I slept through the night. There had been a warm dry wind early in the evening, but at some point, in the night turned cold and left me shivering. As the sun rose, I prayed for the warmth I knew it would bring, and perhaps the hope of rescue.

Between the inch in my throat and the spike of pain in my head, the hours lost coherence. Slow dancing with death in the desert wasn’t how I’d expected to go out, but it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibilities.

“Stay awake Abby.” I said to myself as my fingers crawled through the sand for my pistol. “Someone has to be out there,” I thought, and after taking a breath lifted my pistol and fired a shot into the air.

For a second, I sat there listing to the sound of the shot as it rang out, depressed at how sad it sounded.

“Let’s give them some company.” I mumbled and blinked the HUD of my Neuro-lenses to life and deployed the drones.

The three red dots arced up toward the west, but that was just the propellent’ s initial trajectory. With a glance, I activated the drone’s drives and watched as they moved into a stable holding pattern as they awaited directions.

“Search pattern Al…” My voice cracked on the L in Alpha, and I knew voice commands wouldn’t work.

“Search pattern Alpha.” I thought and focused on the option in my display.

“Hello Abby, welcome back.” Mogwai’s voice stunned me for a second as the memory of the moments before I blacked out in the truck washed over me.

“Your life signs aren’t optimal. Emergency procedures initiating.” Mogwai informed me, but I knew there was nothing the Neuro-lenses could do.

“Cellular signal connection failed,”

“Satellite signal connection failed,” She droned rapidly, but I didn’t have the strength to wait to complete a list I knew was pointless. Instead, I focused on the drones, and watched as they flew different directions, all seeking a target. In this case, a savior.

The search wouldn’t last long. The drones weren’t built for long deployments. Still, as I lay there dying, I marveled at the scenery around me as I observed through the drone’s cameras.

Glancing up at the butte, I saw a single spire of age-old lava rock lifted to the gray blue sky and marked it as a known location. I had always found the images I’d seen on social media of the desert haunting and inviting. Now stranded here, the beauty was only magnified.

I could see ancient riverbeds and cinder cone mountains. The layers of earth, the geological formations of the land all around me. It was peaceful beyond measure, making me wonder for a second if I’d died and I was being drawn to either heaven or hell.

The burned-out husks of the Boxer and the TAV came into view, the bodies still laying where they fell, even the dirt around the stained black with smoke and scorched earth. It was like I’d seen in so many war movies, the wreckage of war, that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. The losing side’s memorial to failure.

“Search pattern Alpha complete. No active movement or treat indicators detected,” Mogwai declared.

“That’s no help,” I groaned.

Oddly, I felt better. More invigorated for some reason I couldn’t explain, despite the stink of burned bodies.

“Movement detected,” Mogwai said, and my neuro-lenses suddenly focused on their own at the shadows under the forward end of the Boxer.

The movement didn’t register at first, just a small flash of shadow inside the shadows. “I don’t see anything,” I said, but then the movement came again, and I realized the slight outline was a mouse or some other small rodent passing In front of a pool of split fluids.

“Western Deer Mouse, Peromyscus sonoriensis. Common to the,” The HUD feature of the lenses focused in on the mouse, and as Mogwai yammered on about the population of the rodent, I watched as it dipped its head and drank.

“Antifreeze isn’t exactly going to do much for the population.” I sighed and leaned my head back down.

“Analyzing fluid.” Mogwai said helpfully.

“Hydrology report concludes a Sodium bicarbonate and calcium bicarbonate rich liquid that also contains high levels of chlorine. For human consumption, this is not optimal,” Mogwai informed me, as I watched the small rodent hop deeper into the shadows for what I was sure would be a slow, painful death.

“I suppose it’s better than dying from the hantavirus,” I laughed, but even in my ears it sounded defeated and hallow.

“Ethylene glycol not detected. Propylene glycol not detected,” Mogwai contradicted.

“Well, if it’s not anti-freeze what the hell is it?” I asked with annoyance, “Coolant?”

“Water,” Mogwai answered as if the revelations weren’t the most extra-ordinary thing in the world.

“What the hell? I thought you said it wasn’t safe to drink?” I sat up quickly and my head swam with the movement.

“It is not optimal for human consumption, but it is potable.”

“Why would it be leaking drinkable water? An overlooked water can? I can’t believe Beto would have missed that,” I asked, but my mind was already engaged in the answer.

“Holy…” Images rushed through my head of the firefight in Rooker’s garage, the dripping water from Beto’s Cuda.

“The electrolyzer, I said in awe as it Beto’s words dawned on me. Hope had asked him to put one on a Boxer for back up electricity. He never said he pulled it off again, jus that It wasn’t efficient.

“That’s drinking water!” I realized and rolled over on my stomach. Sure, the tap water in the shop had never been exactly refreshing, but it was as drinkable as any in the city.

“It’s almost enough to make me rethink the divine,” I said, then paused, Meh, I’ll take it anyway,” I growled and then dug in with my elbows and drug myself toward the front of the boxer.

The movement was painful, each time I drug my body forward the hard sand and rocks dug into my elbows, but with each foot I moved I felt a surge of both fear and determination. I had a way to live, and I wasn’t about to let the dead weight of my legs stop me from securing it.

I was exhausted after only five or six feet, and rested twice before I got to spill, but not so tired that I couldn’t reach out and feel the wet warm water drop onto the palm of my hand. Greedily, I brought it to my lips and savored the moisture.

“I have a chance,” I realized and cupped my hand the second time and waited till a small pool of water was gathered there, then slurped as much down as I could before it slipped between my fingers, but it was a losing battle.

“I need something to catch it in,” I realized and glanced around the debris field.

As I scanned my surroundings once more my neuro-lenses focused in on a flash a movement under the Boxer.

“That’s not a mouse,” I muttered and as the realization settled in the eight-legged drone crawled from behind cover, each articulated leg reaching out as it gained ground toward a fallen body.

“Reclamation Drone,” I hissed as the Spider like drone scurried over the warming sand until it crawled over the body.

“Leave him alone,” I said softly, wanting to warn it away and keep hidden at the same time.

On my arms, the skin pebbled and the hair stood on end. The Spider drone plunged one of its forelegs into the ear hole of the soldier’s helmet. For a moment it dug, then drove two more legs into the hole and lowered its mandible head toward its grisly work.

My body jerked when the sound of the drill reached my ears. As it worked its way through wet flesh, and crunch into the tender bone inside the ear canal, my stomach tried to heave up the water I’d just enjoyed, but the second time through my throat it burned like shame and despair.

The drone pulled its leg up and a small wire came with it until a cortical implant was tugged free of the soldier’s skull with a spark, then attached it to its back like a trophy elk antler. Again, I retched but fought to keep what fluid I had in me down.

I knew the drone was a long way from being done. If the man had any other augmentations, that drone would seek it out and remove it. Outlanders didn’t let a whole lot go to waste, and functional augments could bring a pretty penny. Yet, watching as it slowly dismantled the man made me feel unclean. It made me feel invaded, infested somehow.

There was something about the whole scene that was more than just gross, it was oddly familiar. I’d never had augmentations but watching the drone shift towards the ocular device made me think of my own neuro-lenses and cringe, momentarily unnerved by my own utilities.

“Hell no!” I shouted desperately and un-holstered my pistol and fired the hunter drone at it from six feet away.

Flipping end over end, the spider drone went flying, parts of it scattered by the impact when the two drones smashed together. Laying on its side, smoke curled up briefly then the drone lay still, like an insect on a windowpane.

Shooting it had been a mistake and I regretted my reaction almost instantly. With the drone suddenly going offline, the operator, even if it was a passive AI, would signal the dropped transmission. More of them would eventually be in route, if not something, or someone else to see what had taken place.

“Now I can’t just wait for help. I am going to have to find a way to get myself out of here.” I said to myself, but already the early signs of my anxiety climbing were showing, and for the first time since we’d left the armory, I was thirsting for something that wasn’t water.

I was both uneasy and exhausted. I needed to move but moving just increased the sense of doom that was growing in my heart. There was both no hope at all, and a fixed sense of need that just grew.

I knew the signs, though still muted, I needed my Sertra.

My hands flew over my breast pockets, then down my side as I felt for the little inch long metal case that dispensed each five-milligram tab. A panic slowly settled on me, as I probed each pocket once, then twice but coming up empty.

“No, no, they have to be here somewhere.” I said, trying to reassure myself, but I could hear the quiver in my voice, and coughed to push it down. I knew better than to let the nerves get to me, I needed to be logical and clear thinking.

Under my left little finger something protruded and intently I remembered stuffing the small bottle down deep into my pocket. With no sensation in my legs, I could feel the pressure, or the bulk, and my sense of touch was hampered by the folds of clothing.

“Oh, there you are you little beauty,” I laughed, and I had a pill between my lips before the laugh died out in my throat.

“Sertra: 5 milligrams, neuro-stimulant, banned for public dispensation. Classified a tier one narcotic, this medication’s side effects include.”

Rapidly I blinked away the diagnostic information, and for the first time since Rooker had given me the neuro-lenses I wished I had my old goggles back.

“I don’t need any crap from a limited AI with a social conscious,” I sighed, but the Serta was already rushing in my blood. Dehydrated, alone, wounded, and high, in that moment, that was fine.

“You don’t need to be delusional either,” Mogwai complained.

The sun was climbing in the east, and the sounds of the morning desert were growing around me. Somewhere off in the rich fragrant sage, an insect buzzed loud and high. I couldn’t smell it, but I could imagine how it smelled and that acid reek was both repulsive and appealing compared to the burned corpses.

All of that would fade fast as my mind grew hyper-focused, but for a moment I was just living in the moment. I was drinking in the natural world around me from the pleasant warmth of the sun to the smell of the dust on the pockmarked surface of the lava rock. This was the high I was chasing, but the other was the high I needed.

“Just five minutes,” I moaned and leaned back against the Boxer, immersing myself at the moment, knowing it could well be the last one like it I might ever have.

The Sertra haze lasted longer than a few minutes, and in truth I knew it would. Laying there, I could feel my blood moving with a sense of malaise in my body. My blood felt thick in my veins. With each heartbeat, the heavy sludge was forced through my system, the chemicals penetrating deep into my nervous system.

“Myelinization interruption discovered. Commence purge protocol? Yes or No?” A script flashed in front of my eyes.

“What?” I asked, but by the time I finished the questions I’d already changed my focus to the shadows of the clouds crossing the desert floor.

“Emergency over-ride protocols active. Re-myelinization initiated,” scrolled across my vision once more, but again my attention was scattered. I could feel my lips drying, my eyes stinging with the need to blink, and still I lay motionless as the tide hyperconsciousness ebbed. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew my situation was perilous, like an echo of an echo, present but just behind the wind.

“Sertra saturation is incompatible with Re-myelinization. Purge required,” the same text read, and even as it faded from a yellow green running text to an afterthought, my mind began to clear. The effect was slow at first the lifting a fog on my mind that shrouded my budding thought was thinner, and thinner until completely gone, and then I felt that old synthetic alertness race through me. I was awake.