Our nice time can’t st forever, of course. After a long period of rest Corax climbs out of his nest.

  “Better.”

  “Good.” I reluctantly get to my feet. “We should probably return to everyone else then.”

  Corax nods in response. I reach for my physical body and sever the connection to the tablet. I feel a little limited in this body, simir to when I had to unplug from the car a few days ago, but I can’t stay in that wonderful world forever.

  Vince, Ivy and Cassie are sitting around the table with us and are finishing up a meal.

  “Welcome back.” Ivy is the first to realize my attention is once again in the physical world.

  “How do you two feel?” Vince asks. I can't imagine how he was. I should have told him the second Corax stabilized.

  “We’re good.” I answer for Corax. I’m not sure if he’s feeling well enough to hold a conversation. “We both really needed the rexation.”

  “Good!” Ivy says happily. “Cassie hasn’t been able to settle down since you two stopped moving.”

  Cassie gives an obvious roll of her eyes, although her cheeks do get a hint of red to them.

  “Sorry.” I didn’t mean to make her worry. “Next time I’ll dispy a CPU usage graph on the screen so you can see we’re ok.”

  “You better. Vince was even more worried.” Cassie mumbles through a full mouth.

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re alright Little Blue. I’m just gd you’re doing better.” While everyone else is eating fine food, Vince is just eating a simple bowl of pin oatmeal. “Do you want to talk about what happened today?”

  “I should.” Bottling things up will just make things worse. “I met Zero. He said I felt familiar, and that’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

  “Oh shit.” Cassie drops her fork onto her pte.

  “I’m so sorry Little Blue.” Vince visibly deftes. “I didn’t realize.” He lets his thought trail off.

  “It’s ok. It happens a lot. Every serious hack I’ve done has nearly ended in my death, even as early as the b.”

  “That doesn’t make it ok.” Ivy tells me firmly.

  “I guess not. That’s not the important part though. There was this part of the network that whispered secrets from a million people. I found myself. The only thing it whispered was ways I have, or will, or might lead to the extinction of humanity.” I lean to the left, letting my head drop onto Ivy’s shoulder. What’s the point in sharing if it just means I’m going to bring my feelings back to the surface and wallow in them?

  “Silver once described something like that when they dove into a quantum server.” Vince says quietly, his eyes pinned to his bowl of food in front of him. “From what I understand, you saw glimpses of potential pasts and futures. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” I don’t care if they hear my growing anger. “In every possible world I kill all humans. The worst thing you did was- Ow!”

  Corax leaps to my shoulder with a single powerful fp and gives my ear a tug. There’s sympathy in his eyes, but also an intense warning.

  “You’re right, sorry.” I tell Corax. Revealing that Vince could have killed Cassie is only going to make things worse, even if yelling would make me feel better.

  “I’ve seen AI go mad trying to chase impossible futures.” Vince finally looks at me. His face is drenched with an equal amount of shame and worry. “Whatever you heard, it means nothing.”

  “I guess.” I can’t bring myself to keep looking at him. He’s already having such a tough time, and I nearly made it so much worse. This isn’t working, I’m only feeling worse. “I think I’m going to go to my room.”

  “Alright Little Blue. Just come get us if you need anything.” I can tell Vince wants to say something else, but lets me go.

  “I will.”

  Corax and I step into our room and close the door behind me. I drop onto our bed, but Corax remains perched on my shoulder. Tears begin to stream from my eyes, and I’m not even sure what emotion is the source.

  “I need to do something.” I reach for a book out of habit, but Cassie’s voice fshes through my mind. ‘You’re not ok, you’re distracted.’ All reading is going to do is buy me time before I break down.

  “Write.” Corax gently nudges my cheek.

  “Right.” It helped before, maybe it can help again. I don’t know if I’ll be able to write more than a few words before needing to take a break, but that’s ok. I have all the time in the world. I grab my tablet and a book and get to work.

  Even thinking I could get a few words written turned out to be optimistic. I get a single word typed out before I have to smother my mind with words from my book.

  Thirty minutes ter, I’m interrupted by a knock on the door. I don’t want to talk, but I’m sure Vince is worried about me. He at least deserves to know that I’m working on getting better.

  I open the door only to be met with Cassie instead. She has a book tucked in her arm and has changed into comfortable clothes, although she still has her knife attached to her waistband.

  “Can I read in here?” She asks.

  “Oh, sure.” I step to the side and let her in. She takes a seat at the foot of the bed. “Wouldn’t you rather sit against the wall?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Ok.” I take a seat against the headboard. I try to read for a few minutes, but a question keeps stealing my focus. “Hey Cassie? Is Vince mad at me?”

  “What?” She looks up from her book. “Why would he be mad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, he’s not mad.” She returns to her book, but continues speaking. “He’s just been off since we got here.”

  “Ok.” I’d almost prefer he be mad at me than hate being here. At least if it’s my fault I can try to fix it.

  I grab the tablet, write two words, and return to my book for a few minutes. Only once I’ve done that pattern a few times does Cassie ask about it.

  “Is it helping?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t even finished a full sentence. I think it helped before though.”

  “Good.” She turns her focus back to her book and mumbles another sentence to herself. “I’m gd.”

  I’m not sure if she intended for me to hear the second part, so I’m just going to pretend I didn’t.

  Silence overtakes us and I finally finish writing a single sentence.

  “You don’t have to stay here with me, I’m ok.”

  She takes a single gnce at me and it’s clear she doesn’t believe me. Instead of calling me out on my obvious lie, she stands up and walks to the head of the bed. She climbs on and rexes with her back against the wall right next to me before returning to her book. I guess she’s pnning on staying for a while.

  “Do me a favor and never learn how to lie.” She says without looking at me.

  “I don’t mean to. I just already make things so hard for everyone, I don’t want to make things worse.”

  “It’s fine. When you’re this bad at lying, it’s basically the same as telling the truth.”

  I can feel Kara’s angry eyes on me through the dark. I can’t follow a single thing she taught me. Corax tugs on my ear and I refocus my mind entirely on my book.

  “I need to do better.”

  “No you fucking don’t!” Cassie carefully bookmarks her page and sms her book shut. “You made a mistake, it happens. Stop acting like you have to be perfect all the time.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And I’m sick of you apologizing all the time!”

  “Sorry.” I can’t keep the word from slipping out. Her annoyed look grows even stronger. “What else am I supposed to say?”

  “Just say ok. Or you’ll try. Or literally anything else.”

  “I guess I can try.”

  “Good.” She sighs and returns to her book.

  “Are you mad at me?” I ask after a few more seconds of silence.

  “I will be if you don’t…” She mumbles to herself and trails off to nothing. “No, you’re just frustrating sometimes.”

  “S-” I manage to stop myself after just a single sound. I don’t want to be even more frustrating. “I’ll try to do better.”

  “I know.”

  I give her another half hour before I dare to speak again. I even manage to finish writing a second sentence in that time.

  “Why did you visit?” The question has been burning inside my mind the whole time, but I wanted to wait as long as possible before asking.

  “Do you want me to leave?” She asks.

  “No! Not at all.” At least she can tell I’m not lying. Having someone to talk to helps. Corax is wonderful, and I have no idea what I’d do without him, but he’s not exactly talkative. Even if he was, I’m not sure anything he would say could surprise me. “I was just wondering.”

  She just shrugs instead of responding. Maybe she just didn’t want Corax and I to be alone? I’m sure Ivy would be in here if she wasn’t helping Vince, so maybe Ivy asked her to check on us. But if that was the reason, why wouldn’t she just say that?

  “I appreciate you being here.” I say quietly.

  “Mm-hmm.” She hums in response.

  We sit in silence for a few hours. Over time Cassie’s reading slowly, but steadily, begins to slow. She goes from turning the page every two minutes or so, to four and even six minutes to finish a single page. Then I notice her book begin to slowly lower into her p, her blinks getting longer, and never quite opening as wide as they were. It’s not long before her head drifts to the side and she falls asleep.

  What do I do now? Is she going to be mad when she wakes up? Should I have said something when I saw she was falling asleep? Probably, but it’s too te now. I could wake her up, but she looks so comfortable and peaceful sleeping here.

  Her face soon contorts unhappily, and she crosses her arms and holds them tight to her body. She hasn’t been asleep nearly long enough for it to be a dream, I think trying to warm herself up? That’s only going to make things worse with her metal arm.

  Despite the risk of waking her, I’m not going to let her be cold all night.

  I gnce at Corax and point to his nest, asking a silent question. He nods in approval and I grab a heavy bnket. Gently I drape it over Cassie, who quickly snatches it up in her sleep and wraps herself up tightly. The only visible part of her is her face and a single hand still holding the bnket.

  Well now I definitely can’t disturb her. I’ve never seen someone so cozy. I wish I could mimic her, just like Corax does. I’d overheat very quickly though, and I’m not sure if it would actually be any more comfortable for me than just any other position.

  I should probably let her be, but climbing out of bed and opening the door probably would wake her up with how good her ears are. Plus, what if she gets cold again? It’s probably best to stay here and watch over her tonight.

  JanePtinum