As Saga started her work, I had to excuse myself to take a walk around the house. I couldn't believe she'd done that to me.

I felt so full of anger, more pissed at her than I'd ever been, more pissed at anyone than I'd ever been, maybe. Like my emotions were a soft clay bowl, and she'd just scooped a fistful of clay from the bottom, and now everything was just deeper and stronger than I'd felt before.

It felt…

I leaned against the outside of the house, forcing myself to breath deep and even, and holding my chest like that would slow my pounding heart.

It felt fantastic. I felt like there was a weight I'd been holding up with my heart, and it was gone. My anger at Saga was so pure, so undiluted by apathy or dispassion or tainted by self-hate. She'd wronged me, and I was mad about it.

I was happy about it, but also mad about that too. Even that didn't matter. It was like my heart had inhaled a huge hit of menthol after being congested for weeks. I felt so free, so light.

So angry! I revelled in it. I thought of all the stupid mean things Saga had ever said to me, all the belittling and snide lines she'd fed me, her selfish sabotages of my life, and really got myself lathered until I was ready to punch someone. And I really did. I wanted to punch her right in her smug, Sino face.

I jumped and whooped. I hadn't felt like doing anything. I wanted to punch her! What an incredible feeling. It was born of a massive betrayal, and everything I was feeling now was artificial, I knew that. But I was still feeling it, this was my anger, pure white-hot and sublime.

Experimentally, I thought of Karu. Nothing. I hoped she did well. I understood why she thought we didn't work, and given those misgivings, it was only natural she'd side with her own father instead of me. I missed having her around to talk with and hang out with.

And that was it! I wasn't desperately clinging at the hope every time my holo got a notification that it was her, that somehow she'd wind up on the mission with us, or that she'd break down and come crawling back, although I had to admit that last one sounded amusing.

Saga had the cure for the common lovesick, and she'd forced it on me. It was inexcusable, and it was everything I never knew I wanted.

She was talking to them inside, about the situation. I wanted to stop and listen, but wanted to hold onto this feeling longer. I jogged around the house, erecting walls of anger in my mind to shut her out, visualizing the concept of a solid wall between us. As I did, I felt her voice diminish in my head, and a faint sensation of panic, of surprise, of worry, from her.

That's right, bitch. You give me these weapons, you'd best be ready when I use them. Almost immediately, my anger turned to sadistic satisfaction at punishing her for fucking around in my head.

And then the walls crumbled instantly, and she was back. Whatever. I had feeling back in my heart, I would get mad or happy or sad as the situation took me, instead of just blah, and that was all I cared about. I was happy to be able to be happy, my anger spent out already on shoving her out.

I went back in and dropped myself on the couch next to her enough so that she bounced slightly in the air, with an involuntary 'whoop'. She looked at me, perplexed.

"You are an awful person," I informed her with a grin.

[Everybody already knows that,] she grinned back.

"Ladies, the prisoners, if you please?" Cosette cut in.

[Right. As I was saying...they're not lying, and they have a lifetime of memories which...sound like what you said. It's actually really interesting.]

"Please stop! Why!?" Celia screamed at us.

[You know exactly why, it's right here in your head, little human,] Saga said with magnificent malevolence. [They asked nicely, a lot, and you said no. Bet you wish you knew a little more about Exhumans before deciding to challenge them, hmm? (A bet I know I'd win…)]

"I'm sorry! Stop going through my mind! Those thoughts...those memories...they're mine!"

I felt a little guilty as I swept Ajax's legs almost as soon as he jumped to his feet. He really needed to telegraph his attacks less. He face-first to the floor with a crack, his hands uselessly bound behind him. Celia gasped and recoiled.

[Nice,] Saga commented.

"This guy just will not take no for an answer," I said, frustrated.

[He reminds me of someone I know. Constantly doing stupid things for a girl he loves? Ring any bells?]

"He...he doesn't!" Celia shook her head and glared at Saga as she shuffled to his side. His nose was bleeding.

"I don't…" Jack interceded and hesitated. "I don't believe spilling their private secrets is necessary to this mission. It would only serve to increase their hostility and potentially ruin an innocent relationship."

"Yeah, this is pretty fucked up," Tower succinctly put it.

"Welcome to any situation where you introduce Saga," I added.

"Be that as it may, we need their intel. Saga, how did they get here?" Cosette pushed.

[Like they told you, they found a lab. Accidentally tripped security, got chased down to the basement, their friend died--]

Both of them stiffened at Lettie's mention.

[--they were trapped, and uh. Hmm, interesting.]

"What?" Cosette was practically hanging off the edge of her seat.

[They found a cloning lab and produced copies of themselves for sustenance. They did nothing but eat cannibal babies and fuck each other for a week.]

"What?" said everyone.

[She's pregnant and when the baby comes, they're going to eat it too.]

"Saga, you are seriously, seriously sick in the head," I said.

[Haha, yeah.] She smiled at me, the fact that such a thought came out of something so cheery made it even more disturbing. [They found some machine made by Ramanathan. I don't know too much about it because even Celia doesn't. She was able to limp her way through the controls and get it turned on, and knew it was a transporter of some kind, but didn't ever imagine when it'd take her. She was just running from killer robots.]

"Is there any possibility the machine is still active?"

[A hundred percent, I'd say. Anything which wanders in there will wind up here.]

"In the same clothing store?"

[I wouldn't know, Celia doesn't.]

"And Ajax has nothing to contribute?"

[That is almost exactly how I would phrase it.]

"So," Tower said. "There's a bunch of angry killer robots which could fly through into our world anytime, and that's about it?"

"Does seem like that's about it," Cosette agreed. "No Exhumans in their world, if any other humans find their way through, they're welcome to live in a less crappy world. Does their world have any other major threats?"

[Aside from the dinosaurs?]

"Be serious, or I will shoot you."

[Oh no! A threat!]

"Seriously, Saga?" I asked, cutting between the two girls.

[Seriously, there's nothing. Unless you're afraid of glass and ash and dust, their world is barren. It's actually really sort of tragic to relive. I'd feel bad for these two, if they weren't just human.]

"Well, forgive us for being born in the wrong Earth," Celia spat. Ajax also glared at us in contempt, his nosebleed running over the adhesive gag.

"They are seriously going to defend their shitty nuked-out Earth?" I asked, surprised.

[It's their home, Athan.]

"It's one big freaking crater, from what I hear."

[And compared to this world, there's probably another Earth out there which makes this one look like what comes out after a week of constipation. Does that make you hate this world at all?]

"I've always thought this world seemed unfair and crappy, ever since I got exiled."

[What a very tactful avoiding answering the question.]

"I answered!"

"I think we've got what we need," Cosette said, tapping away on her holo. "Let's pack it up boys and girls. Feels like a huge waste of time coming out here just for Saga, but I guess we got what we needed, and we're sure it's accurate."

She rose and stretched, and then bent over me on the couch, putting her face a few inches from mine. "We are sure it's accurate, right?"

"Why are you asking me instead of Saga?" I said.

"Because she responds to me with hostility, obviously."

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

[Vigorous hostility. One of those cute personality quirks.]

"There is so little cute or vigorous about you," Cosette muttered, and turned back to me. "So? Is this report accurate?"

"As...as far as I could tell?"

She stood back up and gave me a satisfied smile. "Good enough for me! Let's get out of this psychic madhouse. I'll have the driver drop us off and then take them to the airbase to send them home. Or...actually...wherever they want to go, I guess. Georgia wasn't exactly home, was it?" She and the others collected their things and the prisoners and began the slow migration for the door.

I watched Saga watching them leave with a satisfied smirk, which fell off her face when she saw me looking at her.

[What?]

"Cosette, sir, would it be possible to spend a couple of days up here?"

"Do whatever the hell you want, like I said, Chariot. But if she fucks up your head and you're not ready for service, we'll have her chained up and thrown in a volcano." She and Saga locked eyes dangerously. "Using robots."

[I heard you, bitch. Weren't you leaving?]

"Hmph!" Cosette snapped around with military precision on her heel and strode out the door past a somewhat-bewildered looking Tower. As they piled in the van, Saga spoke again.

[Aren't you forgetting someone?]

They looked around. Tem was gone. I closed my eyes and reached out with my senses and couldn't find her either.

[Under the bed upstairs.]

"No!" I heard her scream from the upper floor. "I'm not leaving him!"

[That girl is going to be nothing but trouble, you realize.]

"I already realize."

Cosette stepped back inside. "Yeah, you're on babysitting duty, Chariot. Consider this an order. I'll have someone pick you up in a couple days if you don't call before, and there had better be two living XPCA Exhumans in this house when I do, understand?"

[I can just--]

"It's fine, Saga, we can deal with her."

Saga and I sat for long minutes as the rumbling of the van faded into the distance. Even long after I estimated it was gone, she remained silent and sullen.

Abruptly she turned on me with a smile. "Well, they're gone!" she said in her breathy whisper of a voice. "Shall we...d-d-do...it?"

I glared at her.

"I was only kidding," she said, with a sigh.

"You knew I'd be mad at you," I said.

"I knew."

"And you did it anyway."

"Yeah." She absently ran her fingers over the fabric of the couch.

"Why?"

She paused for a moment and then slowly, gently, rolled off the couch onto the floor, looking up at me between the coffee table and couch, her vision of me half-obscured by my leg. Her hands grabbed thick handfuls of the carpet under her.

"I didn't care if you were mad. You were hurting too much."

"Hurting? Me? Saga, I had a little heartbreak. It sucked, but I was still showering every morning. I might have wished I could make it all go away, but if you gave me emotional indices like AEGIS had, I wouldn't ever have turned them off. Being miserable is sometimes part of life."

"I don't like you being miserable."

"You must have lived with dozens or hundreds of deaths and betrayals, people with pain in their hearts a hundred times mine. I was torn up about Mage, and about Karu but…"

"It doesn't work like that," she whispered, and curled up sideways, her back against my feet.

"What doesn't? Just because you like me more than some XPCA guy doesn't mean my suffering is worth any more than his."

"I learned...I can't shut it out, Athan."

"Shut what out?"

"People close to me. People I open my heart up to. You. Lia. I can't just ignore what you're feeling when you're that close to me." She seemed to clench into an even smaller ball. "Do you remember...when we fought...when you saved me?"

"Hard to forget that kind of experience."

"I told you, I felt everything you did when I killed you. I lied. I can shut out most of it if I try, just like I can read a thousand times deeper if I try. If I couldn't, I never would have been able to do that to you."

I waited, silent, remembering those events. I felt she was, too.

"Everything you feel, I feel now, too. Only it's worse, because it's a two-way street. Either I keep complete control over everything, or both of us spiral off into despair. When you...found me upstairs, I was so happy to see you, until I looked in your head, and then I couldn't get it out. Couldn't stand the pain, and I don't even love Karu, and my heart was breaking for her."

"You...hid it really well."

"Well, I had a lot of...embarrassment too. Helping cover my other feelings. I was trying to keep you from seeing it."

"But I'm still mad."

"Yeah, I know. I can accept that, if it means you're not suffering anymore."

I heard a noise behind me and started, almost kicking Saga as I rose. There was a noise like 'glech' from the landing on the stairs, and then Tem materialized as she fell face-first on the landing.

"Saga!" I shouted, turning on her.

[Relax, she's just asleep. Creepy little troll. I heard the boss lady.]

I went to check on Tem anyway. She'd smacked her face on the wood stairs after her acute narcolepsy and was the second victim of a nosebleed in the house today. I sort of wondered if she'd drown if I left her there, or if Saga even cared. I brought her down and put her on her side on the couch, wadded a tissue up her nose, and sat opposite Saga now in an uncomfortable recliner.

"Well, now we're alone…" she mused again.

"Look, just...stop."

To my surprise, she did. I took out my earpiece and turned it off, remembering that not only the XPCA but also AEGIS were probably eavesdropping.

"If you're just mad at me, why did you even want to stay?" she asked, curling around so she was facing away from me again.

"Because you're my good friend, Saga, and I heard from AEGIS that you weren't doing so hot."

[Nothing chucking a few XPCA fatcats to their hilarious screaming deaths couldn't fix.]

"Yeah, that's bullshit too, and I know it. Also you just explained how in your head I am, and you still expect me to believe that?"

She sighed. [I might have liked you better when I could, Athan.]

"Look, I'm no expert, but I don't think that's how relationships work. You spend time with someone, it's only natural you begin to open up to each other more, know each other better, can tell when they're lying, all that stuff. Ours is just...a little more literal."

[Yeah, except it used to be only I could tell all that stuff about you. Sucks having it turned around. Now you have the psychic powers AND the lightning. Un. Fair.]

"Life is unfair, I hear," I said, and leaned back in the recliner. This part of the house had really high ceilings with wooden beams criss-crossing up there, and thick metal plates with bolts larger than my fingers.

[...I don't really care about the power disparity,] she confessed. [It just sucks that we get closer but never close enough.]

"Maybe if you weren't wiping out my thoughts and knocking my friends unconscious when they inconvenienced you, we might?"

[Empty lies, Athan. Just empty lies. I've got no chance with you and I know it.]

"That's not true!" I said sitting back up. "I really do think you are a great person!"

She rolled over and looked at me sideways over her shoulder. [You can't lie to me, Athan. I don't know why you feel the need to string me along, maybe it's convenient to keep me from going off the chain, maybe you just want to feel wanted, but I hate it, you know.]

"I'm not stringing you along," I argued. I wasn't. That would be really shitty of me to do.

[Then can you give me any example of anything I could do where we would fall in love and be happy together? Give me a single scenario you could actually see unfolding. Go ahead, I'll wait.]

"If Karu weren't just in the scene, and I didn't feel like you'd be directly benefiting from fucking with my head, how do you know I wouldn't ask you out right now?"

[Because if Karu weren't in the picture, AEGIS would have done so yesterday, and you would have said yes.]

"She was just visiting, it was a fluke. I still might have."

In one motion, she rolled upright onto her knees and slammed a palm down on the coffee table. [Would you, Athan? Would you really?]

"W-why not?"

[Oh, that's what every girl wants to hear. Why not date me, I guess. Sure, good enough I suppose!]

"Saga, stop yelling."

She massaged her temples. [I don't know how else to get this through to you. I know you better than you do. There's no universe in which you'd ever just sidle up and ask me out.]

"If you know me so well, why do you keep being so wrong about me, huh?"

I felt myself angry all over again. Not just for her messing with my head earlier, but for her damn condescending arrogance. She saw what everyone was thinking, she held all the cards, the world was just a boring thing she was disconnected from, only to be bothered with when it could amuse her.

Well that world was my life. Those pawns she watched slide around were my friends. That pain in my heart for Karu, that was mine too.

She laughed quietly, rolling back towards the couch, her shoulders shaking softly until I could almost mistake it for crying, if not for the disbelieving, booming laughter in my head.

[Yeah, maybe I've been wrong once or twice, I'm happy to admit that, but you're just an idiot if you think you'd ever do that. And you're just sitting there thinking, yeah, you actually would. It's like you've never even met yourself, Athan. Sometimes you're such a little chickenshit, I'm embarrassed for you, and you think you're going to someday wake up with the stones to walk up to me, not just one of the strongest Exhumans ever, or a murderer who is exactly the opposite of all your bullshit ideas, but also your good friend and confidant, who knows all your secrets and your tragic embarrassments and be willing to put that all on the line to have a real shot at a real relationship with me?]

She was standing now, mentally screaming at me so loud it hurt. [Me, whom you turn to for romantic advice when you fuck up with those other girls? Of course you'd be willing to jump into that without having me around as a safety net to save you from your own stupid self. Of course, you're just lining up to go out with the lanky, ugly, frail goddamn skeleton, who is also Chinese, and yes, I still pick that up every time you see me. You're skipping right past the crowds of girls swarming all over your dick just so you can say hi to me. Makes perfect fucking sense. I'm shocked you haven't done it already.]

She sat down next to Tem's legs on the couch. Her outraged explosion had dissolved into a self-pitying, self-loathing rant. From Tem's face, I could see that even she was picking up the waves of misery and anguish pouring from Saga right now.

"Saga...I never said any of that," I stood up and walked across the room, putting my hand on hers.

She slapped my hand away and scowled at me, her eyebrows crossed. [Don't you touch me! You don't have to say something to mean it, Athan. I've always known you were a lost cause. I just...never wanted to face it before. And now you're going to take even that from me.] She crossed her arms and avoided my eyes. She looked like she wanted to cry but refused to. [Just...just pick up your stalker and go. Leave me alone.]

"Saga--"

[I said leave me alone!] she snapped, and I winced again. [It's better for everybody, don't you get that?]

"Is it better for you?"

[I'm part of everybody, I assume, unless I lost that, too.]

I shook my head. She was wrong. She was right about a lot of things, I still definitely had my misgivings about her, and for good reason, but of all the things Saga could see clearly in this world, I think she herself was the one thing she couldn't. Even as I stood there, next to her, I felt a familiar sensation, one I'd only experienced recently.

Heartbreak. Her heart was breaking in front of me, and all I could do was watch.

No. Not again, not her too. Fuck that. I knew somehow that if I left her now, like this, things between us would never be the same. I couldn't take that. I couldn't let that happen, if there was anything I could do, anything at all.

I fell forward onto her, wrapping my arms around her as we fell into the couch atop Tem.

[Athan! Wha…?] She had a moment of panic where she thought I'd been hurt, and I felt a million impossible scenarios flash through her brain, of strokes, or aneurysms, or the snipers outside. She had only a fraction of a second to panic about that loss before she found reality again, that I was on top of her holding her in my arms.

[(What are...what are...what are you…)] her mind spun in circles.

"Saga," I whispered. "I'm sorry for everything, how I've treated you. I've been selfish and unfair, and you've always been there for me, in your own way."

[(What is he saying? I don't...don't…)] I could feel her panting under me, feel the tears I'd startled from her eyes with the force of our impact.

"But you're wrong about me, and even more, you're wrong about yourself. So...would you...would you…"

She turned slightly and looked straight into my eyes. Hers were filled with fear, but understanding, but incomprehension. She breathed like a startled doe, shallow and fast, but she was nodding at me, in my thoughts before I had even found the words. Agreeing before I could even get it out. Somehow that made it easier.

"...would you go out with me?"

"Of...of course!" she squeaked, and wrapped her arms around me.