Page 8 of Guiding Reason

“Hyran? Congratulations. Be happy. This is brightness on a very dark day.”

They ended the call.

Brightness on a dark day. It feels nothing like that,Hyran thought and wondered whether he should fight the urge to sit on Coldis’s bed and hold his hand while the medication did its work. Conduit Orrey had sat there. The sheets were probably wrinkled. He could at least straighten them.

He balled his hands into fists. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the dark room. “I’m so sorry.”

4

COLDIS

OpenLog/entry (review mode)

Guardian Vin has rejoined his team. He is quiet and can hardly be coaxed into words or telling me what he wants.

He brought weapons back from the clinic. That’s unusual, but not a direct violation of the rules that govern the Grounds, and even if, I am a butler bot. I owe those I serve my silence.

I cannot tell if they like the hospitality agents or not.

OpenLog/entry (review mode)

Conduit Coldis confided in me. He told me the secret to a team as strong as his.

Family. They must be family.

I’m thinking of how bots can be a family to become that strong. We already talk on a regular basis to make sure our Guardians and Conduits have everything they want and need. Perhaps the Op-AI is part of my family and everyone’s family? Or all of Ferrea’s bots are a family? But no, we have little contact to those AIs outside the Grounds.

I will think on this more.

(From Butler Bot 35’s personal log.)

~Coldis

Coldis jerked awake. It was dark. Everything hurt.

“Shh.”

The house. The house in the forest. Alesa attacked us, and Karmine got burned. And all of it is my fault.

“Karmine?” he asked, worry dissolving the burning pain in his spine and head. There was something on his head. A bandage? He had no memory of when that had happened.

No one answered, and in the confusing silence, Coldis realized where he really was, a room in a clinic with someone holding his hand. Through all of that, the memories came back, the ground splitting beneath his feet, and then—

“Light, thirty percent.”

As the illumination grew, Coldis saw the green eyes first, then the hair, red but looking brown in this dull room. Hyran. Coldis looked at his hand, the one that had the IV in it. Hyran held it cradled in both of his.

“You started moving, and I didn’t want you to pull the needle out,” the Guardian explained. “I didn’t…I wasn’t trying to get you to buffer or channel. It’s just that you need that medication.”

He has very long hair. Odd. It has to be annoying for a kinetomancer. Probably gets in the way when he runs.

“You imprinted on me.”

Hyran was very still for a long moment before nodding. “You were falling. I couldn’t let you fall.”

“Do I remember correctly that you apologized?”

“I did.”