“Done.” I announce to Ivy. Both my voice and Corax’s body are shaking.

  “Are you ok?” She crouches down and takes my face in her hands.

  I nod. I lie.

  “We need to move quickly.” Both so I don’t have a breakdown, and so nobody undoes the hack I just did. “Elevator’s unlocked, turrets will fire at everyone else at the word ‘crimson’ or gunfire.” She offers me her hand, and I use it to pull myself back to my feet.

  “Alright.” She gives me a pat on my shoulder. “But we’re talking about what you saw when we get home.”

  I nod again and follow behind her. The owner of the room is unconscious on her bed with a needle ying carelessly beside her. Ivy takes a step over and removes the belt around her arm, followed by rolling her onto her side and leaning her on a pillow. Ivy shakes her head wordlessly and heads for the hallway.

  Vince is watching for our return, and Ivy gives him a quick signal to tell both him and Cassie to follow. She hits the elevator button which opens immediately, and the five of us pack inside.

  “What’s the pn?” Vince asks when the elevator closes and begins to rise.

  “Apparently he’s got turrets.” Ivy fills in for me. “Say crimson or fire your weapon, and they’ll do our job for us.”

  “Thanks.” Vince crouches down in front of me. He hands me back my tablet and looks intensely into my eyes. “If anything happens, just look away. Alright? You’ve already done far more than you needed to.”

  It’s all I can do to give a small nod in response.

  Vince keeps his rifle slung across his back, but his hand remains on his pistol. Cassie has no such reservations. She has both her knife and pistol drawn.

  “Is this going to be ok?” I whisper to Corax. I don’t think he’s capable of responding right now.

  The elevator opens, and Vince takes a tentative step out. The penthouse is incredible. The entire floor is wrapped in gss. Marble columns hold up the wall, and minimalist decorations are spread about. Directly in front of us is a man sitting on a couch around a pool built into a floor. He has a nearly empty bottle of wine on the table next to him, and a second bottle in his hands.

  I saw a few guards in the cameras, where did they go?

  “There are guards hidden somewhere.” I whisper to Ivy and Cassie.

  “I assume this is you?” The man I assume to be Eight asks. He gestures with his bottle to the turrets in the roof, trained on his head. “Should have known Zero would be the death of me. Fucking bot.”

  “I’m not here to kill you, Eight.” Vince says calmly. He walks over to a couch opposite of him and sits down.

  Ivy and Cassie step out of the elevator. Ivy heads left and Cassie turns to the right. Maybe they’re trying to track down the other guards? I step out of the elevator too, but stay near the doorway.

  Eight ughs.

  “Just here to take another limb then?”

  I can hear a small scuffle through a door to my left. A moment ter a guard is pushed out of the room by Ivy with his hands cable tied together.

  “I’m not that person anymore.” Vince says. “In fact, I’m here to right some wrongs.”

  “Just like you took care of my brother.” Eight takes a rge swig of wine as Ivy takes care of another guard.

  “I’m looking for Mara.” Vince pys his hand. “I need information. You can either work with me, or we can find it ourselves.”

  Cassie kicks a man through one of the doors, he hits the ground hard. A moment ter Cassie is on top of him, restraining his arms.

  “Fucker was wiping hard drives.” Cassie stands up, but keeps her foot on his back, pinning him to the ground.

  Eight ughs once again.

  “You’re getting slow, Vince.”

  “Guess we’re doing it the hard way then.” Vince deliberately stands up. Eight’s confidence instantly fades. “Cassie, can you take Blue and Corax home?”

  “Let me look at the computer, I can probably recover some of it.” I say quickly. I don’t know exactly what Vince is pnning, but even I can see how much he doesn’t want to do it. I can check out a hard drive without accessing the wider network. Zero will never know, and I won’t have to return to the network.

  “You’ve done more than enough today Blue.” Vince says without emotion. “Let me take care of this.”

  I don’t respond. I can do one more small task. I turn towards Cassie and she waves me into the room with a look of relief on her face.

  There’s a whole server in here, quiet and dead. Cassie must have shut it off to preserve the data. That should make things a little easier.

  If I plug myself into the server itself, I might end up back in the network. Instead, I pull out one of the drives and plug myself in directly.

  The drive was definitely stopped mid reformat. On the bright side, they were doing a quick and dirty job. All the data is still here, it’s just the metadata that’s been deleted. Rebuilding that is going to take a few minutes, but shouldn’t be that hard.

  I download the data off every drive and get to work sorting through it. None of the data is even encrypted, what is he even doing here? His security is literally non-existent.

  “Please tell me you can recover everything.” Cassie begs. I think she knows what Vince is preparing to do, and is desperate to avoid it.

  “I can.”

  Only ten minutes ter I have the entire contents of his server rebuilt and transferred onto my tablet. It takes some serious compression to fit everything on it, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I skim through the data only enough to find a location and a small amount of context.

  I walk slowly to Vince and hand him the tablet.

  “She is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, living in a ravine. She’s using both Eight and Seven as part of her drug network.”

  Vince gives me a grateful smile.

  “Sorry I ask so much of you. But I really appreciate it.” Vince turns back to Eight. “Well aren’t you lucky? I guess we’re done here.”

  The turrets built into the roof retreat, leaving the ceiling seamless. I didn’t program them to do that. Is Zero fixing what I broke? Or did I somehow miss something?

  “Just put a bullet in me.” Eight says and takes another swig. “It’ll hurt less than whatever she’ll do.”

  “Not if you keep quiet.” Vince says. “I don’t pn on saying anything, and if you just pretend like we were never here, there’ll be no problems. If you breathe a word though, we broke in once. It won’t be hard to do it again.”

  Vince heads towards the elevator without waiting for a response. Ivy and Cassie don’t bother freeing the guard before joining us. The second the elevator doors close Vince slouches against the wall and closes his eyes.

  “Are you ok?” I don’t bother trying to hide my worry.

  “I’m alright Little Blue.” That’s very clearly a lie. I don’t think it’s the time to push him on it though. “More importantly, is Corax alright?”

  Corax gives a jerky nod, but continues shaking. I reach up and cradle him in my arms.

  “I’ll take some of the mental load as soon as we’re home.” I whisper to him. Melding together will hopefully help.

  On the ride down, Ivy grabs my tablet from Vince’s hand and copies the data to her own. Once she’s done, she hands the tablet back to me.

  It’s not long before the elevator comes to a stop and the doors open. Numerous guards are posted around, a gentle suggestion for us to leave and never return. A suggestion we have no problem accepting.

  Only a few minutes ter, we’re back in our temporary home. I immediately take a seat at the table and set my backpack in front of me. It’s not super comfortable, but Corax will prefer it to a ft surface. I pce him gently on it, plug us both into the tablet, and return to the digital world.

  I look the same, but an extreme pressure exists at my core, threatening to overwhelm me. I can’t let it yet. My emotions can come out when Corax is feeling better.

  Speaking of Corax, he’s a fractured mess. His wings are wrapped tightly around his body to keep himself from falling apart. The sheer amount of information was far too much for him. How did he even continue helping me in this state?

  I step forward and embrace him, holding him together.

  “Blue. Unplug. Safe soon.” She’s so small, so weak. None of them get to live. His memories blur together in a maelstrom of anger, control, and endless blood.

  I push the mainframe to its limits, taking a dozen bodies as my own. Through my eyes a drone bursts through the door, gun pointed at Blue’s head. I command her to stop, but she fights.

  She is not allowed.

  I retreat from every drone and focus on the one putting her in danger. I flood her brain with data. She still has a fading consciousness and it screams with pain. I can feel it too, her brain is just as much mine as it is hers.

  I endure the pain. She does not. Her fight ends and she goes limp. I do not give her a second chance to disappoint me.

  Nobody does.

  Once everyone lies dead I’m left alone. Through cameras I watch Blue stumble through the bunker. She can barely stand up on her own. I should have left one drone alive to help her. She shouldn’t have to make this walk alone.

  Every time she stumbles and slips the more my regret grows. I will not make that mistake again.

  I watch her stumble to the p of a man on a golden throne. I don’t even remember his name. I don’t want to.

  He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.

  She takes my body into her arms and removes the wire that’s kept me trapped here.

  I’m free. She’s safe. The gears inside me whirr to life without my prodding. I let them make noise, I think she likes it.

  From there Corax’s memories mostly coincide with my own. There’s only one time we’ve been apart that my mind is burning for an answer for. Vince carries Corax into Silver’s room, Corax has such a good feeling about this meeting that he can’t help but share his whirring sound with Vince.

  Corax’s mind fights to keep the secrets of that meeting to himself. As much as it hurts, I retract my threads away from that memory. How Corax made Silver ugh will forever stay a mystery to me.

  Everything is fine, up until we begin our hack. I’ve never felt an overwhelming fear as strong as Corax’s when faced with Zero. I guess that’s a fight or flight response? Whatever it is, it’s awful. All higher reasoning stops, his entire mind screams to run. It barely even bothers to create memories, I only get fshes of contextless emotion.

  When I come back to my senses, Blue and I are creeping down a hallway. I follow behind, hoping she knows where she’s going. She tosses a ball of ice into the room, waiting for a response that never comes.

  I summon one of the others from below my feathers. He climbs out and takes flight, a sacrifice to an absent trap. That thought, those words, feel foreign. That’s not mine. Stupid books.

  Blue heads to the elevator and the pit in my stomach only grows. She looks so determined though. I need to stay with her, she won’t survive without me.

  I keep my eyes pinned to the marble statue. He doesn’t respond and the doors close.

  Corax’s memories once again become fragmented. Not from fear this time, but from pure data overload. Corax’s memory can’t even come close to recording everything he saw. A primal goal takes hold, guiding his every motion. Help Blue. Protect Blue.

  Even when we leave the network, Corax’s memory is still reeling to catch up. The world moves in lurches. A word takes an age to speak, only to catch up three sentences in an instant. It’s all he can do to stay standing, perched on my shoulder.

  That leads us to now. A wave of relief washes over him as I step forward, and I hope it stays as I break our embrace.

  “Feeling a little better?” I can already see the answer. His fractures, while not healed, are holding together without effort.

  “Yes.” He responds. “Better.”

  “I’m so gd.” The pressure inside me has receded a small amount. It’s still threatening to spill out, but hopefully not as explosively. “Do you want to return to the physical world? Or stay here for a few minutes?”

  “Wait.”

  “Ok.” Other people have decorated their networks, why can’t I? I spend a few moments visualizing a rge bird nest, keeping track of every stick and bde of grass. Threads of thought replicate my vision inside my mind, and copy the construction to the tablet. An identical, Corax sized nest springs to existence in front of us.

  Corax wastes no time colpsing inside. Even in his digital form, a soft ticking noise can be heard from him. I can’t help but smile.

  “We could make a really nice home in here.” I say half to Corax and half to myself. I generate a tall grass floor and copy it into the endless void. I hope it feels like the real thing. It’s just a copy of the grass found in the bunker’s network, but they probably know what grass feels like.

  I y down, letting myself rex. I generate a constant, gentle wind and let the waving grass tickle my skin. I add in a warm sun high above us. It feels so nice to rex without a care in the world. I’ve needed this for a long time.

  JanePtinum