The next big development was the war. We were in the city when everything hit the fan. An explosion ripped through the city, followed quickly by a few smaller ones. Metal creaked and gave way as buildings colpsed. The familiar pop of gunshots and screams.

  Mara and I didn’t even say anything, just got our equipment on as soon as possible, grabbed our valuables, and headed outside. Silver was already waiting, their shotgun in hand.

  “Your oracle want to tell us anything interesting?” Mara was already pissed, and talking about Clover did nothing to improve her mood.

  “AI are going mad, and the wireless network is fucking dangerous. She’s the only safe avenue of info we have.” Silver replied. “I’ll tell you when she knows more.”

  “Useless, all of you.” Mara led the way downstairs.

  “A few software tried to level me. She pulled me out.” Silver gred at her. “You want to see me convulsing in bed with my cooked brain spilling out my ears?”

  “We’ll see.” Mara replied.

  There were crowds of people rushing to get out, to get to safety, even if that meant going towards the gunfire. We didn’t follow them. Our goal wasn’t to be heroes, to help those who needed it, to save the day. No, our only goal was surviving, which meant getting out until we had more info.

  We were in the middle of the city, probably the worst pce possible when you needed to get out without being seen. But Silver has always been paranoid. They had a few routes already pnned out, sticking to the paths between skyscrapers.

  We crawled through the pce, just hoping the building we were in wouldn’t colpse. We ran into more than a few AI in those halls, doing who knows what.

  “If I had to guess?” I interrupt. “Probably trying to hurt others’ anchors, or maybe even their own. C-1’s madness was forced on mind rips first, and most of their reactions were just like his. A forced need to teach others exactly what they were feeling, although they didn’t have the collective processing power to force it on software AI yet. And for biological AI like me, the only way to teach them was by killing their anchors.”

  “That’s awful.” Vince says.

  Most were violent. At least, I think. It was hard to tell who was actively killing people, and who was just defending themselves. I don’t know how many we killed and how many we just disabled. We didn’t have time to double check.

  “Don’t feel bad about it. Almost all of them were all going to die anyway. C-1 would use this as an opportunity to finally get rid of all other AI in the city. He never wanted them there in the first pce, Simon’s desire for them to stay was the only thing keeping them safe.”

  It was about that time that the fires started. Lights popped, outlets sparked and the walls threatened to melt.

  “C-1 allowed some of the AI to get control of the thermal power pnt. They overloaded the electric grid. Of course, the Bastion was on a separate line, keeping the tower, and him inside it, safe.”

  “What the hell was Mary doing?” Cassie asks.

  “Her best. She wasn’t taking the death of Simon well. Even if she was and could figure out C-1 was responsible for the chaos, she was never his anchor. She was worried about screwing him up like she screwed me up, and that kept her from getting too close.”

  “That’s probably for the best.” Ivy admits.

  “Yeah.”

  A few times we opened a door to head into another building, only to find a blocked path of twisted metal leading into open air. Silver always had another route though, through high up connections or dipping through alleyways. I don’t even know how they knew the whole city, but they did.

  It took us an hour, but we made it to the parking garage. Humans and AI alike had bunkered down there, fighting against those who went mad. People were slowly being escorted through gunfire, trying to get the civilians out.

  “Watch our back.” Mara ordered Silver, and the two of us set up in a window. We joined the fight, trying to make an opening for us to cross the street.

  Things just got worse over time. The AI helping the humans began to turn on them, seemingly randomly. Small collections of AI broke off the main group trying to take the garage and started searching for anyone fighting alone, and that meant us. Silver single handedly held the floor, their cybernetics letting them go toe to toe with AI. They had EMP rounds in their shotgun, little pellets that generated electric charge as they shred through metal. It was effective to say the least.

  Eventually we just had to make a move. There were only ten humans for every AI, and they were all good fighters.

  “It's a little more complicated than that.” I add. “It was closer to a fourth of the city’s popution were AI, it's just that most of them lived in the Digital and didn't have access to physical bodies capable of fighting. Quantum and Biological AI were fighting in the Digital, alongside a few humans, but their main focus was on trying to prevent the spread of C-1’s payload to mind rips and software, who were vulnerable.”

  “I knew they were everywhere, but I didn’t know they were that common.” Vince says.

  “Well they wouldn’t be without a few mind rips and softwares. They got the idea of replicating themselves across different servers to experiment with what would happen. That devolved into a major argument about if they’re the same person just spread out, or if they instantly diverged and became a brand new person. Based on C-1’s memories, that argument never got resolved. I think it’s just too personal of a question to reach a concrete answer.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure how you’d even begin to figure that out.” Vince agrees.

  We waited for a short break in the gunfire and moved. Silver led the way downstairs, firing occasionally. They stacked up on a side door and held up their hand, waiting for Clover, I’m sure.

  They dropped their hand just as a lull in combat started, and we pushed. We barely made it to the other side of the road before combat began once again. We made it into the garage.

  “Silver!” One of the guards called out to us. “Silver, give us a hand!”

  “I can’t.” They responded. “We’re getting out and regrouping. We can’t fight without info, you should do the same.”

  “There are still people here!”

  “You want me to die here trying to save a few lives, or do you want me to fix this?” They paused, already knowing an answer wasn’t coming. “We’re headed for a foxhole nearby. We’ll be back.”

  The guard just defted, and we walked right past them.

  Mara and I hopped in one car, and Silver took the other.

  Outside the city wasn’t any better. Bullets rained down from the tops of buildings. Cars drove around, trying to stop people from escaping or trying to escort people away safely. Our cars were well built with yers of heavy armor and hidden wheels. Small arms fire wasn’t going to do much more than a few scratches and small dents. We drove straight through.

  Around the city are foxholes, little underground bunkers designed for people to hide out in if they can’t quite make it to the city. Turns out they also work as a staging ground.

  Most of the foxholes were closed. Each of the bunkers had a set of thick metal doors. It took us a few tries to find one that was still open.

  They had armed guards stationed on the inside, with a makeshift barricade preventing us from going any more than a single carlength into the bunker.

  “You got bots with you?” A guard called out. Silver rolled down their window by a fraction of an inch to respond.

  “You think I’d bring one here after getting out of the city? No, we’re all human.”

  “Prove it.”

  Silver just shrugged, drew their knife, and drew a little blood. They didn’t even hesitate.

  “Good enough?” They asked.

  “Probably the best I’m going to get. Let them in!”

  A few guards pulled back the barricade. Behind it was a single floor, packed with cars. In the seats and along the walls were injured and shell-shocked refugees and people trying to help with far too little medical equipment. The corner had a few artificial bodies and computer parts piled together, all broken.

  You’d be surprised just how quiet people are when they’re trying to come to terms with the fact that they’ve lost everything and a lot of people they care about. Just soft sobs while holding onto those they made it out with. Just kids quietly asking when their parents are getting here. Just silent ghosts staring into space having given up on everything.

  We added our cars to the mess and stepped out.

  “Who’s in charge of this pce?” Mara asked the nearest guard.

  “Renold.” He nodded towards a door built into the wall before turning his attention back to the entrance.

  We headed over and let ourselves in. Behind the door was a war room with a couple of people arguing around a table with tablets and ptops spread out across it. Most of the electronics had been unplugged, and a few smashed.

  “The hell’s going on here?” Mara interrupted everyone and stepped forward, taking her pce at the table.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” One of the men asked.

  “Silver, Mara, Vince.” Silver stepped up, taking their pce as well. I stayed back of course, ready for things to come to blows. “Mercenaries open to work. Tell us the situation, and we’ll take our due after.”

  “We don’t know.” One of the women said sourly. “We’ve lost connection with half the foxholes, the other half are sending out requests for help, and the entire city’s dark. We need scouts, information.”

  “I understand, but we can’t take risks, not with so many refugees.” A man said. “If the bots come for us and we can’t hold? I won’t let these people die, not after they put their trust in us. We need to do what we’ve always done, be a safe pce for people to wait out the storm. Once it passes they’ll have a head start to make it to Albuquerque. We can start working to get more people out then.”

  Silver just stepped past them, to the broken server against the wall. They pulled out a networking cable from it and slid it into their skull. Their face contorted and they ripped it out a moment ter. They stepped forward, picked up one of the tablets, popped off the back, and cut a few wires.

  “Any foxholes you think you’re in contact with are compromised.” They grabbed another tablet and did the same. “Any tablets with a network connection are compromised. I don’t care if you’ve disabled the connection in software, it’s lying to you.” Another tablet severed. “Any emergency broadcast you think you hear is a trap. The only information you trust is from an organic mouth, seen with organic eyes. You want to live? You go dark, just like the others. The AI have already heard every word you’ve said, and prepared for any pn you could ever think of. They’re smarter than you.”

  “You need the best, and that’s us.” Mara said. “We’ll work for a bnk check. If not? I’ve got a summer home in Vegas.”

  The man just stared bnkly at us in disbelief.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” His words were ft. “The world’s gone to shit, and you’re shaking us down?”

  “If you’re stupid enough that you have to ask, you can’t afford not to hire us.”

  “Fine.” The woman agreed. “Pull us out of this mess and you can talk to the boss. Silver, we need more space, more bunkers. You said a lot of them were compromised? Take them back.”

  “Got it.” The three of us got to work.

  JanePtinum