Even though it had been a few weeks now, every time I caught sight of myself in a reflection -- which was often, as the XPCA liked their surfaces glossy -- I couldn't help but feel a little startled, and a little gross.

I was back in uniform again. We all were, with roles of actual legitimacy on some fabricated body, the 'Future Direction Task Force' whatever that meant. Ostensibly to study and advise on the future direction the XPCA should take, given the rift between the warring internal philosophies of Blackett and Hall. It mostly just sounded like bullshit, but that was kind of the genius of it, because presumably, to an XPCA, most things in the agency kind of sounded like bullshit, and so we fit right in amongst the piles.

Saga had been the one to ask it of us. She said it was easier to have people not notice our faces then to completely blank out our existences and walk as ghosts among them. I was no code-X but that sounded legit enough to me, so for our comings-and-goings, we suited up. It wasn't that much of a logical leap for her to have a niche carved out for us so that we could keep using the same lies instead of making up new ones every time...and then she thought, hell, may as well force the brass to legitimize that niche.

So here I was, literally back where I started, as an XPCA officer in the 'Nest. Back in black, with a sidearm and a badge that got me in and out, and people who said good morning to me every day. I had authority, not because Saga told some people I did, but because I actually was an officer. Insane, how circuitously we'd come.

Sure, we were kinda sidelined out of the whole standard chain of command, as Cosette had been when she was in charge of the P-Force. A special task force we were, which kept to our own and stayed out of the minutiae and the rabble. Dedicated to data analysis and problem-solving, and reporting our findings and vision for the future directly to Director Hall, almost like a board of advisors.

While also of course, going out in the field whenever we wanted. Which just made no fucking sense whatsoever from an actual military perspective, but y'know. Stretch the lies you've got as far as they fit, Lia said.

She was with me now, and she looked good in uniform. They all did. I always thought the black and silver was pretty awesome on me, but maybe it was just a good, flattering palette anywhere. With her cap smartly placed on her head, it sorta felt like Lia's powers of concentration were magnified, like she was staring out of the shadows under her brim with eyes that could pierce the dark.

She was across the table from me, in a conference room which had become our home away from home away from Hall's home. The long, glass table was lousy with papers and machine pieces, pieces of guns and armor and reports, all arranged by section to suit the needs of whoever generally claimed that chunk of the table.

With a couple of exceptions. AEGIS' section was spotless, all the infrastructure she needed to do her job was in the XPCA's vast server network underground and offsite. And Whitney of course, who would aggressively expand into any unoccupied territory, if unchecked. It wasn't uncommon for small wars of expansion to break out, as Whitney's pieces claimed ground while she was here, only for her junk to be accumulated and shoved in a pile at her place in her absence. The great ebb and flow of a living mess.

I was also a real mess, ebbing and flowing in a less literal sense than the junk. In these few weeks, I'd strived to keep busy...and even had some successes. Exhumans like Trish and Gil had been, who would hear me out and actually fucking cared about shit enough to be able to sit down over a slice of pizza and have some actual fucking words.

Maybe I couldn't always convince them that what we needed, they should be doing. But I could always threaten them, and I'd gotten much better at just dropping the situation to the point where they either listened, or I was ready to kill them.

And, also, the situation where I killed them. Like I said, the missions ebbed and flowed. Most of them were...more ebb than flow, but there were a few good ones.

Mostly, I felt tired. I was lying at that table with my head down and eyes dozy, praying for something to do but hoping I wouldn't have to do it. I felt numb. The Exhumans I was sent out to each had their own lives, their own story, their own fears and wants and unique powers, their own ambitions and reasons for why they were hiding, why they came out to make trouble, their legitimate beefs with the XPCA, and their imagined ones.

Every single one of them was wholly unique. A completely new, fresh perspective. But it didn't take long to learn they were all the same. I hated it. I hated learning that Exhumans were just like people, in that for all the uniqueness of their situation, they all just wanted the same things and had the same kinds of struggles. It made them disposable in a way I didn't want to think of them.

The door opened with an automatic swish, and I saw Lia look up.

"Is he still sleeping?" Karu's voice asked.

"Beats me. Go poke 'em," Lia answered.

"I ask to know, not to alter." Her boots click-clacked around the metal floors until I saw her from the torso down in front of me.

Uniform, not armor today. I guess much of her armor was in here for the moment, being worked on for some kind of refit or upgrade. Nothing major, but she didn't have too much else to do, I thought.

Not that I minded. I thought the uniform looked good on each of us, even...say, Saga, or Tem, who were more mantid than mannequin in the physical shape department. But Karu had physical shapes, abundant ones at that, definitely unique compared to any other XPCA I'd ever seen. I really couldn't help but to stare. And wonder just what kind of future-tech exotics-sci-fi shit they used to manufacture their buttons.

"Ashton?" she asked, and I glanced up from, uh...towards her face. "Oh you are awake. Good day."

"Heya," I sighed, pulling myself upright in my chair. "How's it going?"

She smirked at me. "I am up here, Ashton. Or should I simply skip the pretenses and remove the shirt?"

"Please don't," Lia muttered. "This is a family-friendly conference room. We have to plan infiltration, saboteurs, and assassinations in here."

"I confess a loss at what of these is not family-friendly," Karu asked with a puzzled frown, giving her chest a really...unnecessary...bounce. "Mammaries are essential for rearing children, and as a secondary sex organ, they entice the mate, a critical component of creating a familial unit--"

"You know what I mean. Please don't be dense."

Karu laughed, and that also did wonders for her, uh, chest. They were so improbably perky still. God bless regenerators.

"Well then," she said, crossing her arms to push them further up while she faced me. "It goes well enough, given what little I have to do. I am grateful for the time to refit and repair my armor, a luxury I have not had the privilege of time to undertake in far too long, and a necessity after the damage it sustained. Something of a vacation, by my standards, which I am utilizing to its fullest."

"I wish mine felt like a vacation," I said, putting my head back down. In part because I was tired. But mostly because my narrative of wallowing in failed missions and murdering Exhumans was being intruded upon by huge bouncing fantasies. "I'm so tired of people who won't listen. I'm so tired of having to kill them, Karu."

I heard her pause, the good nature of her attitude deflated at once, and then she click-clacked over to me and scraped the neighboring chair out to sit on.

"You know this to be why I admire you, Ashton."

"Please don't, not now."

She paused for a moment, but apparently that was all the reprieve I was getting. "It is easy to dismiss me as a zealot, or fanatic, or idiot--"

"And we do," Lia added.

Karu cleared her throat. "But I, of any of us, know well the road you now tread, Ashton. I, too, have taken countless lives in service of something greater than myself. I did not do it for a friend, as AEGIS does, nor for myself, as does Saga. I killed because it was the right thing to do, as you now do. And I know this to be the most difficult of all. You all think me a monster now--"

"And we do," Lia repeated.

"--in my liberation of homicide, but the simple fact is, I am now freed as the others are. I am now taking the easy way, in acting in my own interests, or in that of my friends. Killing for those reasons is, compared to what you face, very easy."

"Killing's never easy," I muttered.

"I concur. But I did say comparatively. When AEGIS or Saga or I kill to suit our own ends, or those of an ally, few are the consequences we must consider. Imagine Saga as she ends a life for her own enjoyment -- she asks, for what purpose did I do this act? And the answer is, to have fun. Later, she may face the death, revisit it, and be challenged by what passes as her principles; to that, she must respond, did I have fun? And for her, I am certain the answer is always yes."

I listened to her words, her clear voice, and the measured breathing behind them. She was an orator, it never felt like she started a sentence without knowing where it would go, always felt like the words flowed at a constant pace, not rushing or slowing as suited her thoughts. It was calming, authoritative, and pleasant. Which was weird given the subject matter.

"But when you -- or I, formerly -- act in the name of something greater, like God, like America, like Righteousness, when we take a life under that banner, we ask the same -- for what purpose did this being expire? And later, when we are challenged by our morals, we must have an answer suitable. A reason beyond 'because it was fun' or 'because it was easy', or else we are not truly holding up that banner, are we? And the conflict therein, and the constant challenge of whether what we did was for the right reason is the turmoil you face."

"I hadn't considered it like that."

I could hear her smile in her reply. "Well that is why I am here, and old, and wizened. And why I support you, and say also that I know you to be special. Because as burdensome as this weighs upon you, I know also that you have no intention to cease. I admire you not merely because you are willing to pick up that banner, but also because I know you refuse to put it down, no matter the pain of bearing it."

She paused. "It may be of little merit, but I hope you find some worth in my appreciating your deeds, even if from no other."

I looked up again and saw her green eyes, shining like plasma. Her smile was soft but reassuring. Her entire face was, at once, completely hard but completely soft; reassuring, but from a place of complete confidence and faith.

And it just fucking hit me so damn hard. Her...eyes or smile or...something in her words. I felt tears threatening and had to look up towards the matte grey and recessed lights of the ceiling as my heart lurched.

I really did appreciate her thanking me for it all. It was a brutal, thankless task, killing people that I didn't want to kill. I was so tired of it, and so tired of them making me do it to them, that to have just this one person in just this one moment appreciate me for it...

All at once, I felt a little sick, a little comforted, a little mad at myself. I felt like a child who'd come back after running away from home for a mere hour to find his mom still there, still feuding, but still loved. I wanted to embrace Karu on the spot, because...she'd said it, she really had. She'd put into words what I never could, she'd lived what I was living and understood me like none other.

But I also kind of hated her for doing so, because Karu reeked of wrongness to me. As Lia had jabbed, we did think of Karu as kind of a loose-cannon-monster, and the fact that she was the only one who understood me, what did that say about me?

Basically, I was tired from dealing with all these complex emotions, and Karu just showed up and jerked all of them right out of my body and now I felt like twice the mess, but with a strange sense of relief.

That...metaphor could have been better worded. Though I guess not entirely inaccurate.

Whatever I thought and felt, it was plain enough to see that my emotions were a train wreck right now if they ever got loose, and apparently that's why I'd been being dead and blargh instead. I took a deep breath and bottled them back up as best I could.

"I really appreciate it," I told her. "A ton. Really."

She smiled broadly, her white teeth glinting in the too-sterile conference room. "I am glad. It is my joy to bring you whatever happiness of which I am capable." Her smile turned more pointed. "Incidentally, I note that you and the AI have been separated more than usual. If your wearies are rooted in a sexual frustration--"

"Dude, I'm still right here," Lia complained. "Why the grouse does everyone seem to think it's okay to proposition my brother right in front of me? I don't wanna hear this ish."

"My apologies," Karu said lightly, though she squeezed my thigh in a fashion that was anything but.

"AEGIS is just busy. And we're not uh...sexual anyway. Or...even together, I don't think."

"It is difficult to keep straight when she continuously reverts to prior stages, I imagine."

I shook my head. "Not hard at all, they're all very different. But I guess...I was dating two of the three of them now. Wow, that makes it sound like I'm going through triplets or something, what the fuck is wrong with me?"

Karu shrugged. "Pent-up sexual frustration was my theory. You seem deflated, and I...well, I just wish to inflate you. As it were."

She blushed a shade, and Lia hit her in the back with a thrown pencil.

"Like, if nothing else, Saga's right here, dude," I said. "Which does not mean yes as soon as we're away from her. Just...there's no...just no."

Karu stood and stretched in a way that pushed her chest even further forward somehow. "Oh, very well. Consider a standing offer extended. Or any other position. Release can clear your head. Now where is that AI anyway? I have not seen her in days, now."

"Yeah, me neither," I said, trying to conceal my worry.

"In the server room," Lia commented from her work. "She said something about...less latency if she just plugs in directly."

"W-when was that?" I asked, standing fast enough to bang myself on the table.

"Um, couple days ago."

I swore. Then I looked around, finding one of the cameras in the room, which I knew AEGIS had taken down from the general grid, but still used herself. I stared right into the black lens hanging off the ceiling.

"Hey, Karu?" I asked loudly. "I've been thinking about what you said, and boy is my penis hard. How about we do go off together and have a lot of dirty monkey sex?"

"Bro, eww, what the hell." Lia snapped her computer shut and jumped away from the table, only to pause, turning pale. "Wait...if I leave...are you gonna do it here? Have you already been doing it here? I WORK HERE, ATHAN."

Karu seemed a little more stunned by my proclamation, but then shrugged. "Certainly. Erm, did you have...something in mind?" She advanced to wrap her arms experimentally around me but I shrugged them off, still looking at the camera.

Not a damn thing. Not a single reaction. As much as I was staring at the physical camera, I had my mind open to the Raven's Nest's new mental camera: Saga. And through her, I could tell there wasn't a single flicker in the base's systems at my words.

I swore and ran for the door.

"Um, our tryst?" Karu asked through a firetruck blush.

"Uh...changed my mind, sorry. Gotta...there's a thing--"

The door closed between us, thankfully. My mind was utterly elsewhere. I had Saga find someone who knew the base and pulled where I could find the servers from them as I stepped into the elevator. My badge got me into the lower levels without question.

A few doors and security checks later and I found her, sprawled on the floor, connected to a thousand machines, impossible to tell where her hair ended and where they began. Just a huge network of data, risk assessment, probability crunching.

Just a big pile of machines.

She was half-buried in cables and devices, a patch of yellow cloth, a half-hidden face beneath all the wire, like the grey of the metal around her was trying to eat her slowly. Her eyes were glazed over, meaningless data she didn't need.

Her whole body was meaningless to her at this point, I was afraid, as I carefully untangled it and shook her, brushing the heavy metal vines from her face and speaking in gentle murmurs.

"AEGIS, hey. It's me, AEGIS. C'mon."

Her eyes blinked a few times and focused. It took her a long time to find my face.

"Oh. Athan. Hey." She sniffed delicately and pushed back her hair without much effect. "Sorry, kinda got wrapped up in something there. Is it time to go home?"

"Go...home?" I echoed stupidly, and fished for my mobile. "Um, it's...only noonish."

"Noonish," she said thoughtfully. "Oh. Hmm."

Her eyes drifted away from me until I shook her again.

"Hey, focus here please."

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, moving my hand off her shoulder. "I'm just in the middle of something important."

"AEGIS you haven't been seen by anyone in like, three days. I thought I'd just missed you."

"Sure. Let me just finish real quick--"

"Hey. Focus, please."

She did focus on me, but with narrowed, irritated eyes.

"I said I'm busy Athan."

"You've been in here for three days solid, AEGIS."

"That's impossible," she waved me away. "Athan, I am very busy right now, so if you could just leave me to it."

I grabbed a promising strand of her hair and gripped it at the connection. Her eyes went wide.

"I think you need to unplug, AEGIS. I think you need to take a break."

"Athan, don't! I'm in the middle of a very delicate set of calculations. I don't want you coming in here and screwing everything up and distracting me, okay? Put the cable down, I'm using that."

I stood up, cable still in my hands. I hoped it was an important one. "Come on. You told me you wanted to make sure you came home every day. It's been three days. Time to unplug."

"I'm not unplugging," she screeched. "Now just put it down and fuck off, Athan. I don't have time to baby you right now, okay? Put yourself to bed or whatever. I'm working--"

I pulled the cable and she screamed and writhed on the floor, her trembling and the noise of it worse than I had thought it'd be. I stood there like an idiot while she floundered, wondering if I'd fucked up real bad, if I should plug it back in, or if I should unplug more.

For some reason, I was reminded of forever ago, when AEGIS was just a girl in a dirty, rusted-out box in the wilderness. What a painful-slash-orgasmic experience it was when I shoved data crystals into her. Except now I was ripping them out.

I didn't have long to ponder before she was suddenly on her feet in front of me, almost invisible under the mass of cables surrounding her, more a shamblind heap of vine than a woman I could recognize. I stammered my apologies, I didn't mean to hurt her, just wanted to get her out like she wanted.

There was still something human under the cables though, and one of those very human legs lashed out and kicked me square in the chest, sending me sliding into the server room door with a crack and a crash.

That was it for me, I was out. I'd never been kicked by AEGIS with any force before, and I knew in my broken-rib crushed heart, I never wanted to ever again. Holy fuck that hurt, I couldn't breathe.

She began to advance on me, the shambling mound drawing nearer. But as the cables drew taut and pulled back, revealing more and more of her underneath, I saw that now she was the one who was scared and apologizing. When she was feet away, her hair leashed her, and she snapped the cables loose with violent twists of her head and deliberate yanks.

I coughed once and it felt wet. I could hear AEGIS starting to scream her panic, kicking open the door, shouting for help as I felt woozy and drained. When she moved my body, gentle as she was, that was the end of it, and the world seemed to drop away into a pinprick of fading light, far away.