Relief.

I think that was the one word which described the whole household.

Ever since Lia and I saw Athan on the holo, heard him speak passionately about the silly dreams of a world with humans and Exhumans together...but not so silly, because he was in the heart of the XPCA, was making changes, was on world news...relief just washed over us like a hot shower.

When Chiho came back from classes, she watched the broadcast and just cried, holding Lia and me alternatingly. I'm not sure exactly what she had to cry about, but I'm sure the tension in the house wasn't comfortable for her.

We still had a lot of work to do, but things had slowed down, compared to our frantic three-girl war on humanity. I was slowly ceding control of XPCA operations back to them...with a few backdoors installed for future convenience, if it came to that, and Lia was back on the financial side of being an info-terrorist, instead of the political one. Karu said that Deej had been invited to talks with the new Director Blackett, and while he might still be running some protests, she was satisfied enough for now.

Probably putting her hands all over Athan while I was out of the picture, I considered, bristling.

We were keeping the files public, though. We didn't want to destroy the XPCA, but we wanted them to be accountable and transparent, and having all their past sins out in the open was a step towards that. I was amused one day, when I got a notification posted on one of the many pages I'd hacked, someone in the XPCA had made a forum post asking me to please delete and remove the files, now that they were complying. I just had to laugh.

My mobile went off again. I didn't need one, exactly, anything I wanted from a mobile, I could do on my own computing power, but I'd look like an idiot just sitting around staring at nothing all day, and...it was uncomfortable. I'd also been trying to do less of that recently, now that Athan was presumably back in the picture.

Of course, the notification on my mobile was just a battle friend request from Chiho. A mobile game I'd been sinking an ungodly number of hours into recently, but was still years behind her.

I'd gotten into it really hard in the first few days, scouring forums and wikis, coming up with optimal strategies to build my army and empire, plotting stat growths and character loadouts. Things had come together, exactly as I planned...but I was still incapable of even touching Chiho, and she hadn't been playing that much longer than I had.

I could not accept that I, a one-woman wrecking crew, who just single- (or triple-) handedly toppled the XPCA through the sheer power of my hacking, infiltration, and masterful plan-executing expertise was incapable of crushing the air-headed Chiho into dust in an online game.

Even now, as I helped her on her raid, I saw she'd shot up again. 30,000 gems more than me. And the strength score on her MT? 22% higher than I thought possible, even with optimal gear and max level. How could someone so bad at getting to her classes on time and with middling grades be so good at anything?

I tapped away at the screen, wanting the boss to drop so that I could inspect her MT's loadout, impatiently. Bit by bit, his health chipped away, as Chiho, myself, and a dozen other of her friends whittled away at it. Before her MT was even halfway in the red, the boss was defeated.

When I'd run this dungeon just yesterday, I had to rez my tank twice just to limp by. Granted I had a lot fewer friends, but still.

> thanks for the help!

A message popped up from her. I dismissed it and pulled her profile to look at her MT's build. As I scrolled through the list of his abilities, my jaw dropped.

He was dual-classed with ranger? Why the heck would anyone do that? But the more I flipped through her skill choices and stat allocations the more sense it all made. Rangers were a dexterity/strength hybrid class, typically all dex to maximize their damage, where they'd stay in the back lines and unleash high consistent damage. Not as high dps as wizards, but that's where their strength side came in, if they got into trouble, they had all sorts of str-based combat tricks to mitigate damage or otherwise get away.

Chiho's main tank was half specced into ranger and, contrary to conventional wisdom, completely ignored all the dex-based damage skills, taking all the str-based mitigation abilities instead. Combined with the inherent ruggedness of his native warrior class, he was incredibly resilient, far beyond what a warrior would have been capable of without dual-classing, and got higher stats because rangers had a higher stat progression compared to warriors, who were almost entirely gear-dependent.

He did less damage than a normal warrior, but who cared, his job was to be a tank, to sit there and get punched while his team did the killing.

I sat with my mobile in my lap, holding my head as my brain exploded with the possibilities. Was this girl the next Sun Tzu? I hadn't seen any of this anywhere on the forums. How could one come up with this stuff?

With my superior hearing, I sensed someone approaching the garage. I checked a cam-drone feed from the hallway and saw Chiho incoming. Maybe I was a little paranoid, still keeping them around, but at this point, I felt blind not being able to see everything around me.

The door opened. "Heyas, AEGIS. You get my message?"

"Yeah," I said, holding up my phone. "Sorry, was just replying," I lied.

"No worries. Thanks for all your hard work out there. I think we stand a really good shot and killing the demon lord next week, if we keep on like this. Did Elthraz drop anything good for you?"

I hadn't even checked the loot I got from the boss kill. I flipped into my party stash and popped open the new items. Chiho walked over and peeked over my shoulder, both of us sitting on the bare floor of the garage.

I should probably get a bench or something, I thought.

It was starting to look like a real machine shop in here, finally. I didn't have sentient drones walking around this time, since we agreed that was a little suspicious, so instead I had a manufacturing line sorta in the works. Any machine I built, I plugged into the system, and a series of loaders and conveyors moved incomplete parts from machine to machine until they got where they needed to be. Moving at max efficiency, it was like a choreographed dance of parts spinning and spinning around the whole garage as machines passed them from robotic arm to conveyor belt and back.

There was also crap everywhere, stuff I was in the process of working by hand, and the entire upper story I'd dreamed of converting to use was hardly used at all...but I wasn't out of space down here just yet.

"Ooh, legendary boots?" Chiho said, ogling my loot. "Oh, that's for the Tearbreaker set, I have that on one of my wizards. The set bonus is bonkers."

"Yeah, too bad I have the boots already. I still need the shoulders. At least I can transmute them."

"Don't do it yet, rumor is the Tearbreaker set is gonna get nerfed soon, and legacy variants are gonna be worth tons more. If you hold it now, you should be able to trade it for whatever you want when the nerf goes out."

We babbled back and forth about our characters and builds for a while, and I did some work in the background while we talked. Whatever I thought about her, she was definitely fun to have around.

"Hey, so, I'm gonna start watching a new series, Hisokana Lover. I know you'll love it since it's a lot like Janken Kawaii Roulette, I've heard. You know you want to join."

I did. But I also felt like my life was slipping between my hands a little bit. I'm not sure what exactly qualified as living...and me being an AI and Chiho being a complete otaku nerd, I'm not sure either of us qualified as having a life.

How many times I'd sat with her, watching a few episodes of something, felt bad about wasting my time and decided to do something in the background, like manufacture drones or crack another federal database? I mean...what kind of life was that? That wasn't normal.

Hence the mobile. Hence working on projects in the workshop by hand. Hence a lot of things. Rua Mk.2 had more capacity to be more robot than human on paper, but I had begun to put in safeguards to lock myself out of just...well...of it just being an empty shell I happened to inhabit, like the AEGIS box.

I had those capabilities, but I made it unpleasant for myself. I programmed those functions to feel disquieting to use, made it so I could only call on my full arsenal if I really concentrated at it. I'd made steps towards becoming more human, but as soon as I had, I felt my humanity slipping away.

So now I was here. Turning down Chiho when I'd really rather not because I felt guilty about putting off work I should be doing when I got distracted playing games instead.

Tell me, what was more human than that?

I'd just sat down at my terminal and gotten the line up and running when I heard someone else approaching. Light, quick steps, not heavy slow ones. Lia incoming. Didn't even need to check the cams.

She knocked and then entered. I was getting a little annoyed with people dropping in when I already felt behind on drone production...when I wasn't, really, and should be scaling it back, now that we'd beaten the XPCA, at least somewhat. I'd just been so frantically 24-7 busy that anything else felt lazy to me now.

"Hey, AEGIS," Lia said, making herself comfortable on the floor, lying on her back and stretching her long shorts-clad legs in the air, toes flexing. I really should make a bench.

"Hey. What'cha need? Database? Password? Root access?"

"No. Just chilling." She sat up. "Does doing nothing feel weird to you, too?"

My heart instantly went out to her. This girl understood me like no other.

"Yes, oh my God. If I sit still for just a minute, I start to feel so guilty."

"Yeah, me too. We've been working so hard lately, it feels awful when I'm not. Last night, I slept 4 hours, and when I woke up, I freaked out."

"I don't even sleep, and sometimes I still just freak out."

"We need to do something about it. It's driving me crazy. Look, I'm already shaking, I haven't hacked or sliced or posted a thing in a minute, and I've got the shakes."

"I just turned down watching a show with Chiho so I could make more drones I don't even need."

"What show?"

"Hisokana Lover. I've heard good things."

"Ah, more anime crap. I can't believe you like that stuff." She rolled back onto her back and went back to cycling her legs idly in the air. "Know what I think'll get us out of this funk?"

"More...more work?"

Lia laughed. "No, girl. Vacation. Get disconnected from the 'net. Get a tan. Sleep in, because you don't have anything to do."

"I don't tan, I don't sleep, and my 'net is connected via a satellite uplink."

"Well, at least try then. Being holed up in this garage forever isn't really any different from living in AEGIS box, you know. We've got to get out there, force ourselves to relax and decompress."

"I have a decompression utility built into my OS."

"You are being such a dick."

"I just don't think a vacation is what we need. I kind of like being this busy. Sometimes."

"Yeah, and sometimes we'll have to be, and it's nice to know we've got that in the bank, but look, I'm like, 95% caffeine by mass here now. Look at me." She stood up and held her arms out. Both of them were shaking, and I realized she'd also lost a lot of weight.

I don't know if she'd noticed, but it made me feel a pang of guilt. I was always pushing her to keep up with me on the whole Athan thing, which to her amazing credit, she did. But she wasn't a machine, she'd break down if she kept this up. For me, it was just a decision to make, but for her, it might be a lifestyle choice with serious repercussions. I realized in some way, this might be a plea for help.

I sighed. "Okay. What's this vacation plan. And before we even begin--"

"No booze," she said.

"Good."

"Since you asked…" she glanced at her wrist holo and made a flicking gesture off of it towards me. My mobile lit up with a new notification and I checked it.

It was a map. Three locations were marked, all on the east coast. I put the mobile down and waited for the impending presentation.

"Stop one, Camden, New Jersey."

"Isn't that place a dump?"

"Maybe. But it's also home to the world's largest indoor water park. Overlooking the banks of the mighty Delaware, a tide of adventure awaits us. Over twenty acres of wet, wild fun, at the Paradise Isles!"

"Wet, wild, fun?"

"It says so on the 'net site."

"Can I get the version without hyperbole?"

"Sure. Water is fun. Swimming is my favorite thing in the world, and winter sucks 'cuz no swimming. And I say go big or go home, and we're already home. So biggest park it is."

"Why don't we just go to any indoor pool? Why fly across the country?"

"Stop two," she barreled on, reminding me a lot of her brother. "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

I waited. She waited.

"Okay, what's--"

"VGCon!"

The name sounded familiar, but I didn't remember off the top of my head.

"Okay, what's--"

"Video Games Convention. VGCon. Only the largest video gaming convention in the world, as of three years ago. I know you and Chiho are always checking out the new releases and talking all the time about gaming stuff, and I thought, these nerds would love to go out there and see it for realsies. So since we'll be in the area for Paradise Isles, and the show will be on, I thought, why not?"

"Can you even get tickets for that?"

"Already got three."

"How…? Wait, don't answer that--"

She stood and turned her back to me, and then dramatically looked over her shoulder at me, peering at me between the fingers of one hand. "The Eye of Odin opens only for Black Shark."

"Got it. Wild misuse of pretend Exhuman superpowers to get into a sold-out convention. This is officially the worst plan ever. So why can't you just go to, I don't know, any of the dozen gaming cons which happen in Vegas all the time? We're like a mecca for cons out here. And then we hit the indoor pool, and--"

"So if Paradise Isles was for me, and VGCon was for Chiho, that leaves you."

"Anyone tell you that you interrupt and yell a lot when you're high on caffeine and low on s--"

"So I thought, what is the one place AEGIS wants to go."

"Home. AEGIS wants to go home. Nice comfy garage. Look, I even just set up my own spectrometer. Got my comms hooked up so I can listen to some J-pop. Everythi--"

"And the answer slapped me in the face."

I waited. She waited again. Goddamn, she was annoying. I picked up my mobile to see the third destination on the map, and she ran forward and covered it in her hands.

"D.C., silly," she said. "Where else?"

I felt my heart do a loop-de-loop. "To...visit Athan?"

"Duh."

I felt tears welling in my eyes. On one level, I was so happy those were working on Rua Mk.2, I hadn't been able to test them myself, and that was even after subjecting myself to half a dozen chick flicks. On the other hand, I was picking Lia up and spinning her in my arms while I laughed and cried and felt so happy to have such a great friend.

"Guess you're in then?" she yelled at me over my own blubbering.

"I'm already packed! What's taking you two so long," I cried and set her down.

"I kind of doubt that. I think you need a swimsuit. And maybe some other kind of suit for bro?" She winked at me.

I stood shock upright and looked down at myself. Basically a track suit, like I'd gotten in the habit of wearing around the shop. That wouldn't do, wouldn't do at all. And Lia was right, I didn't own a bathing suit at all. I wished we'd be bringing Athan to the park with us, I could really wow him then, but maybe there was still somewhere in D.C. I could show it off. As for my bust...I was glad I'd made it smaller, but maybe I'd gone too far. He'd be with Karu now, and I had to compete with that buxom she-devil.

But I had Chiho and Lia on my team. Chiho came with a passive morale boost and good social wisdom, and Lia had a bonus attack against Athan from their familial bond, and would be pushing him towards me, while he merely suspected her to be an impartial voice. Buxom or not, Karu stood no chance against our unified assault.

My mind raced through the infinite possibilities like I was gearing and speccing my character for a boss raid.

"Uh, did I cause a system crash?" Lia said with a laugh as she waved her hand in front of my face.

"Yes! No! Sorry. Just thinking."

"I can see that. You should uh, put some real clothes on and let's hit the stores!"

After a few minutes of three girls frantically running around getting prepared, we found ourselves outside waiting in the mild Nevada winter for a bus. I mentally added 'car' to the list of things to fabricate, putting it under 'bench'.

"Thanks for inviting me, guys. I know this trip is going to be a blast," Chiho said.

"Oh, it will be a blast," I proclaimed. "It will be the biggest blast of Athan's frail life!" I laughed without restraint. A thousand, thousand schemes were already brewing in my mind for how to win him back.

"She okay?" Chiho asked Lia.

"Yeah, she just is really excited. Hey, you excited for VGCon?"

"Hell yes, you know it Lia-baby. Man, if I knew I could get into VGCon just by hanging out with weirdos like you guys, I'd be chasing Exhumans down the street," she laughed.

I wasn't listening. My mind was a conflux of ideas, all crystallizing around one pure, unshakable concept. In a little over a week, Athan would be mine.