JanePtinum

  Cassie does her best to keep the car as level as possible so those of us on the sled don’t slide too much. Despite that, I have to reach out to stabilize Vince a few times.

  Right now, Vince is doing his best to graft artificial skin onto the baby. It’s slow-going on the ever shifting sled, but he’s somehow managing.

  Corax and I end up mostly just offering our silent support, and handing him tools when asked.

  “We’re definitely faster than them.” Ivy yells down over the wind loud enough for both us and Cassie to hear. “I’m just not sure how long they’re going to chase us for.”

  “How long will the battery st?” Vince yells out.

  “Only five or six more hours.” Cassie yells back.

  “Ok. Keep skirting around the base of the mountain range. If they don’t turn around we’ll find somewhere to hide or fight.”

  Cassie disappears back into the car for a few minutes before popping her head out once again.

  “Bad news Vince, apparently the caravan was running from San Francisco, the pce is dead.” Cassie yells back. “Assuming we survive, we need a new pn.”

  Vince spends a few seconds silently thinking before he responds.

  “On the map you should see a pce called the Monterey Canyon. Do you think we can make it there? It’s a good way onto the seabed, and a good pce to fight.”

  “It’s nine hours from here.” Cassie responds after a few minutes. “There’s a path into an old kebed we can reach, but it’s a long fucking path through the mountains.”

  “I think I know that path, unless something big has changed, it’ll get us killed.” Vince responds, still without looking up. “What about the others? Do they know anywhere we can y low?”

  Cassie’s head disappears back into the car for a few seconds before popping out once again.

  “Nobody who’s conscious has ever left San Francisco before now.” She yells out.

  “Great.” Vince sighs to himself. “Keep driving until the car’s an hour from empty, we’ll find a hiding pce then if we need to. We’ll stop to recharge when we can, and see if we can’t find a town in the Monterey Canyon to drop these people off at.”

  “Alright. Ivy tell me if they turn around.” Cassie yells to the roof of the car.

  “They’re going to be out of sight soon, I’ll need Corax to check if they’re following our tracks after that.”

  Corax gives her a nod from my shoulder. I don’t like him having to take so many risks, but he’s the only one who can do this.

  “Just make sure you stay safe.” I tell him quietly.

  He nods seriously.

  Corax shoots into the air every ten minutes, only to report back that they’re still chasing us. Cassie even tries turning away from the mountains for a bit, just in case they just happen to be heading in this direction too. Of course, they turn exactly where we did, following our tracks.

  After an hour of working, Vince finally seems like he’s done all he can for the child. Artificial skin covers the worst of their burns, and they seem to be breathing a little stronger. Vince gently picks up the child in his arms and sits down next to me, looking towards the inevitable bots chasing us down.

  “If worse comes to worst, I could use the harpoon.” I offer. “Maybe they have some kind of connection with each other I could exploit.”

  “Hopefully we won’t have to do that.” Vince responds. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’ve managed to bottle up most of my emotions, I’ll be ok until we’re safe.” The anger thrashing around in the corner of my mind is only getting worse. I’m doing my best to prune it from the outside, but any threads that try to slip inside are consumed by the monster I’ve created. “I’m just not sure what’ll happen when I do open it.”

  “Help.” Corax says from my shoulder, giving me a small tap.

  “You’re right.” I’m not alone, Corax can help me through it. Melding again will hopefully quell the thoughts enough that I can kill them. Unless, of course, the emotions are too strong and consume us both. In that case turning the both of us off temporarily to kill our conscious thoughts is the only option, but I don’t know if I’d wake up here or in a hallucination of the b. I’m not going to let that happen.

  “Do you think they’re going to live?” I ask, nodding towards the child in Vince’s arms.

  “I don’t know.” Vince says honestly while staring at the baby. “I’ve done everything I can, it’s up to him now.”

  Another hour ter, and the child begins to stir in Vince’s arms. It reaches up for something, before letting out a weak cough, followed by quietly crying. A conflicted look fshes across Vince’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure how we’re going to hide with a crying baby.” He turns around and yells to the car. “Ivy? How far away are they?”

  “Well over the horizon.” She responds, still perched atop the car.

  “Alright, Cassie, stop for just a moment.” Once the car completely stops he stands up, opens the trunk, and grabs a jar of soup base, some water, and a spoon. He returns to the sled and Cassie starts up the car again.

  Vince waits for us to be driving over a ft part of the desert before he sits the crying baby in his p, and brings a small spoonful of broth up to his lips. It takes a minute for the child to realize what is happening, but eventually he stops fighting and lets Vince pour the food down his throat.

  “There we go little guy. You need your strength.”

  The food doesn’t stop the crying, but the baby manages to eat a little bit in between his heartbreaking sobs.

  At the three-hour mark, Corax once again shoots into the steadily brightening sky, and once again reports that they’re still following.

  “Corax, can you fly ahead and find a cave we can get into or a small path we can hide in? Ideally something with as many twists and turns as possible.” Vince asks over the slowly growing voice of the child.

  Corax takes to the skies once again.

  “What are we going to do?” No matter how much I try to hide my fear, it comes out clear as day. With every passing mile I’ve grown more certain that the moment we’re forced to stop, that will be our death.

  “We’ve put a good distance between us and them. We’re going to hide somewhere, and Ivy’s going to have a lot of time to hide our tracks. They’re not good at searching when they reach the end of a trail. As long as we’re hidden a few miles from the end we’re going to be alright.” Even I can tell his confidence is fake.

  “But what about him?” I ask Vince about the child once again.

  “Well, if it’s a cave we can always block off the entrance for a while, that’ll muffle the noise plenty. If we’re in a valley, then we either hide in the car and hope, or I put him to sleep with some opioids. I’d really rather not take the chance of giving him the wrong dose though.”

  Instead of returning to my shoulder, Corax nds on the hood of the car to begin directing Cassie.

  “Looks like he found something.” I say to Vince to try to cheer him up.

  “I just hope it’s good enough.”

  “It is.” He wouldn’t lead us somewhere he feels bad about. It’s going to be fine, I trust him with far more than just my life.

  Ivy calls Corax to her shoulder and has a short conversation with him that gets lost in the wind. Corax returns to his spot at the hood, and Cassie brings the car to a stop. Ivy hops gracefully off the roof and pulls a few things that I can’t see clearly from the trunk. The sound of pained cries comes from inside, only to be silenced when the trunk closes. Ivy steps to the side and the car once again pulls forward, leaving her behind.

  Vince gives a deep nod to her as we pass, but says nothing.

  “Why is she staying behind?” My mind tries to answer that question in a hundred different ways. Vince’s calm composure is the only thing keeping those answers from consuming my mind.

  “She’s going to hide our tracks and catch up with us.” He answers. Sure enough, she gets to work hiding any trace of our existence. The car is much faster than her, she’s not going to be able to keep up.

  “Is that safe?”

  “We put a lot of distance between us and the bots. She has enough time.”

  After only a hundred feet Corax directs the car into the mountains. Steep walls tower over either side of us, and almost instantly we reach a fork in the road. Corax leads us through nearly a dozen more twists and turns before the car finally stops at a dead end. We’re three miles into this canyon, I just have to hope it’s enough. If they do find us, there’s no way out.

  Corax nds on my shoulder, ensuring those thoughts don’t get worse.

  “Little Blue, can you give me a hand?” Vince stands up and walks over to the trunk. “There’s a sand-colored tarp in here somewhere, can you grab it?”

  “Sure.” I stand up and open the trunk, only to be met once again with distressed cries. Don’t process them, just let them happen. I can worry about it ter.

  Only a few seconds after beginning my search, Cassie comes to join us, her face red with anger.

  She hisses something to Vince, but I can’t make out her words over all the sound. Cassie grabs the beige cover from under a collection of stuff and sms the trunk shut.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask the moment I can.

  “She can’t turn off her ears.” Vince fills me in. “I’ll take care of everyone if you two can set this up.”

  Instead of responding, Cassie immediately starts to unfold the tarp while Vince climbs back inside.

  “You shouldn’t have had to suffer for so long, I’m sorry. You could have asked me to drive instead.”

  “Not when the uninjured bastard, Isaac, is liable to shoot you.”

  The anger I have dubiously contained in the corner of my mind fres, straining its container and threatening to break free. It takes nearly my entire mind wrapping endless threads around it to re-contain it.

  Cassie drapes the tarp over the car, the color identical to the sand beneath our feet.

  “Push the sled under the car.” She says.

  I follow her instructions while Cassie pins down the tarp by driving rge spikes into the sand. It only takes her a few minutes before we’re completely covered. A few curved metal rods turn us from a car shaped lump, to indistinguishable from any other pile of sand.

  The tarp is textured to look like sand, but thankfully thin enough to let a little bit of light through.

  “I can still hear them.” Cassie drops onto the ground with her back against the car door.

  “How are they doing?” I ask.

  “How do you think? Fucking awful.” She kicks the sand with her foot, and I sit down next to her.

  I reach into my backpack and hand her one of her books.

  “Here, maybe this will help.”

  “Ha.” Cassie lets out a half-hearted ugh and pushes the book back to me. “I wish. I can barely hear myself think.”

  “Sorry.” I keep the book in my p anyway.

  “Didn’t we talk about you apologizing about fucking everything?” She gives me an indecipherable look. It’s not anger or annoyance, or at least not completely that at least.

  “Right.” An apology was halfway to my speaker before I realized what I was about to do. “I really am trying.”

  “I know.” Silence settles over the two of us for just a moment before she continues. “Corax, can you check on Ivy? As much as I hate it, it's safer for you to do it.”

  I pull up an edge of our hiding spot, and Corax immediately darts through the opening and disappears into the morning light. She watches him go before shaking some thought out of her head.

  JanePtinum