It had taken methodical planning, extensive organization, and a butt-ton of hard work, but I was here. Making a DOG unit had been an essential addition to the plan, allowing me to move parts between machines and to hide everything when the kids came back...and man did kids get into everything. I thought the teacher's line of it belongs to another class, don't touch it would get old, but I guess teachers more than most were accustomed to repeating the same line over and over and over to a room full of little shits.

Which was a little unfairly harsh. They were decent enough kids. But they had been inadvertently in my way for the last week, so I was entitled to a little spite.

But that was all over now. I was here! I was back in the body of AEGIS Prime, and Athan was looking at me with eyes like he was seeing me for the first time. I felt exultant, triumphant, the rush...maybe the best feeling in the entire world...when a plan came together just-so.

At the same time, I felt stupid and small, as a little voice in the back of my mind which sounded a lot like Lia reminded me that if I'd just listened, I could have made this body weeks ago, and had Athan's attention like this all along. It had been just pure arrogance to choose the body with more specs over the one with more humanity...and as much as they were just two different bodies to me, other people weren't as accepting, I guessed.

She'd also been instrumental in getting it built in time, and anticipated a huge number of problems I would never have seen coming. I just assumed that if I ordered something or had something delivered, that would be it...but Lia was all over making sure components were built to spec, deadlines didn't slip, labor was on top of things...again I was realizing how competent she was, and how stupid I'd ever been to dismiss her.

"Onward to the Defiant then," Athan said.

"Onward to the Defiant!" I answered, and he ushered us from the room.

Tem was here, seeming...I didn't know. Like a warm blob on my IR spectra. She'd been alone with Athan this whole time and I wondered just how close they'd gotten. It was cold and rainy up here, and I could easily see the idiot huddling with her for warmth under a newspaper instead of actually taking care of himself. So as we all jogged off, I thought I'd pry a little.

"I think it's so thoughtful you took Tem with you," I said. "Considering how difficult she can be."

"Now's really not the time for that," he said.

"It isn't? Are you trying to be evasive about her?"

He looked sideways over at me, running forward without missing a stride. "No, it just sounds like you're fishing for something, and I want you to leave Tem alone."

"It's okay--"

"It's not okay," Athan cut her off. "You can save your jealousy for later, AEGIS. We have work to do."

I snorted dismissively and kept running. It was a little irritating that he'd shut me down like that, especially given the goo-goo eyes he had been giving me not fifteen seconds ago, but at the same time I was a little flattered he knew me that well. Overall, still a wash, though.

"So where are we going?" I asked.

"Tallest building on the block four north of the school."

"North is that way," I said, pointed behind us.

"Oh." He stopped and turned around. "Well, I was headed towards this big compass in the middle of campus, but I guess consulting you would have been faster. How's things been in Vegas?"

"Rough, then quiet, then rough. It wasn't easy being a robot pretending to be a human pretending to be a robot, you know. And Lia was...well...the first couple of days she didn't do so hot."

Athan frowned but said nothing.

"But I helped. I thought up this plan to have a new body built over here so I could be with you and act as your operator...anything from 'net access to cash, I have you covered. And I thought...if I was going to move to a new body, I may as well go for the classic model, right?"

"Well you look awesome. I've never seen you run with your hair down, it's got a mind of its own, doesn't it?"

"Oh shoot, I never tied it up. That's an ineffable part of my cuteness. I hope the Defiant don't mind me doing that while we talk. More importantly, how's it been out here?"

"Well, Rito's mom kicked me out, and I destroyed her mobile which was a stupid mistake, so I couldn't reconnect with her for a bit. And then during that bit, I realized...I should leave her alone and stay here where the Defiant are."

"Wouldn't it have been much easier to leave with her, get some...I don't know, money and intel, and come back?"

His head drooped, lolling back and forth as he ran. "Damn it AEGIS, this is why you're the plans girl. I never even thought about leaving and coming back."

I patted his back in rhythm of our strides. "Aww. Poor dummy. There, there."

"Well, I needed a place to stay and food for Tem and myself, so I got a job, by accident almost. Just a temp position cleaning up a crowded shop for its owner, whom I think you'd like, by the way."

"Yeah? What's he like?"

"She, actually. Whitney...something. Never caught her last name. I don't think she knows mine at all," he laughed.

"Oh. Does Whitney have long legs perchance?"

"Yeah, she's like, two or three inches on me. Still very slim though, I don't think she ever goes out or remembers to eat."

"So she's got smaller breasts, too?"

"AEGIS...I said to save the jealousy for afterwards?"

"Just tell me, does she have freckles?"

"No, no freckles. You're safe."

"But she is taller than me," I pouted. "Did you have a nice time cleaning her shop?"

"Eh, it was okay. She let me sleep there, she had a bed in the back--"

"You slept with her!?" I shouted, almost missing a step. Fortunately the auto-gyros in this unit were fantastic.

"No, I slept there and she went home! Jesus, woman. Back. Back, I say."

"You can't blame me for being worried. Nobody's sated your sexual desires for days now, and while I admit that's my failing as a girlfriend--"

"Okay, AEGIS, stop. Seriously."

"--that just opens the door for any other woman--"

To my surprise, he stopped running, and I had to jog to a halt, confused where this had come from. He stood there with his hands on his hips just staring me down...and more than at any point while he talked about these girls, did I worry I'd screwed up and crossed some line and ruined everything.

"Listen to me," he demanded, and I could only nod stupidly. "Right now, we are going off to talk with the Defiant, and that's kind of important."

"So why did we stop--"

"But the second we're done, we're having a talk. A serious talk. I've had a lot of time away from you to think, and...and Whitney gave me some good advice, and Tem, too." Tem seemed to shirk away, and that was smart, because if I weren't so scared right now, I might want to kick her in the face. Seriously? Was she taking advantage of my absence to break us apart? The little bitch.

"Might I inquire what we will be discussing?" I asked, trying not to let my nerves show.

"Boundaries. Mine, specifically. Okay?" I swallowed hard and nodded. "Okay then," he said, and started off again.

I felt like somewhere in the process of jogging to a halt, a wire came loose in my brain and all that was going on up there was sparks. As cool as I tried to play it, every step we took felt like I was carrying a load of dread on my back, while Athan seemed totally unaffected.

He didn't know what he was doing to me? Or he...he didn't care? Didn't care because it was no big deal, and I was overreacting? Or because...my opinion wasn't relevant anymore...because we were over?

I'd been victim of Athan's almost-callous, thoughtless honesty a few times, and always it caught me off guard...but usually it was him unexpectedly telling me something he loved about me, or him being him, just going forward without regard to how the world worked. They were both things I adored about him.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

But having it turn on me like this, it was just brutal. I wasn't sure if I wanted the talk to come so it could be over, or to never come at all, just the two of us (and Tem…) running these four blocks forever together.

Was this the last time I'd see his broad back? Those muscular legs? His messy hair bobbing? That was impossible...even if he did break up with me...Saga and Karu were still here, weren't they? They saw him sometimes. But his words were making me second-guess everything.

I'd been so stupid. So petty. What was I thinking, shit-talking all of his friends? Of course he'd hate me after that. And that talk about how I'd only trust him with other women if I'd drained his balls? What kind of controlling girlfriend does that? What kind of guy would want a controlling girlfriend like that?

"I can change," I said, more of a whimper really.

"What?" he called back at me.

"I said I can change! I'm sorry!"

"Dude, AEGIS. Come on. Defiant, please."

"Right." Right. He didn't want a girl who'd freak out in a mission either. That's why he and Karu broke up. I had to focus.

But I really couldn't. My heart was pounding too fast...or...the sensation of a simulated one. I felt this awful crushing pain, and nothing had even happened yet. Nothing except the threat of a talk.

I didn't want to, but I dialed back my emotional indices. I had to keep it together. For him.

"This must be it," he said, looking up. I hadn't noticed but we were at some kind of a block which was all chainlink and gravel and large power pylons, buzzing ever-so-faintly above us. A power substation, which stepped down the high voltage used to efficiently transmit power long distances to low voltages used in residence and commerce...effective as they were, it wasn't practical for everything in the world to have a delith cell built into it. There were rows and rows of lines, all hanging from angular metal scaffolds, and off to one side, one of two structures on the lot, what looked like some kind of warehouse, the other just being just a tiny shed of switches and circuit breakers, I assumed.

The lock on the fence was cut, and we let ourselves in, covering the last few feet in front of the warehouse's truck-sized double-doors in silence. Like the fence, one door was ajar slightly pulled up enough for us to stoop under.

"Let me go first," I said, not waiting for an answer before I went. I stood up inside, my eyes already adjusted to the dim light, and found a dozen or more people standing or sitting around organized piles of metal parts and mounds of gravel and sand, all frozen and staring at my entrance.

"Uh, hi," I said with a wave.

"M'lady," said a guy with a grandiose bow, sweeping off his baseball cap with a flourish. "We are honored to make your acquaintance, but might I inquire whose countenance I precipitously possess the delecatation to descry?" He held the pose for a moment and then put the cap back on. In stitched letters it read 'I am now accepting compliments'.

Dude was lanky and pale and had some acne going on. Athan entered and immediately pasty dude soured.

Aww, he was envious. He liked me. I hoped Athan took note. As Athan stepped forward, I draped myself over his back just to make things clear for the guy.

"Really, AEGIS?" he asked.

"Just keeping your back warm. It's cold in here," I giggled.

"Well, you've called us here, what do you want?" a gruff, fat, hairy man asked from his ass in the pile of sand. Kind of like a crass, southern Santa Claus.

"I want," Athan said, "to tell all of you what's happened recently, and who's been killing people. Because there was another death, just a mile or two from here.

There were some concerned murmurs. I heard some disbelief that they'd been followed here. "Another Exhuman?" the hairy guy asked.

"No, an XPCA officer."

And then to my surprise, the hairy guy laughed, slapping his knee like a caricature. "Good! Fuck 'em all! Maybe if they all die, they'll finally piss off!"

"Somebody died out there, Stag," Athan shouted. "I don't care what you think of the XPCA, you don't fucking laugh at people dying."

Stag stood up. "I fuckin' do," he said, and spat on the ground. "You got a problem with that, boy?"

I heard someone step forward from behind me, and when I checked in IR, saw Tem standing tense and shaking. Athan shot her a significant glance and she backed down. Strange...how he could see her. I'd work out the analysis later, when there was less imminent risk of hostilities.

"Stag you senescent coot," the acne-guy said, brushing back his greasy hair behind his ear with a fingerless-gloved hand. "Let's attend the visitant's testimony, at least."

"Damn it, Dork-Hand, I tell you to shut up or speak English."

Dork-Hand whipped out a pocket thesaurus with a confident grin. "My apologies, some lexica aren't so brobdingnagian as my own. Where did I lose you? 'Coot', perchance?"

"Enough," Athan said, with a spark and a boom that reported from his fingertips and echoed in the dark building. "The killer is a professional assassin, one known as Dragon, who has Sino affiliations and probably wants to destabilize the XPCA using you. He's targeting you because you made your proclamation that if attacked, you'll create an Exhuman event. So it reasons to me, the only way to get him off your back is to dissolve."

"Or kill him," Stag scoffed.

"I have it on very good authority he'd kill us if we tried. He killed an XPCA officer, Talon, and Mini, and was never even spotted before he struck. Are you going to risk your lives that you're better than they were?"

Dork-Hand seemed to waver, but Stag just doubled down on being a grumpy grampa. "I'm better than they were," he said, leering at Athan. "I'd bet my life on it."

"But," Dork-Hand added. "If we were to capitulate and embrace forfeiture--"

"Speak English, damn it," Stag yelled.

"If we break up the group, the XPCA will get us," he said.

"So you go to New Eden," Athan said, and the group didn't like that at all. "Or run and hide, or flee the country to one which doesn't have a defense pact with the US. The fact is, if you're unknown, you might be able to escape the XPCA, but you can't escape Dragon. If he managed to find you out here, he'll find you anywhere you go. Unless, like I said, there's no more reason for him to keep looking."

"You're telling us to turn and run, like rats?" Stag barked. "Like...like Exhumans? I thought you were a big hero of Exhuman rights, XPCA-boy, but when push comes to shove, you just fuck right over and belly up like a puss."

"I am a proponent of Exhuman rights!" Athan yelled back. "But in order to have rights you have to be alive!"

"What was I thinking, asking one who spends his life sucking the XPCA cock off? Like you'd know the first fucking thing about dignity."

"You shut up, you stubby dwarf," I said, feeling hot even under my suppressed emotions. "Athan's not afraid to make sacrifices, more than a selfish, fat, stupid little prick like you could ever even comprehend. You think he's with the XPCA because he's afraid for his own life?"

"AEGIS, it's fine," Athan said.

"He hates it there. He suffers every fucking day, pushing himself through things and people he hates. Do you have an inkling of what it's like to be surrounded by people who'd kill you as soon as look at you all day? Just so you could do a job you hated, that everyone hated you for doing, because you think it's the right thing to do?"

"Seriously, stop. We just need their cooperation. I don't care what he says about me."

"No this frumpy-ass hobbit needs to hear this. He may be able to get away with being a grumpy asshole to whoever he likes, but not to me, and not about you. I'll kick his fucking ass."

I stopped, and realized I was breathing hard. Maybe I should dial back my indices more...this was clearly not a very rational thing to do.

But then Stag laughed.

"I like you, lass. You've got ten times the cock that boy has. What'd you say your name was?"

"I didn't."

He laughed again, and I realized, as I tweaked my indices yet again, and rationality overcame emotion, that I had an opportunity here to help Athan out.

"Listen gramps, this Dragon wants to use you as his own personal weapon to tear the US in half. I know nobody here is exactly all patriotic, but a lot of good people live a lot of good lives here anyway, and if you let Dragon control you, he'll ruin millions or billions of lives. Do you want that on your back?"

"The fair maiden enunciates an elegy of veracity," Dork-Hand said.

"I agree," said Stag. "But not with Dork-Hand, and not with you, lass. But that there ain't no man alive who will ever manipulate me for his own ends. I live by my own life, or die by it, none other."

"Then we vote, right?" Athan asked. "To dissolve the Defiant?"

"It's been a real joyous romp with you fucksticks," Stag said, throwing a thumbs-up in the air. "Up for dissolve, down for stay!"

Dork-hand threw a thumbs-up as well. So did Tem...though...she both didn't count...and was invisible.

But as we counted the rest of the room, it became apparent those two did not represent the majority. They were in the minority, by far.

"Bullshit!" Stag proclaimed. "I've half a mind to walk out right now. Are your brains in your feet and your eyes in your asses, people?"

"We could talk more and revote," Athan said, clearly at a loss. I think he assumed that the two vocal leaders would represent the group...but it seemed pretty obvious to me that the rest of the group were just more...normal. Exhumans who wanted to hide out, wanted to stay anonymous and hidden, weren't bombastic or stupid enough to want to be leaders of anything.

Exhumans who were more scared of the XPCA than some assassin. Which was all very reasonable. Very normal even. The XPCA were everywhere, and functionally limitless, whereas an assassin was just one guy. They'd all dealt with the XPCA before, lived in their country and in their New Eden and under their thumb, but none of them had ever even heard of Dragon before now, I was sure.

It was pretty ridiculous to think that an impassioned speech would be all it took to get these people to discard the only measure of security they'd known since becoming Exhuman.

"What...do we do now?" Athan asked.

"We leave, I think," I said. "And hope that, in a few more deaths, they change their minds."

Athan lingered as long as he could, but when Stag threatened to punch him in the colon, we left. We'd gone maybe two or three blocks, walking slowly, Athan staring at his feet, with the familiar look of blaming himself for things not his fault.

"How can I help?" I asked. "I'll do anything I can."

"Can you convince the Defiant to put their long-term safety aside for their short-term safety?"

"I tried," I said frowning. "I thought it was a pretty compelling argument, too."

"It was--" he said, and then he stopped, the echoing sound of an explosion reverberating across us, the force of it, even from here, enough to make us sway slightly as though in a sudden breeze. Another followed.

"It's him," Athan said, eyes wide.

"I'll go ahead!" I shouted, turning to go.

"Wait, it's dangerous!"

I pretended not to hear him as the sounds of my engines kicked into gear and I kicked off the ground with enough force to shatter the sidewalk.