It was hard not to think about the past as the world went whipping by past Karu and me. It felt like a scene that had played out many times before, though I reminded myself how much it wasn't.

For one, we weren't racing through traffic with my pulse faster than the engine's RPMs. We were low in the air, a black streak shooting through the sky. An XPCA VTOL legitimately deployed on a mission which needed undertaking -- one of the many Exhuman protests which had been breaking out ever since we'd proven ourselves incapable of stopping them. It was a standard VTOL, apparently an Orion-Class, unlike the small, silent Sirius we'd picked up in Japan. The controls jittering and bouncing in front of me had extra grips and yokes for manning the onboard guns.

And, though she kept alluding to it, I wasn't here with Karu to get away from AEGIS exactly, no matter how similar it felt. Sitting beside Karu, making small talk, and avoiding the topics I really wanted to bring up...it brought me back to when AEGIS was a more awful person, and I'd be sneaking out of the house to Karu's diner, looking for anyone sane to spend time with and any edible food to put down.

Now wasn't like that. I kept saying that. AEGIS was just fine, better than ever, even. I wouldn't be able to worm my way out of work if it weren't for her being there, the reassurance that the XPCA could keep on trucking because of her steadying hand.

But it did kinda feel the same, and I wasn't quite sure why.

I caught half a glance from behind Karu's visor, and then a wry grin. "So. How are things at the office?" She inquired right at the heart of my issues with too much levity.

"Bad. But you knew that."

"Did I?"

"I'm here. Obviously things aren't all puppies and burritos and unicorn farts with me needing to call you up and ask if I can join with literally whatever icing you're doing."

She frowned for an instant, but I think it was just by reflex. She used to detest the 'icers', the group of hunters who would go on bounties for the money, regardless of whether the mark posed a threat. Kids who manifested with powers, too often. But ever since she'd relaxed her definitions on killing, the label had started to apply.

Maybe I was just being petty and sniping at her because I was a grumpy bastard. Maybe it was payback for her asking the question she knew I didn't want asked. Whatever it was, it prompted her to snipe back.

"Then how are things with the machine girl?"

"AEGIS is just fine."

"Oh, ho? I heard tell that you had been hospitalized, as it were. Were things so fine that she fractured your pelvis with a bout of robotic lovemaking? Or are matters perhaps not so rosy as you paint?"

I shook my head. "Why does everything have to turn sexual with you in a heartbeat?"

She grinned. "Just imagining what I would do with you, should I have an opening as the machine does."

"We're not like that. Not...yet. Or...again, I guess. Shit, it's complicated keeping things clearly-defined with a girl who keeps becoming different versions of herself."

"So you are saying there's an opening?" she asked, her voice lilting over the roar of the engines. Before I could reply, she leaned forward, I thought to touch some obscure control on my side of the dashboard, but then found her hand in my crotch.

I removed it for her and put it back on the yoke while she laughed, full-bodied.

"If there's one thing I've learned about relationships, it's that I fuck them up real good," I offered. "And right now, I need everyone working together as best I can. As much as I'd love to...settle down with one of you, I obviously don't have the smarts or capacity to do that and also keep my work afloat. So no, I'm not with her, but I'm also not on the market."

"I believe the term is 'focusing on my career right now'," she grinned. "And besides, I have no expectation of you. I am not as the AI is, and expecting bouquets and romantic candlelight. A few hard thrusts and I will be satisfied, no attachment required."

"Yeah, no. Even if you say that, I don't trust myself not to fuck it all up somehow."

"I offer freely. We could do it as we fly to our destination. No time lost, no hard feelings, only hard feeling. Serve only as my seat and my relief for a few minutes." She patted the cushion between her legs as though that were an appealing prospect somehow.

"Still yeah, no. How'd we even get on this topic? You asked about AEGIS. She's great, I think she's just overworked right now. Which is kind of insane because she keeps not working, even when she could. And I know she's worried about becoming someone she dislikes by working too much, but at the same time, I'm just like...okay...how about you don't do that, then. I dunno why she's making this sound so hard."

"I am unclear on the specifics, as I have been abroad. Pray tell, what are you talking about?"

I gave her a summary on AEGIS working against her programming, on how she failed to come home one day and I found her plugged in to the servers and how the hospitalization had really happened, on her keeping an eye on both the XPCA and on Saga, and for good measure, on Saga's outrage at my injury and on feeling like she needed a leash kept on her.

I spoke until Karu was putting the VTOL through its landing cycle, and long after we'd touched down, she rested on the inactive yoke, her breasts swaying under her, I still kept going like I was vomiting something out and couldn't stop halfway. She listened well, staring in silence and curiosity, her visor blazing red at me always.

Eventually, I wound through the last couple of days of abusive paperwork we'd all be sitting through, and how despite AEGIS' promises that we were very nearly through the backlog, and things were sure to get better soon, I'd really had more than I could take of it, and so here I was.

When I finally stopped, she paused only to chuckle, and then stood up, and I unbuckled to do the same and follow her out of the cabin.

"At least you make well clear the reasons you cannot afflict yourself with a fling," she laughed. "My, how you are capable of winding up in the most convoluted relationship morasses."

"Gee, ya think?"

"I do so think." She made a final overview of inventory within the VTOL, strapping a few more guns to her wrists that I guess might have gotten in the way when she was flying. After some kind of mental checklist, she nodded her satisfaction, and we headed out, did a once-around the vehicle, and then wandered off.

The ship was parked in a parking lot...and like last time I'd been on one of these ops, the area seemed deserted. This wasn't a big town -- populous areas and destructive Exhumans got top priority, and this was not a top-priority mission -- but it wasn't exactly super remote, either. It was strange to see it so deserted, and I didn't think that was something I'd ever get used to.

The Exhuman in question here had been rampaging or protesting or whatever she'd call it for almost a week now. A sorry embarrassment for the XPCA, but the simple fact was, our people were busy elsewhere. The doctrine of overwhelming force meant that the XPCA never sent in just one or two strike teams to handle an issue. Ignoring an Exhuman altogether was better than sending a few squads to die, and worse, embolden them. Damage estimate simulations had proven again and again apparently that an Exhuman who was unchallenged was more paranoid, and one who'd been victorious was more destructive.

Granted, it wasn't anywhere in the policy to let them go for a full week. This shit was unprecedented, and just went to show what a mess the XPCA really was right now. I had to wonder how long an Exhuman could go unchallenged before their paranoia naturally gave way to destruction.

Though things around here didn't seem too destroyed. Given how long she'd been allowed to rampage, I guess they wouldn't be. If she were more destructive, we'd have made it out here sooner.

"So, Ashton," Karu spoke as we walked on and down the streets. "Pray tell me, have you ever suffered addiction?"

"Uh, not that I can think of." I let my mind race for a bit over the sound of my exoframe whirring and the click-clack of her boots on asphalt. "Actually, maybe, kinda?"

"When and what was that?"

"It was when Whitney and I did our power-swap thing. It's kinda hard to say it was addiction but I'm not sure what else to call it. After my powers left me, I had this like, empty buzzing inside my head that felt like it only went away when I was studying. Took weeks to go down."

"Hmm. Truly a unique addiction, if one. What was your mind's reaction to re-acquisition of your Exhumanity?"

"It was a major rush. Whitney had gone off to fight someone in New York in her exosuit, and I was at her place, alone. I'd been mopey about things...I think...yeah, that was...AEGIS had just switched herself. And...Alyssa…"

She seemingly looked at the ground with me, though I knew she was on higher alert than I was. A comforting arm seized my shoulder and gave me a squeeze.

"But um, anyway. I was super bummed around then, but that morning I just woke up feeling so great. So like...alive. I kinda noticed a lot of things I hadn't before, somehow. Instead of just...being there...I felt like I was there, if that makes any sense? Things were somehow more colorful. It was like being alive for the first time after...not being."

She chuckled appreciatively. "My, and my apologies for doubting you. That does sound very much like a drug, doesn't it?"

"Have you ever been?" I asked. "Addicted, I mean?"

"It is difficult to say. There are times when I feel I take my stims too lightly, and question if I am utilizing them out of legitimate need, or merely because I am excusing myself to be able to, although their addictive properties are quite controlled. You know that…" she frowned and again seemed to be watching the ground as she trailed off. "...that...for a time…"

She flexed her hands and eyed her wrists under the guns and armor.

"You were cutting," I summarized.

"Indeed. I hesitate to declare that an addiction, although in light of retrospect, I can think of it as little else. It was a thing I was, at the time, too weak to prohibit myself from ceasing. And given that it had more control over my actions than I did, it fits the description. Yet I hesitate to call it an addiction, as it felt more...a release…"

She frowned bitterly, and I had to wonder what we were doing on this conversation as we walked in towards an Exhuman.

She shook her head. "Regardless. My point was to be, that it sounds to me clearly that the AI has an addictive personality. Have you never noticed how she goes full-bore on things? Have you ever seen one of her plans go only halfway to fruition? A subject merely half-researched? Or a task brought simply to half-completion?"

"I have," I said, thinking. "But I think it really, really irks her when shit like that happens. She likes things neat and finished and wrapped up."

"Indeed. Yet never has she in your lifetime faced an insurmountable problem with the amount of data she currently possesses. Always, when facing a greater disaster, such as Dragon, or Eryendria, or New Eden, her capacities are limited by the quantity of available information. Here, her problems are limitless, but for the first time, so too is her data."

We had to stop because we'd come up on the target. The public library, a sad structure, all grey stone in a town of brick and wood, as though built to be a fortress but which really just served to emphasise both how much it did not mesh with its surroundings, and how small it was. A set of would-be impressive stairs made the main entrance on the second floor, like ascending an Aztec temple or something, except that instead of a sprawling pyramid, the majority of the library was under our feet as we ascended, and nowhere but.

She'd holed up in there, in the times she wasn't out walking the streets, yelling at traffic cameras and any news copters floating past. But she was kind of old news, and uninteresting to the reporters compared to any number of other constantly-occurring issues. Again, and not for the last time today, I had to shake my head at how fucked the XPCA and America were at the moment.

"So you're saying what, she's addicted to data?" I asked as we walked up the steep external steps. Karu's heels clacked even louder on the flagstone. I had to admire my exoframe as it carried me smoothly up, feeling like I was gliding uphill instead of struggling with the too-large stairs.

"In part, yes. Though," she shook her head, making her hair wobble back and forth. "Though of course, I am no trained professional. Take my assertions as the third-party interest of an armchair shrink and nothing more."

"Except you did study psychology."

"I did. Which is distinct from psychiatry, which deals more with issues like addiction and other mental disorders. Psychology is rooted in the how of human thinking, not in the assessment of its function, or lack thereof."

"Okay. So you have some insight when things might be wrong, though?"

"I hope so. But hence my disclaimer."

We'd reached the top, and the automatic doors opened for us with a rewarding blast of cool air. Karu went in first with me directly behind. What we found inside made me equally sad as seeing the outside.

It looked like whoever built this place really, really tried. They'd thrown together arches and buttresses, elegant rising structures...but all made of grey, stacked-together stone, unremarkable and cramped. Like if Michelangelo was given a slab of concrete instead of marble to chisel out David, and it was only four feet tall. God knows the guy probably did his best, but…this city and this library were just not big enough for his ambitions.

The central feature of the room was a spiral staircase headed back down amidst rows of books. It descended, gracefully curving with wide petal-like steps for all of one story, and then ended abruptly. Up here was the checkout desk, set under a low, graceful arch that made me think of an order-out window at a diner than whatever lofty aim the architect intended.

"Regardless, it seems to me that AEGIS may suffer such an addiction. To data, to solving problems to her satisfaction...potentially to any number of things. There is much new about her station," Karu explained as we peered around the few stacks upstairs.

"So, what? Am I supposed to be getting her detox or something?"

She chuckled. "Nothing of that nature. But the thrust of my point was to be, you asked earlier why she does not simply work to her capabilities, and then walk away whenever it suits her. Why she does not simply 'not work' successfully, as you phrased it."

"Ah," I said, realizing. "And you think it's because she's addicted. To...work, or data, or finishing the mission or whatever. Walking away never suits her."

"Precisely. And I asked your experiences with addiction to hopefully place you further into her contexts. Unfortunately they are ill-relatable, though I suppose there was some hope."

I frowned as I followed her around the last few tables up here. No sign of an Exhuman, just an ordinary, empty library. "No, I get you," I said, thinking. "Actually I think she said something like that."

Karu shook her head at me and sighed. "I know well now why you feel incapable of operating a relationship with any degree of success."

I blinked at her. "What?"

"You do not listen, Ashton. To hear you say she has told you this herself, yet you are still questioning it aloud to me? For what purpose do you suppose she flapped her synthetic lips at you, if not to be heard?"

"I, uh...I mean...I heard her."

"And yet you come here to complain bitterly of a problem she herself has already explained."

"Look, you're making this sound way worse than it is. I did hear her. I listened."

Karu began descending the main staircase, head twitching this way and that as we went. It was very exposed down there, stacks of shelves lined up at all angles providing any number of places she could hide, and the stairs were open enough that an attack could come from any side. To say nothing of how little Karu's jetpack would do in such a cramped space.

So it wasn't a surprise when she shut up for a minute and trusted in her visor to pick up any threats. She seemed focused in one direction, which I had to assume was picking up a thermal reading or something beyond the stacks. The two of us crept down until we touched foot on the thin carpet at the bottom, neither of us as silent as we would have liked.

And at the bottom, we paused, hearts pounding. Waiting for an ambush.

Waiting.

In vain, as it turned out. As nothing came. Karu flipped through a few settings on her visor with a frown, and then led us sideways into the stacks, not the same direction she'd been staring.

And it surprised me when she resumed speaking. "My point was to be that if we assume the robot to have an addiction, you must consider what it is you are doing to her. She herself has expressed distress at her situation, and there is no clearer judge than the victim in this scenario. That you would look at her, and her situation, and her workload, and shrug to yourself and say 'that is fine', honestly baffles me, and on a level, makes me feel fortunate that my wants for you are little more than carnal."

"Uh."

"More. But only little more."

"Thanks. For that needless clarification. And for getting us on that topic again, totally necessary. My 'uh' was about AEGIS and how apparently I don't listen to her? Because I fucking do."

"I believe you heard her words. I also believe you immediately discounted them, because you viewed them through your own experiences rather than hers. You said unto yourself, 'Work? Hah! That is a thing of which I am easily capable. And so it must be for her.'"

"I mean, she works all the time. This isn't a new thing for her. And she's never had problems like this before."

"And also, she has never notified you of problems of this nature before. She is now, so open your damned ears, Ashton."

We were creeping forward, though I wasn't sure quite what towards. Or, why so slowly and deliberately when we were talking through whispers. But we must have reached the spot, because Karu suddenly left me to whip around a corner with guns raised. I bolted to join her, blades manifest, keeping her in my shield...and saw the disappointment that had caused the guns to lower.

"Left recently," Karu muttered. There was a cozy little nest there of some sweaters and jackets and a small pile of books. I recognized the top one, Thrash, a trashy romance novel I'd once read the first couple hours of on a date with Alyssa.

Shit, that totally was a date, I realized. Though whatever shame I felt in that was drowned beneath how that date had ended. With her death.

"Still warm," Karu said, and I realized she was off inspecting the nest. "Remnants of food debris. And this stack of books, I imagine she has been here most of the time she has been loose."

"What a dangerous Exhuman," I shook my head. "Eating in the library."

Even behind her visor I could see Karu roll her eyes. "Let us begone from here. The low ceilings give me claustrophobia."

As long as it had taken us to go in, it took only a moment to pop back upstairs and head for the door. But as we were walking towards it, I was stopped by Karu's arm flung wide to arrest me. And I noticed the reason why in a moment when walking through the door from the other side was the girl we were here to see, arms and backpack laden with what looked like stolen groceries.

"Wh-who…?" she stammered, the bags hitting the floor as she brought her arms up to fight. Green orbs popped out of the air, as my blades did in counterpoint. "I won't go down without a fight!" she shouted, as though rehearsed. "XPCA lies! XPCA LIES! XP--"

Her tirade ended in a squeal as she was knocked off her feet and thrown backwards, Karu's shock net clicking ominously while she seized on the floor.

"Well that was easy," I declared.

"So it tends to be with the ones who raise no hell," Karu shrugged as she drew a syringe from a pouch and advanced on the thrashing body. I noticed she didn't show any discomfort whatsoever in touching the electrified girl as she administered the serum, her newly refit armor apparently even more resistive than the previous version. And then we waited for a minute while the net finished depleting its charge, an awkward moment of the girl being shocked awake and passing out as the drug and net both took hold.

"So the issue is," I finished up "that I'm asking AEGIS to do something she's addicted to. Every day. And not really being aware of what...or...aware even that she is."

"So it seems to me," Karu shrugged. "Though again, armchair psychiatrist, operating second-hand at work. I recognize the need to keep her working, and so I view your path as a very difficult one."

"Yeah. If she works too hard, she risks slipping back in. But not enough, and we won't stay afloat." I frowned. "Wish there was more I could do."

"While I suspect I could gloat and point out that perhaps shirking your duties there is not helpful...and in fact, perhaps doing the work yourself so that she has a reduced workload seems optimal…"

I swallowed hard as she let the point linger. I was kinda blowing things off so I could be here where shit just made more sense to me. But Karu was right that I was only making the problem worse.

She cleared her throat. "The fact is, I suspect that clearing up issues such as these resolves paperwork in a more preventative manner. Or at least, that is what I tell myself, when I come out to do it. And I would be remiss if I so easily dismissed your company, or the excuse you need to provide it."

The girl bolted awake for a moment as the clicking of the net stopped, sitting shock upright and staring at us with wild eyes.

"HELP ME," she bellowed, her eyelids starting to sag already. "LET ME OUT."

I shook my head at the poor confused kid as she fell asleep on the spot, her head drooping into her lap as she collapsed forward.

"Honestly," I declared. "Yelling like that."

"She is drugged," Karu shrugged, moving forward to pick her up. "The brain does not function properly under such circumstances."

"I meant, because this is a library."

Karu paused to turn back and give me a red-lensed glare. "I have determined you may carry the mark. Congratulations."

I didn't mind. It was almost worth the joke. And it was the kind of bitch work I really didn't mind.

But even as I hefted her onto my shoulders and made to trudge down the steep steps, she was never really on my mind. It was the bitch work of another variety, and another girl who'd stayed lodged up there. The things I could do when I got back, the responsibility I could take, the help I could provide.

I sighed as I re-shouldered by load. It didn't seem like enough.