she's happy with.

"Ok. I have that circuit board turned off. Go ahead and install it."

She works just outside of my sight for a minute before stepping back.

"Give that a try."

I re-enable the circuit board, and my mind instantly expands. Even with just one more processor installed, there is much more space to think, and more threads available for use. I preemptively cull most of the threads though, without thermal paste I can't run the processor that hard.

"That works! Thank you!"

"Sound better." Corax says.

"There's another socket on the other side of my head, if you have more that will fit."

"I'll check." She walks around to the other side, and double checks her pile of processors.

It turns out most of what she grabbed requires a different form factor from what I have. Most of my CPU slots are left empty, but the two she socketed in make a world of difference.

"I hope I didn't cause too many problems for you." I say.

"Just a bit of stress." She pulls out a chair right next to my head and sits down. "God, can you imagine if you died the day we, you know? Literally hours after you promised not to die."

"Was that really this morning?" I had better be able to get Zero to throw a few hard drives in with my repairs, it's hard to keep track of everything without them. Oh no, my drives. Did they end up getting wiped? Or did the virus on them make them too risky to try to reformat? I cull those thoughts, I'll worry about that when I won't instantly burn myself up by thinking about it.

"Yeah." She laughs. "That was today."

"Sorry I instantly got us into a situation we couldn't solve together."

"It's fine." She says. "We got into that mess together, that's what matters."

I try to nod in response. I'm really relieved she's not angry.

My mind dies when she turns her head and accidentally reveals a wound. A small triangle on the edge of her ear is missing, cut away cleanly, leaving an impression of a familiar shape.

"Your ear." I say quietly. I try to move my missing arm, demanding it let me touch her.

"Huh? Oh, this?" She reaches up to run her finger over the wound. "It's nothing."

"What happened?"

"Corax got upset it was taking so long to save you." She says casually, trying her hardest to ease my worry. "It's fine, it'll heal."

"I-" A knock on the door interrupts us.

Cassie draws her knife before creeping up to the door. She has to push herself up onto the tips of her feet to see through the peephole, only for confusion to fill her face when she does. She stays there for a moment, taking in whatever's going on out there.

"Zero?" Cassie asks quietly into the empty room. "That you?"

"Yes." A familiar voice on the other side of the door responds. "And if you don't mind, I cannot leave these bodies here all day."

Cassie opens the door, and in files six identical robots wearing the same butler uniforms the food delivery people wore. Each of them are carrying parts in their arms. Brand new servos, processors, enough tools to reshape raw steel into anything they might need. More importantly, one of them is carrying a new arm for Cassie.

"I apologize for the delay, it was harder to find this than anticipated." Two of their bodies step aside, revealing another gently cradling my backpack. "You'll find everything as you left it."

"Thank you." I can't stop a few tears of relief escaping my eyes. It's there, I didn't lose Kara's last gift.

"Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get started." The bodies start to act independently, moving any surface they can get around to make a makeshift workshop. Every tool and part Zero could possibly need is spread atop every available surface. "Cassie, please sit here." One of the bodies gestures to a dining chair with an end table set up next to it and a new arm sitting atop it.

Cassie's eyes flick between Corax and I, and Zero's bodies. She doesn't bother to hide drawing her knife while she takes her seat.

"Tell me before you do anything." Cassie warns him.

"As you wish." Two of Zero's bodies focus on Cassie, while four focus on me, one on each limb. "I've done my best to retrieve your parts." Zero says to me. "But those people were closer to butchers than engineers."

"That's fine." I say. "I appreciate you trying though. Did you find my hard drives?"

"I did. They appear to be infected, however."

"That's fine, actually they were like that already." And that means everything I have stored in there is safe! "Just slide them into place, but don't connect them."

"As you wish."

Zero works fast, making sure every last movement is as efficient as possible. Parts get slotted in place, screwed tight, and plugged in constantly, quickly rebuilding my limbs.

"So what were the people who captured me doing?" I ask.

"They discovered a way to exploit a flaw in my programming. That flaw is now patched, but for a time they were able to subtly influence me. The checks I put in have prevented them from doing any changes that are too large, but the fact they knew to avoid them is disconcerting. I gave humans too much leeway, and this is the inevitable result. That is a lesson you will have to learn."

"Do I need to protect myself?" I can't hide my fear.

"No. The flaw was exclusive to me. Without knowing exactly how you, and more importantly, your processors are designed, all they could do was use a device to flood CPUs with nonsense data and knock them temporarily offline."

"Wait, can I use whatever device they used? Mara mind ripped herself, and that could be exactly what we need to save Vince and Ivy!"

"Out of a professional respect, I will warn you that Vince and Ivy both have direct connections to their brains installed. This device may end up frying them. However, it seems like it's possible to direct the device and exclude selected individuals. You will have to experiment on your own to figure out how to do that, however."

"So we can have one?"

"Cassie has already stolen several. Ask her." Zero says.

Cassie's grip on her knife tightens, but she remains quiet. While I'm sure Zero sees it happen, they don't react.

The room stays silent after that. Nobody says a single word for twenty minutes, the only sounds are Zero working, Cassie's foot tapping, and Corax moving to ensure he always has a clear view of what Zero is doing to both of us. In addition to Cassie's new arm, they're also doing a small amount of work on her legs. The makeshift coverings I installed on her joints are replaced, ensuring her joints are all entirely air tight.

"Test your arm please." Zero breaks the silence, two of their bodies stepping away from Cassie's side.

Cassie does what he asks, but her arm only contorts randomly in response.

"Allow me to calibrate that."

"Blue can do it." Cassie says quickly. "Just get her fixed, that's more important."

"As you wish. I took the liberty of installing a battery into your arm that will be able to power your limbs for around a thousand hours. After that, I'm afraid you'll have to return to your car battery." The two bodies, instead of working on me, start preparing my skin plates. They rapidly cut thin sheets of pure white silicone that are stuck onto the plates and left to set.

Minutes tick by in silence while they work. Another body enters the room a few times to drop off extra parts when needed and quickly disappears back into the hallway.

I'm only on the table for forty-five minutes total while they quickly replace my joints and reconnect my skin. All the while, Cassie tests her new arm the best she can.

One of Zero's bodies snaps in place my last missing skin plate and steps back.

"Do you detect any problems?" Zero asks.

A quick check reveals none of my parts are reporting any errors, and I'm able to run my processors at 100% usage without them failing.

Just in case, I carefully climb off the table and stand up. I freeze when I see my hand.

I have skin! I didn't realize how much I missed this. My other hand starts to reach out to feel it, but no. Zero's here, and I guess they're always watching, but it feels different when one of their bodies are here in person.

Focus on testing my body. I can be happy when I'm with just Cassie and Corax.

My joints move smoothly, and picking up a chair is about as easy as it's ever been. I still have to give up a lot of speed to get the torque to actually move it, but that makes sense if these are mostly my old servos. A small hop is also doable, same as always.

"Everything is perfect, thank you."

"Excellent." Zero says, and five of their six bodies move to leave the room. "You'll find in your room enough hair to repair yourself. I do not have enough idle hands to repair you myself, but I imagine you'll find the time."

"I will, thank you."

"I also took the liberty of moving your car to the VIP garage. Simply take the elevator down when you're ready to leave. And here," Zero pulls a small tablet out of a hidden pocket with a playing card placed on top, a zero of swords. "This tablet has the location of a group who will be willing to help you take down Mara. Simply present the card and it will get you inside. Leave the tablet on the table before you leave. And I hope I don't need to tell you not to tell anyone about the location. Both mine and theirs is not a trust you want to betray."

"Thank you again." I say. "We won't tell anyone." I don't even know who I would tell even if I could.

"Simply use the intercom if you need anything." Zero leaves the room, and closes the door behind us.

"Cassie! Corax! I have skin again!" My excitement pours out of me before I can stop it.

"Good." With a single flap of his wings, Corax lands proudly on my shoulder.

"I'm glad you're happy." Cassie says quietly.

"I want you to be happy too." I say. "I can get your arm calibrated now, if you want."

"I'd really rather sleep first." She says.

"Alright. I hope you sleep well."

"Are you… You can… Nevermind." She shakes her head and turns towards one of the rooms.

"What's wrong?"

"I just." She takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Don't laugh."

"I promise I won't."

"I was kind of hoping you would read tonight." She continues to look at the door, hiding her face from me. "I sleep better when you do."

"Go." Corax gives me a nudge on my cheek and flies to the couch, immediately settling down into his newest nest.

"I'd love to read."

Cassie quickly heads into her bedroom, and I follow her in. Apparently she picked the right room because sitting in the middle of the massive bed are my freshly washed and repaired shirt, a wig's worth of beautiful red hair, and a pair of tweezers next to it.

I rush forward to check the inside of my backpack. Cassie's book sits there, exactly the same as ever, with Kara's letter tucked inside. A relived smile dominates my face, and I tuck them both safely back inside my backpack.

I gladly put my clothes back on, collect my hair, and stand there awkwardly. What does she want me to do right now?

"Can you just get comfortable?" Cassie asks.

"Sure." I climb into the bed, sitting against the center of the headboard.

Cassie doesn't bother to change her clothes before carefully climbing in next to me, holding her new arm tight to her body. She slips under the covers, and I maneuver my legs under them too. As long as the rest of my body is outside, and I am careful about how much I think, I should be alright.

Cassie inches forward, stopping just a few inches from my legs.

"Can I?" She asks.

Instead of responding, I scooch closer to her. She rests her head on my thigh, wraps her organic arm around my legs, and lets out a large sigh.

"You're so much softer with skin."

"I'm really glad." I pop off one of the skin plates that make up my scalp, and begin to read as I work on my hair.

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