It would be hard to call things which happened over the next few days worse, but they were definitely up there. The fact that getting mugged, kicking the faces in of two murdery assholes, and showering with my arch-nemesis was not exceptional said a lot for the quality of the week.

Lia was simply out of control. Saga and I had tried to be sympathetic, giving her space because behind her smiles, and especially behind her drinking, we knew she was hurting at least as bad as the rest of us, but this wasn't a healthy way to deal with it.

We'd broken down and gotten the nice big house, and I was anxiously awaiting the delivery of a small industrial mass-fab, faster and more efficient and a hundred years more technologically advanced than the models I'd been working with to this point. I spent every free moment reading and re-reading the documentation in my head and browsing sites on the 'net to see what kind of other schematics were out there.

It probably made me look like I was daydreaming a lot, since I relied entirely on mental controls for all my more computer-ey functionality, still trying to keep my nature hidden from our new roommates.

The breaking point came one evening when the three of them were loudly drinking and laughing in the dining room, their raucous antics threatening to utterly destroy the crappy temporary card table and folding chairs we had out there, I was sure.

I was out in the garage, contemplating the costs of soundproofing the room, and otherwise attempting to quietly amuse myself with the 'net. I'd taken to looking up world events that had happened in the last hundred years. It was crazy that we were still dealing with the same issues now that we were then. Exhumans, sickness, famine, war. The same old sins done by a whole new generation.

I'd been sitting there for a minute when I realized the crowd had gone quiet.

Well, it was late. Maybe they'd gone to bed. Or more likely, they'd decided to get in trouble in some other way, hopefully somewhere else.

Worried...or maybe just curious, I advanced to the door to the house and fished around in my hair for a specific strand, a cable with a high-sensitivity microphone on the end. I turned it on with a thought and pressed it against the door.

I heard the bathroom door close, the nice big bathroom in the main hall. A minute later, I heard the door open and close again. And giggling, Lia's. Hmm. Same door. Either something was going on in that bathroom, or she was really excited at the incredibly brief bath she just took.

I stuffed the end of my hair back in with the rest and turned it off. Whatever was going on out there, I wasn't part of it and that was good enough for me. I sat back down on the floor and pulled up the mass-fab documentation yet again. These sweet words had gotten me through so many trying times of late.

So of course, that would change. I heard frantic footsteps and then a boom as the door from slammed open, Saga standing framed in the doorway, shaking and gasping and panting.

"C-can't...block it out," she gasped. "H-h-help me."

She was trembling and holding herself desperately. I found myself on my feet, my heart racing.

"Who? What can I do?"

"L-Lia. We...we're too close, I-I...I can't...block her out. S-she's…"

She gasped and trembled, all red, and tugged at her clothes in a way like she wasn't fully in control of herself.

I pushed past her and stalked silently and quickly through the kitchen and dining room, heading for the main hall. Damn it, Lia, she knew she was doing this, that psychic link was a two-way street. She was just too drunk or something to care.

I tried the bathroom door, pausing to listen for a second when I found it locked. Water sloshing and muffled murmuring. I was going to break out the mic again when Chiho came stumbling into the hallway, panting and leaning against walls as she staggered towards me.

"AEGIS, thank god," she gasped. "I need you so bad, my body's on fire." She ran her hands up and down herself as she shuffled forward like a slutty zombie.

"Chiho, I need you to get ahold of yourself. Just shut i--"

My words were caught in my throat as she grabbed ahold of me and kissed me forcefully, filling my mouth with her tongue and her hands racing across my body in an instant. For a moment, I was too stunned to fight back, and she grew bolder, her soft lips desperately licking and sucking at my own, her hands sinking into my sensitive breasts.

I shoved her off, and she stumbled backwards to the floor.

"Sure, we can do it here," she panted, and reached back to undo her bra.

Well fuck everything about all of this. Instead of the microphone, I brought out my foot, and kicked the bathroom door in with a rain of splinters. I had a glimpse of Subaru reclined in the tub, his shoulders and head visible above the lip, and on the other end of it, lower body angled towards his, Lia, bouncing and writhing for all she was worth, in flagrante delicto.

She saw me and didn't stop, just wrapped her arms around her chest and whimpered about the door. Chiho grasped desperately at my ankle as I slipped from her grasp and walked into the room. Whatever Saga's bullshit was doing to them, they were almost totally lost in it.

Embarrassed as I felt they should have been, and just generally pissed about everything that had gone down the past week, I stomped over to Lia and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her off the turgid prick reclining in the tub under her and bodily threw her to the tile floor. She bleated as she crashed into it, but from the pain of my cruelty or just not being finished yet, I honestly didn't care.

"Saga, I stopped them. Get a damn hold on yourself!" I shouted towards the garage. The three bodies around me looked totally spent and defeated. Lia held her head where I'd grabbed her hair and moaned. "Lia, no fucking in the house when Saga's here. You should fucking know better."

I barged my way back to the garage, stepping over Saga in the doorway, and stopping only to position her out of the way so I could slam the door full-force.

Back in my safe little domain. Back home. I took a deep steadying breath. I was fine. I was okay. I could do this.

I screamed at the top of my lungs long past any limits of human anatomy.

What the hell, were they all goddamn children? Everyone in the whole neighborhood probably went and had sex with the first moving thing they saw, and Saga's uncontrolled power turned the whole goddamn thing into a block-wide orgy. I wanted to bone a dude as much as anyone, but fuck, could they be any more fucking irresponsible?

I punched the concrete floor and felt the servos in my hand shudder out of alignment. The pain was there too, but I was hopped up on the programmatic equivalent of adrenaline right now, and that automatically dialed down my pain receptors until I pulled a full diagnostic. It was a stupid pointless move, and I sighed as I added that to the list of body alterations I'd need to address when improving this model.

But fuck, Lia! I punched the floor again. How could someone so smart be so fucking stupid? Drinking her ass off every night, buying everything in town so she could spend all day every day with her friends. Every time I tried to bring up Athan or future plans, she just brushed me off, telling me to 'live a little' or 'enjoy what we have today'.

I was out of patience with her, I couldn't take this lifestyle anymore. These people, this house, all of this nothing we were sitting around doing all day. It just drove me nuts. I realized I was about to punch the concrete again and stopped myself. My hand wouldn't hold if I did.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Instead, I stood up and left, slamming every door between me and the outside to make my tremendous loathing with everyone in the house abundantly clear. I didn't know where I was going. Somewhere with an active 'net hookup. That was all I had right now.

And that's how, in the middle of the night, I wound up in a weird little cafe, sitting between a couple rows of bookshelves, reading Japanese graphic novels. I had quickly realized all the 'net really had for me right now was a delivery date for a mass-fab I wasn't sure it'd be worth going back for.

I saw someone run by the front of the store out of the corner of my eye, and looked up, seeing Chiho backpedal back into view. I sighed as she walked up and let herself in, out of breath.

"Irasshaimas," said the girl behind the counter, same thing she'd said to me.

"Konbanwa! I'll buy something in a minute," Chiho replied as she wove through the empty seats and tables to get to me.

"No rush," said the girl, going back to her holo.

"Hey," she said, breathless as she reached me. Then to my surprise, she thumbed through the shelves for a minute, picked out something, and sat next to me.

"What'cha reading?" she asked.

I glanced at the cover, which took two tries because the book read right to left for some reason. "Gungnir Clash, apparently," I read.

"That's a good one. Did you read Excalibur Clash?"

"No," I said, wishing she'd just shut up and go away already.

"A lot of people didn't like it because it was a lot more of a shoujo, but I thought that just made the fights a lot more meaningful."

I put the book down and looked her in the eyes. "What do you want, Chiho?"

"Me? Nothing, I'm sorry. Everyone was just looking for you...you just kinda left, and we were worried."

"That's what you're worried about? Not two of your roommates shacking up, or the sexual apocalypse that just consumed the whole block?"

"Hey, what manga are you talking about?" asked the shopkeep.

"My own damn life," I said, irritated.

She didn't respond, just mumbled something like 'freaking otaku.'

I was also getting pretty tired of everyone using Japanese all the freaking time. Between Chiho and Subaru and Lia starting to throw words into her conversation at random, it was getting obnoxious as hell. I didn't need it from the employees, too.

"Hey...I'm sorry about earlier. Sorry, I was trying to lead up to it. Seemed like you wanted to be left alone."

And what the hell part of walking up and talking to me about cartoons was that?

"Can we...uh, walk and talk?" Chiho asked, glancing at the girl behind the counter. Whatever. Like I cared at this point. The 'net had failed me, I was officially out of anything I cared about at this point. Chiho ordered two very overpriced bubble teas for us and we walked outside back into the cold.

"Look...Lia told me everything and made me promise not to tell."

"Everything? When?"

"Just now. To explain what happened to me," she flushed and sipped her tea. "Can't believe that kind of thing happens to you guys all the time. Or that Saga's an Exhuman. That's crazy."

"And...you don't...care?" I said measuring her response carefully.

"I mean, I do, kinda. It's weird as hell, that's for sure. But she seems like a nice person, and I don't think she hurt us or...whatever you'd call that...on purpose. It seems like she actually got the worst of it. She was trying to hold it in, but apparently, like you said, pretty much everyone on the block started doing it, and...I mean...that's one hell of a gangbang."

I tried not to think of everyone on the block having sex with Saga at once, which is of course exactly what my brain decided to attempt to illustrate.

"She does try," I sighed. "That's the thing about Exhumans though, they're dangerous even if they're trying not to be. I think that's why society just decided they weren't allowed, period."

"That doesn't seem very fair."

"Doesn't it?"

"Well, like, if someone was sick, and dangerous, we don't just kill them, we try to help them, right?"

I laughed. This was the exact same rhetoric used when Exhumans...Parahumans back then, started to first appear. It was a sickness to be treated and helped. That was hundreds of years ago, and we'd still found no better treatment than a bullet to the head.

"So you don't mind having a roommate who's an Exhuman?"

"No, not really, I guess. I don't want to get in trouble, but I just can't say no to Lia baby, you know?"

"Yeah. Well, try putting up with her shit for a few more weeks and we'll see," I grumbled.

"Uh oh. Are you guys having problems? I thought you two were close."

"No, we're fine," I lied. "Just adjusting to real life, probably."

"Have you told her?"

"We're getting off the topic," I said, really not wanting to bitch about Lia to one of her best friends.

"Nuh-uh. Have you told her?"

"What's there to tell?"

"I don't know unless you tell me. Or tell her. But just sitting on your problems until you have to leave and slam every door in the house isn't healthy, girl."

"No, I haven't told her, okay? She's got a lot of shit going on right now, and she needs us to support her right now."

"Yeah, I got the 5-minute version. Her brother's gotten taken. Your boyfriend, though--"

"Not my boyfriend."

"Sounds like you have a lot of shit going on right now too. You're supporting her. Who's supporting you?"

I stopped and couldn't find a response. How could this fat, vacant bimbo have argued me into a corner so easily? It made me mad that apparently I wasn't even the smartest one in this conversation anymore. First the 'net and now this. I really did have nothing.

"I don't know if she told you, but I'm an AI, okay? I don't need people supporting me, I was programmed to help and protect people. I carry out my own repairs, I don't eat, I don't drink," I said, throwing the cup of tea she'd bought me on the ground, making it explode in an avalanche of boba. "And I don't need a support team, okay? All I need is to save the man I love, and right now it seems like Lia's more standing in the way of that than helping with it."

She seemed shocked, and looking at the sad empty cup rolling on the ground, I realized I'd just crossed all sorts of lines.

"Shit, Chiho, I'm sorry. You came out here looking for me, too."

"No, it's okay," she said, her voice wavering a little. "Look, I don't want to make things bad between you and Lia, or even contribute to that. I can just move back into my old place, we still own the lease for the rest of the month--"

"No, I'm sorry. I'm just mad, it's not your fault at all. I hate saying that I need help, or I need support, or I'm going through shit. I'm supposed to be better than this, was designed and programmed to be better than this. I'm either malfunctioning, or a failure, it feels like."

"Dude, welcome to being a college student," Chiho laughed. "Every class I take makes me feel like I'm defective, or a fake, and I'm sitting in a seat which should have gone to a smarter student. Or at least, one who can stay awake through a whole lecture," she said with a sigh. And then a giggle. "But yeah, girl, you've never had roommates before, right? Definitely one of the hardest things in the world, having to live with people. You need to talk to her, or it's going to drive you crazy and you'll either kill each other or do something worse."

"I don't think that's worth it. I can just hole up in the garage and stay the hell out of all the drama."

"Yeah...kinda doubt that. Look, if you and Lia need to work together to save your boyfriend--"

"Not my boyfriend."

"--then you need to be on speaking terms, right? So stop just trying to ride this out and make it better. If you don't talk to her, I'll do it instead."

"You are irksomely meddlesome," I said.

"Yeah, you'll come to love me, I'm sure."

"Hmm, we'll see," I said trying to maintain a look of skepticism even as I grinned.

"So. Want to head back?" she said shaking her tea and examining it for any boba she'd missed.

"Eh. I'm in no rush. I'll talk to her tomorrow."

Chiho fixed me with a relatively steely glare. "Uh huh."

"Yeah, yeah, I will, promise."

"Alright. What else did you want to do tonight then?"

"Kinda wanted to back to the cafe. I only finished half of my comic."

"It's called a manga," she laughed as we started to headed back.

"What's baka?" I asked. "Lia kept saying that."

"Maybe you should download a japanese dictionary or something," she laughed. "I'm going to get in trouble if I teach you all the same bad words I taught her."

I found myself happier and more free to chat with Chiho than I'd been in weeks, and felt bad that in some ways, I'd definitely misjudged her. She wasn't the sharpest ever, sure, but she was a great listener and had either a good grasp on or had a lot of experience with relationships.

At some point, while talking and annoying the manga cafe employee, the conversation turned to Athan, and she listened sympathetically, as I raved incoherently at her, incomprehensible even to myself. Still, as I tried to explain just how his frustrating stubbornness was somehow endearing, she sat beaming at me.

"What?" I finally asked. "You're just smiling at me like crazy. Are you sure Saga's effects wore off?"

She laughed and waggled her fingers at me salaciously.

"Is anything I'm saying even making any sense?"

"No, not a lick," she said happily. "I just think it's cute how hopelessly and obviously in love you are with this guy. I really hope you get him."

I sighed. "Yeah, I hope we get him too."