My eyes cracked open and the first thing I felt was how damn stiff and sore my body felt, and not in a sexy way. It felt like there were planks of wood lining my arms and legs. I took a second to get my bearings. I’d been moved away from the medical bay back to the commander’s quarters at some point, probably by the spider bots. The holoprojected clock on the bedside table told me it was early morning, so I’d only been under for about five hours. I frowned. It should’ve taken longer to heal the damage, which would explain the continued pain.

The events of the previous night suddenly came rushing back to me, and I was hit with a flurry of emotions. First, concern about Rebecca. I was 99.9% confident she’d be fine, but Assimilator neurotoxins were some horrible shit. She still had around six hours in the medical pod though, so I couldn’t do anything about it. Second, I had a mini-panic attack when I realized that there was an entire group of people just hanging out in the base. What the hell had I been thinking? I mean, it was one thing to bring Rebecca here, she definitely needed the help, but everyone else was a completely unnecessary risk. I was just too out of it last night to realize that. I’m pretty sure Camille had been as well: keeping that level of mental control for so long was incredibly draining.

Worrying about it wouldn’t solve anything though, and the damage was done at this point. I rolled out of the bed, missing the softness immediately, and threw on some clothes. I had to look presentable, we had company.

“Good morning, Sam,” said Adelaide over the coms.

“Heya Adelaide, how’re you doing?” I responded. My eyes flicked between shoes and slippers, trying to decide which to go with. I shrugged and put on the slippers. Company could deal with it.

“Everything is going well. Camille is waiting for you in the kitchen, and the rest of our guests are still asleep.” Thank God for that at least. I’m guessing Camille had taken some extra precautions, because she wasn’t nearly as much of an idiot as I was. Speaking of Camille…

I winced, “How mad is she?”

There was a moment of hesitation, “You should probably be prepared to return to the medical bay.”

Oh joy. Well, it had been totally worth it. Flustered Camille was in my top ten favorite things. I head down the hallway, rolling my neck. There was a definite edge of exhaustion, but it was a good thing that I hadn’t been allowed to sleep in. I wanted to be wide awake by the time everyone else was.

I walked into the kitchen, and immediately felt something hard smack into my face. I flailed like a drunk cat and stumbled backwards. The offending object thumped to the floor. I look at Camille aghast, “Did you just throw a loaf of bread at me?”

“Be happy it wasn’t a knife,” she growled, eyes flashing with rage, “You’re such a dick. I can’t believe you just left me with those people!”

I ignored her and picked up the loaf, “I’d say don’t waste food, but this felt more like a brick.”

“Baking is fucking hard, okay? And don’t change the subject or I’m going stick that loaf up your –“

I cut her off with a long kiss. She wrapped her arms around me and we stayed like that for a little.

“That’s cheating,” she murmured.

“Didn’t get to do that yesterday. Sue me.”

There was a minute or so of silence where I just held her. She started to speak again, softly, “When I saw all those Assimilators going into the building and I couldn’t get through to you…”

I squeezed her tight, “I’m still alive though, and more or less in one piece. That’s the last time I go and do something that dumb. Probably.”

“That’s the last time you go and do something that dumb without me, at least,” Camille muttered. She stepped back, wiping at her eyes. I gave her a reassuring smile then looked to see what she was doing. There was a pile of uncooked bacon next to a frying pan, and a dozen or so eggs.

I raised an eyebrow at her, “Don’t go getting all domestic on me, you’ll set my heart aflutter.”

“Don’t make me get my loaf.”

I held up my hands in surrender, and watched her bustle around the kitchen for a bit. She stopped at the refrigerator, leaving her hand on the handle.

“We fucked up,” she said quietly, looking over her shoulder at me.

I nodded, “We fucked up real bad. I’m really sorry I bailed when I did, I wasn’t thinking at all. Did you guys take any precautions?”

Adelaide responded for her, “I kept the doors to their rooms locked overnight. I’ve opened them again so they don’t feel trapped, but I sealed off everything but the kitchen and their rooms. All outgoing and incoming signals have been blocked. Spider-bots were on guard outside all night, and I monitored the security feeds. The weapons we gave them were disabled remotely. I also screened Aaron’s call back to the Red Eagles. He said nothing concrete about Camelot. However, we cannot prevent him telling Commander Berston in person.”

“It was dark out, the Merlin’s canopy was tinted, and we didn’t have any information up on the holo, so there’s no way they have anything other than a really rough estimate of where we are. And the 4th Scouting Team had that anyway; I met them for the first time inside the perimeter after all,” I ticked my points off on my fingers, “All in all, it probably could’ve been a lot worse.”

“Yup,” said Mary, leaning in the door jam, “it definitely could’ve. But you all are still idiots.”

I grabbed a small paring knife from the counter and whipped around, holding it in a reverse grip. Mary was looking at me with an amused expression, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to fuck up your day. Nice response time, though.” She walked over to the kitchen table and pulled out a seat. I stood holding the little knife and felt like a massive dumbass. I sighed and put it back down.

“Wrong,” Mary groaned, “Don’t disarm yourself in front of people you can’t fully trust. Seriously.”

I left the knife where it was, “Did you have to work hard to be so condescending, or is it a natural talent?”

“A little of column A, a little of column B. Nice place you’ve got here.”

I leaned on the counter and rubbed my forehead, “I’m gonna assume you woke up early, waited until the doors were unlocked, and came out here first chance you got. Don’t know how you avoided the spider-bots and security cameras though.”

She gave me a thumbs up, “Bingo. Should’ve waited until after your strategy meeting to open them up. Speaking of which, would you mind locking the rest of them again? Don’t want the squad to hear this next part.”

Camille looked like she wanted to say something, but made eye contact with Mary and turned bright red. She gave me a pleading look. I sighed internally. We really had to do something about this little quirk of hers.

“I’m trying to figure out why we should do that, and I’m coming up blank,” I told Mary.

“Because I’m about to go through every single mistake in security you made, and I’m sure you don’t want anyone else eavesdropping.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

She looked at me pointedly, “You heard me right.”

Camille and I exchanged a glance. The wordless consensus we reached was that it probably wouldn’t hurt to hear her out. I nodded slightly at the security camera.

I walked over and took a seat across from Mary, and Camille joined us. “Alright, done. We won’t be bothered.”

Mary leaned back in her chair, “First off, why I’m helping you. I’m going to be blunt: I’m aiming to get in your good graces. You’re a damn good ally to have around. Resources you’ve got at your disposal are something else entirely. You seem honorable and all that, so I’m doubting you’ll leave me out in the lurch if I need your help. I also got the ‘potential recruitment’ vibe from that mission, and I want to keep my options open.”

“Reasonable, but how do we know you’re not just going to make us trust you and give us advice that looks good for now, but fucks us over in the end?” said Camille, her skepticism overcoming her awkwardness.

“Good question. Part of it is that I’ve really got no way to fuck you over, not that I would. Like you were saying, I don’t really have useful info. I know you’ve got a nice command center, insane medical facilities, plenty of space, fantastic simulators, and a very secure facility. I know your general location, I’d guessed it from when metal boy over here jumped out to save me. Could be lying about all this too though. Mostly, I really, really don’t want to piss you guys off. I hear Sam can go toe-to-toe with a Hive Lord, and the Merlin packs some serious firepower,” she paused, “Also, you’re decent people as far as I can tell. Not many decent people out here.”

Camille seemed to find that acceptable, because after few seconds of contemplation she nodded and sat back in her chair. I gestured at Mary to go on.

She responded by reaching down and pulling out a large knife from her boot, and sticking it in the table. I didn’t twitch. I could’ve stopped her pretty easily if she’d actually tried anything. I was curious to see where she was going with this. Then I was surprised to see a 9mm pistol pointed at my face, but I noticed the safety was on. I stared down the barrel, then she flipped it over in her hand and dropped it on the table.

“Worst offense: you didn’t make sure we were disarmed. Yeah you turned off the fancy toys you gave us, but guns and knives are pretty simple things, and they can kill someone just as well. If I wanted you two dead, you would’ve been.”

I flicked my eyes to the knife embedded in the table. “Point taken.”

“Second offense is how much you let your guard down. I get that you were basically a walking corpse at the end there, Sam, but you definitely should’ve at least waited until everyone was locked in their rooms before getting into that medical pod.”

“I’m going to have to disagree there,” I cut in, “I was less than a minute from passing out, I know my body pretty damn well. I don’t think collapsing on the floor would’ve projected quite the right image.”

“Fine, I’ll give you that one,” she conceded, “but the general idea stands. Show that you’re untouchable when you’re on home turf, so nobody thinks about messing with you. Now there were a few more specific things I wanted to talk about too…”

By a few, she meant about a dozen or so, mostly small things. There wasn’t a security checkpoint at the entrance, of any sort. There weren’t emergency weapons at any point throughout the hallways. We didn’t carry sidearms on us at all times when we were in the base. There were a couple bigger picture lessons too: if we wanted to bring the whole team in, fine, but we should’ve had them restricted to the common rooms and living quarters from the start, instead of giving a tour. Mary was shockingly patient as she explained. She was careful to never give recommendations that were too specific; she made it a point to demonstrate that she wasn’t trying to give us weaknesses to exploit.

I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion about her when Adelaide started speaking over the coms.

“I apologize for interrupting, but it appears as though the remaining members of the 4th Scouting Team are starting to wake up.”

Mary glanced up at the ceiling, “Oh, and you did a good job keeping your AI or computer or whatever close to your chest. Not really going to blame you for that reveal; the carrier was pretty urgent.”

“Indeed. My name is Adelaide, I am a pseudo-AI in charge of Camelot. I also serve many other functions. It is very nice to meet you, officially,” Adelaide said pleasantly.

“Pseudo-AI huh? Can’t say I’m that surprised, knowing you all I expected it to be ghost or so- what the hell are you doing!?” she suddenly barked at Camille, who jumped, startled.

“Uh. I’m uhm, making bacon?” Camille stammered, confused and slightly frightened.

Mary stared at her wide-eyed, “Then why, in the name of all that is holy, are you putting butter in the pan?”

Camille looked down at the pan, “Is that… is that bad?”

Mary’s mouth open and closed wordlessly, and then she shut her eyes. She stood up from the kitchen table and moved over to Camille, who recoiled slightly. Mary waved a hand at her, “Cut that crap out and pay attention. I’m going to teach you how to stop making a fool out of yourself,” she looked back at me, “Does this one’s incompetence extend to eggs too?”

I was about to shake my head, then remembered the last scramble she’d been in charge of. I nodded instead, “You see that blackened rock on the ground? That’s a loaf of bread she made.” Camille had a look of deep betrayal on her face.

Mary glanced at the offending baked good and groaned, “Girl can fly drones better than three people put together but can’t make breakfast. Typical.”

Camille squeaked something in protest but Mary ignored it and started rummaging around, muttering something about a bigger pan. I watched, amused, my sneaking suspicion growing stronger. It was around the time that she was telling Camille about beating air into the eggs that I determined for sure that Mary either hated watching people screw up or loved to teach, maybe a bit of both.

I left them to it, and started getting out place settings. Apparently, the team had met up in Aaron’s room to talk things over, and were wrapping up their impromptu meeting. Adelaide had spied on it, of course. There hadn’t been anything too revealing, because even if they were nefariously plotting something they weren’t dumb enough to chat about it, so there was no reason not to enjoy a nice breakfast. I was more than a little excited. It’d be my first time eating with a big group for almost a year.

Mary watched Camille put a dozen slices of just-a-bit-too-crunchy bacon on a paper towel covered plate and nodded in approval. There was a proud glint in her eyes as Mary reached over and patted Camille on the head twice, and Camille looked a mixture of mortified and ecstatic. The scene was a both heartwarming and hilarious. I had to stifle my giggles as I put the knives and forks around the table.

“Alright, you managed that well. Now, let’s start on the scramble. Important thing is to not fuss over it, let the eggs cook –“

Aaron strolled into the kitchen right in the middle of her sentence. “Good morning everyone, something smells delicious!” There was a bright smile on his face, and another of my suspicions was confirmed. The bastard did wake up with perfect hair. Allie and Jackson funneled in after him, looking significantly more disheveled.

Allie sniffed the air, “Fuck me, is that bacon?”

I grinned at her, “Yes ma’am. The Camelot Bed and Breakfast doesn’t skimp out. Take a seat, food’ll be done soon if Camille doesn’t fuck it up.”

Mary piped up from the stove, “At least she’s doing something, unlike your lazy ass.” Camille smirked at me and stuck her tongue out.

Allie looked at them, confused, then leaned over to me, “What the fuck is going on there? Your girlfriend couldn’t even look her in the eye without crapping herself last night.”

“I dunno, I think Camille’s utter helplessness might’ve awoken some deep-seeded maternal instinct or something,” I whispered to her.

“I was under the impression that you wanted to eat,” Mary growled, “keep making comments like that and you might not be.”

“It’s my goddamn bacon!” I yelled, “I literally almost died to get that!”

“Quit your complaining and grab a trivet,” she shot back. I looked at Mary quizzically, and she rolled her eyes, “It’s the thing that goes under a hot pan so you don’t damage the-“, she stopped and sighed, “you know what, never mind, I’ll just get it.”

Jackson yawned loudly, eyes still half closed. He looked around, apparently not registering what was happening. “Good morning,” he mumbled, and walked towards the table. A moment after sitting down, his head slumped and a light snore emerged. I looked at Aaron in amazement.

“Jackson has a… difficult time in the mornings,” he said apologetically.

“Fuck you, Rebecca, don’t make fun of my hat,” Jackson mumbled blearily.

Allie suddenly yelped, and held her foot in pain, “Why the fuck is there a rock on the floor!?”

Camille whistled guiltily and avoided eye contact as she walked over with the pan of eggs, Mary shaking her head and following behind. I laughed and took my own seat, looking around at everyone. Caution and security were important, I won’t deny that. But moments like these were too.