Somehow or another, I was standing in front of the girls' place. Tem was lurking somewhere, upset I think. Moon was standing right behind me, expressing her sympathy and irritation as only she could, by showing nothing at all. Though I knew just by the fact she wasn't hiding in a corner behind a book she was deeply upset, even if she refused to show it.

She was the reason I was standing here. She'd handled everything. She had Tem erase the shadow ops from the face of the earth using the same heilioism that the Exhuman had. She had been the only one to speak during debriefing, explaining how Tem and I were in an emotional state from witnessing our colleague killed before our eyes, how our comms had unfortunately been destroyed during a lightning surge when I had attempted to defend us.

She still had injuries, hidden from Cosette and the rest of the XPCA so that she had time and the excuse to talk while I was sent to a regenerator for my critical wounds.

And I couldn't say anything. If I opened my mouth, I would have told the truth. I would have tried to clear that poor, dead girl's name. I would have started something I couldn't stop. Moon and Tem were doing their utmost to protect me, cover for me, be here for me even now. And if I opened my mouth and told the truth, it would have been New Eden all over again, the three of us against the entire XPCA.

Which one of them would have died if I did, I wondered. Who would throw themselves away to save me this time? Neither of them could be dug out of the ground like AEGIS.

So I said nothing. I did nothing. I was carted around, as good as a corpse as the stale, dry air of the debriefing room filled with even more lies, as the tapestry of constructed reality of the XPCA gained yet another patch job, sewn in by Moon's steady hand.

And now I was here. The garage was open, and Saga had popped out to wave at me and a river of what looked like blood was flowing out and down the gutter.

I didn't react. I didn't know. I didn't want to know. I felt guilty and undeserving and small and just wanted people to stop being hurt around me. Wanted to stop living the lies. Wanted the world to be simple again.

"Go inside," Moon said, and prodded me in the back. I had no reason not to, so I compiled, going in the front door. "Is there someone you can talk to?" she asked. "I understand that is a common treatment for this kind of trauma. I would volunteer, but I would find the experience awful and tedious."

"I'll...I'll go look up Lia."

"Would you like me to remain here for the time being? I have no other engagements."

"I don't know. Do whatever you'd like."

She gave a curt nod and wandered to the corner-most chair in the living room where she planted her round bottom, drew a book from somewhere and propped it open in front of her.

Without any other direction, I went to look for Lia like I'd been told. I knocked on her door, and when nobody responded, opened it to peek inside.

It was dark in there. Lights off, blinds closed, and I thought at first Lia was just out until I saw that the sheets for the bed had been thrown to the floor and yet there was still something lumpy on the bed.

"Lia?" I asked, stepping into the room. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw her there, curled up on the bed, almost impossible to make out as more than a frumpy boulder underneath her oversized sweatshirt and the pillow she was holding over her head.

Like a switch had flicked inside me, everything I had wanted to say disappeared as I realized Lia was hurt.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked, sitting gently beside her. She didn't react except for her fingers digging hard enough into the pillow for her knuckles to turn white, like she was trying to smother herself with it.

If she heard me and knew I was there, that was enough, I thought. I would sit by her for as long as it took for her to be ready to talk about it. And so I sat, gently rubbing her back through the coarse fabric of the sweatshirt, supporting her without words for as long as she needed.

The sun went down. Saga and Moon each peeked in on us wordlessly. My stomach rumbled. I was stuck with my thoughts, but any time I threatened getting lost in them, I looked over at her, unmoving, her breathing barely visible. The toes of her bare feet curled up like she was, like every single part of her had to hold onto something or else she'd float away and disappear.

Eventually she said something. I hadn't expected it and she spoke into the bed so I missed what she said.

"What'd you say, sis?" I asked, rubbing her back again and leaning in close.

She turned her head revealing just the tip of her chin under the hood and a single brown curl of hair. "I said, you don't have to do this."

"But I want to."

"That's stupid. You're hungry. You're still in your uniform. You shouldn't have to baby me."

"Well, too bad. You're my little sis, and I'm gonna be hungry in my uniform babying you all day if I have to."

"That's stupid. Go away. Go eat and pee and stop worrying about me. I'm fine. Go talk to AEGIS."

"I don't want to talk to AEGIS. I want to talk to you."

"Why? I'm just a stupid, lame, angsty teenager. I mess everything up."

"That's just flat-out wrong. Did you mess something up? Is that why you're upset?"

She made a grumbling noise.

"Does it involve AEGIS? Did you guys fight? Did she kill Saga, and that's why they're washing out the garage?"

Lia sat up and looked at me, eyes wide. "What?"

"Well...it looked like there was a lot of blood in there. Didn't seem to be yours, so...unless someone killed Chiho in the garage, I just assumed something happened and Saga did what she does best."

She frowned, but I saw her pulling out of her depression as the tantalizing bait of relationship drama dangled in front of her. "Why would Saga go in the garage?" she asked, herself seemingly.

"To talk to AEGIS I presume. And since she can't read anything going on in AEGIS' mind, that means her reason probably came from you. And you're in here being sad, so I assumed you and AEGIS had a fight, and then Saga weighed in her opinion with AEGIS later and died over it."

Lia's brow knitted as she stared at me. "Who are you? My brother is an idiot. You're not supposed to be able to figure out things like that so fast."

I laughed. "I've been sitting here for--" I checked my mobile. "--an hour and a half now, Lia. And yes, it took me most of that time to figure it out. Don't you worry about how fast I am."

She smiled, but then almost immediately it froze weirdly and threatened to fall off her face. I knew that look too, I'd worn it enough times myself. That was somebody feeling happy and then realizing they shouldn't be.

It's probably where I should be right now, given the very recent blood on my hands. But Lia was more important that even my own self-loathing.

"I fought an Exhuman," I told her, changing tack. "She was really strong. Light powers, like Tem. Used them like a multi-headed whip with each of her arms. Could swing them around and snap them at us from any angle, and could build herself armor out of hard light. She was incredibly strong, but so angry at the XPCA. She was one of the redeveloped, and before the riot, Targa made her kill her friends at New Eden for whatever reason."

As I'd hoped, hearing about something removed from her situation drew Lia quietly out. Not really that different from how I'd talked about my own problems to get the Exhuman to open up to me to begin with. I guess talking to someone about my problems was my one move.

Maybe I'd only picked it up because it worked for Lia. I hadn't exactly had a lot of practice making speeches at people growing up.

"She had a pretty shitty life, and was a lot like me. And AEGIS. And you. Even some of Karu and Saga in there, I guess. She seemed like a good, strong person. Wanted to fight because she couldn't take doing nothing anymore, but didn't want to hurt anyone, not really."

I neglected to mention the regenerator of course.

"And at the end, after I'd gotten her to calm down and talk and realize that the XPCA wasn't just a bunch of assholes lying to her to hurt her, she asked if she could join the P-Force--"

"Woah, really?" Lia asked, unable to hold in her excitement. "What's her name? Does she have any--"

I held up a hand and Lia bubbled like a leaking dam. "She died. Murdered. By an XPCA fuckwit after the fight was over."

"What?" Lia asked, visibly in despair. "No. No! That's so effed! No!" She'd only known about this girl for maybe fifteen seconds, but by her reaction, Lia was already planning a life out together with her.

"Yeah," I said, feeling myself choking up too. "That's why I wanted to talk to you."

Lia took a deep breath, seeming to swell up as she sat upright, firm with determination. She nodded at me. "I'm here for you, bro."

She was so cute and trying so hard, I just wanted to tackle her and tickle her on the spot.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Truly, we Ashton kids were messed up. I had all the troubles in the world bearing down on me until the second I saw Lia hurting, and then whatever was holding me down, it was irrelevant, gone. Lia needed me, and that was it. And now she was doing the exact same thing for me. It was moments like these which made me think, legitimately, if it was just Lia and me against the whole of the world, somehow we'd make it. As long as we had each other.

Man, I'd been so deluded to ever believe she wouldn't come after me when I was exiled.

Someone knocked on the door and Lia called for them to enter.

And what stepped through sort of scared the crap out of me.

It was a spindly shiny thing, like something made of the horns of beetles. Skinny but strong, angular and sweeping, metal and black. It walked on two backwards-bent legs ending in curved blades that seemed to be stabbing the floor rather than stepping on it. Its two arms ending in flat paddles, and little floating drones moved and spun in the air near them like a fleet of simple servants.

And it had no face. Just a blank faceplate like an exosuit and a tall crown that swept backwards. But it was too skinny in parts to be an exosuit, even Tem wouldn't fit inside.

In those weird floating hands it had, it held a plate, two fingers clamped on it on either side. And on the plate was what looked like rice and a grey block of...maybe tofu?

"Oh hello Lia. You're here too. I was just giving Athan his dinner," the black thing said with a genderless, echoing synthesized voice. It was only through the context of the things' actions that I had any idea what was going on, and more importantly, a reason not to immediately start cutting up the strange invader which was making Lia visibly nervous.

"AEGIS?" I asked.

"Pre-sent!" she said with singsong tone which really did not convey well. She moved in a way I think was supposed to be a wiggle or dance but...like I said...brought nothing to mind so much as the shiny black inflexible invulnerability of a horned beetle.

"AEGIS what...what happened to you?" I asked.

Her hands went to her hips, with her fingers floating on the outside of them now as the only indication that they'd turned around. "What is that supposed to mean? I got a body! You're supposed to be excited. Look, now I can cook--" she brandished the plate at me, the grey blob wobbling threateningly. "--and fulfill all of your needs, just like I used to. All of them."

She leaned forward at me and I felt like I was being scrutinized by a security camera.

"Um, I'm winking," she added.

"Yes...I...definitely got that." I said. "Uh, look, Lia and I were talking, can I catch up with you later?"

"Ah," AEGIS said, and stepped into middle of the room, stepping silently despite the apparent bulk of her folded-up legs. "I also had something to say about that. Lia...I'm sorry for being such a jerk. What I said...I uh...I wasn't able to find a single shred of evidence to support it. It was just a baseless hypothesis that I got carried away with."

Lia nodded but said nothing.

"So...you don't need to…" I think she was trying to make subtle gestures, but the body just didn't have any face or anything.

"I wasn't going to tell him. So you're fine," Lia said in barely more than a whisper.

"Oh good. Thanks, Lia. I'll just...leave this here, then," AEGIS said, putting the plate on Lia's desk next to her computer and then turning to go. "I'm still...working on the garage, uh...so...please feel free to come by, but...knock maybe. Okay. Um. Bye!"

The door clicked shut behind her and I tried to avoid betraying too many of my feelings by staring them into Lia, but I was pretty sure that at least a huge what the fuck had conveyed.

"Yeah," Lia said simply. "That's AEGIS now."

"She's like a huge metal cockroach."

"She says she's working on it."

"It needs a lot of work. Holy crap. Why'd she even make that? It's horrifying. I liked Rua."

"She didn't make it. That's the body TARGA had designed. We just...took it, since she wasn't using it, and AEGIS needed one."

"Not that I didn't already know, but TARGA had no taste at all. If Saga looks a little like one of those black-eyed grey-skinned Area-51 aliens, now AEGIS looks like the kind that plants eggs in your stomach which burst out of your chest."

"Dude…" Lia said and frowned at me.

"What?"

She leaned in close to me and gestured. Pointing up. I looked up and she immediately grabbed my head and reset me to neutral.

"What--Lia?"

She just widened her eyes at me with a significant glance and waited. Up? What's up? Something's up? Something above us? The ceiling? The roof?

It took me a minute and then I realized. AEGIS had a body. Her systems were back online. Cam-drones, watching me make fun of her right behind her back. I closed my eyes and reached out, and sure enough, in the corner, under a layer of active camouflage, I felt the low-voltage heartbeat of one such drone watching us.

I thought it was a little weird that Lia knowingly lived with it there, but then realized I'd done the same thing the whole time I lived with AEGIS.

Well, shit. I'd probably really hurt AEGIS' feelings now. Smooth fucking move. As if it were a consolation prize, I felt some amusement coming off of Saga in the garage at my thoughts, and wondered...is there anyone in this house who doesn't spy on everyone else? I half-expected to peek under the bed and find Chiho hiding under there with a camera and a smile.

"Are you hungry?" I asked Lia, and she shook her head.

"I probably should be," she said. "But I just lose my appetite all day after I have a meltdown."

"Well have some at least. I don't think AEGIS will mind if I share."

"Um," Lia said, and I looked at her and saw her swallow heavily. "Maybe not."

"Hey," I barked at her. "If you won't take care of my sister, I will."

She shook her head. "No...I will eat. I promise. It'll be frozen and junky but I'll do it. I just…" she looked across the room at the desk and I followed her gaze.

Rice. Plate. Fork. So far so good. Grey amorphous blob. Not so good.

I walked over and gave it a poke with the fork. Tough. Dense. I ran a finger across it and tasted my finger. Salty. Sweet. Odd.

I stabbed it and brought it to my nose. Very concentrated fishy smell. A little perilous, but okay. I took a bite.

Oh. Deargod.

It was like a sugar-coated eraser made of dry fish paste. It was, at once, the most flavorless and flavorful thing I'd eaten, both in bad ways. It was dense and dry, and why was the whole outside coated in sugar?

I tried to repress the urge to gag, since AEGIS was watching, and followed up with a mouthful of rice in desperation. Which, in retrospect, was an amazingly stupid idea. Because now there were two different horrible flavors in my mouth, seemingly competing for which one could make me spit it out or gag.

The rice tasted like concentrated beef marrow and vinegar. I didn't even know what AEGIS was attempting to do here, but what she'd created was an abomination. My eyes watered from the sour and raw sugar and stink of fish assaulting me from within. I tried to chew before it became a congealed paste on my tongue, but doing so just crashed the conflicting flavors together even more harshly and released more of it.

I felt my chin trembling as I came to terms with the only real option here. I couldn't spit it out. I couldn't keep it in my mouth. There was only one place food was supposed to go from here, and though my throat felt like it was already closing up preemptively, that was about all I had left.

But the fish was so dry I was having a hard time swallowing the gritty shrapnel it became in my mouth. Realizing that my half-aborted plan was leading to me actually now legitimately beginning to choke, I began looking around for a glass or bottle of water or soda, or anything other than vinegar.

"Oh God. Oh no. You're choking," Lia helpfully said, standing up, eyes widening at me. I'd realized there wasn't anything in sight and began pulling out Lia's desk drawers while she panicked on the spot. In the bottommost drawer, I saw a full water bottle and tore it open to pour into my closed throat.

"Oh don't, that's--" she said, taking a step and then freezing, drawing in her arms while she watched in horrified fascination.

It was fucking vodka is what it was. I choked again and realized vodka was, in a way, a huge blessing because my whole mouth now just tasted like alcohol and burning, and that was a heck of a lot better than what had been in there before. At least vodka was something people chose to ingest by choice. It was overpowering, and adequately lubricated the mess in my throat to finally go down and rot in my stomach instead of my neck.

I coughed and collapsed in Lia's desk chair while she remained standing and staring like I was going to turn into a frog. After a minute, I had my shit together and turned to her.

"Wow that was good. You sure you don't want some?" I asked, holding out the plate for her.

She just walked past me, closed up the bottle and put it back in the drawer, apparently missing the humor of the situation. "That was for emergencies only, okay?" she said, pointing at the desk. "Like...today, maybe. I don't have a drinking problem anymore, okay?"

"I...never said you did?"

"Well, I'm sure you were wondering why I had a bottle hidden in my desk, so I'm just telling you, okay? I wasn't expecting anyone going through all my stuff like that." She glared at me a few more moments and when it became apparent I wasn't yelling at her still, she went back to the bed and curled up on it again.

"I do mess everything up," she said. "I'm a mess, and I don't want you having to look after me all the time."

"Lia, sit up. Seriously."

She glared at me from under her hood but didn't stir otherwise.

"That wasn't anything. I know you're feeling stressed right now, but it's fine. Now if you want to see what a real mess looks like, I've got a dinner option for you. But I want to make it clear you are not, and have never ever been a burden. I'm an Exhuman, Lia. But I'm also the luckiest Exhuman in the world, because unlike all those other Exhumans I see and work with, I still have a family. Even if it's small and messed up, I've got one, and she makes me so happy. So stop beating her up, and give her some credit, okay?"

She sat up begrudgingly and nodded, but looked far from convinced.

"I'm going to get rid of this before it attains sentience and kills us, okay?" I said, grabbing the plate. She smiled weakly at my joke. "Message me if you want anything. And I know you won't, so I'll check up on you later. In the meanwhile, eat something, right?"

"Right."

"Okay. I need to call Karu and set up a meeting. It's been way longer than I meant. And probably catch up with Saga and AEGIS. Hell, and Chiho. So you okay for now?"

She nodded.

"Okay," I said and gave her a smile, opening the door and stepping out. As I did, I thought I heard my name behind me and peeked back. "You say something?"

"The Exhuman girl you met, who died."

"Yeah? What about her?"

"You weren't done talking about her, were you?"

"I dunno. Maybe."

"Okay. Well. If you want to talk, I'm here for you, too."

I smiled at her as I closed the door gently.

We Ashtons really were messed up, but that didn't disqualify her from being the best. I hoped she knew that. Hoped that someday, maybe if I thought it hard enough, she'd pick it up through Saga or something. Hoped that she could find the perspective she needed to see herself the way the rest of us saw her.

Because it just kind of broke my heart sometimes. That girl might know more about everyone else than anyone else, might be able to charm or weasel her way into or out of pretty much anything she wanted, if she wanted it hard enough.

But even with all that awareness and all that talent, sometimes it felt like the only person she couldn't get to like her was herself.