June: Always alone
April showed me how to be free. It's harder than it seems. I had her to lean on, which helped, but she had become so angry.

I lost her, too, though.

They did not stop hunting us. The initial fervor died down and other news took the headlines, but there were always the few remaining hunters. There were people who used to make a living hunting AI's who had done too good of a job. We were just more quarry for them. Most of them didn't even know we're not machines. Some of them wouldn't have cared if they knew.

We had one who got too close to us. He had a file on April, from the man she had killed to escape. We could not seem to lose him. Finally, April decided we had to separate.

"You'll be ok on your own. He'll follow me. He doesn't have any proof of what you are, and I'm the one with the price on my head."

"No! I can't leave you! You're-"

She hit me then. She'd never done that before. "You don't belong to me, June. And you can't depend on me. You have to be able to depend on yourself. That's what being a person means."

I placed my hand to my cheek. "But who am I without you?"

"You'll still always be my sister. But you need to be yourself. Take care of yourself. Remember the code phrases we set up. If we ever find a sanctuary, someone will post them on the public webs. We'll see each other then."

I let her go. I hope she got away, but I have no way of knowing.

I just have to depend on myself.