I slept for most of two days. The police never came, and when I finally stumbled out of my room, still in the same clothes as before, the exhaustion in my head replaced with turmoil, AEGIS informed me that there had been calls to the police, but my 'guardian angel' had blown out all 'net traffic from this relay, so none of the calls had gotten through.

AEGIS seemed better, though when I came in she had to preserve her modesty by closing up her front panel and putting a shirt back on. But implicit in doing that was the ability to move her arms, which was a significant improvement over before.

"Here," AEGIS said, holding out a strand of wire attached to a circuit so thin it was like a square of smoke. "This was the cause of all our troubles."

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a wire."

"I...see that. I meant, what does this wire do?"

AEGIS shook her head and smiled. "No, a wire. Like an eavesdropping device from gangster movies. It was put into your collar in the place of the existing electronics. Karu just used the existing entanglement to record sound around you instead of pressure."

"Why would I be transmitting pressure?" I wasn't sure if I was still out of it or this just made no sense. From AEGIS' look of sympathy and just a hint of condescension, I'd guess the former.

"It was a novelty choker, Athan. It used an itty-bitty little core and some quantum entanglement to transmit your pulse to the partner choker. Way sappy for Karu's femme fatale vibe, but maybe something I'd like," she said, batting her eyelashes at me. "Karu just modified your unit so it sent sound instead. And the mic she used," she held up the wire "happened to be magnetic. Because mics have a magnet in them."

I held it in my hands. It felt like nothing at all, but this damn thing had let Karu know everything that I'd done, everything that had been done to me...it had told her where the Defiant could be found, even if nobody was supposed to know, let her know about Mini attacking and threatening me, about Micaiah...everything.

"Hey, you're gonna break it," AEGIS said, and I realized my knuckles were white from gripping it.

"Shouldn't it be broken? Is she listening now?" I asked.

AEGIS scoffed. "Like I'd let her just eavesdrop on us. No, it's off, but still working. You never know when having a link to your enemies might come in handy."

She said it so candidly but my heart fell. Enemy. That's what Karu was now?

"Anyway," I sighed. "How are you, Whitney? Adjusting well?"

She was sitting on a little hotel chair over a little hotel table, strewn with parts laid out in haphazard order, but since the moment I'd walked in, her eyes had been on me.

Where they lingered for another few moments before turning down to her work. "What does it matter? You're not letting me go."

"She's been happy," AEGIS added apologetically. "I don't have motor function, so...she's come and go as she's pleased. She knows Karu's gone, so nobody would hunt her down--"

"He would," Whitney said, pointing a driver in the direction of my face.

"I'm...I'm sorry," I said. "This wasn't even a real plan, I wasn't supposed to be out for two days, Karu wasn't--"

"Let me stop you there, friendo," she said, irritation flickering behind her thick glasses. "I don't care what your excuses are, whether you did a good job or bad job of kidnapping someone, you still kidnapped them. But the fact that you guys were planning all this stuff, doing all this...saving-the-world talk, and then you had a freaking traitor in your midst?"

She made a gesture like she was about to throw the driver at the table but reconsidered and placed it down gently. Or at least, she loved her tools more than she was capable of being angry.

"If you're serious about this whole Exhuman, world-saving, XPCA, hunter, Defiant, whatever stuff, you can at least not suck at it!" she half-shouted with clear irritation. "I was ready to take you guys seriously there for a minute, and then you're screaming in the hallways of a motel like a dysfunctional family on vacation, because of this?"

She snatched the wire from my hand. "This? This is a joke. This isn't even shielded or encrypted or anything. It's just hanging out for the whole world to see, and none of you even saw it?"

"Did you see it?" I asked her.

"Matter of fact, I did. I have a scanner in the front door of my shop. Picked it up the first time you walked through the door. Didn't know what it was, obviously, didn't expect it to be a freaking microphone on your neck, fairly pissed about all the personal stuff and advice I gave you with your friggin' girlfriend eavesdropping like that."

"Um, actually, I'm the girlfriend."

Whitney seemed exasperated in ways I had never seen. I guessed...when she found out I was an Exhuman, when we'd...we'd involuntarily liberated her from jail...she'd been overwhelmed. In denial. Wanting to escape and pretend it hadn't happened to her.

But this...this was just sloppy craftsmanship and execution from her perspective. This was probably something she dealt with every day. Some stupid kid getting a virus on his tablet that makes it start spying on him. That was me.

It was sloppy, it was unprofessional, it was dumb. And I knew Whitney abhorred those things.

This time my head hung as I apologized.

"I'm...really sorry. You shouldn't have been caught up in the middle of any of this."

"I shouldn't. Thank you."

"I'm sorry that I couldn't change your mind about me. It was selfish of me to try."

"It was. Thank you."

"And...if you want to go home...that's totally fine."

She stood up and crossed her arms as she seemed to tower over me.

I waited a painful moment before she spoke. "Well...great! Maybe I will," she said, but made no effort to move.

I looked around a little and still she didn't stir. AEGIS’ eyebrows were doing the same calisthenics as my thoughts.

"Of course," she said, thoughtfully scratching the side of her frames now like it was an itch on her nose "if I did go, there'd be no finishing AEGIS."

"Yes, it's true," AEGIS intoned. "I am utterly helpless, and certainly never constructed this body entirely from scrap except for that one time."

Whitney shot her a glare. "And it does seem like this entire situation could have been avoided if you had anyone with competence looking after you."

"Hey now," AEGIS complained. "Who are you calling incompetent?"

Whitney thrust the wire out towards her like a noose. "How long was this hanging on his neck?"

AEGIS opened her mouth and then closed it.

"But there's still the issue of you being a kidnapping jerkass who is arguably downright evil," she mused. "Not exactly who I'd want to associate with by choice."

"He's fine. Come on," AEGIS said. "You're not going to say no to this body, are you?"

The effect of her glamorous pose was somewhat diminished by the remaining puncture holes in her torso.

"AEGIS let her make up her own mind. I feel bad enough already without trying to browbeat her into even more shit."

AEGIS did shut up, and Whitney looked at me pensively. I could almost see her thoughts. That was a very non-evil thing I did there, she might be thinking. But I'd already concealed who I was to her before, who's to say I wasn't doing it now? And if I were, nothing had changed, and I was still a threat and a shitbag. But if not, did that reflect on a good nature? Or did I have something else in mind?

I found it personally exhausting when things were nested in lies and politics like that, and if Whitney were anything like me, she might just leave to keep her life simpler. I wouldn't blame her in the least.

But at long last, she shook her head, picked up her driver, and went back to work at the desk, wordlessly.

"Well, I'm not gone," she said, brandishing the driver at me. "It's the chance of a lifetime to work with AEGIS, and I can still leave whenever I want. So after she's back in shape, we can revisit this."

She shot me a final contemptuous glare. "But you'd better get your act together. I don't abide evil jerks, and I don't abide incompetence, and right now, you're right on the edge of both, friendo. I don't have any problem saying I don't like you, so maybe it'd just be best if you left me and AEGIS in peace."

"Well, that'll be difficult," AEGIS intoned through a half-lidded glare. "Because I want Athan to spend every minute with me he's willing to."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"How'd they get such a strong personality in you anyway?" Whitney asked with a shake of her head.

"Mom always told me to stand up for myself. Said if I didn't, the XPCA would turn me into just another tool."

"And do you always do what your mom says?"

"When it's convenient," AEGIS smiled.

As much as I wanted to be with AEGIS right now, which was a significant amount, given the general hole-in-my-heart feeling, more than anything, I felt like...somehow...if Whitney could come around to my side, it would redeem me in a lot of ways. She was someone I genuinely liked and respected, whose opinion I valued. As fucked up as I was, and as much fucking up as I'd done, if she somehow managed to look through all of that and tell me I was okay…

...well, I might just believe her.

So I was willing to give her all the space she could ask for. I spent time changing Tem's bandages, feeling my own gut churn with guilt at the sight of hers -- angry red spiderwebs of burn lines, clusters of blisters, peeling blackened layers, and shiny pink exposed skin beneath them.

She was still up on painkillers, but her wounds had closed and the major risk of infection had gone. Now she just watched me as though in a dream, and I thought, maybe for her, having the chance to be helpless and have someone...me, especially...service her, without the ability to resist or be flustered or hide, maybe that was a dream for her. She was veritably purring, even though I'm sure the wounds still hurt through the meds.

And then I was done, Tem was slathered in medical gel and bandages, and I was alone again with my thoughts. I took a deep breath and pulled out my mobile. A call I didn't want to make.

"Hello?" Cosette answered. I was happy to hear Intel had stopped picking up her calls for her. "Who is this? Identify yourself. How did you--"

"Hi, Cosette. It's me."

"Is this an 'it's me' scam? I don't have time for this--"

"It's me, Athan."

"Chariot? You damn bastard, where the fuck are you? We sent agents to recover you from police custody--"

"Yeah. Well, as you probably know, Karu got there first. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What, going to beg for her? Well it's not working, not this time bucko. Your word is valueless around here, you're dead to me, kid, and--"

"Cosette, chill. Jesus."

"I am perfectly chill, you...you...poopscuttler. You...mule-headed...I'm tired, Athan. Pretend I said something really biting. Do me that one favor because I know, by the virtue of you calling, you're not doing me any others."

I smiled sympathetically for her. "Look, I wanted to let you know what happened with the Defiant."

"What happened is they're all dead."

"And do you know how?"

"Micromines, the detonator was in a pile of crap left at the scene by Dragon, we presume."

"And do you know why?"

"Are we playing frickin' twenty questions, Chariot?"

"I was wrong about Dragon. He didn't want to use the Defiant to overthrow the XPCA."

"Then why did he put bombs in them? If he just wanted them dead, he has much cleaner methods, and he's never been shy about using them."

"Because he was after something. A device, which I have."

"What? What is it?"

"I don't know. It's like a...grenade maybe. It's got two handles on it."

"You have a device so powerful that Dragon would kill his way through a couple dozen Exhumans and a few XPCA, and you don't even know what it does?"

"Well...would you pull the handle?"

She hesitated, and I continued.

"And he didn't kill the XPCA. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Not Micaiah anyway."

"Oh, and who did. You? Because you're a full-on traitor now?"

"No. Karu did."

This time I rode out her pause. Which broke after maybe eight seconds, with a torrent of profanity. "Are you kidding me? Karu? She's one of the most highly-ranked and trusted hunters in the association. And yeah, I knew she pulled this shit to get you out of jail from under us, but murdering an XPCA officer? That's an obvious lie, Chariot, goddamnit."

"No...we...we just had a falling out over it. She attacked me and everything. She killed Talon on XPCA contract--"

"Hell no she didn't. There's no way we'd authorize that."

"And after that, she acted on her own to kill Mini and then Micaiah."

I heard Cosette let out a long, slow breath.

"It doesn't make any sense, Chariot. That's all. If there was an XPCA covert action to kill Talon, and that's a huge if, it'd be someone internal. Someone we could absolutely trust on it. Probably the best shadow ops we have."

"But you just said Karu is trustworthy."

"But she's a hunter. They're not even technically part of...of the..." she drifted away.

"Um, Cosette?"

"...of the system," she concluded as though in a dream. And then, as though waking up very abruptly, "Fucking...fuckity...fuck!"

"That sounds...bad."

"I just...fuck. Damn it. Damn it all. Look, Chariot, I can't pretend it's never been done before, but one of the less...ethical...uses for hunters historically has been in...legal grey areas. For exculpability. But always shady people, low-class hunters, low in the ranks, in it for the money, not people with fame and influence like Karu. People we can blame and then dump."

"They couldn't send a low-rank hunter. But they needed to make sure it got done flawlessly. They couldn't have a botched attempt," I realized, seeing instantly the need for profanity.

"And her personality helps even more here, making it so if she did get found out, there'd be a reason to put the blame on her other than an obvious payout by an obvious entity. We just deny there was ever a contract, and it just looks like the righteous hunter went Exhuman hunting on her own terms. Fuck!"

"So you believe me?" I asked.

"Oh stop being so fucking cocky, Chariot. Just because there's some way you might not be wrong doesn't mean I'm all aboard the traitor train. I'll look into it. But if you're right and if they catch me snooping, I'll probably get shot."

"Don't do that," I said, suddenly alarmed.

"Well what the hell else am I supposed to do? Just trust you? You're a goddamned traitor, Chariot. A deserter at best."

"Yeah, just trust me. I don't have reason to lie. You know me, Cosette, and I'm a lot of shitty things, but I've got no reason to mislead you on this." I sighed. "In general, even if I handled it poorly, can't you understand why I did everything I did?"

"No," she pouted. "Can you explain what part of refusing to come in was necessary?"

"I was innocent!"

"Then we would have found that out, you dumbass."

"Would you, though? The same freaking XPCA which hired Karu to do it so they could bury her with the charges if it ever came to light? You honestly think they wouldn't jump at the chance to pin the whole thing on me?"

She went quiet again but I could swear I heard something being smashed and muted swearing from somewhere far from her phone. After a minute she came back. "Hello?" she barked with irritation.

"Still here."

"Well, Chariot, I apparently don't know the first fucking thing about doing my own fucking job. My higher-ups don't have my back, and my subordinates need to run and hide for their own safety. Everything is obviously shit and I don't blame you for leaving it all."

She was now speaking with the curt edges in her words that indicated stim usage, and all I could do was shake my head at my mobile. It wasn't like I didn't know the XPCA had a lot of issues, but it just...seemed unfair for Cosette to be working her ass off and stuck in the middle of them all.

We spent a long time on the call together without speaking. It felt like several times, I was ready to say something and then thought better of it, and I thought I hear her draw breath like she was doing the same.

But really, what was there to say? If anything we'd discussed was true, we were both fucked and we knew it. I trusted her, and despite my fuckups, I'm pretty sure she trusted me to a degree. And now neither of us trusted this big, black, metal blanket over both of us.

I mean, I never had, but I sympathized utterly with her for joining me here.

"So," I said at long last, watching Tem breathe and smile in her dreams. "Should I like...come in again? The Defiant are done for."

"Honestly, I was wondering if you had room for one more out there," Cosette laughed bitterly. "I think...I need to not look into this. I don't think I'll like what I find, and I don't think they'll like it if they find me."

"Yeah, no getting shot, please."

"I'll try. I'll...I don't know that I can just make all of this go away, Chariot. It might be another situation like before Oakland. Nobody willing to forgive you unless we need you. Hmm...unless…" I heard her typing and thinking both. "No, we might have a way. You're not going to like it."

"And what's that?"

"We blame Karu for everything. You come back, offer your testimony, we dig up evidence, I let everyone know you were working on special assignment under me the whole time...and we lie our asses off and hope that they're angrier at her than at us."

"Boy that sounds great," I sighed.

"Yeah. Just all kinds of mess. Look--if I were you, I'd leave and never come back, Chariot," she blurted out all the sudden. "It's obvious your brand of making waves and the XPCA don't see eye-to-eye. We lost you for now, so just...stay lost."

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Really, do. The XPCA can make it by without you. We always have."

"Yeah, I hope so," I said. "You're a good person, Cosette."

"After the things I do for this job, I'm pretty sure I'm not good, and starting to wonder if I'm still a person," she sighed.

"Yeah. That's what got to Karu, too. She broke her own rules for me one too many times, and decided the rules were pointless. Promise me you won't end up like her, Cosette."

"I'll do what I can, kid. At least when I'm breaking the rules, I get the satisfaction of sticking it to the fatcats. General Moroles can bite my ass. Stay safe yourself out there...I'm not the one on the XPCA wanted list."

"You're not going to get in trouble for talking to me or anything, are you?"

"I'm always in trouble," she said, and I could hear her grin. "The trick is, when you get called in to wear them down with the dress code violations and other bullshit so they stop giving a shit before the real fuckups." She paused. "But don't get any bright ideas if I ever have to call you in to discipline you."

"Oh, don't worry, I never have bright ideas."

"Good kid. See you out there, Chariot. Sometime, I'm sure."

"You too."

I hung up and the second Peregrine in my life slipped away. It was a little frustrating, saying goodbyes when it felt like what had been there was over for weeks now, and it was only when we were back on speaking terms, back on the same page again that we cut it off.

It's not like I could never call her again if I wanted but...I couldn't imagine why I would. Maybe if something was going horribly wrong, but that was hardly the scenario I'd want to look forward to.

It sucked. It was sad. It seemed unfair and stupid, and pretty much all the standard fare for being an Exhuman. But in what she said, there was something new, something I'd never really considered or ever had the courage to ask of myself, and now it was here, looming large in my face.

The Defiant were gone. The XPCA was safe for the moment. I'd somehow slipped away and as long as I did nothing stupid, could hopefully stay that way. For the moment, I was freer than I maybe ever had been. I could go anywhere, and do anything.

I had the opportunity for a life again. So in a question I never thought I'd get to ask, now I had to figure out what was life to me, and what did I want out of it?

As impossible as being an Exhuman seemed at times, at least it made your life choices pretty easy. Sitting down and figuring out what your life should be?

Fuck me, I'd take fighting Dragon again anyday.