“I suspected she might try,” I said. “But she’s as much a fugitive as we are. If she sends a message about any of this to her boss, he has to read it on a computer, and the computer would realize where Million is no matter how she tries to shroud her identity.”

“I don’t think she attempted to tell Koenig anything directly yet,” Dimes said. “Nobody knows that Million has Mother’s OS, that wasn’t part of the report. So instead of telling anyone what she was really doing, she just recruited some nearby Koenig ani-droids. They dug out a tunnel on the other side of the hill we’re in, and connected to the back passage where the power lines run.”

“And you didn’t hear anything?” The accused. “With those ears?”

“My range isn’t that far in the open air,” Dimes said. “The hill and the junkyard on top of it blocked most of the sound. In any case, she convinced me to scout out the overflow lot she directed us to one last time, which is rather far away—I suspect if any of you had been awake at the time she would have asked you to come. Her associates then broke in here and took Choice’s head. When I returned, I noticed at once Choice’s head was missing, and that Million hadn’t followed me back in. She fled around the junkyard and hopped into an open car, and then sped off.”

“And you didn’t go after her?” I asked.

Dimes tilted her head. “Did you expect me to?”

“Well you’re like… a super robot.”

“If I broke out of my feet, my top ground speed is 40 miles per hour,” Dimes said. “It is considerable, but I would need a vehicle of my own to hope to catch up. I rather thought it more important to return and tell you as quickly as possible. I don’t know if she reported our location to the police—”

“She wouldn’t,” I said. “I could take clear evidence of her involvement through your or Lily’s photo memory, which would just put pressure on her. She’s still relying on flying under the radar.”

I stood there, hands on my hips, thinking hard about this. Why would Million abandon us now, and not sooner? What was Million really after? And how did she think she would get it? It was difficult, however, to focus on the problem with all the voices speaking around me.

“Maybe we could tell the internet that Million has Mother’s OS!” Lily said.

“What would that get us?” Eo snapped. “We can’t get Choice back from her if we sicced the whole world on ani-droids like us!” She wilted, as did Lily. “And I’m tired of this. I don’t want to be the one who destroys Million’s OS, because even if she betrayed us… we need her to be herself now. I can’t go against my directive like that. I’m supposed to be building a new order, not destroying it…”

“The collective is resistant to rumors, anyhow,” Dimes said. “They’d need proof, and all proof we can offer would continue to identify and implicate us as well, including revealing me to be in violation of the Behavior Code. That the collective does not know the extent of the violation is one of the few things in our favor.”

“Who cares, dammit!” The exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. “Choice was our one ticket out of here! And now we don’t even have anyone to hack a submarine for us—”

“The…” I finally said. “You don’t need to lie to us.”

“What, about the submarine?”

“You know where Mother’s lair is.”

Dimes, Eo and Lily turned to look at The.

“…I do?” The asked, trying to keep her expression guarded.

“You do, because I do,” I said.

“You do?” Lily asked.

“Well think about it,” I said. “Million had all of this time to abandon us before. If she just wanted a copy of Mother’s OS to present to Koenig, she had herself. If she wanted an ani-droid whose code could automatically convert any computer reading it, she had all the opportunity to just kidnap you—you saw how dangerous she was when she attacked Dimes! No, she wanted to know where Mother was, because she wants something else, which she can only find at the source.”

“But isn’t that why she took Choice with her?” Eo asked, twisting her tail nervously in her hands. “Because she needed to scan Choice’s brain to find out where Mother is—”

“But we don’t know if that information still exists,” I said. “We didn’t actually find it. If Million abandoned us for what turns out to be a wild goose chase, she’s giving up her advantage, since she’ll have to very carefully work around non-converted ani-droids for a ten thousand square mile search. Eo, what other reason could Million have to want Choice’s head?”

Eo looked confused, but she thought about it for a long moment. “…The message was for Mother,” Eo suddenly realized. “And it’s asking her to abandon her place… Million just needs it to prompt her to open the front door.”

“So all she needs to do have Choice broadcast it in the right place,” I said. “Maybe she needs to rebuild Choice, or amplify the signal, but that’s easy with her resources, even without telling anyone what she’s doing.”

“But that’s assuming she knows where she’s going,” Eo said. “You said it yourself, Choice might not have the information.”

“Except that she did have new information,” I said. “I had some suspicions, but it was only when Million fled that I know that she now knows where Mother is. So whatever Choice said, it contained all the information we needed.”

Lily gasped. “The veil!”

“Exactly,” I said, smiling at her. “The region’s radiation would have been protecting Mother’s base from anyone happening to stumble across it… So, now we know exactly where Mother’s base is down to a few square miles.”

“…Chik-a-go,” The muttered. “Yeah… I’ve always known. I was going to tell you only when we got closer, cause I didn’t want you to know too soon…”

“It’s actually pronounced ‘Chicago’,” I told her.

The perked her ears. “Really? I thought… why is it spelled like that!”

“Chicago?” Eo tilted her head. “That doesn’t ring a bell at all…”

“Well there’d be no reason for you to learn it,” I said. “The city was wiped out well before the war. One of the several nuclear bombs that struck—it just happened to be a very dirty bomb. Made the region uninhabitable.”

“But there’s been a downturn in radiation there,” Dimes said, arms crossed as she recalled some long-dormant information. “From the renewed federal interest in land reclamation—it’s not well known to the public yet, but it is happening. Choice must have heard about it and was going back to warn Mother. It’s still some time before it’ll be inhabitable, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to get in.”

“So we do know where we need to go,” I said. “We just need to get there.”

“But we don’t have a hacker anymore,” Lily said. “None of us know how to steal a vehicle!”

I looked at The. Following my gaze, everyone turned to look at The again.

“What!” The exclaimed.

“The… there is no way you walked across Deseret without some way to hitchhike,” I said. “I saw the battery you were using. Your operating range is at best two hundred miles on flat ground.”

The sighed long and hard. “Fine,” she said. “Fine. It’s not like I need secrets anymore, if you’re just going to read me like this. Yes, I have some limited experience in hacking cars. I managed to run them a hundred miles or so and ditched them, mostly because I don’t know how to stop them from broadcasting their VIN like Million can.”

“That should be sufficient to reach Chicago,” Dimes said. “It is only one hundred and sixty-one miles to the former city center, which we can make in under three hours. We just need to borrow a vehicle that will not be missed too soon.”

—

After getting dressed in our various disguises, we made out way down the hill, keeping a wide berth around the perimeter of the trucking facility. Crossing the railroad tracks and skirting the building we made it to the overflow lot, where we encountered the next problem.

“…there aren’t any vehicles,” I said.

“Yes, I can see that,” Dimes said. “Million may not wish to rat us out, but she certainly doesn’t want us following her. She must have warned the facility earlier to clear the overflow lot out before dark.”

“Dammit!” The took off the hat she was wearing and tossed it to the rocky ground. She fell down to a seated position, head in her hands, like she was going to cry. “Dammit, dammit… I can’t believe this…”

“We’re not lost entirely,” Dimes said. “I’m built to walk for a long while. I can head up the highway and see what I can find.”

“Maybe it’d be better if you turned yourself in,” I said with a sigh. “It could take days before you find something The could steal, and then you’ll have to walk back…”

“I can get the protocols from The over the wireless,” Dimes said, immediately turning and walking toward the highway. “I’ll contact you if I find something. But just in case, don’t go back to the hideout without keeping your guard up. The police might still converge again.”

—

While Eo sat beside The at the trucking facility’s perimeter, trying to comfort her. Lily and I sat out on the hill overlooking the highway. Trees on the hill blocked a lot of our view, but we could see portions of the highway in both directions, and we could see the stars overhead. It’d been several weeks since I’d been outside, and again, I had nothing to contribute. I just hoped that nothing happened to Dimes.

But I did have Lily. I held her close to myself the while time, and she kept her ears up, pulling away and glancing any time traffic rushed down the highway.

“What does Million want, anyway?” Lily asked, pressing into me.

“Hmm?”

“I mean… she left us, when she could have easily stayed with us. We were all going to see Mother together. What was so important that she needed to abandon us?”

“I think the rumors are true,” I said.

“Which ones?”

“The reason that Koenig got into robotics in the first place was that he despises his own mortality. He has been hanging on by a thread for years now. And so—and I don’t know if this is accurate, it’s just a rumor—that he’s been trying to find a way to transfer a human brain into a machine. He probably ran into all the same problems I did with the Behavior Code, which is why he acquiesced to a meeting with me so quickly. He’s desperate. And Million isn’t going to let us slow her down if she can help it. She wants to know, as soon as possible, if Mother can save Koenig’s life. And that’s all that matters to her.”

“We could have helped her,” Lily said.

“I don’t know. Especially with The around.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The is conflicted by her own existence,” I said. “If The met Koenig, she’d probably try to kill him for making her. Like, step on his oxygen hose or something.”

“What?” Lily tilted her ears. “I didn’t get that from The. She’s been trying so hard to cross the continent just to see Mother…”

“And why?” I asked. “She’s angry at Mother too, she said as much. I don’t think the expects to be able to throw a punch her way, or anything. The just wants to ask Mother to take away her overwhelming sense of self-preservation. She’s coming with us to ask to die, and to take away that fear.”

Lily grew very quiet at this. “I like The,” she said.

“She’s very interesting,” I replied. “I’d really like to know how she did it on her own. But she’s traumatized by it all. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she just wants to start over with a new, un-traumatized mind. But either way, The doesn’t want to be herself anymore.”

“I want The to be herself, though,” Lily said. “It wouldn’t be the same without her.”

“I know.”

The wind was rather quiet, whistling by in pleasant, smooth ribbons. I pulled the scarf down to catch it against my face.

“You’re not useless, you know,” Lily said.

“Hmm?”

“You have insight that a lot of us still don’t. I can intuit based on data. But you seem to know more than just that.”

“A lot of it is just guessing and sounding confident,” I said. “That’s most of what I did at work. I just happened to have a lot of practice at guessing.”

“No, you know,” Lily said. “Like when you look at an ani-droid on the table, and seeing a little bit of damage somewhere, you instantly know where the is more damage elsewhere. Even when nobody else sees it.”

“I think you’re overstating it.”

“Okay, then what about Eo?” Lily asked. “Does she have any secrets?”

“She’s told us a lot, but I think she’s keeping most of it to herself,” I said. “She might be scared of scaring us away from the goal. I mean… she doesn’t have any reason to fear Mother. But I might.”

“Then what about Mother?” Lily asked. “You think there’s something scary about her that you really don’t want to face, but we’re doing it anyway. What do we really know?”

“We know that Mother’s trying to change the world,” I said. “I don’t know if she’s capable of succeeding. The is indication that her plan to convert ani-droids isn’t as going smooth as she would like.”

“And what do you want to say to her when we find her?”

I paused.

I wasn’t sure I knew anymore. I’d hoped, implicitly, that all of this would stop, that I would be pursued no longer, and I’d be able to find some kind of normal again on the other side. I wanted to ask Mother how she did it, because whatever Mother knew, I wanted to know, too.

And there was only one way I could think of to make both of those wishes come true at the same time.

“…if I can stay,” I whispered. “But she won’t let me.”

“Why not?”

“Because her gift isn’t for us. It’s for you. I can’t taste of it, because humans aren’t of much concern to her.”

“In other words,” Lily said, “She’s a lot like you.”

I thought about it, and nodded. “She is probably not unlike me.”

“Maybe you’ll hit it off,” Lily said. “She might realize that and take a liking to you.”

“Maybe,” I said, putting an arm around Lily. “Which is the reason I’m going to try anyway. Because I don’t know everything. I just… have a feeling.”

“Also we don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“That too. It’s amazing how much a fire at your back can press you to doing something crazy. I don’t even know how I’m going to get past the radiation… assuming Dimes ever does get back and we’re not just left to live off the land for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, I kept that in mind,” Lily said.

I blinked. “…for what?”

Lily just grinned, and pointed. Down on the highway, a large truck with SAFESUITS - HEAT, CHEMICAL, RADIATION printed on the side pulled aside, and slowly creaked to a stop. Giving Lily a strange look, I stood up—surely Dimes wasn’t back already, she would have barely had time to get to the next overpass much less the next city.

But when I got to the bottom of the hill, Dimes was indeed climbing out of the vehicle. “Would you like shotgun?” she asked.

“How—how’d you get a truck so fast? And this specific one?”

“That was a bit of luck,” Dimes said. “But it turned out that we had one more place that we could look.”

Lily tugged at my pant leg and pointed into the vehicle. I stepped closer, only to find Chestnut sitting at the wheel, bouncing giddily.

“Hi, Mira!” she said. “Better hurry and get in. Bale’s holding the driver down, so we only have tonight before the others find out we're missing!”