“Did you save a cleaning kit?” Cassie asks from the back seat.

  “No, I would have had to sacrifice food.” I respond.

  “Great.” She tucks the pistol into her shoulder and pulls back the slide a few times, apparently dissatisfied about something with her gun.

  “We’ll buy something when we get to town.” Luckily I found a tablet in the glove box with a map on it. Without it we would have just ended up wandering until a storm killed us.

  “Do you know how money works?” She asks flatly.

  “I thought I did.” I don’t think she would ask that if I wasn’t missing something. “You just trade it for stuff, right?”

  “I only carried Arcs. They aren’t worth anything out here.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “When you get away from Arc City, everyone uses local money. They’re worthless west of Vegas.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that.” I guess that makes sense though. “But wait, didn’t you buy beer at the ravine town?”

  “I traded for it, not bought it.”

  “Ok, what did you trade for it? Maybe we can just do that again.”

  “You fixing the water pump paid for it.” She says flatly.

  “Right. I probably can’t do that twice.”

  “Yeah. We probably shouldn't even go into town.” Cassie says. “You and I aren’t exactly subtle.”

  “We’ll have to. They didn’t charge the car fully, and at this rate we’ll have to end up walking the last few miles just to reach the nearest town. We’re going to have to go in and wait out the storm there.” I don’t really care about the tires health, I’m pushing the car a little faster than is probably good for them. It’ll buy us a couple more miles.

  “Can’t you just power the car?”

  “I am.” I plugged myself in as soon as possible, but disabled my data lines. There’s a non-zero chance someone left a virus in here just in case of this exact situation. “I can only buy us a few more miles.” Forty years ago I could have done much more, but my plutonium core is two thirds of the way through its life. I just don’t have much power to spare.

  “Great. Fine, where are we going and what’s the plan when we get there?”

  “It’s another ravine town, but not the one we visited last time. I think it’s one of the three towns Vince was thinking about stopping at if the first one didn’t take the injured people, but I’m not sure about anything beyond that.”

  “You don’t know anything else?” Cassie asks disbelievingly.

  “It’s just a point on a map. On the bright side, it’s marked as unaffiliated with Mara’s gang.”

  “How far away is it?”

  “About a hundred miles.” I say.

  “So close enough that the bitch will be told where we are before the next storm hits. Fantastic. As soon as we arrive, you need to find a caravan we can ride with as guards or something. It doesn’t matter where it’s heading.” She sounds deadly serious.

  “Ok, I’ll do that.” Somehow. I have to.

  The conversation dies, and I’m left to figure out a plan by myself. Would any caravans be leaving close to twelve hours after the storm ended? Maybe, actually, if they think it’s safer to travel at night. But if there aren’t any, or if they won’t take us, how am I going to convince them?

  Maybe I can trade this car for a ride? Or is it recognizable as Mara’s car? I didn’t see any obvious symbols on the outside, but I guess it’s possible.

  We have a few more spare guns that I got from the men I killed, I can probably trade those for something. Maybe there’s something else in the trunk I can trade to get us a ride somewhere?

  That’s all assuming the people we meet are even willing to work with me. Vince and Ivy aren’t here to do the talking, and I can’t imagine it’ll be hard for people to guess what I am.

  “Android bodyguards exist, right?” I break the silence.

  “Yeah? Oh shit, people are going to hate you.” She realizes.

  “Yeah.”

  “Just carry me around, do what I say, and stay quiet. I’ll do the talking.”

  “Ok. That makes things easier for me. Thanks.” I can’t say it isn’t a relief to not have even more weight thrown on my shoulders. Keeping myself distracted is working, but I’m not sure how much more pressure I can take. “You should try to get some sleep before we arrive.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “It’s only four hours. I’m fine.” She lies. This is already the longest she’s been awake since she got injured. I’m sure she’s already fighting to stay conscious.

  “Alright, if you’re sure.” I’m pretty sure insisting she get some sleep will just make her want to stay up more. She’ll fall asleep on her own eventually. “Did you eat this morning?”

  “No.” She admits reluctantly, and I can hear her rummaging around in our small pile of supplies. Only a few seconds later I hear something hit the floor and look back.

  Cassie’s hand is open in front of her, as if she froze in the middle of passing it to her limp left hand. A bar of food lies on the floor in a puddle that I don’t want to think what it’s made of. Cassie glances between her organic hand, and her limp metal arm a few times.

  “I’m so fucking dumb.” She mumbles to herself before picking up the bar off the floor.

  “You don’t have to eat that.”

  “I’m not wasting food.” She does her best to wipe the chunks and fluid off the bar.

  “You’re going to get sick.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She mumbles, her eyes pinned to the bar, her fingers slowly tightening around it.

  “Cassie. Seriously.” I cannot let her eat that thing under any circumstances. “There are so many diseases that could be on that thing.”

  She doesn’t react to my pleas, seemingly frozen staring at the bar of food on her hand.

  I reach back and wrap my hand around hers. Her hand is so tense, her knuckles are turning white from the force of her grip.

  “I’ll disinfect it, but it’ll take a while.” That’s a lie. My radioactive core isn’t nearly hot enough to sterilize anything. But if I have to lie to keep her from getting some kind of sickness I can’t fix? I’ll do it. My voice is still monotone enough that I might even be able to get away with it. “Just give me this bar, and you can eat another.”

  She sits in silence for a few tense seconds. Just before I’m about to try saying something to make sure she even heard me, her hand slowly opens. I take the crumpled bar from her hand, and place it safely in my lap.

  “Thank you. Make sure you disinfect your hand please.” Finally, a little bit of emotion makes its way into my voice, even if it swiftly leaves.

  “Yeah.” She finally comes back to life, slowly reaching for a bottle of the same stuff I used to disinfect her wounds.

  I let her take care of herself and focus once again on driving. It takes her a few minutes to slowly choke down some food and water, but she eventually leans back in her seat and lets her eyes close.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened?” I’m sure I could guess, but I’d really like to not have to.

  “What the fuck do you think?” She asks without opening her eyes.

  “I just thought I’d offer.”

  “Do you want to talk about what’s going through your head?” She asks back.

  “No.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Only a few minutes later her breathing slows as she’s once again lulled to sleep, leaving me alone once again. Just focus, don’t think. Thoughts and emotions threaten to bubble into my mind, and I wash them away by starting to recite Cassie’s book once again.

  I’m interrupted after only an hour.

  “Ah! Fuck!” Cassie’s pained scream puts my mind on edge. Is she dying? Is someone attacking us? My head scans the horizon. Nobody. My eyes settle on her, grabbing her ruined shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” My panicked voice fills the small cabin. I have to yell to be heard over hers.

  “Fucking arm!”

  “Another trap?” I throw the car into park and climb back over the console.

  I checked. There’s no way I could have missed another emergency switch. Do I touch her? I can’t risk being electrocuted again, but how do I help?

  “No.” She clenches her teeth hard and closes her eyes, trying to ride out the pain.

  “Here,” I reach into the medical supplies and pull out a small pill. “This will help.”

  “I’m fine.” She can barely get her voice past her clenched teeth. “It’ll pass.”

  “What is it?”

  Over the course of a few silent minutes of me panicking she slowly relaxes, and eventually even lets her organic hand drop into her lap.

  “Just phantom limb pain.” She says through panting breaths. “It happens.”

  “That’s horrifying. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Cassie shakes her head in response.

  “Not even painkillers work.” She reaches out and pushes my hand away. In my panic, I hadn’t even realized I was still offering it to her. “Just keep driving. I’m fine.”

  “Alright, if you're sure.” I climb back into the driver's seat, and once again try to put the infinite desert behind us.

  The battery runs dry far too quickly for my comfort, and the car rolls to a stop.

  “We're three miles out.” I say to Cassie, who begins to collect our belongings without missing a beat. “It’s a ninety minute walk.”

  “Make sure you hide our footprints.” Cassie tosses two rags into my lap, which I quickly tie around my ankles.

  By the time I'm done, she’s already collected everything and placed it in her lap. Corax’s still petrified body is cradled between our supplies and Cassie’s body, keeping him safe. I scoop her up and begin our slow walk.

  “Sorry it’s so hot out.” I say. “Make sure you drink water.”

  “I’ve been through worse.”

  Cassie keeps her pistol in her hand as we walk, and her eyes closed. Her face is scrunched up in concentration, focusing entirely on her hearing. That leaves me to constantly scan the horizon.

  While we walk, I do my best to angle my body to keep the sun out of Cassie’s face. The last thing she needs right now is a sunburn on top of everything else.

  Thirty minutes pass, and I crest a large hill. The ravine should only be two miles from here, but I can’t see any sign of it yet. That’s fine, it’s a ravine. I won’t see it until we’re right on top of it.

  Another half hour passes, and still no sign. No cars, no towers, not even tracks in the sand. That makes sense, why would anyone trade with Mara? They must not have sent anyone into her territory, that’s reasonable.

  With every step, and every hill crested revealing only more desert, worry grows in my mind. Worry that’s rationalized away as my mind runs from a looming truth.

  A final half hour, and I top the largest dune I can find. I look across the endless, empty, flat desert. I can see for miles around, and there’s nothing to see.

  “We’re here.”

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