A couple more hours of classes and waiting and then I was headed to the dining hall for dinner before taking the bus home. We had food at home, but AEGIS would be the one preparing it, and thus it wasn't...actually food.

The two of us...weren't in a really good place right now. The fact that it had been months and she was still an abhorrent cook really helped me realize the core issue she was facing. What I wanted, what I thought I wanted, what she thought I wanted...those weren't really material things to her perspective. To her, it was all about what she thought AEGIS Prime thought I wanted, and deviating from that template was heresy.

So she cooked, because she thought that Prime thought that I thought that cooking would be awesome and desirable. At no point in this train of logic did the joy of cooking, or owning and being proud of the skill, or being anywhere decent at it seem to factor in. So she didn't improve, because she wasn't cooking to cook, or to make me happy even, it was just an insane, arbitrary checklist she was filling out on her way to being AEGIS Prime.

Which...I'd told her was impossible. She and Prime were different people. She needed to pursue what was important to her, instead of just spending her life retracing someone else's footsteps.

She didn't take that well. We'd screamed at each other a lot that night, and both of us said some things we regretted. It was horrible. But at the same time, it was the most real AEGIS had been with me in a long time, and I felt really twisted and evil inside for how happy our fighting had made me. Of course, she had never permitted it to happen again, because Prime and I never fought like that, and anything Prime wouldn't do, she wouldn't.

So here I sat, pushing peas around on a plain white plate with a plain metal fork with one of the tines bent a little out of line. I was thinking, as I tended to do when alone, and my obsession came to mind, as it tended to do when I was thinking. The tines of the fork reminded me of the arms of a Jacob's Ladder, and I did some mental calculations for what kind of resistance different parts of the fork would have to exhibit for the current to flow through the tines to make the best kind of arc.

Thankfully someone broke me out of my stupor by dropping a tray opposite me. I looked up and saw friendly eyes. Red irises, but friendly.

"Hi Alyssa," I said.

"Hey, mind if I sit here and join ya?" she asked, brushing her wavy french-fry hair behind one ear as she smiled as though embarrassed to ask.

"Please do. I was just geeking out, and if you hadn't saved me, I'd be propping open an EE book for some light reading right now." I grinned at her. "Shoot me, right?"

"No, it's super cool that yer sharp as a tack. Anyone'd be jealous."

"Are you jealous?" I laughed.

"A lil' bit, sure." She smiled back at me. "But hard to be too jealous when yer willin' to hang out with me and talk with me an' all."

"Did you give any more thought to your major? I feel like not having one after your first year is gonna hurt your prospects of graduating on time."

"Nah...just bein' a scared little girl like usual. There's so many things I wanna do, but I dunno that reality lives up to my expectations, y'know? Is yer major what ya expected it to be like?"

"Pretty much. A lot of equations and math and physics and determining how much resistance to put on a line to produce the right output."

"I guess engineerin' would be like that, yeah. But if I wanted...I dunno, to be a writer, for example, what's to say I'd go in hopin' to take poetry classes, and then next thing ya know, we're all writin' historical fiction or the like?"

"Well...I'd guess historical fiction and poetry are different classes. So you'd take the one you want."

"Ya know what I mean, though. Maybe the writin' program ain't even what I want here. They put a lotta' emphasis on employment percentage of fresh graduates, and writers don't get employed. Maybe they focus on technical writin' or advertisin' or the like." She joined me in pushing food around on our plates ineffectually. "But then, havin' a job is a good thing. And that's the opposite scary thing about writin' innit?"

"Still engineering," I pointed at myself. "Still really unfamiliar with these kinds of issues." She sighed at my response and I felt guilty for dismissing her issues. "But look, if you're not sure if the classes or majors or whatever are for you, really all you need is more information, right?"

"And what, go interview the chair of the department?"

"You don't have to go that high."

"And I kinda doubt he'd have much to say but great things about his own department anyway."

"Yeah, I don't know. But why don't you just look up an upper-div class and ask students coming out of it what they think of the major? Get the relevant student perspective. They've got no reason to lie to you. Unless...they're trying to deny what a mistake they've made of course...but you should be able to see through that."

"I can't do that," she said, looking shocked at me.

"Why not?"

"Those are...just random people. I can't just walk up and demand things from 'em."

I laughed. "People love talking about themselves, especially to someone who is interested and especially to someone who has a non-creepy reason to listen." I thought back to the pearls of advice AEGIS used to drop on me like that, and it made me smile beside myself. "Trust me, you go to a class like that, find someone not too busy, offer to buy them lunch and talk it over, you might even make a new friend."

She looked at me for a moment, her red eyes locked on my face until I met them, whereupon they retreated to the safety of her own plate. "Easy for ya to say, I bet ya've done the like a thousand times."

I snorted hard enough to make my peas roll, and speared a few of them on my fork before they became even more cold and gross. "I've never done anything like that, Alyssa. It just seems like the most direct solution to me."

"And ya don't get embarrassed, always bein' direct? I take back what I said before, I really envy ya."

"If it's that scary, I can come with you," I shrugged. "But it's just talking to another person. There's nothing scary about it."

I mean, the odds of it ending in an Exhuman event or with an assassin or hunter flying around was basically zero. I really couldn't understand what she had to worry about here. Even if every possible thing went catastrophically wrong, this place practically had padded walls.

"Yeah, maybe," she muttered at her salad. She suddenly perked up. "Maybe I can make it up to ya if ya do?"

"I don't think that's necessary. Like I said, it's really, literally nothing."

"Well, it's a big thing to me, so I insist," she beamed. "Maybe I can find out more about ya. Like, where ya and yer sister transferred here from? And why you're so filled out and she's so spry if yer both eighteen?"

It wasn't the best cover story, but Lia had been temporarily promoted to my twin. I had doubts that anyone would believe it, and Lia agreed, citing that 'yeah, there's no way anyone would believe you're as old and mature as me.' Still, she was pretty tall for a girl already, and I think that sold the lie a little bit. Plus, who'd doubt us if our stories matched our paperwork?

"Yeah good luck with that," I smirked at her. "But I've been meaning to ask, since we're apparently doing invasive questions -- why are your eyes red?"

"You don't like 'em?"

"No, they're cool. It's just...not a normal eye color."

"Well, they're not natural anyway. Just a body mod I got before college started. Thought it might make me stand out a bit. And this," she said, brushing her hair out sideways and showing off the waves.

"Like a...permanent...perm?" I asked.

"Somethin' like that. Do you hate body modders, Athan?"

"No. Kind of a weird question, isn't that?"

"Well, a lot of people seem to. I don't care what they think of course," she said, puffing herself up slightly, and I didn't point out the obvious that she'd paid a lot to 'look cool' while also 'not caring'. Or that, for all the attention she apparently wanted, walking up to a stranger and asking about their major was simply too embarrassing to undertake. I kind of had to wonder the point.

Well. That wasn't true. She was undeniably interesting to look at, and attractive, too. So I did see the point from my perspective...just not from hers.

"Ya already do yer homework for AAT?" she suddenly asked, referencing our mutual GE course. "Want to come over to my dorm after this and we can study and hang?"

"Oh. That assignment looked like, five minutes tops. I don't think it'll give you any trouble. Like everything in that class, it seems to just be regurgitating what the TAs tell us in discussion section."

"Ah, yeah," she said smiling. "Yeah, probably, huh?" She went back to her salad in silence which I took as a cue to finish eating and resume daydreaming about how a current might bridge the air gap between the metal edges of the table and the adjacent one.

I hadn't gotten much further than estimating the distance and of course by now I had the relative resistance of dry, indoor air memorized, when she began packing up right in front of me.

"Oh, sorry. Finished already?" I asked.

"Yep. Got that AAT homework to do back at the dorm. Fun night ahead," she quipped.

"Well if it does give you any trouble, you can message me whenever you'd like."

She gave me a very peculiar sideways look, and I wondered what I said, but then put it away and gave me a lazy wave as she took her dishes. "See you Friday, Athan."

I wasn't entirely sure what all that was about, but I did pick up there was something going on there. If Lia was to be believed, I'd just been flirted at...but I couldn't think of a single thing which constituted flirtiness there. She'd even gone out of her way to avoid discussing the more intimate topic of her mods, so I was still convinced the girl was crazy. I probably wasn't the only Ashton you could argue had their social skills miscalibrated by being around whackjobs.

The bus ride was as uneventful as bus rides ever are. People seated everywhere, all on their mobiles, all pretending they weren't touching or near others, pretending nobody around them existed. Not that I expected everyone to greet each other and become besties, but the rides always felt oppressively restrained.

Just another cultural norm I had to adapt to. I wondered if Alyssa refused to take the bus as well. That seemed equally silly a thing as not wanting to talk to a stranger.

And then, after eight or nine blocks, half a dozen of us deboarded, across the street from one of the many tall, hotel-like apartment complexes, technically unaffiliated with the school in the same way a vulture was unaffiliated with death. I walked along the gate, brushing my knuckles along the bars as we walked, yet another small group here, neighbors and students at the same school, but strangers.

At least whomever was in the front had the courtesy to swing the gate wide when he swiped in, and we all passed through in a silent mob with murmured thanks to the person in front of us.

And then, back in my own apartment, AEGIS stood loud and boisterous as ever as though in defiance of the rules of society. The moment I walked through the door, she greeted me cheerfully, asking if I'd eaten, plying me for details about my day like a worrying mother.

"Not much, just class and stuff," I said. "Though...there was an event today."

"A school event, I hope," she said, already breaking out the pigtail to tug on.

"Yeah, like I'd phrase it like that if it were." I set my backpack down and pulled an apple out of the fridge.

AEGIS frowned at it like it had offended her but didn't comment. "How was the event?"

"Same old," I said, biting into the apple with a nice juicy crunch. "Three skyscrapers destroyed, millions in flooding damage, but only a few deaths and a dozen casualties. It looked like the bastard was more interested in drowning the city than the people in it for whatever reason."

He frown deepened. "Where was it?"

"Chicago, I think."

"Hmm. I've heard that Chicago has one of the highest rates of Exhumans having events instead of turning themselves in anywhere."

"Yeah, the city's crap," I said, with my mouth full of another bite of apple. "Sino war and all that radiation and stuff."

"Well, what I was going to say was, I think a lot of that is the animosity the people there in general hold. And I wouldn't be surprised if many of them hold that against the city itself. Like, the whole city is a symbol of the government's lies and failure to rebuild, as much as it was supposed to be a symbol of peace and the unstoppable American spirit and all that."

I shrugged. I didn't really care, except that I obviously wished Exhumans everywhere would just be chill in New Eden instead of making trouble. But that was a pretty big ask. At least the Chicagoans were good at evacuating.

"Well, no P-Force casualties?" she asked warily. I nodded. "Good. Then good enough for me. Stopped a crazy Exhuman, the P-Force did their duty, that's a win in my book. You're sure you're not hungry?"

"I just ate," I said, tossing the apple core in the garbage.

"I see that," she intoned. "But I meant real food."

"I know. I ate at school after class."

She shook her head at me. "Athan, there's food here, I made it for you," she fretted. "That's what Prime did, and if you're blowing me off, you're not taking our relationship seriously." She put her hands on her hips as she looked down at me, but honestly, this was a bridge we'd been down countless times.

As she noted my disinterest she deflated. "What do you want me to do, Athan? Cosplay in Kingdom Blade attire? Greet you naked at the door?"

"Uh, I can hear you," Lia's voice came from the second bedroom.

"Gaming, cooking, sex, nurturing, these are the foundation of the relationship between you and Prime," she went on as though she hadn't heard Lia. "They are what I'm trying to fulfill, and you are making it very difficult."

I sighed. We'd been down this road countless times as well. "AEGIS, I just want you to care. I don't need...characters from games or tantric...whatever. I'm just happy if you're happy."

"And I'm happy if I'm fulfilling my directive to you," she beamed. "So let me do it."

"I'm not a directive."

She rolled her eyes. "Semantics. Whatever you'd call the organic equivalent of directives."

"Life, maybe? Living? Doing things because you want to do them?"

"Implying I'm not alive? That I'm doing these things because someone's making me?"

I heard quiet footsteps and then a door slam as Lia got sick of our shit, yet again.

"Lia's right," I said, heading to my own bedroom that I technically shared with AEGIS. "This is stupid to argue."

"She slammed the door because she was sick of you arguing in circles," AEGIS said, crossing her arms.

"Nope, I'm not engaging. If you need anything I'm in here," I said, walking away.

I closed the door and left the lights off, the room only aglow by the small indicator lights on the handful of machines that AEGIS had decided she absolutely could not do without. I didn't mind, I actually liked the bustle of machines after living around them so long, though tonight they were all still and silent, waiting.

As I slowly stripped and changed and got ready for the several hours of laying around in bed but not actually sleeping which concluded a day, I kept my mobile in front of me, watching a holovid I'd watched many times.

AEGIS suddenly barged into the room, practically kicking down the door. "That video again, Athan? Seriously?"

"Cam-drones in my room again, AEGIS? Seriously?"

"Obviously they're necessary, if you're still watching this shit--" she said, reaching for my mobile as I pulled it away.

"This shit happens to be informative and practical, okay? And I can't help it if it's the best I've ever gotten."

"Oh please. You were just fine doing it on your own, and when I was doing it with you, I didn't hear any complaining."

"Yeah, because I didn't know any better. But Karu's a damn professional--"

"And a dangerous lunatic!"

"Which doesn't invalidate her talents!"

AEGIS came at the mobile in my hands again, and I stepped around her almost involuntarily. Our time training together had made her the one person in the world I apparently had no problem reading, and even as her frustrated noises increased, she kept her speed and engines in check so she wouldn't burn me.

Because if she wanted to just dumpster me and take my mobile, she really could have. But as long as she kept it on a human level, my skills had stayed with hers.

"Fine!" she seethed. "FINE! Watch whatever you want, eat whatever you want, do whatever you want!" She seemed about ready to pull out her own cables as she stomped through the door. "FINE!"

"Thanks, I will."

She screamed gutterally and violently at me as she slammed the door. "Prime never had to put up with this bullshit!"

I didn't reply, just finished watching the video of Karu and me that I'd taken and then laid back on my bed in the dark. As ever, my mind wandered to the complex sprawl of circuits, electrical superhighways all around me.

Maybe I'd developed this obsession out of necessity, I thought, tired as hell but completely awake. Maybe it was some kind of subconscious...reality-aversion thing. Maybe I should head back to Vegas for a weekend and talk to Saga about it. Not that she'd had much for me the last times we'd discussed it, or anything about what had happened a month and a half ago.

But it also might be something. And it had to be better than staying here the whole weekend with AEGIS.

I rolled over to face the room and the multitude of little lights in the dark, like a distant city, right in my bedroom, twinkling and sparkling as the machines cycled and idled.

A thought struck me. I didn't need to go all the way out to Vegas to get away, Alyssa had already invited me over. Maybe I could crash at her place over the weekends. I wondered if she'd mind, or if that fell into the realm of socially uncomfortable for her.

Really only one way to find out, I thought as I yawned. Friday seemed so far away.