“Not our problem today,” Olafson said, his tone flat with unhappiness. “We need to stay focused on our objective. We get her back to HQ and then figure out how wide the dark goes.”

“Worldwide,” Khandro volunteered.

In the rearview, Welga saw the operative resting her head against the seat back and gazing through the trike’s clear dome. She glanced upward. The streaks of white in the sky had turned to ash-gray smears.

Olafson turned to stare at the dakini. “Every communications drone and satellite? Impossible.”

“Not all of them, but enough to disrupt the constellations.”

“The entire world is dark?” Olafson looked shell-shocked.

“There are places in the world where people live without the stellas,” Welga said.

“The Maghreb is dark only to the outside,” Khandro said. “Their soldiers have embraced our way, united with machines, speaking the language of WAIs. That’s why they’re so successful when they defend their borders.”

Their soldiers. Our way. Welga noticed the pronoun distinctions. Wasn’t the Machinehood part of the empire? “You sound like you admire them. Are you working with them? Are they funding your efforts?”

She shrugged. “Coin isn’t my concern. I appreciate their desire to improve the world, and their open-mindedness when it comes to their bodies.”

“There are also places off-world where we can’t see. If the Machinehood worked with a station,” Welga mused aloud, trying to provoke a response, “they could deploy swarms of micro-explosives and we’d have no way to stop them.”

“We must tear down the world before we can build it anew,” Khandro said, admitting nothing. “Out of death comes rebirth.”

Useless platitudes. Olafson shot her a warning glance. No field interrogations. Welga gripped the steering wheel tighter than necessary. They hadn’t secured the car. With the stellas down, the odds of public microcameras in the vehicle were small, but they’d already underestimated the ability of the Machinehood to infiltrate the networks. She’d said too much by discussing the Maghreb.

When a charging station appeared near the highway, Welga stopped the trike and swapped their battery. Their journey continued to be slow, impeded by stalled vehicles and dysfunctional bots, but they passed the halfway mark an hour after the station. She estimated two or three hours of driving left, given their current speed.

Olafson kept dozing. He seemed incapable of staying awake in a moving vehicle. Khandro kept her eyes closed, too. Welga couldn’t tell if the dakini was asleep or avoiding communication. She had one quad-zip left, enough to finish the drive back to headquarters, she hoped. The tremors hit faster and harder on the comedown this time. She might have to stay on quads to avoid them.