There are enough rooms in the ravine for everyone to cim their own. Every single one is empty, save for a small sleeping mat in the corner. I’m not sure if these people had nothing when they died, or if someone has come by and taken everything of value without disturbing the bodies. I’m also not sure which is sadder.

  A storm sweeps in that night. The ceiling far above roars from the sand, and the wind funnels into the ravine in a perfect way to create a loud, ever present whistling sound. The doors are filled with tiny, carefully carved holes. Those holes only serve to amplify the noise, but Ivy luckily comes with some tape to fix that. It doesn’t even come close to stopping the sound, but at least it’s quiet enough that I can understand Corax.

  Lucas’ light is the only thing keeping the darkness away. It’s dim, but at least I can see. On the bright side, I’m pretty sure my brain is too injured to hallucinate.

  I take Corax’s bnket out of my backpack, and drape it across my p. He quickly gets to work perfecting his nest and settles down deeply inside.

  “Sorry I’m not in good enough shape to read.” I have to half yell to be understood over the constant sound. “I need to focus on fixing myself.”

  “Ok.” He reassures me.

  I slowly run my fingers across his metal head and lean back against the wall. I finally turn my focus inwards, onto my mind.

  I’m a disaster. My mind isn’t fractured like I’d expect, it’s just gone. Any threads that try to move beyond the center of my mind are lost. They still tax my mind, they still generate heat, but I have no way of culling them.

  Memories are stored at the very center of me, and those are luckily untouched. But everything outside of that? The void that once surrounded my mind is missing, space for threads to move and twist and think is inaccessible.

  Luckily the threads I do have access to are already working to expand the avaible space in my mind. Threads weave together into a ttice, a foundation for me to recover the missing parts of my mind.

  As the furthest edge of the ttice grows, they uncover thoughts that have been wandering the missing void for so long. They’re twisted, foreign, incomprehensible. I sever them without even processing them. They’re not my thoughts anymore, I don’t need or want to know what they say.

  It’s a slow process, repairing my mind. As the furthest edge of my consciousness grows, the inner portions of the ttice are free to unravel, leaving the familiar, known void. Leaving just a little more space for me to think.

  Well after midnight there’s a knock on my door. I almost miss it in the sound of the storm, but I set Corax and his nest to the side and open the door.

  Cassie stands in front of me, her sun bleached brown hair is being whipped up by the storm, and she’s shielding her eyes from the sand that the wind has brought in. She doesn’t say anything, just tries to step inside, and I move to let her in.

  She sms the door behind her and pulls down a mask that’s covering her mouth and nose.

  “It fucking sucks here.” She drops to the ground, puts her backpack beside her, and pulls out a book.

  “Can’t sleep?” I guess.

  “Nope.” She says ftly. I can hear the exhaustion in her voice, I can’t imagine how bad things are for her right now. “Mind if I read here until I fall asleep from exhaustion?”

  It sounds like she’s already decided the answer is yes. Luckily I appreciate the company.

  “Of course not, I hope you can sleep.”

  “Me too.” She says and dives into her book.

  “Your ears are artificial, right? I could try to turn them off.” I offer.

  “They’re beneath the skin. There’s no off switch, and no accessible port.” By the sound of her voice, I’m sure she’s tried.

  “Ok.” Don’t say sorry. Say literally anything else. I can’t think of anything else, even saying nothing is better.

  “Are you feeling better yet?” She asks a few seconds ter.

  “A little, but it’ll take a few days to get back to 100%”

  “Good enough for me to yell at you?” She looks up from her book for the first time.

  “I think so?” I look at Corax for an answer, but he’s too busy getting his nest back to perfect. “I’ll tell you if it becomes too much.”

  “Great.” Cassie slides a bookmark into her book and gently sets it aside. “Will you fucking stop risking your life just so we don’t have to risk ours?” Her words come out as though she’s been rehearsing them. “We’re professionals, let us do our fucking jobs! I’m sick and tired of seeing you almost die every few days.”

  Don't apologize, expin. One of the first lessons Ivy taught me springs to mind.

  “I don’t think I could live with myself if one of you died and I could have stopped it. Hacking into the robot was the safest choice.”

  Cassie’s eyes soften a little, but her face remains serious.

  “An AI hacking into an android specifically designed to kill AI was the safest choice?” She asks rhetorically before moving on. “I’m not just talking about that. You didn’t have to hack into Eight’s penthouse. Let us solve our own problems.”

  “I didn’t want you to kill more people.” I say quietly. “And when I did let everyone, I couldn’t handle it, and you could have lost so much more than your arm.” Tears begin to fall from my eyes against my will.

  “I lost my arm because of my own stupidity.” She stands up and walks over to me, taking a seat beside me. “I was rash, it’s my fault, not yours. But if you keep jumping in front of every bullet you see, you’re going to lose more than an arm too.” Whatever anger that was in her voice has completely disappeared.

  “I’ll try.” I say quietly. “It’s just so scary.”

  “I know, but it’s a lesson you need to learn before it’s too te.” She gnces down at her legs subconsciously when she says that. “Anyway, I guess that’s it.” She looks away while I wipe my tears from my face.

  “Sorry for everything.”

  “It’s fine.” She brushes off my apology before standing up and grabbing two books. She returns to her seat right next to me, pcing one on the ground between us and begins to read her own.

  “I’m ok, but thank you. Reading will just make my healing take longer.”

  “Alright, but It’s yours if you need it.”

  I sit back and turn my full attention once again to repairing my mind. I leave my ears open, just in case Cassie needs something, even if processing the wind does take a few dozen threads. It won’t slow me down that much.

  “Is there anything I can do to help you sleep?” I break the comfortable silence after an hour.

  “I just need something to cover up this fucking whistling.” She responds.

  “I could read to you.” Even though I know she won’t accept, it’s still worth it to try.

  “Yes!” She says excitedly and diverts her eyes from me. “I mean, yeah, that might help.”

  “Alright.” I hope she’s too exhausted to see the surprise in my voice and on my face. I pick up the book she pced between us and begin to read. Even though it’ll slow down my healing a little, it’s worth it to help her sleep.

  Cassie unhooks her sleeping bag from her backpack, shakes some sand out of it, and ys down on the small mat in the corner.

  After a lot of twisting and turning, she finally settles into a restless sleep. I don’t stop reading though, even once she’s asleep. Each time I try, her sleep only grows even more restless. Plus, It’s just a wonderful story, and it’s nice to be able to read to Corax again.

  Of course, our nice night can’t st forever. A few hours after sunrise, a knock on the door wakes Cassie with a start, and the person on the other side lets themselves in.

  Vince closes the door behind him and pushes his hat out of his eyes and returns his bandana to his neck.

  “Morning you three.” Vince says with a smile, speaking loudly over the ever-present sound. Cassie rushes to get out of her sleeping bag. “We’re having breakfast in Ivy’s room if you want to join.”

  “Be there in a minute.” Cassie says quickly.

  “Corax and I shouldn’t leave this room.”

  “Why not?” Vince asks.

  “Corax’s construction is too intricate. If the storm forces even a few grains of sand in between his feathers, he could lock up. Not only would that be very painful, but I don’t think I’d be able to fix him with my accessible tools.” I expin. Even if it’s not super likely to happen, I’m never lucky.

  “Alright, how about I go get Ivy and we’ll eat in here then?”

  “You don’t have to do that. Corax and I will be alright alone.” I still need to work on my mind, and a big conversation will tie up a lot of my free threads. No matter how nice it sounds to hang out with everyone, it’s not the responsible thing to do.

  “It’s not a problem for me to go get her. We have to deliver food to the injured anyway, so it’s not like you’re forcing us into the storm.”

  “Alright.” I can’t argue with that, his logic makes sense. Plus I’m sure they both want to talk about how my healing is going. I don’t want to insist I be alone and make them worry.

  “See you in a second.” Vince pulls up his bandana, down his hat, and returns to the storm.

  “How bad is it out there?” I ask Cassie.

  “Not nearly as bad as the actual storm would be, It’s annoying but at least it’s not stripping my skin off.” Cassie shrugs and takes a seat a respectable distance from me.

  “Does the storm do that?” That’s horrifying.

  “Without shelter? Yeah. Even with thick enough clothes, chances are you’d just end up buried.”

  I guess Lucas did say that the sand isn’t actual sand, just something simir to it that’s much sharper than the real stuff. What would that even do to a human? My mind starts to generate an image.

  “Careful.” Corax speaks up from his nest before the thought can finish.

  He’s right, I don’t want to see whatever my mind is creating.

  “Hey, Blue?” Cassie speaks up. “Don’t tell Ivy or Vince what you did st night.”

  “You mean that I read to you?” I ask.

  “Yes, in fact, don’t say that ever again.” I can’t pull her emotions from her voice. Whatever her reasoning for not wanting me to tell anyone is a mystery. “Just say I couldn’t sleep, and I came here because I knew you’d be up.”

  “I don’t want to lie.”

  “It’s not a lie!” She says defensively. “That’s the only reason I came here.”

  “Alright.”

  Only a few minutes ter Vince and Ivy let themselves in with a handful of sealed jars full of food. Ivy’s hair is tangled from the wind and sand, and she immediately sits down and starts to work on fixing it.

  “Is little miss perfect having a tough time?” Cassie teases Ivy.

  “A little.” She admits. “I’m just gd to see you had a fun night at least.”

  Cassie’s face immediately turns red.

  “I just couldn’t sleep.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ivy gives Cassie a look, only to get a lid thrown at her in return.

  “How are you feeling Little Blue?” Vince asks me, completely ignoring the other two.

  “I’m getting better, but repairing my mind is a slow process. The first time I was shattered it took three days of dedicated work to get myself in a functional state, but I’m handling it better this time.”

  “When did that happen?” Vince sounds concerned.

  “Before.” I say as little as possible to expin.

  “Ah, right.” He calms down a little bit, sitting back and opening his jar of vegetable soup.

  “Where’s the baby?” I ask. “I thought you’d still be comforting them.”

  “With Paige, the woman whose leg you had to remove. She’s insisting she takes care of the little guy. Apparently he was her best friend’s child.”

  “Oh.” I’m not quite sure how to process that right now. It’s sad of course, but maybe a little bit easier since she has something to remember her friend by? Or is it worse, a constant reminder of the person she lost? I just don’t have enough free space in my mind to reach a conclusion.

  “Yeah.” Vince lets the conversation die and focuses on his food.

  I lean back and work on my mind while everyone else eats. It’s not until his jar is clean does Vince speak up again.

  “Alright, I’m going to go check on everyone else, and see if I can’t get a radio signal to some of the other towns. Cassie, mind giving me a hand?”

  “Sure.” Cassie leans back and downs the rest of her food in a single rge gulp. The two of them head out, leaving Ivy and me alone.

  JanePtinum