It was almost another week of being run haggard before I could find any time at all to slip away from Cosette constantly giving us new orders of Exhumans to chase down and throw back into New Eden. Some went, unwilling to resist from the moment they knew they'd been found. Sometimes I didn't have a choice, partnered up with hunters or shadow ops units who were definitely there strictly as muscle, so that the Exhumans we met wouldn't have a choice either.

A few fought back, and those were by far the worst. Not just because it was...y'know...a fight, but because it wasn't a fight I even wanted in the first place. Thankfully, the people who wanted a fight generally didn't have as pure motivations as Trish and Gil; for the most part, I could actually say they were pretty much assholes. But still.

When I did get dragged into that kind of situation by an overzealous hunter or shadow ops, I left them to do most of the fighting. If they wanted to get us into that shit, they could get us out.

In a sad, twisted way, it was a blessing. Being so busy constantly and having tons of other shit on my mind was a welcome reprieve from having nothing but my thoughts in the hospital, and forced me away from the memory of AEGIS.

But I still found her on my mind at the strangest of times. I realized that by this point, I had made a habit of filing away all the interesting things that happened to me on the day to have something to share with her when I got home. I found myself hungry constantly, because nobody was scheduling or making meals for me anymore, and I had to remember to do it on my own again. More than once, I woke up with a start, trying to push her out of my bed, only to realize she wasn't there.

Even Tem gave me weird looks the first time that happened, waking up everyone in the barracks by yelling at woman who wasn't alive and wasn't there. It was pure hell trying to go back to sleep after that.

I felt like I was starting to lose it, and the first day I got away from Cosette, I grabbed Lia and dragged her and her crawler, pissed away all the money I'd saved until now chartering the three of us a VTOL, and flew northeast.

It took too long to find, even with Lia knowing where we were headed, most of two days of travel, the last leg of which was cold and uncomfortable, clinging to the crawler as it blew through the wilderness at irresponsible speeds, unable to see anything but Lia's back, or feel anything other than the vibrations of the seat or her pressed against me.

I lurched forward as the contraption decelerated under me, and peeked up. It was coming on evening and there was a thin layer of snow everywhere, covering the ground still but not thick enough to bury rocks and roots and bushes. I didn't recognize where we were, it just looked like yet more trees and wilderness, the same as we'd seen the last few hours.

"We taking a break?" I yelled over the engine turning.

She shook her head, which I could only make out by her brown hair pouring out of the back of her helmet moving an inch from my eyes. She weaned the vehicle down and down until the landscape seemed to appear around us, blurs solidifying into trees and rocks.

And a river.

She brought the crawler to a stop and pulled off her helmet, shaking out her hair. "We're here," she said. She got off and did some squats and stretches immediately, but I was more interested in the river. The same one which had given me so many fish and kept me alive with water?

I...honestly couldn't tell. I had no context where on the river we were. It looked just like any other small river to me, which made me feel a bit sad and guilty, like not recognizing an old friend. I didn't have time to waste though, and pulled the tools from the trunk of the crawler and headed north.

It wasn't too long before The Bunker emerged from the dark shapes on the horizon, and this one I had no trouble recognizing. I found the inside disused and snow had blown in from the open door, but there in the corner was still my old hammock, and opposite it, the mass-fab which AEGIS had used to crawl back to being.

Lia gave a low whistle from the doorway. "Talk about a fixer-upper."

"Used to be a lot more crap here before AEGIS scrapped it all for parts. You couldn't walk three feet without giving yourself tetanus. Now it's just a big empty concrete box."

"Good memories here, then?"

"Mostly. I guess I'd already moved into the bigger facility by the time you got here. This is where it all started though."

"Yeah, I know. You told me. Karu told me too, when she lived here. AEGIS also told me. Got kind of annoying, actually."

"I wonder," I said, and stood on my toes, brushing my fingers along the metal beams in the ceiling. I shuffled through a quarter of the room like this before I used my head and went to the corner where I always changed and found what I was looking for immediately.

"Cam drone? Looks...like shit," Lia said as she peeked over my shoulder.

"One of her oldest models. Low-res camera, no audio, single rotor, magnetic clamp. Maybe the first one she ever made. She did have a keen interest in watching me change, even before she knew she was an AI."

"Weird. Gross. Also...kind of cute, I guess? In a stalkerish way where things work out between the stalker and stalkee?"

"Yeah, that was us all right. Filled my house with cameras and tried to run my life and then kill me. God I miss her."

I had enough of this place without AEGIS in it and grabbed our tools, heading straight north towards the crater. Halfway there, I stopped and walked slowly through the shallow snow.

"It should be...here somewhere," I said. "She should be, I mean."

"How can you tell?"

"I can't. It wasn't all snowy like this when we buried her. I just have to go by the mountains and trees."

I wanted to sweep the ground with electricity to see if I could find anything oddly metallic down there which conducted well, but it wasn't worth the risk of accidentally damaging her. The AEGIS box was already over a hundred years old, and had already broken once under my stewardship.

"Well...I do have these," Lia said, donning her plain white mask. "The Eye of Odin opens--"

"Just sweep the damn area with your optics. It's getting dark."

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me through her mask.

"The Eye of Odin opens only for Black Shark," she finished.

"Great. What does the Eye of Odin see?"

"You're like twelve feet that way of something big and metal. There's a bison-load of stuff buried around here."

"How big?"

"Like...a small fridge?"

"Too big. She's handheld but only just."

We walked around in the snow until after dark with Lia sweeping the ground and running all the crap she found past me for verification, while I just followed her with shovels on my shoulder. Her optics weren't that great, maybe military grade, not really top-of-the-line stuff, which she explained was all she could pack into the mask while still having it look 'cool'.

"I'd never expected to be digging around in the dirt for a metal box," she huffed at me. "I was looking for my stupid older brother, and if he was in a box in the dirt, I'd already failed."

Finally, she found something about the right shape and size. I looked around for landmarks, but at this point, it was so dark, all I could see was what was in my flashlight. I lit up a bunch of swords to help, but all they showed was more snow.

"Let's hope it's it," I said, and started digging.

Digging...sucked. For some reason, I thought this would be the easiest part of the journey, but cutting into the frozen ground was like trying to smash open a rock. At first I was worried we'd dig too hard and fast and damage the box, but our problem was the exact opposite. It just wasn't yielding, and it didn't take long before Lia and I were both dripping with sweat despite the cold, with hardly a dent to show for it.

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"Can't you Exhuman us out of this?" Lia said, leaning on her shovel heavily.

"You're so spoiled," I grunted as I banged the shovel against the ground again. "Having Exhumans around you all the time, you always think there's a magic solution for everything."

"Well, if we had Jack, I bet he could just jump away with as much dirt as he could touch. Or Tem could vaporize it. Or Tower."

"What could Tower's power do here?"

"He's got big arms," she said with a grin.

"Are you going to dig or stand there?" I complained at her.

But she had her thinking face on, and after another minute, had me summon some swords under the ground. It...sort of worked, I didn't get a cohesive blade out of it, just kind of a mess of hot held-together lightning, but that did the job in thawing the ground at least.

"Just goes to show," she said as she shoveled another bit of dirt away. "There's always a way to outsmart your problems."

"Hooray, you outsmarted dirt." I said.

"How about I dig the thawed parts and you dig the frozen parts then?"

"Yeah, yeah, you can gloat as much as you want."

"I won't have time for that, because I made our work so much faster. So tragic!"

We switched to hand tools when we were close, and carefully carved away the last couple of inches of dirt. More than once, I felt the tip of my trowel hit something solid beneath the dirt and winced. But it wasn't long after that that the top of the box appeared.

I smiled as I brushed dirt off of not one but two hololenses. The one attached to the box, and the one inscribed with the love we'd shared.

"Oh my God this is adorable," Lia said with the biggest grin ever. "You made this? You!?"

"I thought...she was leaving."

"This is the cutest, dorkiest thing ever. No wonder she loves you so much. Oh my God, I want one. Athan, bury me in a box for a hundred years now."

I rolled my eyes at her and gave the box a firm pull, yanking it upwards an inch. Lia helped from the other side, and at long last, sweaty and panting and arms shot to hell, we froze our asses on the cold snow with the box between us.

It looked the same as it ever had, maybe a little more dirt-caked. I wiped the camera lens off with my finger and checked the large hole in the front for dirt. Which was pointless because it was just pitch-black inside.

"How do we make it...go?" Lia asked.

I didn't know. There weren't any buttons or anything. She'd shut down for good last time and the original purpose of the box was just a backup machine to be interfaced with another unit for black box capabilities. It had taken AEGIS ninety years last time to crack into the OS and get running on it in any real capacity.

But really, I had no idea. All there really was for me to mess with was the quartz crystal I'd jammed into the side and was barely protruding, and the deulith cell taped onto the back for power. I went for the latter, and disconnected her power for a few seconds.

"Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?" she quipped.

When I plugged it back in, nothing immediately happened, but then, after a few moments, the holo sprang to life.

And there she was, beautiful as ever. The same face, the same body...wrist braces, I'd almost forgotten she wore those, and real hair instead of her cables, but still done up in copper twintails which snaked around her waist as she turned and looked around.

"Who are you?" she asked Lia, the lanky girl in a mask and slipskin in front of her. "Why am I awake?" Her eyes narrowed. "What do you want from me?"

"Um, I'm not the one who wants you, but it's good to see you again AEGIS," Lia said. I moved around to the front of the camera and waved at her.

"Athan? Athan!" I saw her sag in relief, but only for a brief moment. "And who is this girl?"

"Um, that's my sister Lia."

"Oh, his sister. Oh good. Hello Lia, I'm sorry. I thought I might have been...kidnapped or something."

"Yeah...you were just ready to be jealous of me," Lia said, glomping hold of my side and pulling up her mask to reveal a grin. "Admit it!"

"I admit nothing. Now, moving on from that obviously false sentiment, Athan, why the heck am I here? Where'd you get those clothes? What, uh, year is it?"

"Calm down, AEGIS, just...just…"

I wanted to explain everything to her and answer all her questions, but found myself choking and crying instead. I didn't know how I could say everything, how she'd died, how I missed her and loved her and how I'd wanted nothing more in these last couple of weeks but to see her face and hear her voice again. How I'd been doing my best every day trying to make the world safe and better, but I couldn't even care about it, because all I wanted was to run away, to here, to be with her again.

Lia squeezed my shoulder gently and the blurry glow of AEGIS through my tears looked like she was fretting with her hair.

"You died, AEGIS," Lia said quietly. "And Athan loved you."

"O-oh."

There was just embarrassing silence as I couldn't stop myself from crying and the two girls just watched. After a minute, AEGIS began typing away at her console, a warm and familiar sound I'd fallen asleep to and woken up to more times than I could count.

"I still have drones in the area...it looks like...we should be able to go to my place. There's warmth and food there. Shall we do that?" she asked gently.

I nodded and picked her up, facing her forward and following the blurry shape of Lia into the darkness.

It was a crappy non-plan because I couldn't see and my arms were full so I couldn't wipe my eyes, but it also felt like I was holding her again. The little holo right in front of me kept looking back, even if she couldn't see me without a camera, I knew the holo was a visual representation of her thoughts, and her thoughts were all on me.

We trudged through the snow for quite a while before the base appeared out of the gloom. It wasn't quite as we'd left it, most of the trenches had been filled in, and the ruined DOG-Es had been rolled off to the sides of the path. Someone had been busy here, and I blinked away my tears in preparation for trouble.

Lia apparently noticed the same, because she was holding a handful of shock rocks, but AEGIS was just smiling. Lia threaded through the half-closed gate and pushed the elevator button, and I put out my swords as the elevator arrived and the dim light within was blinding.

When the doors opened again, I just had to laugh. I should have expected this.

What was once a storage facility turned workshop turned medical bay turned emergency residence was now a warm and inviting home. There were shelves stocked with cans and vials of nutrient paste, racks on the walls heavy with drying fish and meats, and in the middle of the room, a cheery fire beneath carefully-stacked cords of wood, all at odds with the concrete and metal and sterile white glow of the lightbars in the ceiling.

And standing there, ready to greet us were two men, one very old and one very young. They both cheered when the door opened.

"Wynn! Tate!" I shouted, and immediately got tackled around the waist by a small child.

"I hope we're not intruding," AEGIS apologized. "It's late, and they didn't seem to have any idea where they were going."

"Hiya old dude, tiny dude," Lia said with a wave and a grin.

"Athan, m'boy!" Wynn laughed and wheezed at us. "What brings you back to our neck of the woods? If you're looking to move back in, I'm afraid you'll have a hard time convincing us to go."

"Go? Why would we want that?" I grinned. "Who'd catch us dinner if we kicked you out?"

He laughed and began pulling bits of food off the walls and shelves, insisting on hospitality no matter our arguments. I'd thankfully anticipated this, and told him I had a care package for him back in the crawler. Just some food and medicine, antibiotics, and a real fiberglass fishing rod. He seemed about ready to cry just hearing about it for some reason.

What followed was one of the happiest nights of my life, as I reunited with not just AEGIS but Wynn and Tate as well. We talked long into the night, catching up all three of them on all of the craziness which had happened since I'd left, and while their stories weren't nearly so bizarre and dramatic, Wynn had a flair for storytelling which could transform even the most mundane events into a gripping tale.

It was well past midnight and Tate was passed out in his bed hours ago before the rest of us decided on bed as well. We had a little bit of extra time in our schedule to spend here, but I could already imagine just how badly things might be going back at the XPCA with me gone for going-on three days now.

And that sucked, it really did. I believed in the XPCA and I wanted the world to be safe for humans and Exhumans both. But just like I'd found myself choosing AEGIS over Blackett before, and Saga over a world free of Exhumanity, I found it hard to care about the bigger problems when the small picture right in front of me seemed so ideal. It seemed crazy to me that anyone would choose to live in a cramped city when there was so much happiness and laughter to be had in the wilds if one only had a few friends and the will to look for it.

We were bedded down in some comfy, if temporary nests, and I had AEGIS positioned near my head, just like the old days. She was tapping away at her console and caught me looking, and turned to smile broadly at me.

"You act like you haven't seen me in forever, but for me it's only been a day, Athan," she said, blushing crimson under her freckles. "You keep...staring, and it's kind of weird."

"You know...before you died...I loved you."

"I know," she said, shifting nervously. "You said so. Or, Lia did."

"No I mean...we were lovers. You were the one."

"Oh. Oh! OH!" she said, becoming even more violent shades of red. "OH. MY."

"Shh, you'll wake the others."

"Yeah. Just. Um. Sorry...my...emotional indices are...oh my. Give me a minute."

She looked equally close to fainting and dancing as she grinned and wobbled like a cheshire top, holding her chest the whole while.

"Sorry. But...I wanted to let you know as soon as I could. I love you. I missed you."

She laughed even as she broke into tears. "S-sorry! My...I'm just...I wasn't ready…"

"It's okay," I told her, smiling at her, the last light in the dark room. "We have plenty of time, all the time in the world now that we're together again."

She sniffled and nodded and wiped her nose on her dress, inadvertently flashing me in the process.

"All the time in the world," she echoed, her voice distant and bubbly. "Whatever I did, I am...I am so, so grateful to me for having done it."

"We can catch you up more when we get back," I said and she nodded enthusiastically, still dabbing at her eyes.

"Get some sleep. Big day tomorrow," she whispered.

"Good night, AEGIS," I said as she turned off her holo, still beaming at me as she vanished.

"Good night, Athan. I love you too."