JanePtinum

  “Cassie!” Vince yells out at me from behind the car.

  I drop everything and sprint as fast as my legs can carry me to him, drawing my knife as I move.

  I turn the corner and see Blue attacking Vince. He’s not fighting back, scared to hurt her, and he has a bck eye to show for it. My mind screams at me to end her, Sonia told me where her brain is, and a single stab would end every problem we’ve had recently.

  I reach out towards her neck, only for the bird to take a chunk out of my finger. I power through the pain and flip her hidden switch, forcing her limbs to go limp. She still thrashes her torso around and her skin ptes move at random, but she can’t hurt anyone anymore.

  “On.” Corax demands as Blue begins to scream.

  Fucking bird. I reach my metal hand into her mouth and unplug her speaker. Corax tries to keep attacking my hand, but he can’t do anything to the steel.

  “Calm the fuck down.” I push him away roughly before he can plug the speaker back in. “If she keeps yelling, the robots are going to come investigate. I’m not letting her get us all killed!”

  After a few tense moments, Corax crouches down on her chest, keeping a close eye on her.

  “Now, what the fuck happened?” The adrenaline is starting to leave my body, but I’m still on edge.

  “She caught some kind of virus when she was hacking the robot.” Vince says, gingerly touching his bck eye to see how bad the damage is.

  “Worm.” Corax says like it means anything. I know he can say more, and it infuriates me that he doesn’t.

  “What do we do about that?” I ask Vince, ignoring Corax’s comment.

  Vince only shakes his head at Blue and shrugs in defeat.

  “This isn’t your fault.” I give him a hard shove to emphasize, trying to bring him back to reality. It works a little bit, or at least it gets him to look at me. “I’m going to go help Ivy turn the bot back on. I need you to make sure he doesn’t turn Blue’s voice back on.” I gesture firmly with my knife to Corax.

  Vince gives a nod. Even when he’s bming himself for literally everything, even when he’s feeling the worst he ever has, he can still be relied on to do his job.

  I leave him and Corax alone, and return to Ivy. She’s still perched behind a small dune, watching the entrance with a detonator in her hand.

  “Blue’s gone crazy again, some kind of virus. Do you have any ideas?” I slide into the dune beside her.

  “That’s not exactly my area of expertise.”

  “Right.” As I y here I can feel my adrenaline fade, repced with rapidly growing worry and fear that I do not want to deal with right now. “Let’s get that thing turned on.”

  “Sure. I’ve got a string attached to its switch. Let me erase your footsteps and we can start.”

  “Alright.” I take the detonator from her hand, and she carefully hands me the end of a buried length of fishing line.

  If this thing’s friends turn the corner right now, I’m dead. Maybe I would be able to take enough out in the explosion that Ivy and Vince could make it out, but I doubt it. At least focusing on the entrance helps keep my mind off whatever the hell is happening by the car.

  Ivy’s only gone for a few minutes before returning to my side, clearing her footprints from behind her as she walks. She ys down just out of sight, with her rifle ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice.

  “Ready?”

  “I guess.” I hand the fishing wire to her and scoot out of sight while drawing my silent pistol. I’m sure she can see the wire, she knows how much to pull it.

  She gives the wire a tug. I’d give anything to be able to see what’s happening, but we can’t risk being seen. At least I can hear it.

  The sands shift as the bot pushes itself onto its feet. It doesn’t even hesitate before it starts walking out of the canyon. Even when it turns the corner, Ivy and I don’t move. After a few minutes Ivy shimmies up the dune, and I follow, poking our heads out of cover.

  We stay there for another thirty minutes. Corax said we had twenty minutes before they got to us, I finally let myself feel the slightest bit safe.

  “I’ll be back.” I hand the detonator to Ivy and stand up. The walk to the car passes far too quickly, and I turn the corner to see Blue still convulsing on the ground.

  Vince is still leaning on the car, I doubt his eyes have left Blue since I turned off her limbs. He’s not even bothering to take care of his worsening bck eye. It’s not like we have ice to apply, but he could at least take some medicine to stop the pain and reduce the swelling.

  “Corax.” I kneel down next to him and Blue. If I’m going to ask a favor of him while Blue is like this, I need to be respectful. “We turned on the robot half an hour ago. I need you to make sure it worked, and the rest of the bots are heading away.”

  “No.” He says ftly.

  I can’t bme him for saying no, if Vince was in the same situation I wouldn’t want to go either. He has to do it though, we both know that.

  “Look. We need to make sure we’re safe, so we can give Blue all the attention we can, alright?”

  Corax stares at me with his emotionless face for a few seconds before shooting into the air with a single sweep of his wings.

  I grab a pill out of my backpack, along with a canteen of water, and force both into Vince’s hands.

  “Drink.” I command.

  In an almost robotic movement he tosses the pill into his mouth and chases it down with a mouthful of water. I take the canteen from his limp arm and he returns to staring at Blue.

  There’s nothing I can say to make him feel better. I stand beside him for a moment and finally look at her properly. Her face is contorted in pure terror, and her mouth is open wide in an absent scream.

  My fight or flight reaction kicks in, dumping adrenaline into my veins. The muscles I still have tense, demanding I do something. I need to help her, I need to run away, I need to end her suffering, I need to do something.

  I drop into the sand beside Vince and rest my arms on my knees, watching her silent screams and hearing the moans of pain from inside the car. There’s nothing I can do besides making sure she doesn’t get us killed.

  Corax returns only a few minutes ter, returning to his perch on Blue’s chest.

  “Safe.” He reports, gluing his eyes onto Blue’s face.

  “Did you tell Ivy?” I ask, only to get no response. “Right.” I stand up and go tell her.

  The moment she hears it’s safe, Ivy gets to work recovering the explosives she and Vince buried in the sand. I, on the other hand, get the sor panels spread out. It only takes Ivy a few minutes to disarm the explosives, and she spends the rest of the day taking care of the others in the car.

  I stay with Vince, he needs the support, and I do too. At some point Isaac steps out of the car to pee, and mumbles quietly under his breath. Of course, I can hear it just as clearly as if he said it into my ear, and my blood boils.

  “Fucking thing. Should just put a bullet in it while I can.”

  “Hey fucker!” I jump to my feet in front of him. Surprise fshes across his face, and I hit him hard in his gut. He falls onto the sand and I hold him down with my foot. “She saved your sorry ass! And it’s your fault she’s like this!”

  “Cassie.” Vince says calmly. He knows how this would end, I should listen to him.

  “I should have left you in the trunk.” I push off of him with my foot, making sure to twist my heel into his sternum. I take my seat back next to Vince.

  It takes him a moment to recover, and he scrambles to his feet. Anger fills his eyes, and I stare back, daring him to push me again. He looks away first, climbing up a dune to find a secluded spot.

  An hour ter Blue’s convulsions slow, and her eyes lock onto Vince’s. Corax crouches down, reaching into Blue’s mouth to reattach her speaker.

  “Vince!” She cries, her voice garbled and barely comprehensible.

  Vince jumps in surprise, dropping to his knees next to her, taking her face in his hands.

  “Vince, what’s happening?” She cries out in distress.

  “Blue! Blue, you’re ok.” He lies to her. “We’re here for you.”

  Blue’s eyes flicker to something besides Vince and she goes limp for a moment. She begins to babble, nonsense words and sounds falling from her mouth.

  Vince puts her head down gently and leans back against the car.

  “If she was lucid once, that means she’s fighting whatever’s happening. She just needs to get through it.” I reassure him.

  “I don’t know if I can.” Blue’s babbling resolves into a few words before returning to nonsense.

  “You can.” Vince takes her hand in his, still not daring to look away from her.

  She keeps mumbling incomprehensible nonsense the rest of the day, and long into the night. Even after the sun has gone down and I’ve put away the sor panels, Vince remains stationary, staring at her. Deep bags have developed under his eyes, when was the st time he slept?

  “Get some sleep, I’ll watch her.” I tell him seriously.

  “I’m alright.” He waves me off.

  “No, you’re not. And besides, you’ve got a baby to comfort. He’s been crying for the st ten minutes, and Ivy has no idea what she’s doing.” And I’ve heard every choking sob. “You know I’m no good with kids.”

  “Right.” Giving him a job seems to snap him back to reality. “Alright.”

  It’s not until after midnight that she starts to settle down once again. Her eyes snap open, looking me directly in the eyes.

  “I’m gd your parents died.” She says with a voice that’s not her own. It’s cruel and harsh, not the soft, gentle voice I’ve listened to so many times. She doesn’t mean it. It’s the virus.

  My theory is further confirmed as she continues talking directly into the sky. She tells her worries, confesses to things she’s never done, speaks opinions she can’t possibly have about people she’s never met.

  I’m gd Vince is already asleep. I’m sure he’d take these secrets to heart, and the st thing he needs is to further doubt if he’s a good parent or not.

  “Corax?” A few hours before sunrise, she comes back to reality after a particurly impossible secret, admitting she’s responsible for a series of deaths that occurred long before she was even born. “Corax please. Please not again.” She can’t even summon the energy to look at him.

  “Everything ok.” Corax reassures her, only for her to begin screaming and thrashing once again.

  Vince jumps out of the car almost instantly, his hand on his pistol out of habit. He whips his head around, looking for an attack before realizing it’s just Blue. He comes over, crouching and pcing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “What time is it?” He asks.

  “Four.”

  “You should have woken me up, go get some sleep.”

  “I’ve been up for longer before.” I’m not going to let Vince watch her and take the chance of her saying something to him. “Besides, you needed sleep so you can drive. I’m not doing it again.”

  “I guess we better get started then, here.” Vince takes off his belt and hands it to me. “Find some way to tie yourself and Blue down on the sled and get some sleep. I’ll go let Ivy know we’re heading out.”

  “Alright.” I grab the handheld welder and a few metal bars from the trunk while Vince scrambles up one of the sand walls to reach Ivy’s sniper spot.

  I weld three handles onto the sled, one on each side of Blue and a third near the edge, and loop Vince’s belt around both Blue and two of the handles. I pull it tight, ensuring she’s not going to be able to escape. Corax watches my every movement like a hawk.

  I spread out my sleeping bag, climb in, and wrap my own belt around two of the handles. No matter how steep of a dune we climb, there’s no way I’m going to be sliding off.

  I keep my eyes on Blue for as long as possible, but not long after we set off the movement of the car roof lulls me to sleep.

  JanePtinum