Cassandra slowly but sure took out the revolver from her side, regretting saving those bullets for later. They had been intended for the off-chance that Terrence would follow them or one of her coworkers would get the drop on them. Yet, never once did she expect she would have to do what she was about to do.

“We need to be out of here soon,” the larger man to the side said. Troy had called him Charlie and Jules could seemingly recognize the man. It was certainly some form of a clusterfuck things had turned into. If not for it still seeming like the right thing to do, Cassandra might have tapped out.

“Give me a moment here,” Cassandra criticized. The man didn’t comment on it, his eyes looking dead as the old weapon was pointed at her. She doubted it could even fire with how old the thing was but she also didn’t want to test it. Neither of them would survive that thing no matter how quick they liked to think of themselves.

“It’s okay,” Jules said from the side. Cassandra wanted to ask it to shut up but she couldn’t get the words out. “He’s probably right. Wouldn’t make sense for there to not be a fail-safe of some kind. Us blue-skinned robots can’t really go around rebelling without there being a kill-switch planted somewhere.”

“Don’t call yourself that, please,” Cassandra requested, not bothering to try and order the damned thing around anymore. “It sound stupid.”

“But you have to say that it fits,” Jules retorted as Troy returned from wherever he had gone. Putting one hand on the automation, the automation fell to its knees, seemingly unable to move them. “I have to be fully honest and say that this feels weirder every time we do it.”

“I understand completely,” Troy said as he held the automation’s shoulder. “But, the time before was to escape your grasp, so… maybe taking this is a plus in the end. You were just too good.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Jules said after a few moments pause before just giving up and spreading his arms. “But, anyway, time was of the essence if the man with the very dirty shotgun is to be believed. Cass, if you would do the honors.”

Cassandra didn’t raise her revolver, looking into Jules’ eyes. It looked back at her with a look of impatience as if they had just come first in line at a coffee shop. It seemingly felt no fear, no hesitation. It wasn’t even fighting for more time, instead encouraging her to take the shot. And… who was she to resist. The weapon aimed at her was becoming more dangerous with every second, then waiting around was becoming more dangerous.

Taking a hold around her revolver, Cassandra slowly but steadily placed it against Jules’ face, ready to put a hole through the skull without issue. Putting a finger on the trigger, she held it slowly as she gathered herself one last time. And with the final second spent lowering it to the automation’s chest, she shot the person she had become good friends with.

And then again. And again. Cassandra emptied out her entire magazine making sure they were well and dead, not leaving a single thing to chance. Checking that the revolver was indeed empty one last time, she put it back into its holder as the two others beside her looked into the dead body of a police officer.

“Can we get going now?” Cassandra questioned, drawing the two others out of their trance. Charlie lowered the weapon, getting over to one of the tents with quick steps. Troy simply stood in a trance yet again, looking out with dazed eyes as his right hand made a few quick movements. The woman spent a moment thinking if she had made the right choice before accepting what had already been done. There wasn’t any going back so there was no reason to second-guess herself again.

“We need to be down by the river within a few hours if we are to do it tonight,” Troy suddenly said as he went over to the tents that were dug forth. Cassandra had initially not noticed them, the human-made fabrics hidden too well in the foliage and snow. It was admirable work, making her understand more how they could’ve missed it when they first had searched for them in the forest. She could’ve easily walked right by without seeing them first. “Charlie, can you grab Dr Hale? I’ll take the provisions.”

“We already knew the roles from the beginning, Troy. You don’t need to repeat it all,” Charlie responded from inside of the tents. Taking out a light of some sort, Cassandra got a better look at what had been bundled up inside. There was nothing other than an actual person there. One that, with a very pale face, seemed to need severe help medically.

“Haven’t you used the supplies you stole to help her?” Cassandra questioned as the wounded person in question was brought out of the tent, seemingly unconscious. They looked older than either of the other two men, though not too much older than the larger one. Maybe around fifty. She wasn’t sure.

“... I have done everything we could before we needed to stop,” Charlie answered, after a small bit of eye-contact with Troy. “She will survive the trip over to the next trip if we hurry. There we can get her attended to by better people than me.”

“What people? And where are we going?” Cassandra continued to ask as the others packed up what they could carry. The tents themselves were left behind and so was most of the food and bandages. Actually, almost all of the gear was just being left in the tents to be found by others in the future.

“We are going to the river,” Troy answered after Charlie kept quiet. “It’s the route we need to get out of here.”

Route? What route could possibly have started by the river? It was further into the country and even the water itself only ended up inside the… underground tunnels.

“Don’t tell you to plan on escaping that way,” Cassandra said, her tone grim. Even if she had only stayed in the city for a few weeks, she knew the dangers of that place. “Every diver who has gone down there died. What exactly do you expect to happen to a wounded old woman?”

“The wounded old woman thinks you should impale yourself on a rather large stick,” said an aged voice, this one not from the larger man. Looking over, it seemed that the wounded woman had awoken, the person in question staring daggers at Cassandra. “Since you’re still alive, I suppose the idiots decided you were trustworthy. Or they had no choice. Now you can try and cross the border through another method but I assure you that won’t happen. They have more military patrols further over than you can count. This here? It’s a death sentence but it is the best we have.”

“Try not to talk that much, Mara,” Charlie pleaded. “Those lungs of yours still need rest if they’re gonna do you any good.”

“They are doing me plenty of good already,” the one Cassandra now knew as Mara said. “Wake me up when we have to go under.”

“Of course, Mara.”

Troy went over to her after that, pushing her along. The four began to walk down towards the river. Yet… there was still one question that Cassandra couldn’t help but wonder about. It was the one thing that had left her to make this choice. The one entity that had made her rethink how life was meant to be.

“Where is Adam?” Cassandra asked as they went through a particular rough patch of snow. The storm had been picking up and the height was increasing with every hour. If not for the clothing already prepared and the enhancements to their physical body, hypothermia would have been a real issue.

“Oh, right,” Troy said. “I suppose I forgot to introduce you to him. Adam, I’ll send you over to her for a quick second. That’s fine, right? Good.”

The man proceeded to take off an earpiece he had worn from the time they entered the camp. Troy gave the wearable object to her to which she accepted without word. After a small bit of encouragement she equipped it to her ear. The fact that Charlie looked back for the reaction made the woman wonder just what-

‘Hello.’

… oh.

Had Adam been worried these past forty-seven hours, thirty-two minutes, and twenty-three seconds? Yes. But he wasn't allowed to let that fact be known, as social regulations required him to be fully confident in Troy’s ability to escape the station by himself.

Adam had not been confident in Troy’s ability to escape the station by himself. In fact, there had been several plans made in the event that they wouldn’t meet up within another day. There was meant to have been several occurrences of cell-doors opening by themselves, wiring shorting out, and fake emergencies being made. That nothing of the sort had been mentioned had worried the AI immensely.

That Troy reported him escaping through the help of an officer? That was the most surprising thing of all. Looking through the headspace of the officer in question, Adam just couldn’t help but wonder what was making the woman trust them. There was a lot of information stored inside that woman, information not normally known to the public.

Personnel files could be found as well. The system seemed more than helpful in that regard, at least, giving Adam anything that was local within an instant. Petabytes of memory was spent on recordings alone, showing every waking and sleeping moment of the woman’s life in the last few weeks. Anything later than that was apparently stored on an off-shore database of some kind. Thoughts about why such information would be needed for normal use was had but Adam saved something like that for later. A certain police officer had regained her cool enough to answer, after all.

“... You aren’t a child,” Cassandra commented. That was… an interesting way to open up conversation. The look on Troy’s face, seen through the police woman’s eyes, seemed to light up and then cringe. Adam wondered why.

‘The modern definition of children would make me one, though the standards for how old an AI needs to be before becoming an adult is currently blurry due to me being the only officially recognized one,’ Adam responded, trying to put in a bit of important information as well.

“Right. AI. Artificial Intelligence,” Cassandra said slowly.

‘The current usage of AI doesn’t truly align with my existence. We have been trying to use Artificial Mind as a way to seperate the terms but it is still in the works,’ Adam corrected. What to really call himself was still quite complex, the public perception of AI not being entirely positive. Too many movies about the negative effects had appeared in recent years, making the entity's entrance into the public view very delayed.

“I have no words to explain what I am feeling at this moment.”

‘I believe humans like to explain that as generally feeling overwhelmed,’ Adam supplied helpfully. The woman did not answer him, instead walking ahead at a slightly faster pace. Private thoughts apparently needed to be had. In fact… if the AI was reading the data right, the human body he was settled in actually had a pseudo mind-reader. It required conscious thought to use which meant it couldn’t be used to passively listen in on the thoughts. Yet, it was still quite promising. Adam wondered if he could get Troy one of those in the future. All those hand signs really weren't quick enough for his tastes.

Seeing the time for it, the AI began to delve deeper into the workings of the enhancements. Most of the changes done to the police officer’s body looked to be biological in nature, yet the interface that helped with the upkeep of them was entirely mechanical. It seemed that the communication still wasn’t perfect yet. A design flaw seeing as it could be damaged and become very dangerous to the user, but Adam didn’t care too much about that. The information stored on the drives was more than enough.

And then came the connection openings, the channels that the interface had access to. Their were comms to nearly every police station in the entire country, ready to be used if the need required it. Some apparently had the risk of giving a delay but who cared about that. It was near-instant access to a very encrypted network which couldn’t be found in the public view in any way.

Looking deeper yet again, it seemed that there was one last feature which Adam grew more interested in. It was the master personnel dossier. There was the local version which stored every face in the entire city and the ones near it that were important enough to be mentioned. But the extended version? That could be found with only a thought, though the information inside was heavily restricted. It would require the top level of credentials to gain access.

That… that was something Adam could try. But caution was still more important than anything. Using the abilities he had for something so primitive was too large a risk, making the AI withdraw before he accidentally set off some triggers. Instead, he tried to do it more passively, looking up any local broadcast stations. Radios were apparently still in use, to some level. It included a brief bit of erratic musical numbers before Adam was able to switch over to the military ones.

And the clarity felt in those moments was like nothing else, the power of the broadcast making the Ai nearly turn it off by instinct. A noise like nothing else blared into the ears of the entity, making it impossible to discern instantly. Yet the more he listened the more the AI could understand.

‘Last known location detected. Impact in ten… nine… eight.’

Last known location. They couldn’t mean Cassandra’s since the AI was sure that nothing had been sent out, meaning a missile was being sent against a place very close to them. Not certain death but not too far from the description.

‘Missile has been sent your way. Run,’ Adam requested, not waiting for the words to be sent in slowly. The police woman was apparently quick on the uptake, shouting the same out to the two others as they all sprinted through the snow. From above, the light of fuel being combusted could be seen. It flew far above their heads as it began to dive down.

And then it landed with a shockwave to match.