The next seven days were fairly repetitive, but they were also somewhat productive from a training point of view. While Eveline was still angry with me for what happened near Rheda-Wiedenbrück, she was at least willing to work with me, and we had resumed our combat training sessions each afternoon. This was good, firstly because Lena's teaching had embedded some fucked up habits that could get me killed, Eveline knew how to fight effectively, she also knew how to teach fairly well, and it gave me enough excuse to delay arriving in Hamburg long enough for Amélie to arrive so we didn't miss each other.

Eveline had also been right. There had been a number of occasions where when she was irritated with me for some reason or other, she would remind me of the fact that I'd slept with Lena, and in doing so, I'd shown poor judgment with respect to the critical nature of my mission, as well as a form of disloyalty to Eveline herself. She never openly stated it as such, and I knew why; she didn't want to acknowledge that she hated the idea of me being with anyone else, even though she never expressed a desire to take things further than we had previously. In fact, she was so distant with me, I'd wondered if she had started to find me repulsive.

Part of me wanted to argue against this attitude, that if she didn't want to take things in that direction again, she shouldn't be discussing who I've slept with or when... But right or wrong, it would not help matters. Besides, she was at least talking to me.

Each night, I had plenty of time to consult my nanocloud on the imprint project. Knowing that Amélie was just days away, I now had a plan. My efforts with my nanocloud involved putting together a function that would perform a sweep of a host synaptic map for packaging and transmission back to me. I managed to get a working version that I tested on myself, and my nanocloud verified that the map indeed matched every identifiable area of my brain, highlighting changes in brain chemistry and electrical activity whenever I thought of certain memories or I considered certain tasks.

The night before arriving in Hamburg, I had something that would trigger automatically at any time it was loaded into a person's respective nanocloud. It was enough to work with. Now all I had to do was get Amélie to use it.

Finally, we arrived at the edge of Hamburg, just before morning on the seventh day since leaving Berlin, and before we entered the city limits, Eveline stopped me to tell me how things were going to go today.

"I'm going hunting," she told me in a flat tone. I nodded, not giving her any time to think I would protest. "Find some place to stay with a restaurant or a cafe nearby where we can meet, then wait for me outside the closest marketplace to this edge of the city. I'll find you when I'm done, and then you can tell me what we're doing here instead of pushing forward to-"

"Resupply," I cut her off. I didn't want to be argumentative with her, especially after everything that had happened, but I wasn't in the mood for an extended rant about how we now had to travel thousands of kilometres around the world, and how any stops in cities would only make it last longer. "I'll see you later."

Then I turned around and headed to the city. Thankfully, she simply leapt away and off toward the nearby tree line to indulge her instincts. The cover looked pretty good in this part of the approach to Hamburg, and I smiled in anticipation of Eveline's need to indulge her hunting instincts being satisfied with lots of natural cover-

What the fuck was the matter with me, all of a sudden? Focus, Rick, for fuck sake.

I pressed ahead and into the city, doing what Eveline suggested I do, finding a few rooms available at the Hotel Jungclaus. It was another of those old-world hotels that had survived to the new world largely intact, so without hesitation, I booked and paid for two rooms. I would have booked three, but I had no idea what Amélie's plans were for when she and Philippe arrived in the city, so I decided to leave that until I had a better idea. Once I had the keys, I headed toward a restaurant called Zur Alten 16, where I booked a table I could reserve for the next couple of hours, hoping that Eveline didn't need much longer than that, and ordered a continental breakfast.

"You're a difficult man to find, Rick," I heard a voice nearby, as I drank some coffee to wash down my breakfast.

Startled, I turned to see who it was, and almost goggled at the two beast-folk approaching me. Immediately, I recognised Amélie's wolven features, her lustrous, silver coat of fur, her sturdy-looking hands with filed-down claws, and her bouncy personality, the sheer joy she exuded in every step she took. With her was a white-furred man I'd never met before. He was unbelievably tall, had a torso that made him look like a fur-covered Ronnie Coleman, a furry face very similar in human characteristics to Eveline's in that he had a very human-shaped nose, mouth and eyes, although his face looked very caucasian in shape. His wolven ears were mounted on the sides of his head where a human's would be, and he also had very human appendages for arms and legs; the only difference was his feet were excessively large, claw-tipped like Amélie's, and looked powerful. While he wasn't bounding around like Amélie, he nonetheless wore a friendly expression, and his eyes when he met mine were warm and welcoming. Both were dressed in travel leathers and sturdy-looking fabrics, and wore backpacks similar to my own. Both of them also carried longbow weapons for ranged encounters, although I suspected they were unlikely to get much use if their fighting skills were up to Eveline's standards.

"Amélie!" I called out in a welcoming tone. "Thanks for coming!"

She bounded over to me in a hop-skip gait with her powerful legs, landing in front of me and wrapping me in a fierce hug that took my breath away. It was so quick, it left me feeling dizzy when she let go, but the grin on her wolven face was so cheerful, I couldn't help but grin back.

"Rick," she began, turning to grin even more widely at her companion. "This is Philippe, my bond-mate and the Alpha of my pack!"

Philippe made a rasping noise before letting out an amused snort. "You behave more like the Alpha than I do," he quipped, gently tickling her behind the ears with a claw. Preening like a deer in a glade, Amélie grinned back at Philippe. "Good to meet you," he said with a grin.

"Likewise," I greeted him with a handshake, which he took with enthusiasm.

"Hey," he said toward Amélie. "Caitlynne would love to get her hands on this guy!"

"Ha!" Amélie laughed. "She just wants to add a human to our trio."

I suddenly realised what they were talking about, and felt my face burn in embarrassment. It was other people being interested in me that had caused Eveline to get angry to begin with. "I'm sure she's lovely, but I'm not available," I said sheepishly.

Amélie giggled. "Of course you're not!" Then she looked over to her bond mate. "And I prefer to keep Caitlynne to ourselves, don't you?"

"Yeah, she's never seriously been interested in anyone else anyway," Philippe laughed. "But down to business?"

"Yes!" Amélie barked a happy sound. "What do we need to do, Rick?"

I began explaining the process. "I'll give you a nanocloud synaptic scanning function. It will load itself into your nanocloud if you've the resources, and start scanning your brain. All you need to do is think about your experiences with imprinting, how it made you feel, how it makes you feel if applicable, whether you've ever had a bad experience with imprinting, say if you imprinted on someone you wished you hadn't, and how diferent your interactions were with people you imprinted with, both before and after you realised you had imprinted."

"You think it would help if you did the same with me?" Philippe volunteered.

I gaped at him. "I hadn't realised you were willing!" I finally exclaimed. "But yes, that would be wonderful, thank you!"

"What about Ev?" Amélie asked.

"What about her?" I was puzzled.

"How do we get her synaptic map?"

That was a good question. "I can code the function to perform a remote scan of her brain. One of you can deploy it, but you'll need to have an excuse to touch her to make it work, both before and after it's done its magic, and somehow you'll need to make sure she talks about her experiences. Once you have that data, the function should pop up an alert to let you know it's done, and you can come back to me to offload the data."

"Did you understand any of that?!" Amélie asked Philippe, who nodded. "Good, because I'm just a wolf-child who doesn't really understand how her nanocloud works."

"What's a nanocloud?" Philippe asked, but before I could explain, he continued. "Oh, it's the name you're calling our clusters of nanites. Never mind. Much easier to say though, isn't it? Anyway. I can explain it to Amélie in a way she will have no trouble with, so how about you transfer the function my way first, then send it to her straight after I've had a chance to do the same?"

I shrugged, reaching for his wrist, which he presented to me so I could grip it. The second I did, my nanocloud got to work.

Connecting... Handshake established.

Transferring nanocloud function synaptic_scan_a0.01_elf through host-to-host contact.

Transfer complete.

Once that was done, Philippe nodded, turned immediately to Amélie, and spoke. "Alright, beau chiot. This is actually a lot easier than you think it is. Paw?"

Amélie groused, looking at Philippe with a glare of fleeting annoyance, but she took his hand anyway. A very brief blank look came over her, then they both released their grip on each other, Amélie turning back to look at me again.

"That's easy to understand," she said, offering her hand to me. "I'll need a copy from you now," she added.

I complied, my nanocloud repeating the process I'd established with Philippe earlier. "Anything you're not clear on?"

"Nope," Amélie replied cheerfully. "Leave Ev to me. For now, let's get started on our own maps. Cool?"

"Cool by me," Philippe said with a wry smile.

For the next hour or so, we went through a series of repeated activities. Both Amélie and Philippe ran through some mental exercises that were intended to stimulate their synaptic pathways. First, they thought of their lives growing up, then they thought of significant moments in their lives where they met influential people, of all stripes. Then they narrowed that down to important people in their current lives, parents, cousins, anyone who was an influence in who they currently are. Finally, they narrowed it down to significant others, such as each other, as well as their third partner Caitlynne. Amélie also told me that she also thought of Eveline during the exercise; regardless of how Eveline saw her, Amélie admitted to me that she had long ago imprinted Eveline's personality.

After reciting some key moments in their lives with said people that were the subject of their imprinting, as well as some people they notably never imprinted against, I then had their nanoclouds transfer that data back to me, where my own nanocloud parsed the data and refined the function code, sending it back to Amélie.

"My nanocloud managed to parse a lot of that data pretty quickly to determine what it needs next," I told her, as my nanocloud completed sending the updated code to her own. "The updated synapse function has a better idea what to look for. All you need to do now, is get Ev to think of some different memories to do with her imprinting. Find a way to trigger those memories, even if it's only for a moment, and keep a physical hold on her all the time you do. The data will be collected quickly, and then you can get it back to me when you're done."

Amélie nodded, and while she was no longer bounding around like an excited teenager after too many energy drinks, she was still very friendly and warm. It was a pleasant experience to have this kind of person as a friend, and I felt that I was lucky that Eveline had Amélie in her life.

Eveline appeared shortly after we concluded our exercises, becoming immediately suspicious.

"You're both here," she commented, her tone a combination of wary and weary. "Why are you here?"

"We came to see you-" Amélie began in a cheerful tone, but was cut off.

"You cowardly piss-stain!" Eveline rounded on me immediately, her face contorting into rage. "You had them come meet me to take me back home, didn't you?! You wanted me gone so badly that you had to get my father's people involved to come take me back!"

I was so astonished by the accusation, by such a quick surge of hostility and anger, by the sudden loss of temper, that I had no words. Thankfully, Amélie intervened. "EVELINE!" She yelled, far louder and more aggressively than I'd anticipated she would. "MERDE! GET A GRIP!"

I looked between them both. Eveline glaring like she wanted to murder Amélie, who looked furious. Neither said anything, and Philippe stood where he was, apparently unfazed by this scene, his face a picture of serenity. How he could remain so calm in the face of such naked aggression, I didn't know.

Eveline looked back to me. "If you really despise-"

"Eveline," Amélie growled, her expression becoming fierce. "If you don't fucking listen to me right now, I swear to you on my mother's life, right here and now, that I'll walk away and never speak to you again."

Eveline snapped her head back to Amélie, her expression collapsing from fury to horrified fear, and she started to shake her head in denial. "Please, don't-"

"We're not here to take you back," Amélie interrupted her, the soft tone she used far more gentle than anyone I'd ever heard. "I promise you we're not."

Philippe stepped around the two women, standing near me. "Come," he said to me, tilting his head toward a nearby marketplace. "Let's give these two some time to catch up."

In a few minutes, I found myself alone with Philippe, my nerves feeling somewhat frayed. How he could look so calm in the face of Eveline's almost instantaneous accusatory stance, and Amélie's openly ferocious and completely uncharacteristic response, I couldn't begin to guess.

"So, how about that?" Philippe laughed. "I told you Amélie was the real Alpha in our pack!"

"I'm astonished," I admitted. "She's always been pleasant to me."

"She likes you," he said with a smile. "She only goes ferocious wolf when she feels threatened, when a loved one gets hurt, or when one of her friends treats another unfairly." I was at a loss for words. Thankfully, Philippe was not. "I do find it curious though, how Eveline doesn't want to leave you behind."

"You're not the only one," I managed to say. "Honestly, with the frosty reception I've gotten from her since day one, and with her open dislike of me as a person since I made some... Admittedly poor decisions... I would have thought a part of her would be relieved at the idea that I would try to get friends of hers to come escort her home."

Philippe shook his head, that look of serene calm never wavering. "If she genuinely disliked you as a person, she would have jumped on the opportunity to leave and come back with us," he said quietly, looking back in the direction of the marketplace. "I know enough of her promise to her parents to know that she would have effectively called it fulfilled back in Berlin."

"You do?" I asked, somewhat surprised. "How?"

"When Amélie approached Eveline's father on the topic of journeying to Hamburg to meet you, he explained to us that Eveline had told him prior to meeting you in Berlin, that she wanted to extend her service to you beyond Berlin."

"What?!" I was astonished. Why would Eveline want to do that? I understood from our conversation back in Berlin, that she considered it critical to continue accompanying me on this journey of ours, but she never did explain her reasons, nor did I ask. Part of that was selfishness on my part; I wanted her to journey further with me, and asking awkward questions, or trying to pick apart any explanation she offered might have resulting in her changing her mind about the journey with me. "The fact that she was openly and nakedly aggressive at the suggestion you didn't want her around is very telling."

Indeed it was, I thought to myself. "I don't understand it, though," I sighed as I explained. "I- She doesn't trust me, that much is clear."

"Forgive me," Philippe said, coughing delicately. "But can you honestly blame her for that?"

"No," I readily admitted. "But that just makes it even more puzzling why she wants to stick around."

"My guess?" He asked, and I nodded for him to carry on. "She wants to see if you can redeem yourself in her eyes. Maybe see if you can impress her in some way. Perhaps give her a reason to overcome her fear of imprinting on another... Even though she will consciously fight you for every tiniest iota of her trust and respect."

Philippe tilted his head slightly, as one of his ears twitched for a moment, but the look of serenity on his face never wavered. Instead, a slight smile touched his lips for a moment, just a few seconds later. "Yup," he said under his breath.

"What?" I asked, curious.

"Amélie is getting her to talk," he told me. "Come. Let's get to know more about each other. I think your imprinting project is inspiring, and I've a good feeling it will work better than any of us expects."

Amélie found us later that evening, propping up a local tavern after having had a few ales, her expression one of amused tolerance. Eveline was also there, though her expression was irritated, her tail twitching occasionally, as she kept giving me sidelong glances.

"You're in the dog house," Philippe said in a low tone in my direction, laughing as he hugged Amélie to his side.

Eveline was not amused. "You thought this was a good idea?" She asked me pointedly. "Remember Dortmund?"

I laughed. "I don't see anyone throwing themselves at my feet," I quipped.

"Why would they?" She couldn't resist an insult, apparently.

"Exactly," I retorted, giving her the biggest shit-eating grin I could, as I headed toward the exit. It was time I headed to get some sleep. "I think I'm safe tonight."

Everyone else seemed to decide that this was a good moment to depart as well. Amélie stood, then hugged Eveline from behind, apparently irritating the feline woman. Eveline gave Amélie a glare in response, but even I didn't miss the lingering grip on Amélie's forearm where she had it wrapped around Eveline's shoulders. Amélie gave me a broad wink when she noticed I was looking but Eveline couldn't see her face.

So, even though she liked to pretend otherwise, Eveline had a soft side, after all?

"Philippe and I have a long journey back tomorrow, so we're going to call it a night," Amélie told Eveline. "It was good to see you again, Ev." She then let her go and bounded over to me, giving me the tightest hug I'd received in a long time, whispering in my ear. "Treat her well, my friend. I promise you she's worth the effort."

Amélie playing match-maker seemed to be a fools errand, given Eveline really didn't seem to like me. That instant though, I was distracted by the notification of two incoming data streams from Amélie's nanocloud, so I instructed my own nanocloud to process them and store them for later analysis, and by then, I'd forgotten to make any quips about what Amélie had just said to me.

She had bounded off to stand by Philippe's side. "Come on, fuzzball," she laughed at him. "Let's go get some sleep."

"Yeah, right," Eveline said sourly, her expression seeming to be irritated bordering on angry, but did I notice there was a hint of amusement underneath it all? "Sleep. Sure!"

"Sure," Philippe quipped. "We didn't say it would be right away, did we?"

Amélie grinned widely. "We didn't!" She then pinched Philippe's tail, setting it wagging, a grin on his face. "Come along! I want to play!"

With that, the two lovers walked along the road, leaving Eveline and I standing there. My nanocloud alerted me with a couple of messages about processing the three synaptic maps I'd downloaded, but I ignored them for now. My head was slightly sore, even though I'd made sure to limit my already light drinking to keep from losing too much of my judgment.

"Good night, Eveline," I told her in a soft, hopefully disarming tone of voice, intending to head back to the hotel.

"Rick," she called out, much more softly than I'd ever heard her speak, her head hanging, her hand held up, a look of contrition on her face. "I overreacted earlier today..." She paused, clearly struggling with what she wanted to say.

I saved her the trouble. "Thank you," I told her, eliciting a frown. "I can't imagine that any of what's happening right now is easy for you. Thank you for trying to make amends..." I paused, choosing my words carefully. Regardless of my feelings about being treated like I was untrustworthy, it didn't matter. I'd earned this treatment. I needed to make it up to her, even if it was frustrating at times, I knew I had to bite the bullet and just accept it. I added "Even though it's me who should be apologising for everything I've put you through."

"Fuck," Eveline exhaled, her palms rubbing her eyes in apparent frustration. The next moment, she looked up at me, her expression smouldering. "Stop being so fucking submissive all the time!"

That complaint sobered me up immediately. "I know what I did-" I began.

"Yeah, I know what you did as well," she snapped at me, her face mirroring anger, hurt, exasperation. "But everyone has their limits. I'm angry. I'm very fucking angry. I sometimes want to cut your balls off."

"Isn't that a little extreme?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes!" She snapped. "Yes, Rick! Exactly! It's very extreme, Rick! Very fucking extreme, and no-one in their right mind would stand for it. So I wonder why you're letting me push you so much?"

"What the fuck, Ev?" i asked, confusion and exasperation welling within me. "I'm trying to make it right-"

"You're just making it worse!" Her voice was becoming a shriek.

"What the fuck do you want from me, Ev?" I retorted, my voice raising in volume.

"THAT!" She shouted back. "That's what I want from you! For you to stand up for yourself! You think that walking around on eggshells and just taking what's thrown at you, no matter how cruel or insane, is the way to earn my respect or trust?" I was stunned silent when she started openly sobbing. This was so outside of my experience of Eveline, it threw my mind into chaos.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, waving my arm in her direction as she hiccupped. "One day you shout at me for defending myself, the next you try to berate me for just listening to you. One minute you're roaring at me because I'm apparently doing everything wrong under the sun, the next you're in floods. How the fuck am I supposed to know what to do here? How am I supposed to-"

"Just be honest with me!"

"I'm trying!"

"I mean about your feelings! You're angry that I'm giving you hell for what happened in Dortmund? Tell me! I already know, you reek of angry hormones, and you being all head down sorry-I-hurt you just tells me you can't be honest about how much this is-"

"Fuck this!" I snapped. "You see? I can't win with you! I defend myself, you'll find fault with that, tell me I have no right to be pissed at you for throwing my past in my face. I shut the fuck up, that's wrong as well! This is a head fuck, Ev! I don't need it! I can't deal-"

"So tell me that-"

"What the fuck does it sound like I'm doing, right now?!" I hissed. That stopped her cold, not only her tirade, but also her emotional outburst. "What do you fucking think I'm doing right now, when I'm telling you that this is a mind fuck? Eveline, what you're doing with all these confusing messages and lack of explanations? The angry outbursts? This is abuse. Putting someone in a position where they feel they have no choice but to capitulate to every last fucking unreasonable expectation you set for them, and then to blow up in their face just because they didn't do it in exactly the way you expected but never even bothered to tell them about?! That's the sort of thing I had to deal with in not only my so-called parents, but in previous relationships. You've literally told me that on the one hand, I need to stand up for myself, and then become furious with me when I finally do it. You tried to fucking kill me, Ev, for fuck sakes!"

"I was never going to hurt you-" She protested, but I cut her off.

"How would I possibly have ever known that?!" I yelled in frustration. "You had me pinned to the ground, Ev!" I took another breath. "Pinned! With your claws out and teeth bared! Yeah, I said some mean shit that made you furious with me, but you upset me by berating me for trying to do what I thought was right, after having given me the silent treatment for two days, and even now, you still refuse to speak to me about what had happened in Dortmund!" I was letting the anger get to me, so I instructed my nanocloud to dampen my fight-or-flight response so I could get a grip. "You want me to defend myself? You want me to fucking argue my case, even knowing you'll hate me for it? Fine!" I was beginning to feel the endorphins flooding my system, producing a calming effect on me, as I took deep breaths to get myself back under control. "I know I fucked up, Ev. I know I have to put it right, but you getting on my back because you don't think I'm handling it the way you think I should? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to have you tell me how to fucking behave. That's my business. I try to be mindful of your needs, your own way of doing things. Have the decency to pay me the same respect, alright?"

Surprisingly, Eveline's expression slowly revealed something I never expected to see.

A tiny flicker of respect.

"Keep doing that," she said softly, wiping her eyes, sniffling once more. "I'm trying to get past what happened. Standing up for yourself, even if I don't like it, that's how you earn my respect."

I didn't want to leave it at this awkward and wierdly-achieved understanding. "I really do mean it when I say I'll do what I have to, to make it right," I told her, hoping it was the right thing to do.

She let out an exasperated sigh, but then, she looked at me with a forlorn expression. "I want to believe you," she said, but apparently could not continue.

"One day, maybe," was all I said. "Good night, Ev."

"Good night, Rick."

While I lay in bed later that night, I found I had trouble sleeping. That weird dispute earlier in the night had affected me deeply, and not just because it was one of the more bizarre altercations I'd gotten into. Something about how Eveline was treating me lately, was telling me that she was deliberately pushing me to see how much I was prepared to put up with, and yet at the same time, she had also been upset at me for not pushing back, even though I had yet to reach my limit.

It was bizarre. I realised I had no idea how her mind worked.

There was a knock at the door, loud enough to make me jump.

"Who is it?" I called out.

"Amélie," a soft voice sounded from the other side of the door.

What she was doing at my room at this time of night, I couldn't guess. Still, I imagined it was important enough that I should probably address it. I got out of bed, threw on a robe, and unlocked the door. "This is unexpected," I greeted her.

For the first time since we'd met, Amélie was not particularly cheerful. "Sorry to disturb you this evening," she began. "I've just been to see Eveline, and she's in something of a panic."

I frowned, feeling a slight anxiety build-up. "What's wrong? Is she alright? Did something-"

"Slow down," Amélie interrupted, putting a gentle hand on my chest. "This reaction is reassuring to me, if anything, but let me tell you why I'm here, and we'll talk."

I invited her in, and we both sat on the edge of my bed. Amélie let out a sigh as she looked toward the door. "It's rare that Eveline and I become confrontational."

I couldn't say whether or not this was the case, having only known these two women for a few weeks, and Amélie, I'd only ever had a few hours' interaction with, at best. Still, I nodded. "I imagine you normally function well?"

"Mostly, and on the few occasions I've had to rein her in, my bark usually is enough to put a stop to any tirade she's having." She paused, then looked toward me. "Today was the first time I had to threaten to stop speaking to her, and that's not an easy thing to think about, for her or for me."

Not wishing to speculate, I instead simply asked "why did it have to go so far, this time?"

"I'm not sure what to tell you," Amélie told me dejectedly. "I have to balance the need for you to know enough about Ev that you'll be willing to take her on this journey of yours regardless of how she behaves around you, with honouring the trust she's placed in me by not telling you anything she isn't ready to accept herself, let alone discuss with you."

My head was beginning to hurt again. "I have no idea what any of that means," I sighed, striving for patience. "All I know is that she went off at me-"

"It's alright Rick, Philippe and I heard every word of your discussion earlier."

I nodded, feeling dejected. "Right," I eventually spoke.

"She's worried that you'll get tired of her... Volatile moods," Amélie sighed as she spoke. "In the heat of the moment, she felt the need to vent, to get her frustrations out, to make it clear that you shouldn't pussy-foot..." Amélie realised that she'd made a pun, and giggled. "Excuse me! Anyway, she wants you to stand up for yourself. It's not like she wanted to change who you are. All she wants is for you to be yourself, to acknowledge her feelings but not to change yourself if you don't feel like you should."

"I get it," I said into the silence that followed. "The problem is, I don't really know who she is. Is she the disdainful hard-nosed deadly-assassin that I've seen fight against every person that attacks me, is she the hostile, human-hating arsehole she showed me when we left Dortmund, or is she the frightened, worried, distressed young person who wants something she's too afraid to ask me for?"

Amélie's expression grew somewhat angered. I realised that she was feeling protective of Eveline, and I could understand it. "Rick, we spoke about this already! She doesn't hate humans, and that's one of the things she's really angry about, where you're concerned. That accusation cut her deep, and it's still fucking with her mind."

I raised both hands in surrender. "Amelie, look. I didn't mean to imply that she really is racist with respect to the human species. All I meant was, that was the impression she gave off on a number of occasions before Dortmund that, frankly, might lead anyone who doesn't know her, including me, to the idea that she wasn't exactly fond of them. Hell, even the one time I saw her talking with her parents before she set off, she could barely hug them-"

"Stop!" Amélie cut me off, but her expression held understanding. "I guess I can't really blame you for thinking that way, knowing as little about her as you do, but Rick, she hates being affectionate unless it's on her terms. She loves her parents. They made her the person she is today, they gave her a sense of independence, made her feel like her decisions matter, not just to them, but to our entire community, made sure she knew how to fight without going into a frenzy. She would do just about anything for them." She paused, her lips thinning as she seemed to think over her next words. "Eveline giving them a hug that's barely worthy of the name conveys more to me than any fawning, yet meaningless gesture from some people I've met over the years."

"You really care about her, don't you?" I asked, though it was more statement than question.

I wasn't really surprised to see Amélie's eyes grow misted with tears, nor hear the whine that followed, before she spoke again. "She's like a sister to me, Rick." I felt my own eyes burn up at that admission. Not only did it make me burn with shame at the feeling that I might have been unfair to Eveline, but it brought to mind my own sister once again. "Hey! What is it?" She suddenly asked, concerned.

I had to hold it together. There had already been too much emotional outpouring for one night, so I took a deep breath and calmed myself before answering. "I was just thinking of my own sister."

Amélie looked sidelong at me, gently wiping her eyes, before offering a polite query. "She is well?"

"Honestly, I've no clue," I sighed, swallowing the lump forming in my throat. "I haven't seen her since before the outbreak. For all I know, she might be..."

I couldn't finish that sentence. Despite how everything had changed, the idea that my younger sister was no longer alive was just too fucking painful for me to contemplate, and my mind refused to even consider it.

"Tell me about her?" Amélie asked, her tone soft, gentle.

So, I told her everything. I told her how we grew up together, how we had been close throughout our lives, how we had managed to remain close despite only ever being able to speak occasionally in the later years of our old lives, and how I hadn't had a chance to keep her updated on my activities in the Synergy project before the world changed. Amélie was a wonderful listener, and she ran the gamut of emotions that empathised with the happy and sad times I recounted. We spent nearly an hour on that conversation, and by the time I had finished, I found myself missing Dani's steadfast presence, her way of being able to put things into perspective when I needed someone to check my own thinking.

"In some ways, your Dani was similar to me, while you are much like Eveline," Amélie told me, to my surprise. "At least when it comes to the sibling dynamic."

"Yeah, I understand," I smiled, feeling a sense of nostalgia for the last time my sister had helped me, during the time my relationship had come to an end. "I'd really love to understand Ev a lot better."

"I know," Amélie told me gently. "Persevere, Rick. You won't regret it."

I sincerely hoped that would be the case, with what would no doubt be a difficult and exasperating journey over the next however many weeks. "Does she know you're here?"

"She does," Amélie sighed. "She wasn't happy with me choosing to intervene, but Philippe and I convinced her that it would be better, considering the tension between the two of you tonight."

Yeah, that's putting it mildly, I thought. "Tell her..." I stopped, not knowing what I should say, except that I wasn't about to abandon her or deliberately cast her away. The reality was that I had far too much I wanted to say, and not all of it was advisable right now. "I... Shit," I sighed. "Amélie, I wanna fix this but I don't know what to say."

"It's alright," she told me. "Leave that to me." Amélie stood and stretched her limbs with a yawn. It seemed that she agreed this seemed like a natural place to end our discussion. "I know Ev well enough to know that she appreciates your efforts more than she lets on... And while she would probably tear strips off of my fur and skin for doing this," Amélie stepped toward me and wrapped her arms around me in a firm, close hug. "Just pretend that I'm Ev for a minute."

For a full minute, Amélie held me close, squeezing me tight, burying her head in the curve of my neck and letting out a sigh. Without realising it, I spoke. "I really wish this was Ev."

A few moments later, Amélie let me go, slowly, stepping back, but not before she gave my face a gentle stroke. It was a surreal experience for me, as though Eveline, by proxy, was trying to tell me something. I just went with it, allowing myself to relax.

And then it was over.

"Sleep well, Rick," Amélie told me softly as she stepped back toward the door. "I'm sure Ev will be back sometime in the night, so expect her to bang on your door, all irritated and wanting to go off on her morning hunt!" The last she said with a wink, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Thanks Amélie," I replied, feeling lighter. "I didn't realise how much I needed this."

"Anytime," she said in a whisper, before leaving the room.

I woke up the next morning to a firm knock on the door. My nanocloud had managed to minimise the effects of my drinking the night before, so I felt relatively fresh and clean. It was as well, because the knocking became insistent. When I opened the door, it was Eveline, and as usual, she looked irritated.

"About time you were up," she barked with her usual disdain. "Anyway-"

"Yeah yeah," I interrupted her, causing her jaw to drop in surprise and outrage. "You're off on your hunt, I need to be ready to leave as soon as you get back, meet up at the cafe we visited yesterday, blah blah blah."

She blinked in surprise, her lips thinning in displeasure. "Yeah, that was about right."

"Good to know I can be right sometimes," I muttered, surprising myself at how thorny I was being this morning. "I'll meet you there. I need to take care of a few things in the meantime."

Eveline narrowed her eyes in anger, but she said nothing, choosing instead to walk away, leaving me to get myself together. Perhaps I was slightly hungover after all?

Host sodium levels below optimal threshold.

Host electrolyte balance is sub-optimal.

Host is dehydrated.

Recommend ingestion of water.

Recommend intake of salt products.

I knew now never to go against the recommendations of my nanocloud, so I decided to grab fruit juice and an energy bar from the cafe we were to meet.

While waiting for Eveline to get back, I decided to work on planning the next leg of my journey. The goal was clear; I had to get to the Watson research facility in New York, get access to the server clusters, and find out which of them stored Synergy's data sets, get what I could pertaining to the nanocloud and the project itself, then get out and decide what to do next.

How I was getting to New York was the real issue.

There was a freight terminal on the other side of the city centre, directly adjoining a waterway route out to the North Sea and then onto the Atlantic. From there, freighters travelled to various locations around the western world, even in the post-outbreak civilisations I now found myself among. It meant that I had a few options.

The first was a freighter due to leave in three weeks, bound for Manhattan. It would get me almost to my goal in a month, but I would end up cooling my heels in Hamburg for a while, with a skittish Eveline.

The second was due to leave tonight, and would take us to Iceland, where we would then take a connecting ferry to the Canadian mainland. It meant a longer sea crossing in total, plus a trek through close to two thousand kilometres of Canadian and US wilderness to get there. However, it was an option. The amount of time we would need to trek through Nova Scotia, then Toronto, then Massachusetts and New York State, made me wonder which would take longer to get me to IBM Watson in New York State.

It was a close call.

Amélie helped me to make that decision when she saw me almost thirty minutes after I arrived at the cafe. According to her, there was a stop that Laurent wanted me to make near Quebec City, though the details were sketchy, but Amélie advised me to take the journey via Reykjavik, then once we landed in Canada, we were to call Laurent for the details, at which point he would advise me of the person I was to meet, what I needed to do with the people I met there, and what I would get as compensation for any lost time I'd incurred on my journey.

I didn't care about compensation. I was travelling around the world, albeit on a mission that meant I had little time for sightseeing, but I didn't worry about what I could get out of it other than the experience of doing something I'd never really gotten a chance to do in my old life.

Eventually, Eveline returned from her morning excursion in the local woodland, and the time came to say our farewells. Amélie gave me a tight hug, as had become her custom. Philippe had clasped my shoulder in a manly gesture of camaraderie, grinning widely as he nodded to me, and then he and I waited.

"See you again soon, Rick," Amélie told me, her canine grin and hoarse laugh only slightly marred by the sniffle she let loose, but she braved the moment and dashed her eyes the next, before turning to Eveline. "And you?"

"You know I hate this shit," Eveline groused, her tone a mixture of flat disinterest and rough emotion.

I wasn't stupid. She clearly wanted to be herself in this moment, and it was Amélie that she was bidding farewell, so I looked over at Philippe, who nodded, and we started walking to the exit.

"Hey!" Eveline called out, her voice sounding outraged. "Where are you going?"

"I need to ask Rick for something," Philippe covered quickly. "We'll be back in a few minutes."

That few minutes was spent waiting outside the now empty cafe, while Amélie and Eveline were left to say a proper farewell. I saw nothing of what happened, and I suspected that if they could see me, Eveline would continue to put on that disinterested and aloof front of hers. Philippe had been right to choose to get out of the line of their sight, the cafe was now empty, and the street was practically deserted.

"My friend," Philippe said to me in the moment we waited. "I hope to see you again soon."

"Me too," I agreed wholeheartedly. Philippe was clearly a good character and a mellowing presence. "Next time I'm in Eindhoven, I'll look you guys up."

Philippe contented himself with a nod, his expression sobering. Then, in a moment that came out of nowhere, he tilted his head sideways, an ear twitching and swivelling back around in the direction of the cafe entrance. I couldn't hear what he heard, but Philippe's slow smile told me what I guessed was happening.

"That's my girl," he spoke with a smile. "Knows exactly how to get Eveline to open up."

What I wouldn't do to have the same skill, I thought sadly.

The next moment, the two women stepped out. Eveline looked more annoyed than usual, and Amélie had a satisfied smirk, as she stepped next to Philippe, took his hand, and the two turned around and walked west-south-west, along a side street. I saw in my periphery the look of longing in Eveline's expression and tracked her eye line to where Amélie's hand was nestled in Philippe's big paw, and then she caught me watching, her expression darkening in an instant.

"Don't get any ideas," she snapped, storming off down an opposing street.

Wouldn't dream of it, I said to myself.