"I know this is necessary, but...isn't this a really terrible idea?"

AEGIS was looking like she was trying to start a fire by tugging at her hair. It wasn't like I disagreed but…

"I mean, what other option do we have?" I asked.

She frowned bitterly into the dark glass in front of us. "I just...wish we had more time to plan. I'm doing all I can to piece together the CAP format, but it's not like the FCC, the MVPDs, or FEMA just have an archive lying around of inadvertent EAS activations."

I blinked at her. "What?"

"Sorry," she shook her head at me, her eyes racing. "Focusing. Uh, I mean...there's been a lot of false EAS -- emergency alerts -- in the past, but I'm...it's a little bit of a time crunch for me to just...figure out how to send one on the fly. I'm working on it, but it'd really help if I had a previous...uh...a previous time for reference. There's no authentication, but there are a lot of specific fields in the query...and if I don't...format it right..."

She trailed off, which was fine by me, because the silence was probably every bit as enlightening as her alphabet soup.

We were outside of a local television station -- KGX, "The Polygon, Channel 12 News" vividly inscribed on the just next to us. Inside was dark, as was everything here, the city already a ghost town from the evacuations.

AEGIS had told me some stuff on our walk over here that I did actually grasp; essentially, when it came to a national emergency alert, some TV stations acted as entry points, where the president, FEMA, or an authorized agent could order, override, and force through an emergency broadcast. During this crisis, it was likely that a skeleton crew would still be present at those stations, to keep the airwaves running and be available to transmit emergency broadcasts in the terrifying event that other entry point stations ceased to function...or exist.

KGX was not one of those stations. It was one of the other ninety-nine percent of stations, which AEGIS explained acted as 'relays', broadcasting the messages handed to them automatically and passing it further down the line. Hence the apparent abandonedness. Our job was to inject a fake broadcast here and have it propagate through the system.

"If they're not in there, how is the news still being shot, though?" I asked without thinking.

"Athan, I'm focusing here, sorry. Just watch the news yourself."

"Right." I apologized and went back to my mobile, where I still had channel twelve pulled up.

The answer, I guessed, was that they were just shooting and uploading from the refugee camps now. They must have a mobile studio of some kind to do the overlays and digital effects...and come to think of it, I hadn't seen shots of the inside of the real studio in a while.

Watching the anchors repeat the same meaningless warnings and discuss the ever-worsening conditions felt like a waste of time, but what else was I going to do? I couldn't rush AEGIS.

I could at least pretend to be productive and message Lia.

> Everything okay?

Her response was too prompt, and I knew she was just as bored and nervous as I was.

> sitting in a dark schoolhouse w/zombie rito and tobias whats not to like

> We're almost ready to start, AEGIS is figuring out the message format

> yeah ive got the show on ill see it when u do it. Hurry up

I sighed. Not encouraging. And neither was the news I was watching in the meanwhile. It was just a constant series of updates on how messed up shit was, how the refugee camps were full and people were beginning to treat each other like garbage, as theft, rape, murder, and vigilantism became common. Or, I could watch the feeds of the battle unfolding, where the projected body count was already in the tens of thousands, as more XPCA funnelled in against the two Exhuman armies, which were pointlessly clashing and costing lives we couldn't spare.

Best of all was the fucking President. Twice now, he'd done his own...EAS-thingy, and addressed 'my fellow Americans' in this 'time of crisis', urging us to be strong, believe in the government, and trust in God to watch over this great country.

It was where I'd gotten this idea. The specifics of it, anyway. If he could use it as a platform to prattle on about how everything was under control, I could at least put it to an actual use.

When I'd been in Aesa's pan-dimensional, impossible, flying, bullshit machine, I'd noted that they got television reception up there somehow. Maybe an antenna moored in our dimension for 'net access. Or maybe they...bounced a wifi signal off a pan-dimensional earthworm or something, fuck if I knew.

But the point was, there was that line open to us. There was the remote possibility of being able to contact them.

If they had TV, why the hell didn't they just do me a favor and keep a mobile?

"Okay, I've got it," AEGIS said. "I can rough out the details when we're...inside, actually composing the broadcast."

"Great," I said, dusting off. "Let's get inside."

She grinned at me, had me take a few steps back, and then kicked down the glass doors, to the wailing of sirens.

Fortunately the sound was less obnoxious inside the studio itself, acoustically insulated in some way as it was. She made her way to the computers and began switching systems on, while I fiddled with the studio cameras. It wasn't long before we had footage from them displaying on the hundreds of holos in the control booth, as AEGIS tapped away on keypads to adjust...hell if I knew. The color balance, or encryption format, or whatever she'd been working on.

"We're ready any time, I guess. I'll have to stay in here to broadcast it, and it'll be live...so make it good, Athan."

"Okay," I said, suddenly feeling like this was an even worse idea. Being broadcast live across the nation...the world would certainly recognize me, and I didn't want to imagine what kind of panic it might instill to have me appear.

The exact opposite of the President's little messages, I imagined.

Her voice clicked on through the studio, a little spooky how it seemed to come from everywhere as I could see her lips moving through the glass wall of the sound booth.

"Make it short," she said. "There's no telling how long we'll be able to broadcast before they cut our station out of the EAS system. It'd be much harder for them to do if we weren't just in a relay but...you take what you can get, right?"

"Yeah," I nodded at her, feeling like I'd eaten something too sour. That wonderful sensation of doing something which was doomed to go wrong. "Okay. Ready, I guess?"

"I'll count you on. Going in five...four...three…"

She didn't count the other two numbers. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to start on one, or zero. So the footage would probably start with a second of dead air. Perfect.

"Um, hello," I said, trying to look at the camera and not the red light glowing on it. "Hello, America. Hopefully you can all...see this."

AEGIS shook her head at me and gave me 'what the fuck' hands. I cleared my throat.

"Um, I'm...Athan. Athan Ashton. You uh, might know me. Or, rather, I guess, probably most of you know me by now. I have a lot of nicknames, though the most recent is 'The Spark of Death.' Which...I've always thought was misleading...I'm not um, just trying to kill people or anything."

I was sweating. I should have written a script. Keep it short.

"Anyway, I know this is a time of crisis. I know most of you are probably watching from a refugee camp. I know all of you are probably wondering what I'm doing on this emergency broadcast. Well, it's like this -- we're trying to stop Las Vegas from being destroyed. We're, uh, I mean...as much as everyone likes to say that Exhumans are just vicious and destructive, we're not. We're just people, with our own agendas and motivations, just like everyone else. And you can see that with how the group of fanatics, or...um...fugitives? We'll just say Exhumans, who were released from New Eden, how they're standing between Justice and the rest of the world. They're good, see?"

I realized my mouth was moving and not talking in the direction I wanted, but I also thought I was onto something. A message I did desperately want to share with America.

"Um, and to that end, what I wanted to say was to let everyone know -- the Oasian army, the New Edeners, and most of all the XPCA, to please, please put aside your arms and try to trust each other. Believe it or not, all three of you have the same goal, and this infighting is just dooming all of you. Only together can you stand against Justice, and only by defeating him can you hope to salvage what's left of America after his destructive spree."

AEGIS was giving me a twirling finger gesture for 'move along', and I struggled to find a segue.

"I know I'm just a filthy Exhuman that you all see as a killer and a monster, but everything I've done, I've done for you guys. Even if its hurt me, or my friends, or my sister. Or killed them. Or taken away my life, my humanity. I'm...I'm fine with that, as long as we don't lose sight of the rest of the world, y'know? I mean, I'm not. Would you like it if someone went after your sister just because they don't like you?"

I cleared my throat again. I didn't need AEGIS' franting gesticulating through the window to remind me that I was getting way off-base here. I wished I'd traded places with Karu now, this type of public speaking always got me just...going by stream of consciousness, saying whatever felt right.

But what felt right when addressing the American public was to address the American public. There was shit they needed to hear, and that's where my mind was going.

So I stopped, took a deep breath, and tried to refocus.

"Every person, soldier or civilian, human or Exhuman should be doing their part right now. We need every arm in America to stand united against Justice, because he really is the end of everything if we don't stop him. I'm begging every single Exhuman out there, please, please come out of hiding, please use your powers in whatever way you can. Justice is terrifying, and he's like, five-hundred Exhumans all wrapped up in one body. But I know that we could get five-hundred Exhumans to face him down, and maybe we'd have a chance. With the toads...erm...with Oasis, and the US military working with us--"

The light went out. AEGIS' head was in her hands. I blinked at her and stammered.

"...uh, working with us. I'm uh, I'm sure that we can uh…"

"Feed's cut," AEGIS intoned, pulling the mic over to her without looking up at me. "They pulled us off the network."

"But I...I…"

"You didn't address Aesa or Al at all, no."

"I was about to get there."

She didn't answer, just remained slumped on her feet. I stammered half-apologies at her...I was...I was leading up to it. I'd just begged for every Exhuman to do their part, and I was about to get to Aesa and Al's.

But reflecting back, I thought about how stupid my words had been. How many different ways had I said the same thing? Justice: bad. Exhumans: friend.

It was an important message, and I felt like, if I had America's ear, I needed to get that out there. But couldn't I just...put my missive to Al and Aesa at the start? And then blather on with whatever time I had left?

Except I didn't want to address them at the start. I wanted to address them after they'd already noticed that I was on the broadcast. I couldn't just lead in with talking to them, or they'd miss it.

Because that was so much worse than what I'd done, obviously. Missing it entirely the other way. Fucking, fuck. Why didn't we have Karu on this? I couldn't speak to save my fucking life. I just never knew it'd bite me in the ass this hard.

"We can...we can go to another relay," I said. "We can cut in from another station and finish our broadcast."

"No, we can't. If we're locked out, it's because the system was taken down. There's no way for them to just conveniently excise one station from the entire 'net. This isn't a granular system, Athan, it's a national emergency broadcast network. It's supposed to be resilient and redundant and accessible."

"So it's those things, but it can just get switched off? That seems the opposite of resilient."

"Resilient against like, disasters. Against parts of the network not-existing. You realize, a tenth of America is just gone right now, right? And the broadcast went through anyway? That's resilience."

"A tenth seems like nothing," I shouted at her. "Come on!"

Even stooped over, I could see her rolling her eyes at me. "You try surviving without a tenth of your body. See how important that becomes."

"That's not fair. I just...it was an important message for me to get out. I fucked up, I know but--"

She didn't engage, which just made me feel even more stupid and embarrassed at myself. It was important to say. And I knew my time was limited, but not that limited.

I wanted to kick myself. Or...blow up the whole studio. Maybe both. Our one chance and I just utterly threw it away like a fucking moron.

I threw wild voltages into the tempered glass facade of the studio desk, and it exploded with a boom that echoed strangely in the acoustics of the set. It was like a claymore, just a billion shards of glass, punching through everything in the studio in front of me. In an instant, lights and cameras were pulverized, probably a million credits in a single infantile outburst.

AEGIS stared at me, stunned, through a sheet of glass now pocked with scratches.

The way she looked at me. I couldn't fucking bear it. It was how I looked at myself, with pity and disgust. I was so fucking stupid, that I'd reduced the one woman in the world who loved me to that.

And of course she would. I'd had one task. The easiest thing in the world. All I had to do was sit there and repeat, over and over Al and Aesa, please help. And instead I'd gone all flowery and tangential, and fucked it all up. Like I fucked everything up.

My leg's servos whirred as I kicked through the desk. I felt the surge of electricity around me as sparks jumped from the broken station lettering when my foot crashed through it. Despite how robust and solid the desk looked, it was flimsy underneath, just plywood covered in glass and metal embellishments, and it caved under my leg easily.

"Stupid fucking desk!" I shouted. "Stupid...piece of shit...I hate you! You fuck everything up. How can you be so...fucking incompetent!"

"We've got half an hour before Justice comes," AEGIS said, her voice placating through the speakers.

I flexed my arms and surged, the rest of the lights blowing out around me at the wave of uncontrolled electricity coursing off of me. The speakers made a screaming noise as they blew out, and there were a set of pops and the tinkling of glass to accompany the darkness that I threw myself into.

This was stupid and pointless. I was stupid and pointless. Getting angry at myself was already a waste of time, but destroying the set? That just showed what an immature idiot I was. Who the hell gave this fucking moron any kind of responsibility, much less the role of humanity's savior? I wasn't fit for anything but standing on the front lines and slaughtering others until I died, what the fuck was I thinking trying to sidestep that issue?

I heard the sound booth door click shut, and looked up to find AEGIS gingerly stepping towards me, her bare feet threading the maze of broken glass and metal I'd created.

"I'm worthless, aren't I?" I asked her.

"We're all bad at some things, Athan," she sighed. "Remember the first time you were on TV? And you were so eager to name yourselves the pee force?"

I felt like I'd come so far, like I should be better by now. I didn't know what I was thinking.

"We'll just...try to find a way to turn the EAS back on. Or, if we wait, the president will have to make a statement about what just aired, and he'll be using the system then. If...if we're prepared, we can tap in at that time, hijack as many of the relays as we can...and with any luck, it'll be our feed which reaches Aesa instead of his…"

She didn't believe what she was saying, that much was obvious. AEGIS had never proposed a plan in her life where the final step was "get lucky".

Except for coming onto me I guess. But that was different.

I just stared at her. Still trying to smile at me, still trying to keep that positive air, even as her arms hung at her sides, even as her mind raced to try to figure out some way to un-fuck us from this stupid situation I'd put us in.

I should just go back to Vegas and fight alongside the others. I could be some use there. I could get away from how AEGIS was looking at me like I was some puppy who'd shit all over the house, but wasn't old enough to understand right from wrong.

Maybe I could achieve something useful, and then die. That sounded like a great plan right now, because currently, I was just heading towards die.

My train of self-pity was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a blue orb in the corner of the studio. I saw a head pop through it for a second, and then disappear. AEGIS turned towards me with wide eyes.

And then the head reappeared, followed by the rest of Al. "Oh, you are here!" he said. "Aesa, I found 'em, it was studio twelve in Portland, I told you. Polygon, Oregon. I remembered."

She materialized after he did, wearing a puffy coat. "Yeah, yeah. Wow, what the hell happened in here? Did we do this?"

"It doesn't seem likely. Even when we do make a harmonic disturbance, it's usually smaller than this. Mind your step, love."

"What are you guys doing here!" I found myself shouting. "How did you know?"

"Know what?" Al asked, wincing as his boots crunched on glass. "We uh, we were watching a show together and saw you come on."

"You absolutely ruined our date, by the way," Aesa sniped. "You owe me big time."

Al laughed apologetically. "Well, we were both a little surprised to see you there. And I found you words a little moving, if I may be honest."

"He's a baby. He said, 'if every Exhuman is supposed to do their part, that includes us.' But I'm not even an American, not even from this dimension anymore. What the hell do I care what happens here?"

"Oh, don't pretend you wouldn't be sad if the world got messed up."

She crossed her arms and harrumphed, but didn't argue.

AEGIS and I were mostly just shocked that here they were, despite my fuck-ups. I had to wonder just for a moment at how many others might have been legitimately moved by my message.

But I cut off that line of thought before I gave myself a big head. I definitely fucked up beyond words, and it was only through sheer luck and the unquestionably good nature of Al that the two of them were here before us now.

"We uh, we actually need your help specifically," AEGIS said. "We're trying to solve something of a puzzle. We need to do some kind of alzstraz-beta compression. For the creation of a stable-linked probabilistic binding, I'm pretty sure."

Aesa rolled her eyes. "Well, duh. What else would you be using alzstraz-beta compression for?"

"So you know it!" AEGIS squealed, literally jumping for joy.

"Easy there, corn dog. A stable-linked binding isn't as easy as that. Even if I have the know-how, there's a lot more that you'd need to make one." She squinted at us. "And who said I'd help you anyway?"

"Erm, he did," AEGIS pointed at Al. Who nodded with a big smile.

"Eh, he wants to help everyone. If I stopped every time Al wanted to help, I'd never get anything done."

"Honey--"

"Don't you 'honey' me. These bastards already cheated me out of a date, and now they're asking me to build a new device? I bet they're not handing out machine parts, so unless we're dismantling her, this is coming out of my own pocket, too. And you know how hard it is to find parts in the void."

"We'll make do, honey. We always do."

She glowered at him like he was ten types of awful, and then turned towards me and multiplied that number by a thousand. "So you have no assurance whatsoever we'll help you. But why the hell do you need to make a stable-linked dimensional binding anyway? What, did you lose something while dimension-hopping?" She looked around, as though only just now seeing the two of us, and then grinned. "Lose someone?"

"Let me call Tobias," AEGIS said. "I think the sooner we put him in touch with her, the sooner we can start moving forward."

"Oh great. More people," she spat. "Hey Al, what's that thing I always say about meeting new people?"

"You hate it," he sighed.

"Damn right I do. Let's go home, this place sucks."

"This place is our home, honey. It's Earth."

"And it sucks, that's why I left. That's why you left."

"Guys, please," I interjected. "If you've been watching the news at all up there, you know what the world's facing right now. You came here, so obviously, you've got some idea of the danger. We need you, right now, so very, very badly."

"Not my problem," Aesa said, cutting Al off. "Even if this whole world goes kablooie, that flying monster can't touch us out there. Helping you is probably the most stupid, most dangerous thing we could possibly do for ourselves. So why would I want to do that?"

"Please," I begged. "We have a...a prophecy-thing. It's supposed to help us defeat Justice. It's the only way we can save...everything. Save anything."

"You want to save things?" she scoffed. "Here's a bit of help I guess I could throw your way. How about the two of you stowaway with us until this all blows over. If you don't eat too much and stay out of my way, I might be gracious enough to permit that. And once the world's finished going ass-end-up, you two can be your own Adam and Eve."

She eyed AEGIS with a grin. "You got a baby-making machine in there, tin-stuff?"

AEGIS flushed with an intensity I didn't know was possible and stammered out various reasons that wouldn't work.

"Look, just meet our friend Tobias. He knows what's going on better than we do. Please."

Aesa looked down on me with a small bitter frown.

"You know I don't like you, right Athan?"

"Yes. You've made that very clear."

"You're just a nuisance, getting in the way and making your own demands on me, when all I want is to be left alone with my sweet honey-bunny and my work."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Her eyes narrowed impishly. "If you're sorry, then apologize."

I lowered my head into a bow. Whatever it took. "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry for being a needy nuisance."

"On your hands and knees."

I swallowed hard as the glass shards under me glittered dangerously. AEGIS made a noise and moved towards me, but before she could intercede, I pressed myself to the ground, rivulets of blood flowing from the razor-wounds instantly.

"I beg your forgiveness. Please."

"Athan--" AEGIS gasped.

"We need her," I shouted into the ground. "I don't care if I slice off every inch of skin I own. If there's anything I can do, I'll do it."

I held myself there, feeling the trickle of blood from my palms. Wet, and reeking of iron.

I heard Aesa sigh, and glanced up to find her looking at Al's bitter disapproval.

"Fine," she said. "Pick yourself up, dog. Let's meet this 'friend' of yours and get this over with. I wasn't planning on saving anyone today, but sometimes, I guess you just do what you have to."

I picked myself up gingerly, and AEGIS was already on me, gauze and medical gel and a pair of tweezers, where she tutted and fussed as she pulled shards of glass out of my hands with equal parts worry and disapproval.

I was just relieved. Somehow, the universe had given me another chance, which was two more than a fuck-up like me honestly deserved. I didn't care about the pain or humiliation, I could endure anything if it meant another chance.

"You're right," I agreed. "We just do what we have to."

She shook her head at me one final time, and then crunched through the sea of broken glass.