"I'm telling you, it's true. Last night the headlights blinked twice, by themselves."

"Sure it wasn't a dream?"

✢✳✻✽✻✳✢ "…It wasn't. I felt it too. Volt is trying to say something."

Spark's light drifted slowly back and forth across the dashboard. As if thinking.

✢✳✻✽✻✳✢ "I can open the memory module. Just a crack. …It is dangerous, though."

"How dangerous?"

✢✳✻✽✻✳✢ "Touch the wrong damaged sector, and the memories that are left get erased too."

The three of them fell silent. It was the dashboard that broke the silence. The light blinked — twice, on its own.

"…Volt says open it."

Spark vanished into the dark like a diver. An unfamiliar screen rose on the dashboard.

Kzzzt — a video fragment began to play.

A rainy night. Sirens. In the distance, the city lights were going out block by block.

Someone was tapping on Volt's dashboard. His face was lost in the noise. But his voice remained.

"Listen carefully. From this moment, power down — hide. And protect it."

A rain-soaked work jacket. On its chest, a small sun emblem was stitched.

The video cut off there.

Dot had frozen. Worse than when the drone came.

Without a word, she flipped over her solar rig. In the corner of the base plate — the same sun emblem.

"…That's my dad's workshop mark."

"Then the person who hid Volt on the night of the Blackout—"

"Dad knew. He knew what this car was. That's why they took him."

The reason the drones took Dot's father three years ago — was standing in this garage, right now.

✢✳✻✽✻✳✢ "…What Volt is protecting — even I don't know. Only Volt knows."

Then — the number on the dashboard changed. 25.0%.

Click.

The passenger door slid open, all on its own.

✢✳✻✽✻✳✢ "…Volt is inviting you in."

From inside the door that had been shut for ten years, along with the smell of an old car — flowed a very faint warmth.