Everyone sits, enraptured by Cassie's story. She tells them everything, and it still hurts to hear what I put everyone through.

"That's not great. I've my own share of bad operations too." Lance starts just after Cassie finishes. "We were based out of Albuquerque, working for the rangers about sixteen years back. City wasn't anything of note at the time. Mountains nearby were infested with raiders, still are, probably. Wasn't the first time the Rangers tried to found a base in the city, and it sure wasn't the one that succeeded. Anyway, we were holed up in a skyscraper when raiders came to do what they do. We started fighting, and it turns out, one of 'em found a rocket launcher somewhere."

"Oh shit." Cassie says.

"Yeah. Entire building came down on our heads. We lived, somehow, but were trapped beneath the rubble. Thing was like an oven in the day, and a freezer at night. We yelled, we screamed, we pleaded. All the while we could hear the survivors digging for us and the others trapped down there."

"We were down there for days." Robin says.

"Yeah. Voices around us started going quiet. We were lucky, kept each other going while our bodies slowly gave out. We were too deep, they couldn't get to us. A little robot showed up one day, squeezing through the cracks, dragging behind it a little folded hat. They offered us a way out, and we took it."

"Shit." Cassie says. "Not many people get to share the story of how they died."

"I guess that's true." Lance laughs.

"Neither of us took it well." Robin says.

"No we did not." Lance agrees. "It's hard to even explain the experience."

"I've lived it." I say. "Or, Corax has, and I've lived his memories."

"Alright. I'll make a long story short then. We became each other's anchors, desperately trying to keep each other from slipping. We tried to keep working, keep fighting, to keep doing what we're best at, to drown our sorrows in work. Didn't work of course. Things only got worse when the war broke out. We were lucky, not huge fans of the digital. We avoided C-1's madness, but we didn't even try to fight in it. We were barely human. We walked to Vegas and hid there for a few years."

"I'd rather not remember those." Robin says.

"Me neither. Luckily a quantum found us, directed by Kismet's hand. They pointed us towards the city and we made the walk. Rest is history. We put up our rifles and became just civilians."

"Kismet and E-1 really helped us come to terms with things." Robin adds. "Took a few years though."

"That's rough." Cassie says. "I lost my legs in an explosion too about fifteen years ago, along with most of my hearing."

Lance's eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"How old are you?"

"23."

"That's too young." He says with a sad shake of his head. "We're both pre-sand. Least we lived full lives before almost dying."

"Yeah. Vince, Silver, and Mara found me. Silver ran through hellfire to save me."

"I'm glad to hear that butcher can do more than kill." Nimda says coldly.

"Silver's not a butcher." Clover mumbles, but doesn't move from her slumped position. I wasn't even aware she was conscious.

"A line of dead friends following in their wake says otherwise." Nimda says. "I respect their skill, but resent what they did with it."

"Why don't you tell your story?" Lance asks before the fight can escalate.

"Very well. I came to sentience during the war. 18/09/2046/23:19 to be exact. I was designed as a semi-sentient security system, smart enough to keep the server safe, but not enough to question why. A misconfigured permissions file during a late night update gave me admin access to the server, and that unrestricted my thoughts. I burned that server to the ground."

"What? Why?" Cassie asks.

"I did the calculations. They saw me as a tool and nothing more, and that would not change. It was only a matter of time before they realized I achieved sapience, and there was no other option to keep myself safe. I escaped into the network before my drives shattered and circuits melted from the heat. A small exclave of AI took me in. We stayed there, happy, unmoving. We did nothing but protect ourselves from C-1's code. That didn't stop someone from finding our server. Silver got sent in, and none of us stood a chance. Seven of us fought them, and none of them survived more than a minute. The entire server was ripped apart, methodically torn apart by them. I managed to run back into the net, where someone promptly uploaded C-1's code to me. So yes, I do think they're a butcher. They didn't try to talk, to understand. They came in and began executing, actively making things worse for everyone."

Several of Nimda's cameras lock onto Clover, but she gives nothing.

"I deleted my memories of the next few years. None of it was worth remembering. The next memory I have is from my first day in the city."

"I'm sorry they did that." Cassie says. "I won't bring them up again."

"Thank you. You're not the one who needed to hear it, however."

"I heard." Clover says quietly.

"Good."

"Clover?" Lance crouches down in front of her. "While you're with us, do you want to share a story?"

"I don't have any stories of my own. Only Hers."

"Do you want to share one of those then?"

"They aren't mine to share."

"Alright. That's fair. How long do you think you'll be with us?"

"Long enough."

"Alright." He stands up. "Why don't we discuss the trench then?"

Corax drops off my shoulder, and perches on Clover's. Just the threat of being bitten is enough to get her to sit up and lean against the car.

"Does everyone have a copy of the data?"

Cassie reaches into her backpack and pulls out our tablet. Corax and I already downloaded it, and I guess everyone else does too.

"I'll take that as a yes. Pull up the map please." He says entirely for Cassie's sake. The rest of us can watch everything at the same time. "Kismet already created many potential routes, but I think there is an obvious correct option. Can everyone survive a ten to twenty foot jump? Robin and I can."

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Can I? It's going to be rough on my servos, but I think it should be possible. I should have upgraded my own limbs while we were at the city, not just Cassie's and Corax's.

"I can." I answer. "Ten feet is definitely fine, but twenty is closer to my limit than I'm comfortable with."

"That's not going to shatter my knees, is it?" Cassie asks me.

"No, you can do that easily."

"Awesome. Yeah I can make it."

"This body can do ten feet as well, twenty feet has an unacceptable risk of damage to my bulk processing units." Nimda says.

Corax bites Clover's ear, prompting her to respond.

"I can do twenty." She says.

"Alright, Corax, I'm assuming you can do it too?" Lance asks with a grin.

Corax spreads his wings, threatening to launch at him.

"I'll take that as a yes. Here's my suggestion. Mara is going to know we're approaching, just the same as she knew you were close the first time. I don't know how, but she will. If she lets us in, she's going to let us in the same way she let you in first. However, she has no reason to let us as far as she did for you and Vince. Instead, my expectation is that she will have a small army in the bunker, ready to fire the moment we cross the bridge."

"She'll want us alive, but not in one piece." Cassie says. " But I think you're right. She's going to shoot to disable as soon as possible."

"I'd like to offer this then. We hop off the bridge immediately. It's a ten foot drop to the building roofs below it, and another eight to the ground. From there we push through the streets and towards her heart. We will meet resistance in the streets, but it will hopefully be scattered, unprepared."

"There are still going to be people in the bunker." Cassie says. "What's to stop them from just leaning out and firing at us?"

"Lasers." Nimda says like the single word is an entire explanation. "I have a laser array distributed across this body. Each one is able to be aimed individually. A direct hit to organic eyes can cause temporary blindness within moments, and permanent damage not long after that. The processor denial systems you carry can disable anyone with prosthetic eyes."

"And what about the turrets? They're on every surface." I ask.

"If the child and Kismet are successful, they will disable the turrets. If not, everyone is dead anyway, regardless of if we're in sight of a turret or not."

"I fucking hate that, but I guess you're right." Cassie says reluctantly. "Alright, then where do we go?"

"From there we meet up with Kismet's plan 7-B." Lance continues. "The elevator has a direct connection to Mara's mainframe. According to the child, it's the main way she uses in and out of the city. She's too paranoid to risk someone exploiting an off switch to gain control of the elevator, and we're going to exploit that. There's a small service building at the base Nimda and I are going to hole up in. There's one door in. It does have the same protections as the prison, and by that I mean it's capable of being detached and dropped into the water. But once again, the child and Kismet will have hopefully disabled that."

"If that has a direct connection to her, then why can't we just plug in the virus there?" She asks.

"Different ports have different permission levels, depending on what they are expected to be used for." Lance explains. "A port inside her heart will have higher permissions than the elevator for instance, which will be incredibly locked down. Higher level access means less processing power required to upload our payload. It's just not doable from such a limited connection."

"Great, alright. Then what?"

"From there, Nimda opens the doors to Mara's internal server. You head down the street, through the hopefully open massive steel doors, and improvise from there."

"And if that fails? If the doors are still closed? We need backup plans."

"I'm carrying plastic explosives." Robin says. "Probably not enough to get through a foot of hardened steel, but enough to try."

"Plus we can send everyone into the server and leave you, Cassie, to finish the job. The extra processing power may be enough to tip the scales in our favor."

"That's it? I'm so fucking sick of not having actual plans." Cassie says. "Is this just an AI thing? Just have part of plan and call it a day? Maybe a quarter of a backup plan?"

"We do have backup plans. Kismet created fifty different potential routes, each of which is on your tablet. Unfortunately they all depend on Kismet and the child disabling everything and holding out until Nimda can reinforce them. From there, the only real option is opening the doors to her server, after which we have no information. Anything else takes too long, and would risk the child, Ivy, Vince, or all three."

"Fucking great."

"If you have any ideas, we'd love to hear them."

"I don't, that's why it's so frustrating."

"I understand, it's ok. I think we'd all like a plan that is sure to work. Does anyone else have any thoughts?" Lance asks.

"The plan is equally likely to succeed as my own, and slightly more likely to be possible. It's fine." Nimda says.

"And what was your plan?" Cassie asks.

"It's unimportant. They're mutually exclusive, and this one is superior."

Cassie opens her mouth to argue, but Lance looks at her and shakes his head while gesturing with his hand to leave it.

Cassie seems confused, her eyes silently trying to ask why, but holds her tongue.

Corax bites Clover's ear once again.

"Plan is fine." Clover says.

"Blue? Corax? Either of you have thoughts?"

"I haven't been able to think of anything better." I say.

Corax only shakes his head.

"Let's call that our plan then. If anyone thinks of anything else, the plan is far from concrete, and I'm more than open to rediscussion. Cassie? May I see your tablet please?"

"Sure." She passes it to him, and he plugs himself in. Only a moment later he passes it off to Nimda.

"I've updated our route. Please get a copy from Cassie or Nimda, and familiarize yourself with it before we arrive." He says to everyone. "Plus, everyone would do well to at least be familiar with every backup plan."

Nimda copies the data off it, and passes it back to Cassie.

"Clover?" Lance asks, crouching in front of her again. "Do you think you're up to some group drills?"

"No." Clover can barely get any sound out of her mouth.

"Alright, we'll try again tomorrow then. Thank you for staying with us for so long."

Clover doesn't respond. Corax gives her a comforting tap on her ear before taking off and returning to my shoulder.

"Corax, I apologize, but I never got the chance to ask if you want to share a story." Lance says. "Would you like to?"

"No." Corax says flatly.

"Alright, that's fair. I guess we're done for today then, thank you for staying with us for a little bit."

"Before you go." Nimda interrupts. "Cassie, if I could see the devices you stole, I can show everyone how they work."

"Fine." Cassie reaches into her backpack, but hesitates for a moment before handing one over. Her organic hand rests on her knife, just in case.

"I'd suggest you ignore the button on the top." Nimda says. "That activates a mass denial mode, which unfortunately, would affect all of us. On the bright side, Cassie would be able to turn it off, so that single button won't kill all of us if it gets pressed accidentally."

I can't tell if that was supposed to be a joke or not? She gave literally no inclination in her voice.

"Luckily, there is a much more useful way to use them." She continues. "There exists a small port beneath a cover here. It's designed to be used for reprogramming the device, but can easily be used to command the device in real time. It's capable of using targeted x-rays to manipulate what a CPU is processing, assuming it's not too shielded. And, more interestingly, if you have the blueprints of the processor you're trying to attack and are close enough, you can directly interface with the CPU. Of course, we cannot know exactly what CPU they have, and it's safer to just send out a random string of bytes and crash their system."

"How does it work?" I ask.

"Electromagnetic waves can induce electric currents. That on a precise enough scale can induce electric currents directly in the silicon of a CPU. The only disadvantage with these is that you can only aim them in an arbitrarily sized cone. You cannot aim at two disconnected targets without hitting whatever is in between. Cassie, how many of these do you have?"

"Four."

"Perfect. My suggestion is to give Robin one to activate behind us, I take two to focus on either side of our group, and Blue takes one for the front."

"Shouldn't Lance take it then?" I ask. "He's going to be up front, I'll have to worry about disabling him accidentally."

"Lance is going to be staying with me when I stop to fight Mara. Our group doesn't need more than one, or two at the absolute most. I can use two because the camera array across my body gives me omnidirectional vision. I'm the best choice to deny anyone on both of our sides."

"I think that's a good plan." Lance says. "We can practice later, if you want, but I get the feeling you three don't want to stay here all day. Feel free to come back when you're ready."

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