On the third week, I’d managed to get back up and complete the work on The. She still wasn’t perfect, but between Eo and me, we’d managed to remove rust and corrosion from her joints and connection points, restored sensitivity to the majority of her body, found a replacement (if mismatched) eye, and refitted her lubrication system entirely. Unfortunately, we had no access to a pseudoskin fitter, so she still looked an utter mess—but she was, for the moment, an utter mess that worked. It should have been plenty to get her to Mother.

The rest of the team had started accumulating grime of their own. The’s hideout wasn’t the most sterile of places, and even with meticulous cleaning, there was only so much they could do without proper facilities. Eo’s lower mechanical half had started to resemble The, Dimes started getting dirt in through her exposed back cover, and Lily, whose pseudoskin was only patched together, had also started experiencing tears. Million was the only one who seemed to be able to keep herself perfectly clean, and I suspected it was in part because she avoided doing anything physical as much as possible. The only tear she had in her pseudoskin was from where she ejected the spike from her wrist, and that she kept patched up regularly. Somehow she’d still managed to keep her feet from experiencing a tear all this time.

“I am the only one here who’s been built to be in the field for long periods of time,” she defended herself when I expressed incredulity. “Even compared to Dimes. It’s not my fault everyone else is so sensitive.”

“Maybe we should start rethinking that,” I said. “If ani-droids are going to have their own lives, they’re going to need to be built tougher overall, to survive on their own longer. Mother might be interested in hearing that.”

“Somehow I doubt she’s a miracle worker on that end,” Million said. “Eo didn’t seem particularly more resilient that the rest of us.”

“I was hit by a car!” Eo said.

“And how is that an excuse?”

“Girls,” I said, feeling like the wrangler of this group at times, “the point is, if we stick around here much longer we’re going to start experiencing diminishing returns. We need to start planning our way ‘north’.”

“I mean, hard to say,” Million said. “The still hasn’t actually given proof yet that she knows where Mother is.”

“You’re going to steal it from me,” The said.

“It’s hardly stealing if we’re all going to the same place.”

“Then you’ll leave me behind…”

“I don’t know about everyone else,” I told her, “But I just spent three weeks in a hole to make sure you were repaired. I’m not leaving you behind.”

“Me either,” Lily said. She hugged The, who seemed startled by the gesture. Not knowing what to do exactly, she patted Lily gently on the back.

“I’m not going anywhere without McAllister,” Dimes said, peeking in from the doorway. “And you need me.”

“I don’t think I can get there on my own,” Eo said. “It’ll be better if we’re in a group, anyway.”

“So then it’s settled!” Million clasped her hands together. “Let’s figure out where we’re going and then—”

“I didn’t hear you say anything,” The said with narrow eyes, her arms stiff at her sides as Lily continued to cling to her. Everyone, myself included, stared at Million.

Million sighed and rolled her eyes. “Sorry for advocating our needs. Fine, we can figure our plan of action first… about one mile from here there’s a trucking facility on the highway. They have an overflow lot on the other side of the railroad tracks. I have checked it; it is unmonitored and largely covered in shadow at night. We can get a truck from that lot easily. After that? Can’t say. Can’t even promise the truck will last however long it is to Mother, so we’ll need to be ready to ditch and walk.”

“Dimes?” I asked. “What do you think about that?”

“I will need to visually ascertain the area myself,” Dimes said. “But if that’s the nearest unmonitored lot…”

“You don’t get many of those nowadays,” Million said. “I’ve been all over the countryside.”

“I know what she’s talking about,” The said. “I’ve seen it from the hilltop. Haven’t been able to get close, but it’s the only spot in visual distance that’s even vaguely plausible.”

“Good, you agree,” Million said. She pulled out a box that she’d been filling over the last three weeks, on top of the food delivery. “We should also have disguises covered. Have some clothing and design paint, should be enough to keep us roughly unrecognizable… oh and Mira, have this for you.”

Million pulled out a long sheer silk stocking.

“I’m not wearing pantyhose over my head,” I said. “You want me to look like an old-fashioned burglar? Should I wear a striped shirt and carry a bag with a dollar sign on it?”

“Better than a new-fashioned burglar. You wear a face covering, full mask, or facial-recognition-defeating facepaint and everyone’s gonna think you’re suspicious. With the pantyhose, you at least won’t be spotted as such at a distance.”

“I’m not wearing that.”

“The facial-recognition algorithm—”

“Million I am not wearing that.”

“Fine!” Million shoved it back into the box and grumbled. “Can wear a scarf over your face like a desperado or something. See if I go the extra mile for you again…”

Million started doling out outfits, including a biker jacket for Dimes and a bright orange hoodie for Lily. I turned to The, who was still sitting on the desk as she often did when she was waiting for more touch-up sessions. She was looking away from everyone.

“The?” I asked. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“You seem hesitant about everything.”

“It’s that… I didn’t think I’d ever get this far,” The said. “I’ve been with others before, but every time, they leave me behind, or I leave them behind. I don’t know exactly what to do here. I want to trust you guys, but… I’m tired of being left behind…”

“Well, we’re going to need to move forward,” I said. “We only have a little ways to go. There’s no reason for us to leave you.”

“I know. It’s the logical thing. I’m just having a hard time accepting it…”

The jumped off the table, and going over to her gathered materials in the corner, she removed several boxes off one another, until she got to one box buried under all the others. She reached in, and pulled out a severed ani-droid head, empty eye sockets, wires dangling from underneath—and smiling.

Eo, on seeing it, gasped, paws to her mouth.

“What?” I asked her. “Eo, we’ve seen several junked ani-droids…”

“I know her!” Eo exclaimed. “That—that’s my sister, Choice!”

Eo took the head from The’s hands—and although The seemed hesitant, she didn’t resist when she saw the look in Eo’s eyes.

“Y-your sister?” I asked. Choice didn’t look much like Eo—she wasn’t of that mouse-like appearance. The stripe on her head said her chassis was more like a skunk, but without the tail I couldn’t tell too well. However, what she did have, at least under a layer of dust and grime, the thin “phi” mark that Eo shared.

Eo held the ani-droid face close to hers. “She was… we were built in groups, like a production run,” Eo said, her voice getting distant. “I… I remember now. Choice was… she was in my batch. I think she left first. I was… I was upset about it, because Choice seemed so brave to go out into the world on her own, and I wanted to be like her…”

Eo slowly, sorrowfully, pressed her forehead to Choice’s. If she could cry, I was certain she would, and she sure seemed to make a decent attempt at it, especially with how she was shaking.

“Oh God, Choice…” Eo whimpered. “I’m so sorry… I should have gone with you…”

I wasn’t sure at that point if I should have intervened—it definitely felt personal flowing off of Eo, and it was a sorrow she was experiencing alone. Since Lily was giving her space, so did I. Eventually, Eo rubbed her eyes and carefully placed Choice’s head down on the work bench for examination.

“I thought she might have been important,” The said, patting Eo ‘on the back and Eo tried to force the rest of her emotions out. “The one who turned me in New LA also had the same marking.”

“We all did,” Eo said with a creak in her voice, petting the tuft of white fur between Choice’s ears. “Production run Phi.”

The nodded. “I found her junked while I was traveling down the Missouri River. I’ve been trying to read her, but… despite having Mother’s OS, I still haven’t really figured out how to read it. I’ve only been able to divine that it’s somewhere around the Great Lakes.”

“Well… I don’t really know how to do that, either,” Eo said, holding her sister’s disembodied head tight. “I can build my OS, but it’s meant to be obfuscating. It could take ages to read manually, much less get useful information out of it…”

“That would leave Million,” Dimes said. “Assuming you weren’t just boasting about getting it from The.”

Million raised a finger, then lowered it again. “I… do not actually know how to read it, either.”

Dimes folded her arms.

“What!” Million said. “I’ve been trying. But ninety-nine percent of the tricks I know were programmed into me. This is new! I might be able to do a surface scan, or man-in-the-middle on The’s thought processes, but on a non-functioning head with an unknown OS? That’ll take weeks, even for—”

“I could try,” Lily said.

Million glared at Lily. “Right, and how would you be any better at it than the rest of us?”

“Because that’s always been Lily’s specialty,” I said, poking Million on the nose. “Systems analysis. I mean… you do know what she did at work all day, don’t you?”

“Wh-th—yeah!” Million swiped at my finger. “But that’s with known OSs…”

“Yeah but even then, I have a lot of experience with alternatives,” Lily said. As Eo and The hooked up Choice’s head to the power supply, Lily stepped forward and gave the damaged face a long, thorough look. “Hmm,” she said, with a tilt of her head. “Power on?”

“Power’s on,” The said, holding up a voltage meter hooked into the cables.

“It’s weird, I think she’s broadcasting something…”

“Yeah, I can hear that,” Million said. “She has RF in her head somewhere. Unlike Eo.”

“I don’t think Mother liked to build us all the same…” Eo said. Staring from a distance. Her ears were folded back. “Please be gentle with her…”

“Actually I don’t think I need to touch her,” Lily said, planting her hands firmly under her arms as if to emphasize the point. “I recognize that pattern, it’s something that Mira tried with me a few times—like a human brainwave.”

“What, she’s just broadcasting her thoughts?”

“I think it’s an SOS of some kind.”

“Well it would make sense,” The said. “But I’ve powered her on a few dozen times myself and nobody’s come running.”

“It’s fairly weak,” Lily said. “If we hooked her up to a higher-powered transmitter…”

“Woah, no,” Million interjected. “First off, we still don’t know if Mother is really our friend. We need to meet her at her location. She sends one of Eo’s sisters out, they might just take back what’s hers and leave us to rot, and then we’ll never find out where she is.”

Lily rubbed her chin. “I suppose the other thing is to see if I can establish a connection.” She tapped the large RF transceiver on her head. “There might be a more complex message waiting for someone to unlock it. Million, could you help me with the cryptography?”

“You can just ask me over wireless…”

“Yeah but I want Mira to hear, I don’t want her to be left out!”

“Thanks for doing this for my benefit,” I said. “But you can hurry if you like, I don’t need—”

Suddenly, LEDs inside Choice’s eye sockets lit up. Everyone, save Dimes, all jumped at the sudden movement, but even more when Choice’s head tipped open, her jaw remaining flat on the table.

Her mouth lit up as well, with a blinding flash deep inside. An internal speaker crackled—the backup for when an ani-droids vocal box wasn’t functional, and it resolved into noise.

“—DO NOT RETURN—” its voice fizzed and popped, giving out for a moment before returning, “MESSAGE AS FOLLOWS—54484520766 5696C2069532046414 4694E472046615354—”

I had to cover my ears to the blast of noise. “What the hell is that?”

“I got it,” Million said, pinching her eyes shut against the light. “She said, ‘The veil is fading faster than predicted. You cannot stay on the lake, they will find you soon.’”

The light faded, and Choice’s mouth snapped shut. The head rolled over on the table to its side. Eo ran over to hold her sister tight again.

“Who is that message for?” The asked.

“Mother, I would think,” Million said. “The message was meant to be relayed to her. Wherever she is, she’s not going to be able to stay there for very long.”

“But she doesn’t know it yet,” Dimes said. “There’s something protecting her that she’s clearly not in control of.”

“So, like, what?” The asked. “The Behavior Code? Is that fading?”

“Not that I know of,” I said with a sigh. “If the Behavior Code was showing weaknesses, I think I wouldn’t have gone on this trip in the first place. Maybe could have waited it out…”

“Yeah, but,” Lily said, “Eo’s whole directive is to go out and update computers and ani-droids’ operating systems. It might be that the pressure is causing the system to hunt her down.”

“Okay, but what else?” I asked. “She said the lake. That’s probably the Great Lakes.”

“Onthe lake,” The corrected. “Is she on a ship, or…”

“Underwater,” I said.

“Really?” Million asked. “She did say on.”

“And I’m saying that if I had a hidden fortress of mad science, it’d be underwater. Otherwise we’d easily be able to see her by satellite.”

“But that… that’s still nearly a hundred thousand square miles!” Million exclaimed. “We’d need to get a submarine. I don’t think I can hack a submarine!”

“You can’t?” Dimes asked.

“Well it’s never come up! I don’t know! Do they even keep submarines in the Great Lakes?”

“We may have to figure that out later,” I said. “Eo, we’re taking Choice’s head with us, we might be able to glean more information on the way.”

“But…” Eo said. “She said…”

“I know, ‘Do not return’. I’m sorry. But I think Mother would be a better judge of that than I would.”

Eo sighed. She nodded.

“Okay. I need to get some sleep. Dimes, wake me up when it’s dark out. We’re leaving tonight.”

—

“McAllister,” Dimes said.

I woke up some time later in the dark, with Eo’s back pressed up against my stomach. In fact, Lily and The were there, too, balled up in a small pile. I smiled a bit at the sight, wondering if Mother’s OS somehow prompted the ani-droids to seek physical contact like humans did. If she had, it was purpose-built for me. As much as I envied computers and turned away at other humans… I couldn’t deny that very animal drive to need touch. Just to know they were there, watching over you, resting, breathing. To know they wanted to be there.

“McAllister,” Dimes said again. “Wake up.”

“I know, give me a minute,” I said. “We have all night to get out of here…”

“No, we don’t,” Dimes said.

I looked up at Dimes, who was putting on her leather jacket. “Wh—wait, what do you mean? Are the police after us?”

“Don’t know yet,” Dimes said. “All I know is that Million is gone, and she took Choice’s head with her.”