Vince and Ivy's nightmares are ever-present, and I do my best to coax them back to sleep after each one. I know it's rough, but they both desperately need it. I read to all of them throughout the night, hoping it at least makes things at least a little easier.

"Blue. May I speak to you?" Nimda interrupts my story.

Cassie shifts at her quiet words, and reluctantly relinquishes my arm back to me.

"Of course." I step out of the car as quietly as I can, and follow Nimda into her car. Lance and Robin are already inside, waiting for both of us.

We close the doors to try to muffle our voices. It'd be best to have this conversation in the digital, but I don't want to risk Vince waking up and me not being able to immediately respond.

"How's everyone doing?" Lance asks from the back seat.

"About as good as you can hope."

"That's good. They seem resilient."

"I hope so."

"I'd like to talk about your plans when we reach the city." Nimda says. "Or, more precisely, what you intend to do after that."

"We haven't really talked about it. I'm hoping we'll stay there until everyone is feeling better. After that, I'm staying with them. I imagine they'll want to go home eventually, and wherever Cassie, Ivy, and Vince go, Corax and I go as well."

"And home is in Arc City." Nimda guesses.

"Yeah."

"I was afraid of that. We have hid from C-1's madness for so long. I will not let you put the city in danger."

Shit, is that a threat? What do I do about that? Can I do anything about that? I'm certain she still has the device that can disable CPUs on her. Cassie. I'm sure she can hear, and I'm certain she's prepared for things to go south.

"Nimda." Lance says slowly. "Why don't you expand on that? What do you mean, and what are you going to do about it?"

"I mean what I said. I'm not going to risk word of our location getting back to C-1. I'm going to do everything I can to prevent your memories from being accessible to him."

What does she even mean by that? Is that a threat? I'm a biological AI, the only ways she can remove my memories are by either killing me, or resetting me. Even if I remove all traces of the city off my hard drives, it still exists in my mind. Melding would reveal everything that has happened, and I wouldn't be able to fight against someone who massively overpowers me.

"Nimda, you should know better than anyone what it's like to lose your freedom. We're not going to keep them as prisoners. Whatever happens, that's going to be a citywide decision."

"I'm aware. However, that doesn't change the truth of my statement. It's only fair that I inform you that I will do everything I can to ensure that safety. I do not know yet what form that will take, but I will leave it up to you if you inform your family or not."

I'm not going to stress Vince and Ivy out with that right now. I'll tell them when they're feeling a little better. Cassie, however, needs to know as soon as she's awake, if she doesn't already.

"What actually happens if C-1 finds out where you are? Why would he still want to go after you?" I ask.

"Our calculations and Kismet's futures regularly end in the answer that he still resents us, and that ends in a second war. The device you graciously gave us helps prevent traditional assaults, at least temporarily. Using the device reveals its existence, and that ends only in replication and countermeasures. The inevitable result of that arms race is that only completely unmodified humans are able to fight. Literal children would hold our lives in our existence, forced into a war they had no choice in. And that's assuming he doesn't just hire someone to drill or blow their way into the mountain and ruin our entire way of life without a direct attack."

"I'm sorry. I won't let him know about you, I promise."

"One's wants are irrelevant in his eyes. None of us wanted his madness, and yet the war happened. Ripping a memory from an unwilling biological AI is slightly more difficult compared to the other types, but hardly impossible. C-1 will find out regardless."

"Right." Is it safe for me to return to Arc City? It doesn't matter, I'll make it work. I'm not losing everyone again. Besides, I'm certain he already knows I exist. It'd be trivial to watch every camera in the city, and I spent a lot of time on the roof. He didn't immediately arrest me, which means… something, probably. It'll be fine, if I'm lucky. We'll just have to see how our inevitable meeting goes. "I'm sorry. I hope you can find some way to make things safer, but nothing can stop me from going home with everyone."

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"I'm not the one you'll have to convince. I imagine we will have a meeting once we reach the city, and your family is recovered. You'd do well to prepare your arguments in advance."

"I will. Is that all you need?"

"Yes, that's all I have to say."

Lance gives me an apologetic smile, and I step out of the car.

"Don't like." Corax says quietly.

I'm not sure if I can say the same, actually. I understand where she's coming from. I'm just someone who came into the city from nowhere and dragged four people thousands of miles into the desert. Sure, they wanted a quantum AI saved, and we did, but they likely don't care at all about Vince and Ivy.

I return to our car and take my seat once again. Cassie is already awake, her knife and pistol sitting in her hands.

"Did you hear everything?" I whisper as quietly as possible.

"Sure did." She says coldly.

"We'll make it home, I promise."

"I know." Cassie puts her knife away, but passes her pistol to me. "Make sure she doesn't do something fucking stupid."

"I will."

"And Vince has been fidgety since you stopped reading." She adds.

"I'll fix that." I lean into her, and she leans back into me. I wrap one arm protectively around her and lull her to sleep. I want nothing more than to completely encircle her, but she won't be comfortable unless I hold on to her pistol.

The night is thankfully quiet. Lance, Robin, and Nimda spend most of their time in the digital to save Cassie from their quiet speech.

Vince wakes from his restless sleep a few times, coming to consciousness in a panic. He always reaches for a pistol on his hip, only to find it missing. Ivy always wakes with him, and waits patiently for him to remember where he is. Only once his eyes settle onto Ivy, Cassie, Corax, or me does Ivy reach up and take his hand in hers. She gives him a look, the meaning of which I could never even begin to know the intricacies of, and he slowly settles down, trying once again to get a few minutes of sleep.

I keep reading through everything, hoping my words can help wipe away the remnants of whatever nightmare he was having.

I let everyone follow this pattern for twelve hours before deciding it's better for Vince to eat food, rather than to try fruitlessly to get more sleep.

I carefully extract myself from Cassie, who of course wakes from my first movement. A simple smile is enough to get her to relax, or at least to drop her guard enough that she doesn't think we're about to fight.

Opening the trunk is unfortunately loud enough to wake up everyone else. I'm a little disappointed that I won't be able to surprise Vince and Ivy with everything I've learned, but I guess it's fine.

I grab our hotplate, set it on the stone floor, and grab a small pot. We have a huge variety of food, at least compared to what I was using to make food for Cassie, what in the world should I even make? Something mild, for sure. I don't know what Ivy and Vince ate at Mara's trench, but I can't imagine it was anything good, and it certainly wasn't enough.

I end up boiling rice and topping it with rehydrated mild fruits and veggies. I hope these are actually mild, I can't exactly check myself. Finn's books say they are, I just hope nothing has changed in the past 40 years. I portion out a small amount for Vince and Ivy, and a larger one for Cassie. It feels wrong to do, but Cassie said they need to eat slowly. There's enough for them to have seconds later.

I grab two towels, three bowls, and head back to the car.

"Room service." I say softly, passing the larger bowl to Cassie.

"Now when did you learn to cook, Little Blue?" Vince asks.

"I wanted to surprise Cassie with something, and it turns out I really enjoy it." I place one of the towels and a bowl in his lap, making sure to not burn his legs. Ivy sits up as much as she can, and I hand her bowl to her as well. "I tried to keep everything pretty mild, sorry if it's not good."

Vince takes a tentative bite, his whole body relaxing when the food hits his tongue.

"It's the best thing I've eaten in a while. Thank you."

I can't help but beam with pride. I cull most of it through, I can't let it fill my mind yet.

"I can't taste anything, so please tell me if anything needs changed." I say.

"It's perfect, Little Blue. Thank you."

Ivy reaches for her tablet, quickly typing something in.

"Cook the rice for a minute or two less. It'll make it more tender, less mushy."

Shame begins to grow in my mind at her criticisms, but it's easy to root out. I had literally no way of knowing, and I'll be able to do better next time. I can let myself be happy with what I've accomplished now, and still be excited to improve.

Cassie gives her a small nasty look out of the corner of her eye, but doesn't end up saying anything. I guess that must mean it's true, but that's ok.

Vince and Ivy wolf down their food regardless, Ivy's complaints entirely forgotten.

"Did you make any extra?" Vince's sad voice tears my mind apart. Or would, if I didn't have great news.

"I did!" I say excitedly, reaching for his bowl.

"Give it time to settle." Cassie says firmly. "I already cleaned up your blood, you're on your own for vomit."

"Yeah alright. Pretty sure I've told you the same thing before, I'd hate to be a hypocrite." He hands me his bowl, and I set it safely on the dash. "In the meantime, how about we play some cards?"

It's clear to even me that he's trying to run from something and looking for any distraction.

"It'll be impossible for us to tell if Ivy's lying." Cassie complains.

"So nothing changes?" Ivy types out.

"Shut up." Despite her complaints, Cassie still grabs a familiar, well worn deck of cards from the glovebox.

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