I held Lia’s hand while she got disinfected and stitched up. We owned no painkillers of any kind, certainly not local anesthetic, so she just had to grit and bear it. She winced as the needle went in and out of her thigh, but didn’t cry out. I was proud of her.

“Anyway, in Vegas you made a lot of money and a new identity. Guess you eventually found what you were looking for and came out here?” I was curious, but also wanted to take her mind off her surgery.

“Not quite but yeah,” Lia said, wincing. “At the end, I still had a handful of locations where you could be. Pretty sure all of them are like this, places where the XPCA dumps Exhumans they have no idea what else to do with and can’t keep restrained. The only way I could dig up that information was to get it from the XPCA, or someone affiliated with them, like the Hunters Association, and contacting either of them seemed like a terrible idea.”

“Probably the worst idea ever.”

So I went with option B, the hard way. I hired a guy, professional covert intelligence agent, nickname Taglock, to physically visit each zone and figure out which one you were in.

“Oh, our sneaky guest,” AEGIS said, diligently driving the surgery robot.

“You met him?”

“Only barely. He was a slippery one, and smart, too,” AEGIS said absently, focused on her work. “We had a little fun with cat and mouse and then he vanished about the time Athan finished recovering, so I didn’t know what happened.”

“That sounds like him all right. I guess he found you because he took these…” she reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a small holo, tapped a few buttons and brought pictures of me up. I was still in my old clothes, leaning heavily on Karu’s arm on our little date while I was still in recovery. The thought of Taglock, or even Lia spying on us then made my stomach turn.

It got worse as she flipped through the pictures, us having a snowball fight, her playfully boxing at me. The fact that I was leaning on her in almost every picture made me look clingy and coupley in a way I knew just wasn’t true.

“Uh, that’s Karu,” I said to Lia. “She’s the hunter. Tried to kill me, found out I wasn’t so bad, we became friends.”

“You guys seem close.”

“Not that close, in those pictures I was still wounded and could hardly walk on my own, so I was leaning on her, not…attached to her.”

“Sure, bro.” She put away the holo and I felt hot and cold at the same time. “Taglock brought me the evidence and after that I just came out here looking for you. Didn’t think I could send anyone else I trusted, and trusting Taglock was already a huge risk I didn’t want to take.”

“Why’d you trust him? Why not just throw some credits at him and have him go?” AEGIS asked.

“Because I was allegedly an omniscient infopath Exhuman.”

AEGIS looked confused so I just pointed at Lia and mouthed ‘Black Shark.’

“Someone with that kind of power doesn’t need to hire people like Taglock, so I did it as myself. Thought it was less suspicious having a girl looking for her brother than an Exhuman infopath who should already know where he is. Obviously suspicious I had the money to hire him, but what was I gonna do?”

“I don’t know. You already did so much more than I would have been able to,” I laughed.

“Oh, don’t be like that. You’ve been out here, fixing AIs, making friends with bounty hunters, fighting bears…you’ve done tons of cool stuff, I’m actually kind of jealous.”

“And I’m kind of jealous of you not having to fight to survive every day, not battling for your life against a bunch of crazies, and having tons of power and resources.”

“And also not having to deal with bears,” AEGIS added. I nodded.

“Well, it’s later, and I’ve still got to sit here with my leg–”

“Actually, you’re all done,” AEGIS said, applying a pad and winding it in place with some improvised bandages. “Try to take it easy or it’ll re-open. And do NOT engage any more bears.”

“Thanks, I’ll try. I was gonna say, you should tell me all the stuff that’s happened since you left.”

“I guess I can try,” I said. “So like, right from the beginning? I guess I’d better start some dinner, we’ll be here for a while.”

AEGIS had brought the bear outside and I started a fire. Never had bear meat, but there was a ton of it, and I wouldn’t waste a kill, so that was going to be most of what I ate for a while. While I worked at skinning, butchering, and cooking the poor animal, Lia watched with intense curiosity and we talked about everything that had happened to me so far.

How the standoff had ended at home. How I’d inadvertently destroyed an entire XPCA prison. About Blackett and his insane attempts to kill me. About the soldiers in the VTOL who dumped me out here trying to shoot me, and me dodging gunfire to try to save their lives, not mine. Finding The Bunker, finding AEGIS, Saga’s games, Karu’s threats, Wynn and Tate’s stories.

Finally we were almost caught up. We got to the events of the last month, and I hesitated, looking at the silent DOG-Es standing by, unable to talk but AEGIS hearing and seeing everything through them.

I didn’t want Lia to misunderstand or hate AEGIS for what she’d done, but this was also Lia, my sister, and I couldn’t keep secrets from her.

So as gently and understandingly as I could, I explained how AEGIS had been compelled by her original programming to kill me and had been able to rebel against it and save my life. Lia grew more and more nervous as the story went on, even shifting to the other side of the fire to keep the DOG-Es in view while I talked.

“And you still trust this machine?”

“I do. She had every possible chance to kill me just by doing nothing, and instead she did everything.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I get that but…you were only like that because she did that to you in the first place.”

“Lia, you remember in fourth grade when you thought it would be funny to hit me on the back of the head while I was drinking out of the water fountain?”

“Yeah,” she said, a little crestfallen. “But–”

“I still have that chipped tooth, and I always will. Does that mean I should never let you stand behind me ever again?”

“It’s not the same. She knew exactly what she was trying to do, I was just messing around.”

“It is the same because you’re never going to do that again and neither is she. You guys…everyone messes up. And so you learn how not to mess up in the future. AEGIS is now implicitly one of the people I trust most, because unlike pretty much everyone else in the world, she had my life completely in her hands and did everything she could to save it. Even you…I know you would, obviously, but she’s already proven it.”

“That makes sense. But she’s also an AI, they don’t behave the same as people do.”

“She’s as human as anyone else I’ve ever met. Maybe even moreso. Whatever you decide is up to you, but whatever I decide is up to me, too.”

Lia looked lost, staring into the scorpion-tail camera of the DOG-E with the red light. I didn’t know what she was thinking.

“What’s on your mind, spiker?”

“Don’t call me that. I hated that nickname, and that was before Dad started hitting me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just…I feel like I spent the whole time you were gone trying to hold onto you. Like, at first, when everything went to lizards, you, or the memory of you was all I had. And then I was lost in a new city, but I had you to work towards and that kept me going. Then I became Black Shark, and had to keep reminding myself I was doing this all for you, but I never let it go. And now I’m here…and I feel like you have this whole life without me.”

She kicked at a rock and glowered. “It sound stupid and selfish, but I spent all this time getting here, and now I don’t even know why I’m here.”

“Oh Lia,” I said, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her in. “I thought about you all the time. I even blew myself up with a bomb on accident because I was distracted thinking about you.”

“What!?”

“Yeah, I glazed over that one, sorry. Still okay!” I said, giving her a silly flexing pose to show off how still okay I was. She looked mad. Perhaps not the right time to joke around.

“What I mean is…I can’t go back. Conditions of my exile and the XPCA leaving me alone and stuff. I had assumed–had hoped–that you still had a normal life with your friends and Mom and Dad and would go off and have a great life without me.”

“You idiot,” she said, and I felt hot tears fall on my leg. “I missed you, how could I not?”

“I thought you were like Mom and Dad actually, and you hated me. That’s why I kept you out of my mind as much as I did, because thinking of the last time I saw you, with tears in your eyes and an apron on, making breakfast for everyone…after seeing how Mom and Dad reacted, I couldn’t approach you. If you’d turned me away like they did…”

I felt hot tears on my own cheeks now too. “It would have broken me, Lia. So I ran instead, but always wondered what you would have said or done if I had stayed another second.”

“I would have told you I loved you, dumb brother.” The DOG-Es plodded away to give us more privacy. I imagined AEGIS crying all over her terminal at us and had to laugh a little. “I would have offered you a pancake, because…I just made them.” She hiccuped and her breathing was ragged.

“And I would have really appreciated that because it was a really long day and I was hungry for most of it.” We laughed even as we cried.

We spent most of the next hour laughing and crying. Our emotional states were so devastated that any stupid little thing would set us off, and our faces and sides ached as we leaned on each others shoulders, watching the fire burn out and the moon rise into the cloud-streaked sky.

Lia buried a hand under my shirt for warmth like she’d done so many times while we were kids and I yelped and swatted at the freezing intruder. She just held on and laughed and soon we were wrestling, and then both sweaty and panting on the ground, exhausted from wrestling like idiots.

I served us both another helping of bear and put more bear and more wood on the fire. It would last a lot longer cooked and salted than raw, so I had to cook as much as I could now before it went bad. To my surprise, Lia pulled out a flask, black like the rest of her ensemble, and took a couple deep swigs, finishing with a satisfied gasp as she refilled her lungs.

“Want some?” she asked, handing it over. I took the flask and sniffed it. Smelled like cough suppressant medicine.

“It’s…what is it?” I asked.

“Vodka,” she said with a wink. Was she starting to sway a little already?

“Uh, no thanks. When did you start drinking? Aren’t you…only fifteen?”

“My roommates turned me onto it. So nice, after stressing and thinking all day just to be able to turn it off, you know? You should try it, honest.”

“I’m fine, thanks. Doesn’t that sound a little bit like alcoholism?”

“Meh.” She had another drink. “I’ve never done anything stupid or gotten really piss-drunk, so it seems fine to me.”

“I guess that’s what it’s there for.” This was totally new and unexpected, but I guess I couldn’t expect Lia to be the same person I’d always known, just because I left. Still, at fifteen. I was eighteen (and therefore legal), and I’d never touched a sip, always thought I had to be on my A-game, didn’t want to lose my scholarship or play badly because I was hungover. Being a popular athlete, I had tons of chances and always turned them down, always worried about my future.

A future which never came.

“You know, I think I will try it,” I said. Lia gave a small cheer and handed it over.

“It’s not there for the taste, you just gotta swallow it,” she said. I nodded and took a big gulp like she did, and choked, almost spraying it all over the fire. I clapped the palm of my hand over my mouth and held it for a few moments before I could finally swallow.

“Bah, nasty,” I said. Lia laughed.

“Better than my first time. There was this guy who had a thing for me and he was buying me shots. I thought, it’s such a small amount, how bad could it be? Spit it all over his face.” She giggled and had another swig, then passed it back to me.

Determined and prepared this time, I got it down without issue, but it felt like burning. Why would people drink this stuff? Why was I drinking this stuff? Was I just competing with Lia again? I looked over at her and saw the fire in her eyes and knew she was thinking she was beating me.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” she had another swig, almost too casually.

“On the other hand–” I said, taking it from her again.

At some point, I realized it hit me. I don’t know when, or how, but booze was in my brain. Everything seemed a lot fuzzier and gentler, warmer and happier, like I could just jump in the fire and it’d be like a spa. That thought, and many others, were just hilarious to me, and I informed Lia of such.

Her raucous laughed confirmed that I was, in fact, a comedic genius.

“KNow what I Missed best about you, LIA?” I asked, not sure if she was swaying or me. “You’re not like all the other girls around here. You don’t FLY, your not a robot or an Exhuman. You’re jets a reeeeally good friernd.”

“Ugh, and don’ tget me started on BOYS,” she confided. “I admit Brick was a looser, but that other guy Subaru, he didn’t even run a multimilion dollar shadowy criminal operation. Like c’mon, who’s wearing the pants in this relationship, knowatimean?”

“I know exztctly what you mean. I’m always shooting all this lightning and theother girls are like, not shooting lighting, all the time. What’s up with that?”

“Dude, if we were together, all the time, I could run a multimiliondollar shadowy criminal organizatoin and you can shoot lightning.”

“Holy crap, power couple,” I giggled. “Except I’m the one with the powers.”

“Yeah, that’z not fair!” she said, turning on me and making us both fall over onto the ground. She straddled me and beat on my chest with her fists. “I want powers too, you gota share with me.”

“I’m hot,” she suddenly announced, and threw her hooded cloak off of her with some effort. She laid down on my chest and pressed her slight form up against me.

I couldn’t move but wasn’t sure I wanted to. She was warm and soft and comfy. And I was warm and comfy too. I felt her body rise and fall arrhythmically as it moved up and down with both of us breathing out of synch.

“Missed you so much,” she muttered into my chest, her mess of brown hair tickling my chin.

“Missed you too, Lia,” I said and kissed the top of her head. She made a little happy mumble and just like that the two of us went to sleep under the stars.