And now there’s a new sound in the tunnel, the familiar, high-pitched wail of the subway train.

At once I put all the information together: Happy has tracked us to these tunnels using Wren’s Panoptic and has rerouted power back to this old subway system. The train that we were riding on is now racing toward us. The AI has either decided that we are no longer worth the hassle of keeping alive, or they’re going to rely on our ability to heal and hope that at least some of us survive being hit by a train.

Pod’s head tilts to the side and then he turns to us. “Run!”

I take five steps forward, sprinting on legs that have almost forgotten how to run. And then I notice that Wren isn’t moving.

“Wren, move. Come on!”

The tunnel is just wide enough for the train to fit through, there is no room to wait and let the enormous vehicle pass us by, we have to move, and we have to move now.

“Stay away from me, stay away from me!” she screams, her voice rising as the train’s screech grows ever louder.

I approach her slowly, not wanting to scare her. “Wren, listen to me. You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to remember me, but right now you have to trust me. If we don’t run, we’re going to die. I won’t leave without you.”

Her eyes dart toward the sound of the oncoming train and then back to me. “I don’t know you,” she says.

“Yes, you do, Wren. You know me, we’re friends, we’ve been friends for a long time. You looked after me when I needed it the most, and I’m going to look after you now. Please, come with me.”

Again, she looks toward the now almost deafening sound, and then back to me. Finally, she nods her head, and we run.

My legs feel leaden and the tunnel feels hot. Running feels the way it does in a dream, like nothing is working the way you want it to. Wren, despite her MOR system where her lungs used to be and her APM where her heart used to be, is slower than me. Weeks of the energy harvest and the paralysis needle have atrophied her muscles to the point that she is stumbling and shuffling along at an agonizingly slow pace.

Up ahead I see that Kina has stopped and is waiting for us, panic in her eyes as she looks behind us to the approaching train.

I keep pace with Wren, encouraging her, trying to ignore the blasting hot air being pushed forward by the approaching vehicle.

We catch up with Kina, who runs alongside us.

“Thirty yards,” Kina says, “just thirty yards to the platform.”