It was hard not telling AEGIS about the encounter with Karu. Every day when I came back, she’d ask about my adventures. I think she was living vicariously through me, which I couldn’t fault her for, being trapped in a single room somewhere. But also, every day before I left, we’d have a brief chat.

This morning, she’d told me about the probabilities of bear attacks, differing survival rates against different kinds of bears, and how to deal with different bears. Including, for some reason, polar bears, whom I was reasonably certain I would not encounter. Then there was treating wounds from bears, things which attract or frighten bears, and then a whole random diatribe into trained bears. But every day when I left, she’d always end with the same thought: “Be safe out there.”

In a crappy, scary sort of way, I was AEGIS’ whole world. I was her hands outside the room when it came to rewiring machines, her eyes for anything past the camera, I could move her box around and tell her things she’d forgotten. She’d spent, according to her unreliable memory, dozens of years buried in the dirt, with nothing to see or do but watch her camera feeds die out one by one and the cell life of her box every-so-slowly dwindle. If that were true, I wondered how she could possibly still be sane. Maybe the amnesia was a gift.

But the point was, for any of her plans or to rescue her, or even just to spare her being alone again, I couldn’t die. She never said it in those words, but every time she bid me to be careful out there, I saw the fear of me never coming back in her yellowed, distorted, holographic eyes.

So I didn’t tell her about the insane bounty hunter who’d sworn to kill me. I hadn’t told her anything more about the voice in my head which had led me to food twice and with whom I’d had some heated arguments. I plied her with tales of the mundane and focused on doing what we could manage. And today, she was ready to unveil her latest breakthrough.

“This console,” she said, gently patting one of the terminals in front of her, like a dog “has an incredible amount of data on it. Lifetimes of knowledge. Enough that, if I could get at it, I’m sure some of it must be useful in helping me figure out who and where I am.”

“Unless it’s all like, the last thousand years of weather data or something.”

“Pretty sure it’s not that, but screw you for making me worry about that now,” she pouted. “Anyway, the problem is, I can’t get to it. It’s all encrypted, and this machine seems dead-set on not letting me use it to hack itself.”

“Okay. And?”

“And. As I have mentioned before, I happen to be a super-genius. I have a workaround. This system has a recovery procedure I can take advantage of. If you get me some data encoding crystals and put them in the box, I can stream a backup copy of the data to the crystal. And while it’s streaming, I can tap into the encoding driver to get a dump of the data. Once it’s on media other than this system, I can begin working on decryption, since, y’know, physical data security is nothing compared to digital.”

“Okay. Sounds easy enough,” I lied. “Now one more time in English?”

She responded with a “blahhh” noise that seemed to require a lot of sticking her tongue out at me. “Okay. You go, get shiny rock. Put rock in mass-fab, that big square machine. Machine go HUMMMM long time. Make shinier rock. Put shinier rock in AEGIS box, me learn many thing. Got it?”

“Could do without the pedantry, but sure. I need to find some crystals, make you a thing, and plug it in, and you do the rest. And this will help you get your memories back?”

“It will help me get into this thing’s data clusters, and that’s kind of like someone’s memories.”

“Okay. Sounds easy enough. So how much rock do you need?”

“Can’t be just any rock. Gotta be quartz, and the purer the better. And we need a ton of it, data encoding crystals are a 100% pure quartz lattice, and about as big as your arm, so that’s pretty big.”

“How have I never even heard of these crystals before? Can’t we just plug in a regular core and stream the data to that?”

“These are for like, industrial backups. They’re super-dense and last forever and are way more resilient than commercial storage media. Which is good, because this system has like, exabytes of data. It’s insane. We’d be filling up cores left and right with that kind of data. Instead, we’ll only need a few dozen data crystals.”

“Oh great, only a few dozen.”

“You said you’d help however you could.”

“Yeah, and I meant it. I just thought it might be a little more, gloriously kicking in the door and saving the damsel and less mining rocks for a few years.”

“Well, I know I’d certainly prefer the former too. God knows I’d love to have you here with me.”

“Yeah?” I asked, feeling my ears turn red as as blush crept onto her face. “And if I were there…what would we do?

“There is this one thing…” she said, coyly drawing her finger in a circle on her keyboard as her face flushed even further. “I think I’d grab you and pull you in close…”

She flushed and paused. “And get a great big hug,” she said laughing.

I laughed with her, and then stopped. “Wow, that turned kind of real and sad at some point. I guess you probably haven’t had a hug in years.”

“Um. Never been hugged. Amnesia, remember? And if you don’t rescue me soon, you’ll never get one either. So we should get on that. For hugs!”

“Yeah. For hugs. And maybe other stuff too,” I said, trying to sound jokingly. But my ears were burning anyway. She flushed and laughed even more.

“I think we’ll get there when we get there,” she said giggling. “Now get outta here before I fall hopelessly in love with you, my brave rescuer.” I gave her a final wave and headed for the door. As I passed through I heard her call at my back “And be careful out there!”

It had been a screwy last few days, but I found a smile kept creeping onto my face as I headed east, towards Saga and the mines anyway.

AEGIS was, despite her incredibly fucked up situation, and the way we were more roommates or pen-pals than anything, pretty incredibly fun to be around. She was funny, cute, smart, perky — in more ways that one. Which reminded me of when she leaned forward and I got a peek…

I found another stupid grin on my face again and felt a wave of what I can describe only as extreme judgmentalism wash over me.

[Wow. You are truly disgusting,] intoned Saga’s voice in my head, with all the passion of one admiring a pile of dandruff. [Can’t believe I ever asked for your help in getting me out of that room. I bet you’d have just locked both of us in there and done unspeakable things to me.]

“With you, everything is unspeakable,” I said, gritting my teeth and feeling my ears go red again. Couldn’t I be happy for a few minutes, even in my own head?

[Very droll. So what brings you to my lair today? If you’re just searching for breasts, I’m afraid mine are off-limits.]

“You have breasts?”

I could feel her simultaneous defeat and stupefaction at my question.

[Could it possibly be that you are retarded?]

“No, I’m serious. I’ve never seen you before.”

[So you’re asking what kind of breasts I have?]

“No…I mean…I wouldn’t…”

[You wouldn’t mind knowing that, but you honestly didn’t know I had breasts,] she said, pulling together the thoughts I was not going to say. [Wow, you are truly, truly disgusting. Truly, surpassing all possible expectations, even for a teenage boy. You must be astonishingly single.]

“Hey, shut up!”

[Nice recovery. Very eloquent. So is this your move? You talk to a girl, and instead of talking about her eyes or her smile or hair, you just go HEY GIRL TELL ME ‘BOUT THEM TITTIES. That about right?]

“No! I didn’t even know you were…human-ish.”

[Oh my god. Wait. Last time, when I pointed you at the gross mushroom thing, you asked if that was me. I thought you were just making a lame joke, but that was serious?]

I didn’t need to answer. I knew she was already reading my mind. My whole face was burning now, and I was very strongly considering maybe finding another mine somewhere else I could find some quartz. Anywhere else, really.

[Holy shit that is hilarious. You humans are so amazing at what kinds of delusions you’ll give yourself, but that has got to be the best I’ve ever heard. Best and most embarrassing. You know, I think being locked up down here for a hundred years was worth it, just for that.]

“Wait–” I said.

[Oh no. Not until I’m fully done with this mockery.]

“No, I wanted to ask. You’re also locked in a room, really?”

[Yeah. Why do you think I wanted you to open the door, dumbass? Just for fun?]

“Is there a big computer in there with you?”

[No. That’s a really weird question.] I felt a shiver go down my spine and a strong sensation of being watched.

“Damn it Saga, stop reading my mind and just ask if you want to know something. I hate when you do that. I feel so…naked and dirty.” I shuddered.

[Just like that girl from earlier, huh?]

“Man, just shut up. You are impossible to have a conversation with.” I ducked under the fence surrounding the mine facility and headed towards the cave entrance.

[Yeah, that’s because I already know what you’re going to say, and so it’s really boring when you say it.]

“Apologies for not being a mind-reader too. Didn’t mean to inconvenience you.”

[So. Quartz huh? Not even going to bother trying to figure out why you need it. Human motivations are always so frustrating and stupid.]

“Yeah. Can’t you point me towards it like the mushrooms and preserves?”

[No, for two reasons. One, I don’t work for you. Two, I can’t actually see or hear or anything out there. I can learn where things are by riding the senses of animals, or more recently, exceptionally stupid humans like you. But if a rat or whatever can’t tell if a rock is quartz or just a rock, neither can I.]

“Great. Well, I appreciate the help you’ve given me before. So after I’m done rock hunting here, I brought a present for you.” I immediately felt the nervous chill that indicated she was probing my mind. “AND YOU DON’T GET IT IF YOU DO NOT STAY OUT OF MY HEAD,” I shouted, my voice echoing through the dark mine corridors.

[You pissed off the bats. Now they’re making a huge ruckus, thanks.]

“Your own damn fault for prying in my brain.”

[You…may reconsider that in a moment.] I felt gloating in her voice. [Giggle.]

Sure enough, in a few seconds I heard a wave of indistinct noise, almost like a heavy rain, but louder. And then, pouring into the hallway I was standing in was a monumental wall of bats, pouring through the room like an anti-gravitational snake. The wall overcame me and I could see nothing but flickering blackness, feel thousands of leathery wings buffeting me.

It was hard to tell facing. I felt like I was standing in a fast-flowing river, and no matter how many times I blinked, I couldn’t see anything but flickering. Things were bouncing off me, harmlessly, but from the darkness. I stumbled and fell, and heard Saga laughing at me.

[Do try not to yell in the future,] she said, with no mere allusion to gloating anymore.

“Saga! Damn it, do something!” I yelled, unable to hear myself over the swarm.

[I could. They’re simple animals and easy to direct. But. I won’t. I prefer bats to humans anyway.]

It was pure blackness now instead of flickering blackness. My lamp had vanished at some point, leaving me in the dark with them. Somehow that was less disorienting. I began to feel around on the ground, crawling under the current of bats. Still couldn’t see anything, and kept feeling around and running into walls.

I’d never get anywhere in the dark, I thought. I needed my lamp, but it was gone god-knows where. Knowing Saga, she’d probably made sure some of the bats would knock into me and take it.

Then a thought occurred to me. I felt stupid for not realizing sooner, but I was new at this and kind of still in denial. I’m an Exhuman.

[(He’s a what?)]

I lit up my lightning swords and immediately the whole room was flooded with a pale, flickering light. The intensity of the bats’ screeching doubled and the swarm parted and diverted around the sudden pillar of light. I stood up, and the bats gave me a wider berth yet.

[(HE’S A FREAKING EXHUMAN?)]

“Saga,” I said, wincing. “Stop shouting please.”

[This whole time, after all the shit-talking I did about humans, you never said…never even thought about the fact that you are not one of them? Never even considered to mention this to me? (Are you kidding me?)]

“Yeah. Haven’t really been doing this long. Still tend to think of myself as a regular ol’ boring human, I guess.” After a pause, I added with a wry smile “Guess it didn’t cross my mind.”

Saga’s thoughts weren’t even coherent words. Just mental flashes of being flabbergasted, going over every detail of everything I’d said or done, and ultimately total mental defeat. It was nice to experience speechlessness from the outside for once.

[One thing,] she panted, at last [is apparent. I have badly underestimated and possibly mistreated you. I didn’t know I was dealing with another Exhuman.]

“Another…”

[Yes. I think it’s about time we meet, in a manner.] Her tone turned formal, and I got a distinct impression of her giving me a courteous bow.

[As you already know, I’m Saga. And I’m an Exhuman. Come to my room and we can talk face-to-face.]