The airlock closes behind us, cutting all of us off from the city.

"I never thought I'd be out here again." Nimda muses as the other side opens to the same garage we first arrived in.

Our small car sits in front of us, stocked to the brim with supplies and freshly cleaned. A second car is parked beside it, the entire trunk filled with nothing but batteries. A thick cord connects both cars, although I'm not sure if it'll transmit just power, or data as well.

Cassie immediately steps forward, throwing open our trunk and letting the tension melt from her shoulders. She picks up her pistol, quickly checking it, loading the magazine from the box of ammunition sitting next to it, and sliding it into her holster. She does the same with her silenced pistol, my pistols, and Vince's rifle while Nimda walks to the other car.

"Can I ride with you?" Clover mumbles from beside me.

"Sure." I hope Cassie is ok with that, but I think talking will be good for her.

She shuffles to the back seat of our car and collapses into it.

Nimda climbs into the other car, standing where the driver's seat should be and plugs herself into the dash. Lance and Robin are doing much the same as Cassie, checking their car for guns and ammunition.

"We're going to spend a few hours practicing in the Digital." Lance says to me. "You're welcome to join if you want."

"I'm alright." The last thing I need right now is to risk my stability by practicing shooting. "Thank you though."

"Of course." He slides his pistol into its holster and carries his rifle loosely in one hand. "Feel free to join if you change your mind. You two lead, Nimda will follow."

"Alright." I climb into the driver's seat, and Cassie takes the passenger's. She passes my pistols to me along with a harness someone left for me. I quickly put it on, and slide my weapons into their holsters. I'm not sure if it feels better or worse to have them on me again. Probably worse.

Cassie leaves Vince's rifle sitting in her lap, ready to be used. The cupholder contains three small bombs for Corax, replacements for the ones he used. I spend just a minute putting on his harness and fully arming him. Hopefully he won't need to use them, but it's better to be safe.

I creep the car forward slowly out of the already open mouth of the cave. Nimda has no problems following, and I soon speed up.

"Can you make sure the path is safe?" I ask Corax and roll down the window. He takes off, flickering between the mountain tops. I hate sending him out alone, but at least he's so fast now that people will hopefully think they just imagined whatever flicker of movement they manage to spot.

We leave the open clearing and begin to move through the endless, narrow passages through the mountains.

"Are you doing any better?" I ask Clover.

Her head shifts, pulling her forehead off the glass window with substantial effort.

"I don't know." She says. "I guess."

"Why'd you want to ride with us?" Cassie asks.

Clover shrugs again.

"She really liked you, so I should learn to as well."

"We never talked, you couldn't have liked me that much."

"That's not what Her memories say." Clover says. "She used to make Silver tell her about you, just to make sure you were doing alright."

"What? Why?" Cassie asks.

"We could always feel you didn't deserve everything that happened to you, and I know She's sorry it took so long to get you away from Mara."

"It's fine." Cassie brushes her off. "I'm just glad I didn't end up dead because of her."

"There's still time." Clover says, although I have no idea if it's supposed to be a joke or not. Her words come out in the same exact tone as she's said everything else.

Cassie glances at me out of the corner of her eye, equally unsure.

Wow, I really should check how much charge the car has. I quickly plug myself in, and find the network split in half. Our car is the same as ever, but the cord connecting both of our vehicles lets me see the other has been formatted into another digital world. Even from here I can feel powerful waves ripple through the servers as Lance, Robin, and Nimda practice.

I don't join in, instead, I just take stock of both the cars. I can feel Nimda's attention turn to me while I poke around her server, but she says nothing.

Kismet wasn't kidding when they said the other car is almost entirely dedicated to batteries. Between the two of us, we have enough power to get to Mara's trench and back before needing a recharge. I guess that only makes sense, we're not going to be able to find a town that will accept us very easily.

I turn off the data lines, but remain plugged into the car. I doubt the extra quarter mile per hour of charging will change anything, but I might as well try.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Clover?" I break the awkward silence. "Everyone else is practicing fighting, do you think you need to?"

"I don't think I'm ready to." She replies.

"Yeah, me neither. We should both try at some point though, I really need more experience fighting other AI."

Clover doesn't respond to that. She just resumes leaning against the window, staring blankly at the rock walls passing by.

Corax lands on the open windowsill. I didn't even see him approaching, he hides so well in the shadows.

"Safe." He reports, and vanishes once again.

I reactivate the data lines connecting me to the car, and send over a message to their server.

"Corax says things are safe, he's going to remain in the air until we're out of the mountains though."

"Understood." Nimda replies.

"Oh, by the way. I grow… dependent?" Is that a good way to describe it? "On the car when connected to it fairly quickly, so I'm going to keep my data lines closed. If you need to send a message, turn on my blinkers and I'll reactivate them."

"Understood." Nimda repeats.

The car stays silent while we roll through the endless valleys and pathways. It's still early in the morning, and the world is dark beneath the giants surrounding us. The only light comes from the two sets of headlights, and the morning sun reflecting off the tops of the mountains. Despite that, Cassie does her best to keep her eyes open, quickly darting across the high slopes.

Corax still checks on me often, thankfully. Every time he reports things are safe, and I pass the message over to Nimda.

It takes two hours to get out of the mountains, and Corax returns to us the moment we're out of the mountain's shadow. Cassie finally relaxes a little bit when we're in the open desert.

For the first time since we set out, Clover stirs on her own. She pulls her head off the window and stares directly into the sun. I know exactly how she's feeling.

"I didn't believe it was real the first time I saw it." I say.

Clover only gives a slow, partial nod.

"We have cameras I accessed. But the heat…" She says.

"Yeah." This is a big opportunity. I need to keep her talking, but how? "I was forty before I ever saw it."

"She never had a physical body." Clover says. "I'm…" She looks down at her hands and her eyes furrow. "How old am I?" She whispers to herself.

"I'm not really sure how old I am either." I reassure her. "My parents reset me ten times, I'm the eleventh AI on my chip. Those previous versions are definitely the foundation of me, but I don't think they should be part of my age. Plus I was stuck in limbo for almost exactly forty years, and I'm not sure how much that actually counts." It's nice being able to talk about this without breaking down, I didn't even need Corax to bring me back.

Clover's head turns, staring at me with a look I can't decipher.

"Huh." She says. "I need to think." She lets her head drop against the window once again, and remains unmoving.

"Alright. If you want to talk more, just let me know."

Clover doesn't react to my words. Corax thinks it's better to not bite her ear though, he just remains sitting on my shoulder. If he doesn't feel the need to disturb her, I shouldn't either.

We settle into a comfortable silence while we skim across the desert. Just like always, Cassie constantly works the radio, Corax relaxes in the nest he's created in my lap, and I just drive.

"When do you think we'll be there?" Cassie breaks the silence.

"I'm trying to get us there in forty hours. I'm not sure how much this speed is affecting the tires, but I'm waiting until we need to stop for you to check."

"Ah, shit. I swear to god, if any of them complain about me needing to eat and pee…"

"I don't think anyone will." Although, for someone with as much processing power as Nimda seems to have, time must feel awfully slow. Actually, no, I'm sure pure code AI can just choose to experience things slower. They don't have an organic mind always working. Can mind rips do that though? Maybe? "And if they try, I'll stop them."

"Alright, no, I've got to hear this." Cassie turns her head towards me, resting her chin on her hand. "What's your plan?"

Shit, that's a good question. I just wanted to comfort her a little bit. I don't want to tell them in advance to not say anything and embarrass her. I guess I'd just yell at them? That's not something I want to do, but I'm not sure I'd be able to stop myself. Actually, no, I do have a plan.

"I'd sic Corax on them."

Corax's near-constant soft ticking increases in volume just a touch.

Cassie shakes her head with a smile on her lips, and focuses once again on the radio.

"Also, I meant when will we be at Mara's." Her smile instantly drops.

"Ah." I should have been able to guess that. We already discussed how long this leg of the journey would last before we left. "Well, forty hours, wait out the storm, and the last leg depends on how our tires are doing. At worst, another forty hours, but hopefully less."

"So a week, maybe a week and a half." Cassie lets out a long sigh. "They better be able to hold out that long."

I can only nod in agreement. I don't want to let myself think about what happens if they don't. I can't let myself think about that. The knowledge, the need to make up for what I've done has been driving me for this long. I can't give that up now.

"They're going to be fine." I say to both of us. "We literally couldn't have been faster."

"We would have been if Zero just helped us."

"We'll get our revenge. When we get everyone, we can stop by Vegas on the way home, and we'll order enough alcohol to fill up the bathtub for you."

"That sounds so fucking gross." Cassie laughs. "Guess I did say I wanted to drown myself in the stuff though."

"Plus we get to cost them a lot of money."

"When did you get so petty?" She asks.

"I don't know, sorry." I guess I am, at least a little bit. "I guess I'm just tired of everything."

"Don't worry, I'm not complaining. Fucker deserves it."

"Yeah."

Silence settles over us once again. Hours pass, and the world gets more crowded the closer we get to Vegas. I'm surprisingly confident though. Sure, if anyone looks at us, it'll be incredibly obvious what Nimda and I are. But also, if Lance and Robin are as skilled as I think they are, we're in very little danger from anyone attacking us. Plus, people on the radio are reporting that Cassie, Corax and I are east of Arc City at this point, running as far as possible. Nobody expects us to be heading west again.

The world grows barren again once we're west of Vegas. We have to make it to the city under the mountain, or we die from the storm. There's no safe place to stay between here and there.

The only thing I'm unsure about, is how we're going to get off the continental shelf. Our only hope is that the Rangers have moved on and are no longer watching the paths. If they are, I don't like it, but we might have to fight. Can I handle that? I guess I have to.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.