Sometimes sleep ends so slowly you can almost crawl back inside your dream. Hold onto that other place where maybe you aren't even yourself. The barrier seems to exist only as a suggestion, as though these dream realities are kept separate from our own by nothing more substantial than fog.

Often, when the fog recedes the recently awakened long for a return to dream-land.

But not this morning.

Ava hears them stirring. Everyone waking up, wondering, “is this real life?”

Soft puffs of relieved laughter. The freed peoples embrace each other on the oil-stained floor of Skid's garage, sitting up trembling and teary-eyed on their sleeping mats. Ava studies them from her own:

They sure seem like real people. Damaged and traumatized.

And she wonders, what kind of sicko would write code to generate characters this life-like, just to watch them suffer?

Beside her Bach reclines on a shop stool, rotating slowly, propelled by his gently-kicking boots. There's something child-like about his toes just barely touching the floor. He looks to have been up for a while already, lovingly admiring his new hand. Same as the rescued slaves – he can't believe this isn't a dream, either.

And Ava awakens to something long-anticipated, too:

[Desquamation] and [Feedback] are great, but it's the last two entries on that list which excite her the most. At long last she possesses shiny new class abilities! Before deciding on her precise loadout she examines her first new skill:

What a weird ability. What does it even mean?

De-randomizse?

It could mean that the 'rolls' to hit or dodge which she's witnessed during combat can be made static.

Loaded Dice.

Can she now set her attack roll to one-hundred every time? And for her allies, too?

I wonder if I can set my opponents' rolls to zero? She smirks. Somehow sabotaging the enemy might be even more fun than buffing herself and her comrades. In any event, if [Loaded Dice] functions the way she suspects it will she's going to need to reserve an active ability slot for it at all times.

But beyond just its strange description, there's another aspect of [Loaded Dice] which fascinates Ava:

What's with that AbilityID? she wonders.

Null.

Just like the [Omega Key] and the [Random Access Medallion]. Is there something connecting her new abilities to those strangest of items? Items which seem out of place in this world?

Are my abilities also from another world? she wonders.

Regardless, the weirdness of it excites her. These special powers feel unique. And the second new ability is even more amazing. It's her first Tier 2 skill:

Now she just feels silly for all the times she's was jealous of her companions' class-specific abilities. Turns out, she can use them all. She wonders if perhaps it will also work on skills she has learned but which are currently inactive. Would it be possible to leave something situational like [Overload] out of her active loadout while still having it available should the need arise? If so, it could mean she's the most versatile character in the entire world.

Character? She snorts, amused by the way she's dehumanizing even herself, now.

But par for the course she still has a few burning questions:

How will she even use these new powers without AbilityID's? Will it be as simple as focusing her will and simply making it happen? She figures she'll have the opportunity to find out, someday. Because the one certainty in this world is that there will be more violence.

Skid Mark's garage is filling up with the joyful chittering of the liberated. Without anymore delay, Ava sets herself to decide upon her new loadout. [Intimidation] and [Taunt] aren't really her style – she'll swap them out for her new class abilities. And [Roundhouse Kick] has been useful in the past but she's not really built for melee combat. Her Strength is still only a 2 and she doesn't see anyway that's improving anytime soon.

But what to replace it with? Realistically—eliminating the abilities which would cause her to manifest fresh, bizarre cybernetics—her choice is between [Desquamation] and [Feedback]. It's not that difficult of a decision. The idea of having her skin slough off is plain old gross. And for as long as she can remember she's yearned for some use of her internal generator aside from [Overload]. Plus, [Feedback] seems like a more logical replacement for [Roundhouse Kick], since it will allow her to do damage simply by coming in contact with an opponent.

That final bit of self-sorting settled, Ava sets her active ability loadout:

This must be what it's like to feel complete, finally. All those old inadequacies soothed by her newfound powers.

Suddenly it's not: the things we own end up owning us.

It's not even: the things we desire define us.

It's more like: when do I get to kick some ass again?

Skid Mark flips up the visor on his welding mask. Fat tears bulge in his eyes. He's finished up repairs on the armored hull of the stolen school bus.

“Sad to see you go,” he sniffles, “you're all welcome to come on back anytime, ya hear?”

He receives around thirty hugs. Everyone comes away with grease-prints on their backs where he pats and squeezes them.

“By the way,” he says, suddenly grinning, “thanks for locating H.R.'s fuel reserves. I went ahead and installed the [Electro-Harpoon Launcher] as promised.”

The harpoon's sinister tip sparkles. Ava hadn't even noticed that the quest completed.

Did someone else turn it in? Was it Bach?

The full-bellied and rested refugees load into the bus and the Liberation Ride gets properly underway. Ostby swings them South into the desert lands, where the first of the slaves will be delivered back to their families.

“You knew my mom well?” Ava overhears Ben asking Uri while the bus rumbles on.

“Not so well,” Uri answers, “but I'd liked to have known her better.”

Guilt and anxiety swirl in Ava's stomach while she eavesdrops – how will Ellie's son take the news that his mother died trying to save her life?

“I guess I should ask how she died.” Ben slumps and Diana takes his hand in hers and gives it a squeeze.

Uri hesitates. He looks at Ava. And then he explains:

“She died as the result of psychic trauma, caused by a failed attempt to harness psionic power.”

“Wait, what? My mom was a Psion?”

“She was on her way,” Uri explains, “I was teaching her how to entangle her mind. She showed great promise; a most-pure soul.”

“Pure soul, eh? Yeah, I guess that sounds like her.” Ben sits a moment in thought. “Still, it's not easy to imagine her doing combat. Shooting a gun and performing psionic attacks.”

“The psionics I use are entirely non-aggressive.” Uri elaborates, “some illusions, but mostly restoration; healing.”

“How'd she get involved in all of this?”

Uri explains how it all went down. How he and Uma met Ellie as prisoners of Big Traffick. How they escaped when the Scums attacked. He tells Ben about Ava and Sara and then he comes to the part about the dragon:

“And that is when I lost my sister,” Uri says, “that was when she returned to the Overmind.”

“So my mom took her place? So your party would be able to heal?”

“Yep, that's right.”

Again, Ben is quiet. Diana squeezes him and lays her cheek on his shoulder.

Finally, he just says, “I'm so proud of her.”

“She felt the same about you.” And Uri shoots a knowing look Ava's way. He's kept her secret, at least for now. She smiles. And he nods and smiles back.

The bus pulls up to its first stop. This desert hovel doesn't look like much – just a patchwork of tarps and quilts stitched together to block the sun. But to three of the refugees this is home. They step off the bus cautiously – as though they suspect a trap. As though they suspect it's a mirage or a dream.

Their people come crawling out from under the tarps and quilts. They themselves wrapped in brown fabric, stained the same color as the surrounding desert-lands. Blisters on their lips; eyes sunken and dark. They stagger toward the bus, shading the sun from their eyes, too parched to eke out tears of joy and relief.

Ava watches the reunion. They hug and laugh croakingly.

Yeah, that's great, she thinks, but what's my reward here? Shouldn't I get something for freeing these people?

This isn't who she wants to be. She doesn't want to be H.R.. But as she watches these NPC's—some of whom don't even possess proper names—she can't help wondering:

What's in it for me?