I was beginning to feel bad about it. The girls didn't have any problem offering me the spare bedroom. Lia insisted she cover my rent, and I insisted right back that I do. So of course we compromised, and she was covering my rent.

It wasn't that, or my constant presence here which made me feel guilty...on the contrary, it sorta felt like every time I showed up, Lia and AEGIS -- and formerly Saga -- would put on their best faces and just get along normally while I was in the room. I wasn't quite dumb enough to believe they all were getting along, but I seemed to be helping.

No, it was the parade of people I was dragging through their living room which they tolerated with wary eyes that was making my guilt gland wriggle. Rito had already come and gone as she pleased, though hadn't returned since leaving with Saga a couple days ago. Moon had stopped by again yesterday, looking like she wanted to talk with me and then saying nothing as she tended to do. Tem, just Tem, as usual. After her shift, even Karu made an appearance, only long enough to pick me up and head out somewhere for the evening, where I vented on her the stresses of the household while she listened with bemusement.

And now, this guy. Clean, pressed XPCA uniform, collar high and straight. Sitting with equal parts casual comfort and rigidly good posture. Dress boots, not combat boots, polished and spotless.

And the all-too-familiar insignia of a torch and shield identifying him as intelligence. My stint in detention had given me plenty of hours to hone my loathing for that symbol, and for all the incompetents who interrogated me pointlessly and endlessly who wore it.

Just sitting there across from me, cool as anything with a breezy smile like this was his summer home.

AEGIS came back from the kitchen, two cups on saucers steaming as they floated in the air on her fingers. Her uh, smile, I guess...was pleasant?

"Coffee and tea," she said airily, her fingers floating down to place them before us without having to stoop.

"Thank you," he said with amusement as he studied AEGIS. I echoed him and took my tea.

"So do you two know each other?" AEGIS asked, folding up slightly as she sat in a chair with her leg-blades sticking out.

"No," I muttered into my drink. "Never met him in my life."

"And I'm sure both of our lives were worse for it," he said. "I'm sorry, she is really captivating. Is this a custom job, or...did you teach her to ask questions? Is she situationally aware?"

"I'm not a robot, I'm remotely piloting this body," AEGIS answered before I could open my mouth. "I'm just a girl who loves robots. Maybe if you're nice to Athan, we can meet someday."

"Oh, so you're not a robot maid? That's a little disappointing. I was hoping to buy my own," he smiled. He took a sip of coffee and I noticed the smile vanish as he attempted valiantly to swallow. Yeah, you really don't want one of these as a maid buddy, trust me.

"So what was your name again?" AEGIS asked.

"Lieutenant Colonel Teryn, ma'am. Please, just call me Micaiah."

"Colonel Micaiah," AEGIS mused. "And what did you come here to ask Athan?"

"More inane bullshit," I said, setting down my cup. At least AEGIS hadn't figured out a way to ruin tea yet, so I was drinking a lot of that recently. But damn, did that girl love 'innovating' in the kitchen. Nothing was safe.

"Is that how you talk to a superior officer?" Micaiah asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry, should I stand and salute?"

He laughed. "No, it was an honest question. I'm well aware that the Invoked Sergeants don't fall within the traditional military hierarchy. I'm curious to see how you do relate with others in black. I can't imagine most of your interactions with us are that great. Just a guess based on the prevailing opinion on Exhumans and your uh...disposition towards me, so far."

"Yeah, I think you nailed it. Great job on the intelligence. Maybe next you can solve my missing sock mysteries."

"Athan, don't be a dick," AEGIS chided me.

"No, it's fine," Micaiah said. "Like he said, I'm with intelligence. I prefer to observe people undisturbed, if I can. I've never been face-to-face with an Exhuman before, and so far, it's quite the experience."

"They're not all asinine jackasses," AEGIS apologized. "Some we know are actually quite friendly. Even this one, sometimes."

"And who are you, piloting this unit, if you don't mind my asking?" he said, turning towards her. I caught a moment where she apparently blushed :$, if I understood that face properly.

"Oh, just an old friend of Athan's," she said. "And his lover and devoted girlfriend," she added quickly afterwards, like I couldn't hear if she spoke quickly enough.

"And...the robot why, if that's not too invasive?"

"Well," she said, looking down thoughtfully. "It does wonders for my waistline."

He smiled but didn't press further. Sort of the opposite of how I expected intelligence guys to act by now.

"So what did you want, Micaiah?" I asked him.

"Right. Sorry, getting so caught up in all of this new...my apologies. A couple of things. First, I thought we should get to know each other a little better, as I've been reassigned to work under Colonel Dawn to assist with some of her duties."

"Cosette? Oh good. She's been looking like she's about to pass out on her feet the last few times I saw her," I said.

"Indeed. But I was also on the team investigating the death of the leader of the group calling itself the 'Defiant Unchained'. They've retained me part-time in that capacity."

"What, you're just that smart?" I asked.

He smiled and laughed. "I don't think so, but they had some reason, I assume. I know you were already grilled about your actions--"

"Repeatedly."

"Yes, repeatedly. And I've already gone over all your testimony, and wouldn't dream of asking you the same lines yet again. Instead, I wanted to just...talk, in a more conversational capacity. You can say whatever you want about the Defiant, and if there's anything there, even if it's something you might not have said before because you didn't think it was important, it may be a vital clue."

AEGIS' polite smile fell to a sullen ._. as she spoke. "So you are just here to interrogate him again."

"Just how desperate are you guys?" I asked, leaning back and putting my feet on the coffee table. AEGIS frowned >:\ at me as she moved my teacup away from my legs.

"Reasonably desperate. You're one of the only leads on a case which threatens the whole of the XPCA. I obviously wasn't there for it, but I'd speculate that they only chose to release you with the hope you'd go stirring up more trouble and produce additional evidence for them, and the time they were holding you was spent in debate on just how big a risk that was."

I blinked at him as I processed the fact that an XPCA intelligence officer not only just said something intelligent, but also polite, candid, and to me.

He sipped his coffee again. "Is there honey and sugar in this?"

"Yes. And nonfat milk to mask the bitterness without adding unnecessary calories."

He smacked his lips a few times and put the cup down again. "Of course."

But I was suddenly interested in what this man knew about the case more so than his coffee preferences. If this was a legitimately capable intel officer...working the one case I cared about, no less...and would be working in proximity to me on account of being Cosette's newest subordinate…

Well it seemed like a miracle.

And that suddenly made my stomach turn uneasily.

"You say you don't know why you were still retained for Talon's case?" I asked him.

He smiled pleasantly. "I have some suspicions. I am intelligence after all. But bad intel is often worse than no intel at all, so I'm not about to speculate openly on that point."

"And you don't think it's strange that you're suddenly reassigned to be close to me? Me, who was just released -- as you just said -- on the possibility that I'd go off and dig up something else. And then you're right there under Cosette, ready and waiting with this dippy smile on your face to find out everything and then run off and tell them every single invasive hint you've gotten out of me? Is that about right?"

He smiled again. "I've never heard my smile called dippy before...but yes, those were my suspicions as well. In my defense, I'd like to mention that I never planned or told anyone any of this. I really am just an intelligence officer who was reassigned one day. If there is a conspiracy, I'm as much a pawn as you are."

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"Great," I said, pulling my feet off the table and laying out on the couch instead. "And so I'm betting you don't actually know anything useful about the case anyway either. You're just a glorified camera to spy on me."

"Is he always this condescending, or is this an intelligence branch thing?" he asked AEGIS.

"Intelligence. Though there's plenty of other things which set him off."

"Oh really. Well that's unfortunate. I'd prefer a more natural viewpoint."

"And I'd prefer if the XPCA tried to solve this shit instead of just badgering me in new and pointless ways. Picking useless people and sending them to my house? Of course I'm pissed."

"I actually did come of my own volition. I'm the proactive sort. As I said, I wanted to introduce myself, and I doubted we'd meet at work, since I'd be with Colonel Dawn at Central." He frowned. "And I don't think I'm useless."

"Do you know anything about the case I don't?"

He scratched his chin. "I'd say I do. Certainly more than you in some regards."

I waited but he didn't follow up in any way except to stop scratching and resume his perfect posture.

"Well?" I asked.

He laughed. "Pardon me, but just to lay out the score: I came to call as a token of friendship and comradery. I was reassigned from my old posting without being consulted as a result of your actions. I've been variously accused by you of being useless, stupid, a glorified camera, and possessing a dippy smile -- which still hurts, by the way."

"Sorry."

"I won't take it personally. I came here with the intention of pooling our combined knowledge to see if any detail you had fit into the broader narrative as I understood it in a way you might not, and instead have been subject to nothing but constant abuse. As your superior. And now that you think I have something of use to you, you expect me to just give it to you?"

I looked at AEGIS who just shrugged. Amazing, the amount of you deserved this she could cram into that gesture, even without a real face.

"Uh. Yes? Maybe. Please?"

He snorted but was still smiling at me. "Let's make a deal. You indulge me in telling me what you know. I tell you what I know. And you stop being quite so abrasive, pretend I'm just any other human and not Intelligence and not sent here to spy on you. Does that sound fair?"

"Sounds fair," I said, and leaned up to take his offered handshake.

"All right then. Would you care to go first?"

"Can I trust you to tell me after?" I asked.

He smiled and stood up, pulling his wallet and mobile out of his pockets and offering them to me as he sat again. "Here. Keep these in escrow until you're satisfied."

"You know, I am an Exhuman. I can just kill you and take your stuff whenever," I said, trying to sound threatening, but he just laughed.

"Well, if you do, I might leave quite the mess for your lovely robot maid girlfriend to have to clean, and that would be terribly rude of me, so let's try to avoid that."

This guy was either so confident in himself or so unthreatened by me that I found it just a bit off-putting. I suppose there was the possibility he was confident in me, but he'd have to be a total idiot to believe in me so entirely after knowing me less than an hour.

Or maybe...I frowned and thought more. Something about how open and honest this guy was as an intel officer just made my paranoia sensors go off, but he'd done nothing but be forward with me. I was and had been a jackass this whole time, for no real reason. I should be nicer, I thought. At least let him give me something to hate him for first.

But resolving to be nice didn't calm my nerves. I opened his wallet, found his ID, definitely authentic. Pictures of him and presumably his wife and teenage son. Credit chits, insurance cards, library membership, everything you might expect. I turned on his mobile and gave him a glance and he just nodded at me. Full list of contacts, hundreds of old messages I didn't read through, map open with driving directions to the girls' house, a butt-ton of documents. Wow, a metric butt-ton of documents.

So basically either completely legit, or incredibly elaborate fakes, well beyond my capacity to deal with. My mind informed me repeatedly, insistently, that I was an idiot, but something still hung in my guts. Something about the way he looked and smiled at me. It was just so...so…

So genuine. So unabashedly legitimately happy to be talking to me and studying me and investigating AEGIS' terrible coffee. Maybe that was just it, outside of my close friends--and even with them half the time it felt like--I never met people who just seemed engaged and happy to meet me. It was weird, and doubly so because that smile and those bright eyes were hanging out of a black XPCA uniform.

"Tem, can you sit next to me?" I asked, deciding to test my theory.

"Can I?" her voice came from behind me, making Micaiah jump and then look around in apparent delight. The couch barely made a sound or indentation as the scraggly girl climbed on it.

"And you can unhide."

She did so, and I found her half-hidden eyes staring at my chest with excitement written all across her flushed cheeks. Her breath was quick and shallow.

"Fascinating!" Micaiah said, studying her intently. "Now she is not in any records I've yet read. Who might you be?"

Tem looked up at me and when I nodded she turned to him and spoke. "I'm Temperance, or Tem...or Tempe, or um, whatever you would like to call me."

"And you're an Exhuman?"

She nodded slowly.

"Incredible." He looked back and forth between us and at the faint blush and distracted eyes on her face. "You two aren't...that is to say...I'm sorry, this is incredibly inappropriate to ask but...have you been...intimate?"

"They most certainly have not," AEGIS said, standing up suddenly, her fingers flaring around her hands like angry hornets.

"Right. I apologise. There's just...never been a pairing of Exhumans before, and while genetics are widely regarded as...my apologies. Sorry, really. That was out of line."

"Yeah, maybe you should leave," AEGIS said, her voice sounding a lot more robotic now, but still with the stupid >Sad [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/sad.png] written across her face.

This time I was the one who found myself laughing. This guy was a huge nerd! The second I dangled some research in front of his nose, he jumped straight in the deep end. It was no wonder he was so delighted to talk to me, I was something he didn't know, and I had information he didn't know, and the more time he spent in this house the more wonders he was discovering. Shame for him that Saga had just left, I could only imagine what he'd make of her.

And then I remembered that the last the XPCA formally knew of her, she was at Blackett's lodge, or had escaped from it, and maybe it wouldn't be a great idea to show her off.

"He's fine, AEGIS. He's just curious. I mean, I've never heard of Exhumans having kids either."

"Right? Can you imagine the family dynamics?" Micaiah asked. I thought of Trish and Gil raising their brats, and the brief Exhuman power duels that unfolded there over the most banal things.

"Well, nobody needs to consider it," AEGIS huffed, crossing her arms with a >.> "because Athan's not having any Exhuman babies, he's stuck on me. Right sweetie?"

"Right," I said, and she beamed Very Happy [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/biggrin.png] before sitting down again.

I turned back to Micaiah. "I've decided I can trust you, so here's what I know."

He took careful notes as I spoke even after asking to record us, and for the most part, seemed completely unfazed by my recollection of events before my imprisonment. But when I broached the subject of our meeting a couple days back, where Mini had attacked me and they had all been stranded in Oregon, his eyebrows went wild with alarm as he scribbled furiously on his mobile with a stylus.

"And they're still up there?"

"To my knowledge. I haven't seen them since, and Rito's sort of out of the picture."

"And who have you told this?"

"So far, uh, just you actually. Rito knows and so would Saga...uh...another friend...they're uh, off together right now. AEGIS really only had questions about my injuries--"

"I happen to be a very attentive listener. It was you who didn't want to talk about it."

"And I explained the situation to Karu, she seemed mostly concerned for if they were coming back for me, which I said I didn't know, maybe. But we never talked about where they went, so not her."

"So the only people who know they're in Oregon are in this room, Rito, and Saga."

"And anyone they've told, I guess."

"Well, far be it for me to jump the gun on telling you my info, but if they've told anyone, those people are keeping quiet. The XPCA completely lost them a couple of days ago...we never expected them to jump state, not as a group."

Watching him take his careful notes, I felt like I was betraying the Defiant somewhat...most of them had seemed fine to me, with a few violently glaring exceptions...but I reminded myself, I was on the XPCA's side on this one. If the end of the world was looming, I wanted to prevent it, even if it meant snitching on some Exhumans. They really brought this on themselves by announcing such a crazy plan anyway.

The lies we tell ourselves, man. I didn't believe me for a second. But that was the theory anyway.

I finished up my story about the tussle with Mini, and he made me clarify that she hadn't used her powers in any way during the fight that I could tell, how I'd escaped with Rito, and that was the last I'd seen or heard of them, and hoped that was a good sign.

"Maybe," Micaiah concluded, putting the stylus away and pocketing his mobile for a moment before pulling it back out with some small alarm and placing it back with his wallet in 'my' possession. "And if what you said was the end of it and the Defiant were allowed to believe they escaped and disbanded and reassimilated into the public under our secret surveillance, I think that would satisfy the XPCA given the situation. But it's unlikely."

"Yeah, I sort of expect Mini to come looking for me, honestly. I don't think she cares about staying hidden so much as taking out Talon's death on me."

"It's not that. It's that trouble is actively looking for them. You were done with your story, right?" I nodded and then he continued, absently picking up his mobile again and flipping through it. "We've known this for a week now, maybe, but there's an assassin after them. A very dangerous one...a real underworld assassin, not a hunter or anyone with military or federal connections. We don't know why he's after them, but we can guess. We've historically had a few recon teams and even one of our temporary monitoring posts taken out by this guy, and recently got the drop on him while he was seemingly waiting in ambush of a Defiant member, but we didn't win that one either. Just a standard strike team, stumbled right into him basically, and were eviscerated."

He slid the mobile back across the table and on the holo I saw a grainy picture, obviously cropped from a larger image which showed a man on a rooftop in a nondescript grey hoodie, two black, straight locks of hair framed his narrow face. A thin moustache, black as well, grew down into the short goatee on his chin. His skin was medium in tone, golden even before it was tanned probably, oily and smooth.

But all of that was irrelevant. He could have had mutton chops and a clown nose and they still wouldn't be his most defining feature. It was his eyes. Eyes narrow, angular, with whites that jumped out against the hue of his skin. The eyes looked unimpressed, like they had taken in much and found little beauty in it. They looked familiar, yet alien.

Because I'd seen eyes like his a thousand times now. On Saga.

I pushed the phone away, feeling revulsion churning in my stomach. Apparently I'd gotten used to Saga but was still racist, somewhere in the vicinity of my gut.

"I think," I said, sitting up and staring at the Lieutenant Colonel opposite me, "that I need to hear everything you have to say."

He nodded and picked up his mobile, staring into the picture for a moment before closing it.

"His name is Liwei Xie. But you won't hear that name on the streets...people who talk about him too much have a habit of winding up dead. Not that many know of him to begin with. Instead, his clientele and victims have come up with a much more straightforward name for him."

He offered his mobile again and I saw this time it was a news article, with scribbled annotations all over it in a tidy, compact scrawl. But what Micaiah wanted me to see was obviously the title.

"Killer Sino on the loose? Who is 'Dragon' and how many has he killed?"