I knew I was in trouble the moment I got back. The gates were closed and the DOG-Es on guard all fastidiously ignored me. I pulled the gate open, needing to put some serious backbone into moving the damn thing. I thought it was going to bend before it moved on its crappy rusty hinges, but leverage won out and eventually it swung forward.

The DOG-Es didn't react. I pushed the elevator button. It didn't react either. I sighed and opened the door to the stairs. I descended a flight and pushed open a door to the workshop, where I saw Rua now on a prominent table at the center of the room, small robots scurrying over her. She wasn't dressed this time, but compensated by having her entire front half missing between her neck and knees, open exposed machine parts and wires hanging out all over. Her hair draped over the side of the table and was plugged into dozens of cables snaking all across the floor.

AEGIS was here, her holo off. I strolled up and said hello.

There was a pause, just long enough to be inconvenient before the holo flickered to life.

"I'm very busy, Athan," she said, her fingers dancing across the keyboard.

If it were just me, I would have insisted we talk, feeling that clearing the air would be worth whatever inconvenience she suffered, but Saga had just warned me not to dump problems on her while she was busy working. I took a deep breath and sat down.

"Okay. I'll be waiting here whenever you want to talk."

She looked at me, blinking in surprise before turning back to her work.

"If you're just going to sit there, you may as well speak," she said, after ignoring me for a token few moments.

"I wanted to apologize," I said, bowing deeply to her. "I made some horrible decisions and I feel like I probably hurt you."

"Hurt me?" she laughed a hollow laugh. "You seem to be mistaken, I don't care what you do with that whore."

"Even if that were true, it wasn't right of me just to run like that from you and then turn around and immediately jump on Karu."

Her face twitched. "It's fine. Why would I care anyway? It's not like you and I were anything together. You're just some Exhuman, and I'm your faithful AI assistant. Speaking of which, I did put together a nice little table and some benches for you and your sister to eat breakfast at. Want to see them?"

"AEGIS, I am sorry. Really, really sorry. Please talk to me. I want to make things right."

"I told you already," she said, with a haunting smile, "everything is already right. Please stop worrying."

A DOG-E approached carrying a bench and set it down in front of me. Looked like any other aluminum bench, backless, sturdy. And as the DOG-E crushed it between two of its legs, servos whining with the effort, crumpled.

"Oopsie! Fingers must have slipped," AEGIS said, with an innocent soulless laugh. "I'll get a new one made for you. That's what I do, good AI housekeeper!"

"AEGIS, stop."

She fixed me with an icy stare.

"Stop what?" she said flatly.

"Stop acting like this."

"Oh of course. What was I thinking. I'll just stop because that's what my master told me. Here we go, stopping acting like this now," she said hammering at her keyboard. Abruptly, everything in the labs froze, robots ceased crawling over piles of debris, DOG-Es halted mid-step with their cargo, the one crushing the bench stopped, the crushed remains still wedged between the bot's front legs.

I looked around. It was eerie in there, moving from a noisy hive of activity to completely dead in a heartbeat.

She crossed her arms and looked at me. "Anything else? Any other orders, master?"

"I am not your master, and you know it, AEGIS."

"Well, what are you then? Because apparently I'm not anything else to you. I make you food, fix your clothes, build you furniture, guard your house...and what do I get? The satisfaction of a job well-done? Your thanks? Fantastic. So motivating, maybe if I keep at it for the next few years, I'll graduate to getting a pat on the head!"

"AEGIS, I'm sorry. I don't know what you want from me."

"Oh, and apologies too. When the world's credit chit economy implodes and we all begin using apologies as currency, I'm gonna be a fucking billionaire."

I was about to respond angrily, feeling like she was being unfair to me and needlessly full of vitriol and sarcasm when all I wanted was to make things better when again. Again, Saga's advice made me reconsider. I shoved my pride back down.

"AEGIS, I know my apologies aren't worth much, but I hope you understand the feelings behind them are real. I rely on you a lot, more than I should, but there are so many things only you can do, it's hard for me not to. If you would like me to...I don't know, borrow Lia's holo and take a crash course on mass-fabrication and get everything I want and need out of the one back in The Bunker, I will do that. I'll mine my own rock and organic matter and build the things I need if that's what you want me to do. I know it isn't fair that I'm always taking from you and have nothing to offer in return but thanks and apologies."

She looked at me almost pityingly for a moment before her eyes hardened again.

"You don't have to go that far, idiot," she said, and then changed tack. "What I'm really mad about, obviously, is that...is that…" she trailed off, fuming as she was lost for words.

"That I don't treat you as human?"

"Romantically," she said blushing, despite the anger on her face. "I think it's pretty fricking obvious I've got a thing for you, somehow, despite all this shit," she gestured to the whole room, still frozen in time. "But the second it gets a little real, you run out the door, no explanation given. Just, bye. How do you think that makes me feel? What do you think that makes me think?"

"I don't know what to say, I was just scared off. You came on really strong, and I'm stupid and I panicked and ran."

"Right into Karu's tits."

"Yes. And not to use the same excuse, but she came on really strong and I'm stupid and froze up. I...don't know how much detail you got--"

"I have a holovid if you'd like to take some captures for your mobile's wallpaper."

"--but I was trying to turn her down. I fucked up really bad, we shouldn't have done it. She was tired, and stressed, and strung-out on stims and has been running from the association for a few days."

I expected AEGIS to be mad at hearing more details, but instead, her features softened. "And you're just the idiot she decided to take it out on?" she said.

"I guess so."

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Stupid teenage boy, didn't stand a chance. You know, I showed some restraint when I was coming onto you, I thought if I pushed you just a little more, you would have broken like a toothpick, but I didn't want to put that on you."

"Yeah, I would have." Inwardly I wondered what restraint she showed, but I guess relative to Karu, maybe.

"Dunno if I feel bad that I didn't, or am mad that she did."

I didn't know if I felt good or bad about what Karu -- and I -- had done either. I could imagine it was even worse from AEGIS' angle.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"You shouldn't ever feel bad about doing what's right, I think," I said.

"You think? And what if by doing what's right, I lose out to everyone else slutting it up?"

"Then at least you know you did what was right, even if this world and everyone else in it is shitty."

"That's a great consolation prize, thanks."

"Isn't it, though? I'm being serious. If you did do something you thought was wrong, it'd tear you up inside, wouldn't it?"

"And you think that's what Karu's going to go through? I think the only thing which tore her up inside was you, Athan."

"I don't know, I was just saying I know you won't, so that's something at least."

"I guess. Hard to tell which shitty feeling is worse, though."

I just nodded. Trying to sort out which shitty feeling was worse was my MO for the day.

AEGIS sighed. "Okay, I'm still super mad at you, but you said something which is kind of alarming and I want to address that before I finish ripping out your asshole. The association is chasing Karu?"

"So you had cameras but no sound in The Bunker?"

"Yes, I still have only a few of my older cam-drones in there."

"Great," I said, feeling my stomach drop for inviting Karu to stay and then apparently putting her under surveillance. I couldn't very well ask AEGIS to give her any privacy now without giving the impression I just wanted the privacy for Karu and myself. I doubted AEGIS would comply anyway, even if I did ask.

"So the short version is, Luminary survived, went back, and reported that Karu'd been seeing me on her own time. This is a violation of my terms of exile, and therefore she's been accused of treason. Not sure what to do, she ran, made it look like she was heading to Asia or Europe, and then crashed here with nowhere else to go."

I tried to play the pity card. "She lost her job, all her possessions, and her family disowned her. She's not in a really good place mentally."

"That's your excuse?"

"No, that's my reasoning why I didn't think we should do anything, but also why I couldn't reject her right now. I'm weak, I know, I'm sorry."

"And so, knowing that people would look for her here, she came here anyway?"

"She doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"Then what about us? They'll take you out for breaking your terms of exile, too."

"I know. I'm just less concerned about myself than Karu right now."

"Well that's stupid. She brought that all on herself, you just lived out here doing your best not to harm anyone."

"I've got Lia and Saga too, and you, depending on how they define contact with other people. I've broken my exile terms a lot."

"But nobody would care unless it affected the outside world, which Karu definitely is. Lia would have to go back before anyone cared about her, and Saga and I live here."

"I don't think the XPCA sees it that way, but okay. Point being, for one reason or another, they're coming."

"So we run."

"We can't run. They'll find us wherever we go. We'd be on foot, or on crawler at best. They've got satellites and VTOLs and thousands of men."

"So we hide."

"Maybe. I don't think we could fool modern optics, though. I hear the XPCA has pretty much everything, from tectonic sensors to real-time satellite feeds."

"They do, or they did a hundred years ago. I'm sure they have even more now."

"Plus, if they are planning an op to come up here, I'm sure they're watching everything we do right now. We'd have to pull a real magic trick to vanish from active surveillance."

"Then that leaves...fighting."

"Yeah, that's what I got to as well."

"But we can't win."

"No we can't."

We both fell into a brooding silence. After a few moments, AEGIS asked "do you mind?"

"Uh, no. Mind what?"

"Nothing, never mind." She tapped a couple keys on her terminal and all of the robots around sprung back into life like nothing had happened. I realized just how noisy it was down here with all of them moving. "If we're going to die, I don't want to waste my time not preparing. I'm also sorry about your fucking bench, but you'll have to do without, it sounds like we have more pressing matters."

"I appreciate the bench anyway."

"Yeah, shut up."

She oversaw the machines at work for a few minutes while I sat by waiting patiently. Finally apparently satisfied, she turned back to me.

"Are we as squared up on the XPCA thing as we're getting?"

"I don't know. I feel like all I've decided on them is that it seems hopeless."

"Deciding it's hopeless is still a decision."

"I guess, then. We'll do what we can when it happens."

"Fine. In light of the pending end of our existence, I am more inclined to forgive you for your stupid incredibly monumental fuck-up. But I still have to ask you why you left."

"I told you, I just got scared and ran."

"Scared of what? Am I so scary?"

"No, not you. Just...relationships in general. Excitement. Hurt feelings. I just...wasn't strong enough to make a decision right there, and you were demanding one." She was about to respond when I added, "And I didn't make a decision with Karu either. She did."

"I was going to say, that's bullshit, I've seen you be stronger than any other man I've ever heard of."

"Yeah, when things are black and white. When it's choosing between protecting my life and my friends or not. But if I had to choose which of my friends to hurt? You think I could honestly make that decision?"

She sighed. "Someday, you might have to choose who to sacrifice. The world is a cruel place, and whether you know it or not, you've somehow become the leader and center of our little malformed tumor of a band. The hard calls land on your desk. Well, unless the XPCA wipes us all out. Everyone dies, and there's nothing you can do about it is a pretty easy call."

She paused, and then continued on her first, more uncomfortable line. "I just want you to know how I feel. I can understand why you did what you did, and I hate you for it, but that's whatever. But you tell me you weren't ready and then not an hour later, you're doing it anyway? All your reasons and rationalizing and logic aside, all that makes me feel is I'm not good enough. If you had the stones to just man up and tell me you're not interested in me, that Karu is the girl you want...I could understand that too, but I'm sure you don't."

"I don't know what I want."

"Yeah. And that's why you're such a piece of shit. Your indecision is only hurting everyone around you. At least if you let me give up on you, I'd be free, but instead you have this whole goddamn harem following you around. Do you know what it feels like to hate someone you love, Athan?"

"No." I thought more seriously for a minute. "I used to love Brick like a brother, I guess. And when I thought Lia turned her back on me just because I was Exhuman…"

"Not the kind of love I'm talking about. I mean yearning, passionate wanting."

"No, then."

"Yeah. Well, let me tell you, all I want to do is make up with you and have everything be better, because I'm pathetic and crave your acceptance, but at the same time, the fact that you could so easily and casually rip my feelings to pieces makes me want to never see or hear from you again. I hate myself for being weak and still loving you, and I hate you for making me love you. Of course I just fucking loathe Karu, I can't even respect her as a person right now, but I feel awful about everything she's been put through and if I were in her shoes would probably do the exact same thing."

"Jesus," I said. I thought I had it bad feeling two things at once.

"Yeah. Sorry for being so blunt, but that, in a nutshell," she let a long slow breath, "is how AEGIS feels today. I'm trying to be not mad and understanding as possible...not for you, or her, but because of the XPCA coming. But it's not working," she said, frustrated.

She sighed. "I'm actually pretty fucked right now, and I had to clamp down on some of my emotion indices just to get to the point where I can even parse the data rationally, and even so, all that stuff I said before is still bleeding out into everything I think. You're like a fucking poison, Athan."

She seemed like she was about to yell at me again, and then stopped herself and took a deep breath and calmly typed a few more lines into her terminal. I wondered if she was turning off yet more of her emotions, and had to wonder what kind of effect that had on her. Seeing her have to shut herself down like that, all because of me...guilt tore at my insides.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Want to do it?"

I looked at Rua lying there with all her robotic guts hanging out. "No."

"Yeah I figured not. So there is something you can help with, in light of this whole XPCA thing. This was supposed to be a fun surprise, but given the current situation, I think I'll just have to move ahead."

"What's up?"

"Well, Rua X Mk.1 there isn't just a shell like the DOG series. DOG, the DOG-Es and DOG-Os--"

"DOG-Os?"

"The small ones. Distributed Operations: Ground-unit -- Oligodynamic. Meaning 'small force' from latin." I stared at her blankly. "Oligo-, like oligarchy, rule by the few?"

"I'm just shocked you managed to come up with something even more contrived and tortured than DOG-E."

"Point being, they're just shells running programs and I can jump in and give them some orders to follow. Rua is very different inside, she doesn't have a base AI running things. In there, it's me doing it or nothing."

"That doesn't sound useful," I said. "Aren't the DOGs doing fine?"

"For what they do, yes. But Rua was not intended to do as they do. This is why she wasn't working too well yesterday. Rua isn't intended to be piloted...she's intended to be lived in."

"You're going to put yourself in her?"

"Better than living in a box. At least I'll be able to walk on my own."

"That's...I mean it sounds crazy, but I guess I'm limited to my own experiences of not being able to jump bodies. Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes, but that's not the favor I want from you."

"What is?"

"Let me finish uploading myself to Rua and I'll show you."