Again, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't remember the last time I'd slept decently, it'd been over a week now. Visions of Saga and AEGIS and Karu and Lia kept running through my mind. Which didn't seem fair, because Saga was safe now, Lia had recovered, AEGIS was on her way to restoring her mind and body, and…

...and I still had no idea what happened to Karu. But I intended to find out.

It was the middle of the night, I checked my mobile, the square of light burning my eyes with sudden radiance and filling the cramped but half-empty barracks with a dim yellow light.

Still too early to call Karu and try to set something up. Barely even past midnight. I got up anyway, unable to stand just laying there with my torturous subconscious any longer and thought I might as well do something with myself.

Or, well, go crazy I guess. Seemed like that's what my subconscious was interested in doing. Always an option.

I started with just walking around, but that idea quickly revealed itself as a terrible idea when I was squeezing myself between bunks with sleeping soldiers in them. Only really enough room in here for storing some personal effects and some persons, not for a walk. Even if the room was half-empty, that didn't exactly make the bunks any smaller.

I made my way over to the nearest door. The XPCA had a pretty high...turnover rate, I guess one might euphemise it. Add to that a hugely mobile composition which had to deploy with overwhelming force to incidents anywhere in the country and it was pretty obvious why any given facility would be half-empty of soldiers at any given time.

The more stable positions remained filled full-time. Logistics and intel and command could stay put while recon and strike moved around under them. And move we did; even in my short time here, I'd already been deployed a handful of places around the country. I knew that some squads even deployed outside the country, protecting the interests of the US or her allies from Exhumans abroad.

As I crept out the door my thoughts went to what I was doing for the next few hours before everyone else woke, and then to the mobile still in my hand, and then to the small variety of games AEGIS had given me for it.

And then to AEGIS again. Stop, brain. Too far.

But it actually wasn't a terrible idea. AEGIS, that is. She didn't sleep, so I could call her now and see how she was doing if I wanted. I sat in the hallway, my body still riotously exhausted and flipped through my contacts until I dialed her.

I waited while it connected...and then heard a girl muttering into the phone.

"AEGIS? You tired?" I laughed.

"...n' mur...der...you…" she groaned.

"Uh...AEGIS?"

"...'s two AM. Athan...why…?"

I realized the voice on the other end was not, in fact, AEGIS, as if the sleepy talk weren't indication enough. I immediately realized my mistake once I placed the voice.

"Um, Lia?" I asked.

"...what."

"Sorry...I was...trying to call AEGIS."

"AEGIS died...friggin...gopher..."

"Right. Sorry." I hung up on her, closing my mobile and feeling absolutely moronic.

AEGIS had died. Her mobile had wound up somewhere, and I guess it made sense Lia would have it. It's not like she could use it herself until she had a body again. I felt awake and alert, if physically tired, but it was obvious I was somewhat stupid from being sleep-deprived too.

And I'd also woken Lia up, which was a serious crime. Raving ball of energy that she was, she powered down hard after dark, and the creature which you encountered if you woke her up could hardly be considered my adorable, thoughtful sister. In my family, we had all discovered that her morning routine of laying in bed until she burst out of it fully-awake was an important one not to interrupt.

Instead of bubbly and thoughtful and energetic, she would be quiet and miserable as any adult before their coffee, but moreso...often unable to do the simplest things and break down at the smallest obstacles. I remembered getting her up once to make breakfast for Mother's Day and upon finding the toaster had been unplugged to make room for a different appliance, she'd just hunkered down, catatonic on her feet, where she remained until I left her alone for fifteen minutes on the sofa, whereupon she bounced back as though nothing had happened at all and refused to talk about it.

Sitting in the half-lit hall, for the first time, I put together this knowledge with some I'd gained illicitly from Saga a month ago and realized that that little morning ritual of hers must have been some way she faced her depression...and the terrifying conclusion would be that the fragile, defeated thing she was without it was her...her true face, I guess?

Sorta recontextualized her waking up early to make us a family breakfast on the day I turned Exhuman. All that for me, even then.

Jesus Christ.

I stood up. This was stupid. I was getting too far in my own head again, and this was exactly the kind of thing I'd crawled out of bed to avoid. Lia was Lia, and she desperately wanted nobody to ever see that part of her, so I'd avert my eyes as much as she wanted. AEGIS and Saga were right when they told me before -- the best thing we could do for her is treat her like we always had.

I stole back inside the barracks and changed for the day, thinking if I were going to walk, I should do it outside. I'd only just made it outside when my mobile rang, and my stupid immediate thought was that it was AEGIS calling me back.

I was surprised when I looked at the caller. Talon? I hadn't picked him as a...well, incredibly late or incredibly morning person.

"Hello?" I said in what was hopefully a cool, conversational tone.

What responded was, for the second time, a very agitated-sounding female voice, but this one was definitely not Lia. She was almost screaming incoherently at me, and though like Lia I picked out the word murder I didn't think it had anything to do with the hour.

"Wait, calm down. Who is this? Is this a prank call?"

"NO!" she screamed at me through half a sob.

"So who is this?"

"It's Rito!"

"And...why are you calling me from Talon's phone?"

"He's d...d-de...dead, Athan! I don't know what to do! Someone just came in--" she started talking very fast and devolving back into wailing again, but I'd picked out the relevant bits.

"Rito, breathe. Stop talking and just breathe, okay?"

"O...okay. I don't know what to do. I came back, and his mobile was laying there and..."

She was still talking, but whatever.

"I'm at the XPCA base outside in New Mexico. Do you know where that is?"

"Y-yes. We w-went through when...when I was being...on the way to New Eden…"

"Okay. I'm at the front gate," I said, walking briskly in that direction. "Can you meet me there?"

"I'm...okay...I'm here. Where are you? A-Athan?"

"Sorry. I'll be one minute."

"You said you were here!" she screamed at me.

I took a deep breath for her. She was freaking the fuck out that much was obvious, and no matter how shitty I was feeling, and no matter how much her panicking and screaming wasn't helping anything, the first priority was to get to her and find out just what the fuck was going on. And also calm her down so she'd stop panicking and screaming, I guess.

I found her there, standing exactly in the main gate, drawing concerned looks from the guard on duty, holding herself and shaking. It was cold out, and she was still only wearing shorts the and strappy top like I'd seen her in earlier yesterday, but her distress obviously had nothing to do with the temperature.

"Athan!" she yelled, and moved to the closed gate. "Help!"

"Miss, back away from the gate," the guard said, hand on his holster. She froze instantly, even her shaking as her eyes just went wider.

"She's fine," I told the guard and let myself out. "Rito, what the fuck is going on?"

She didn't move or respond, just completely frozen like the man had cast a spell on her. I had to pull her off of the gate physically, and when I got close, was hit with the smell of blood and piss. I shook her hard which got her back from catatonia to panicked, pitiful cowering and wailing.

"Pull yourself together!" I yelled at her, really not having the patience for this shitshow right now. I was tired, she was beginning to freak me out, and somehow this involved Talon, presumably. I hoped the smell of blood was just in my mind, but she'd said clearly enough that he was dead. "Vegas!" I yelled. "Have you been there?"

"Y-yes."

"Then let's go." I turned my back on her and waited. After nothing happened for a while, I turned around and shook her roughly again, really not sure if I should slap her across the face or what the hell I was supposed to do. I was quickly adding 'girl crying' to my list of growing nerves.

I sat down on the curb with my head in my hands for a moment, and then fell backwards when the curb wasn't. I looked up and was dazzled by light illuminating a medieval castle from every angle. Next to it was a spiraling tower which looked like it was made entirely of crystal, glowing with every color in a slowly-changing rhythm.

I turned around and found Rito standing there, still rapidly breathing by the side of two beds, both unoccupied, lit up only by the light of the casinos. I was looking out at the Vegas Strip through a window. The carpet underfoot was thick but durable, and I realized this was a hotel room.

"Not what I meant but close enough," I said, pulling Rito along and out the door. I spent a few minutes taking elevators and studying the fire escape maps before we emerged from the depths of the amazonian rainforest stylings which housed thousands of slot machines and onto the street.

Fortunately, this place was awake at two AM even if I wasn't really, and I found a cab pretty quickly, a cheap one without a driver, and put in the address for the girls' place.

It was almost half an hour of enduring Rito before we got there, and the whole time, I thought she'd pass out from hyperventilating, or I might from the smell of piss on her. I didn't want to interact with her in any way for fear of starting her up again, and so we just sat in awkward silence with her staring at me like if she blinked I'd disappear. Which was a little funny because that was her power. But not that funny.

I watched the transformation of glitzy hotels to tourist traps to slums and then to normal city, and finally suburbs, and it wasn't long after that when the cab pulled to the curb and opened the door to let us out.

Saga was standing there in the front yard, and I'd barely even pocketed my credits again before she clobbered me with a hug from behind.

"What are you doing here?" she asked with a grin. "I mean. I know what you're doing here. I put your friend under, so you'll have to carry her now, but fuck, she was just screaming at me."

"Yeah, I needed your help on that," I explained unnecessarily as I dragged the girl from the cab. I was really happy this was a self-driving one now, because this was looking all kinds of wrong to a casual observer. Or maybe this happened all the time in Vegas, what did I know?

Saga sort of barely helped me get Rito's unconscious form inside and steered me towards a couch, holding the door and turning on lights around me at least.

"You're pulling up her shirt. Or is that not an accident?" Saga asked with a grin.

"She's heavy, okay? I don't see you helping. Why didn't you wait until she was indoors before knocking her out?"

"Bullshit, she's heavy. She's tiny. You're just weak. Hey, want to strip her the rest of the way just for fun? I wouldn't mind riding a fantasy or two of yours."

"Saga, I really do not need your bullshit right now. She says someone died, and I want to find out what she knows without her screaming at me, and without waking up--"

Someone screamed and it wasn't Rito. I turned and blinked and saw Chiho standing there, her uh, modest proportions filling out a camisole, and more than filling out a scrap of fabric I guess you'd call a thong.

Also she was screaming. I guess that was the important bit. I looked down and realized I had an unconscious stranger on her couch in a state of partial indecency while I was holding onto her shirt in the middle of the night. And also I was a man who was suddenly in her living room. I could kind of see the cause for alarm.

"Hi...Chiho. It's me, Athan?"

"Damn girl, that was loud," Saga said, fishing in her ear with a pinky finger.

"A-Athan? What are you doing to that girl?"

"He found her dead outside and wanted a crack at her before she got cold."

"For fuck's--Chiho, she just went through something really traumatic and I brought her to Saga for help." I glared at the lanky Sino grinning at both of us. "Not that she knows how to do that."

"She's...she's not dead?"

"No," I said, finishing pulling her shirt back down and smoothing it out to eliminate any further possible confusion. "I think she saw someone die. And she's freaking out a lot. Both of those things I thought Saga might be able to help...with…"

Behind Chiho in the hall, I saw a small zombie shamble into the light, frizzy hair hanging in its face like in her past life, she'd died choking on it. The cutesy pajamas did nothing to sell the illusion of life.

"Hi, Lia," I said.

She looked at me, then at Saga, then at Rito, and then turned around and left without saying a word.

"She's going to have a bad day tomorrow," I said.

"Seems like it," Saga said. "Welp, everyone in this house is pissing me off with your stupid sleepy brains, so I think it's bedtime."

"That's stupid," I said. "I just got here. We need to find out what Rito knows."

"I already did that."

"And we need to do something about it."

"No, we really don't."

"What do you mean? Fuck, Saga...if you're going to be such an ass, I'll just wake her up and deal with her screaming. At least she's not intentionally being a dick."

I moved to...I don't know, shake her again, I guess?

"Athan, he isn't getting any deader," Saga said. I turned and saw she wasn't smiling anymore.

"Who isn't?"

"Talon. You're right. He's dead, she saw it. It's what's gotten her all shaken up."

"So we have to do something!" I said, standing.

Saga shook her head. "Right now, you are amazingly stupid and slow. I mean, come on. Look at yourself. Did you really think it was a good idea to come here? And you've been…" I felt my mind prickle and threw all the annoyance I had at her. "...you've been trying to spend this morning just going on a run, and haven't even managed that. Oh great, and dwelling on Lia's...problems," she said, glancing sideways at Chiho, who seemed about as awake and observant as the doorway she was leaning against. "I told you you're not supposed to do that. Come on, asshole."

"I'll wake up once we get there. Come on."

"If you really wanted to just get there, why didn't you have shorty take you in the first place? Oh wait, because you're tired and stupid. Sleep, dumbass."

"Like I can sleep after knowing what I know?" I asked. "You really think I can just…"

She was grinning again.

"Oh no. Oh no you aren't."

"See? Took you way too long. You're slow, and there's a killer out there. You know I love you Athan, so I'm doing this for your own good."

"Saga? What's going on?" Chiho asked through a yawn.

"Nothing love, just go back to bed," Saga said through her small grin.

"'k." She shambled back like she hadn't just been screaming a minute ago. I wondered if Saga had already gotten to her.

"You're actually serious. You're putting us all to sleep."

"Yeah. You're all seriously annoying right now. That girl is freaking out hardcore, you're a dumb idiot...more than usual even. Lia's wondering why any of us exist, and Chiho...well...actually after the shock of it all, she's quite pleasant. She's thinking about her homework she didn't do before sleeping and going to text her girlfriend a cutesy half-awake love note. Very sweet. Too bad her girlfriend is such a bitch."

My head was spinning a little bit at all of this unnecessary information. I ignored it like I was ignoring my body being tired.

"Saga, no. We're acting. There's a dead guy and he was...maybe not a friend of mine, but he was a really good guy from the one time I met him. We're gonna go...go to his place…"

"And find his body lying there? Good plan."

"And find out who did this."

"With your awesome Exhuman sleuthing powers? Great plan."

"Saga just--"

She held up a hand to stop me, and I found myself stopping, realizing only after I did it that she'd timed the gesture with some kind of mental slap which disoriented me just enough to lose my train of thought. It was pretty fucking annoying that she was getting a good handle on her powers.

"It's my turn to be the stubborn jackass and do things for your own good. You don't get to live that role twenty-four, seven."

"This is murder, Saga. Someone's dead."

"And that's a big deal because…?"

"You...I...you can't be serious."

She laughed, so disarming and demure compared to her enormous presence and how she was adamantly blocking the shit out of me at the moment.

"We'll go first thing in the morning, okay Mister Hero? When you're less stupid and less obnoxious. One can only hope that a morning will help you with those, because you need a lot of help."

"Saga, I--"

But she'd already started in on me and I felt myself fading fast. My body felt heavy and I was falling sideways before I even knew it. I landed on Rito on the couch, my knees uncomfortably digging into the carpet.

"Ooh, you went right for the goods. Nice pick for pillows. I'll just leave you two to get better acquainted."

I tried muttering some profanities or moving my body, but nothing seemed to work. And when Saga went over and turned out the lights, I was out as well.