Whitney was just standing stock still in my room behind a closed door, looking like she scarcely remembered how to breathe. I felt a twinge of guilt when I remembered the last time I saw her like this. She'd brought up my parents, and I'd had a mental breakdown about how shitty my life currently had been, and how shitty my upbringing had been, and had yelled at her, prompting a very similar retreat.

"AEGIS is just cleaning up. She gets her stress out by working. Absolutely never bother her when she's doing it," I said, reciting what I'd learned from Saga, months and months ago.

"I understand," Whitney said. "Um. Should I...go out through the window then or…?"

"Go out?"

"To leave."

"Leave?"

"Yes."

I blinked at her. "Why would you leave?"

"I really offended her, from the sound of it. I don't think she'd want me around anymore. I almost...killed her sister, she said. I burned up her machines, I threatened her home, the garage might not be structurally sound..."

"So you'd just leave?" I laughed.

"I don't...understand why you're laughing. I am actually sort of offended."

"Whitney, is this why you don't have any friends? You mess up and run away? She's gonna forgive you."

"Why? She doesn't owe me anything. I messed up, and there's nothing I can do to repay her."

"Man, you're really messed up," I said, glad for a moment this was Whitney I was talking to here, and I could say whatever I wanted. "Did you have any friends as a kid?"

"Not...particularly. Some, I guess. This is still kind of offensive."

"Look, dude, just give it a day to blow over, and apologize tomorrow and it'll work out, okay? I can't believe I'm the one giving you advice here."

"You don't need to give me advice. I'm fine on my own. I'll just leave and not make any waves."

"Yeah too late for that. AEGIS would be super pissed if you left over this. Not to mention Lia, if you vanished when she wasn't even home, never even saying bye, she'd probably take it pretty personally."

Whitney seemed to float there for a moment and then gradually sat down in a heap.

"I've made a huge mess," she mumbled.

"Sort of. Not really that big. You just threatened something AEGIS loves."

"What is AEGIS Prime, if I may ask?" she said, turning towards me. I went over and sat on the floor by her, stretching my legs out in front of me.

"AEGIS Prime was...I guess not the original AEGIS, but the...latest one? The real one. The AEGIS out there, she was an earlier version. She turned herself off and uploaded to a new body, and that body was AEGIS Prime. Prime and I spent months together after that, she learned to cook, how to code herself, we fought and laughed together, overcame enemies. Someone was hacking her, another version of AEGIS actually...it's complicated...but in the end, we beat that someone, but Prime died protecting me while doing so."

I let out a slow breath and banged my head slowly against the wall. "So we dug up the older version, but she's not the same. AEGIS Prime is who I loved, it's who we all loved, she even got on well with Saga and Karu, and it's who this AEGIS wants to be."

"And AEGIS Prime is stored on the servers in the garage?"

"Backups of her, from before she was infected with the hack, and also all of her memories from her entire life."

"I see. I didn't know there was someone so precious in there."

I smiled at her. "Not going to ask why AEGIS doesn't just upgrade to Prime?"

"I would never. Although I did just hear the screaming that she sees them as sisters. But I know probably better than most how a software update can completely change a machine's personality. Sometimes they just aren't the same being anymore after."

"I thought so," I said. It was funny how Whitney and AEGIS' view on robot life was so similar, and so different.

After the silence went on long enough to indicate I was in the clear to change subjects I asked, "Is it cool if I ask you something?"

"Always."

"Why are you so interested in my powers?"

She scoffed a little. "They're cool, friendo. Aren't they?"

"Well, yeah, but like, you're not out there drawing up plans to get Saga optimized. Oh God, I just had a thought of Saga with refined powers. That'd be horrifying."

I felt a twinge of laughter from somewhere in the backyard which contrasted starkly with the look on Whitney's face. "Probably how I feel about you?"

"I mean, she's kind of...really dangerous."

"And you aren't?"

"Her least favorite part of killing is laundry. Her favorite part is the noises. We're not in the same league."

[I do love the noises.]

Whitney held her head and closed her eyes like that would make it go away, while I mentally blasted Saga with the most annoying sounds I could imagine.

"Never...never boring here, is it?" Whitney laughed nervously.

"No, it's never that, that's for damn sure. Anyway, what I meant was, like...what are you doing, in messing around with all this electricity stuff? Why are you reading up, and taking notes, and experimenting? What's the point?"

She shrugged. "What's the point in anything? My life until now as screwing around in a workshop with any idea that caught my fancy. This is just more of the same."

"You're not like...gonna...decide to become my teacher and give me all these great new techniques?"

She blinked at me. "No."

"Bah. I had hopes you would. I didn't know why else you'd be doing all this."

She leaned back and looked up, making her straight, black hair cascade around her shoulder and revealing the faded purple streaks in it. "No...just...my latest obsession, I guess. Sorry to mislead you."

"Literal obsession?"

"Maybe. I've been thinking of more and more applications nonstop. I know you think I've just been avoiding you these last few days, but a big part of it is just being busy with my ideas."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Yeah, I get that. Things are always exciting when you start out. I had a dream about kickboxing yesterday. I think I've been studying martial arts as hard as you've been working on electrodynamics," I laughed.

She gave me a smirk. "Maybe."

Again the conversation drifted away, but this time it was she who changed the subject. "Athan, are you a good Exhuman?"

"Defining good and bad isn't easy unless you're Moon."

"Do you think you're good?"

I looked at her, with her face of nonjudgemental curiosity. I knew what she wanted me to say, and it might even be really important to say it, for the sake of our relationship.

But that wasn't me. "No, not really."

"Really? I thought the whole point of this kidnapping exercise was to show me how good you were?"

"Yeah. And I have, and I am. This is how good I am." I spread my arms wide for her to get a full look. "I am as good as I appear. I try, very hard, to do what I think is right. But I still don't know if that's good or not."

"You don't think right and good are the same thing?"

"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. I began counting on my fingers. "I failed to protect Mage, a thirteen year-old girl on my squad. I tried to save the life of a dying Exhuman kid, whose existence might have destroyed the reputation of the XPCA. I attacked both the rebels of New Eden who were just looking for a way to all the equality and justice I'd promised them, as well as the XPCA guards just doing their jobs. I murdered an XPCA officer who might have stopped the Exhuman threat once and for all. And I led who I thought was my friend right to her victims, whom she murdered with intel I let slip."

"Wait, I don't even know you that well and I know you're leaving out a lot."

"Well, you asked whether I think I'm good or bad, and I gave you the reasons I think I'm bad. I don't have to be exhaustive, arguments don't work that way."

She smirked at me but it faded fast. "Again, not the answer I expected, and that makes me feel like I have to second-guess you."

"If I said yes, I'd be lying, and if I said no, I'd be playing mind games with you to get sympathy?"

"Sort of."

"Doesn't seem like I have a lot of winning options there, does it?"

"Maybe if you were charming as heck."

"Nah, then you'd just be like, this guy's too charming, he must be up to something."

"Probably. Sucks to be you, doesn't it?"

I laughed. "Yeah, sure does, sometimes. Want to hear something that will definitely convince you I'm a bad guy?"

"No. But yes."

I leaned forward and rested my chest against my upturned knees. "I went back to my parents' house not too long ago. After I turned...Dad had...kind of a mental breakdown. They were kind of clingy and controlling, and I guess finding out their prized son was an Exhuman was more than he could take."

"Oh. This is why you were mad."

"Yeah, kinda. Dad turned abusive, beat the crap out of Mom and Lia. Mom did nothing to protect her. Just watched her own husband hitting her own daughter." I felt my chest getting tight and forced myself to move on. "Well, Saga was there, she just wanted to kill them because they hurt me and she's a good friend in a twisted way. I told her no, told her to mess with Dad's head, make him treat Mom really well for the rest of his life, even if it makes him effectively a zombie slave."

"Jesus, Athan."

"Yeah. So that's what I'd do to my own father. But then again, he deserves it, every bit of it. We're a lot alike in that one day, we just woke up and our world was over. But I tried to move on and do my best, and he decided to take it out on the people who loved and trusted him most. So yes, it sucks to be me sometimes." I grinned at her. "But sometimes, you get to use your powers where they deserve to be used, and it's not so bad at all."

As I'd talked, her face had gone through disgust to indignation to that curiosity again, where it remained for long seconds as she stared me down. Finally she spoke.

"I was...seven, I think, when my family died. Nothing special, nothing personal, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One minute we were all in the car, my mom and dad in the front, my sister next to me, and then...then I saw the ground just...exploding. A shockwave that tossed cars in the air and made pillars of the road shoot upwards. I remember the car dipped sideways, and then this wave of pressure...so strong...it left me bruised, from head to toe."

She swallowed hard and broke off her gaze, looking down at her feet instead. Her boots, perpetually unzipped, seemed to droop off of her.

"They all just burst. The whole car was...blood. I didn't...know. I kept screaming. I never even saw the Exhuman. I don't know what town we were driving through or why, or anything. It was just violent and pointless, and that's how I've always imagined Exhumans to be. I had a hard life after that for a long time, I spent a lot of time blaming that Exhuman for everything, but in high school, I grew up. I realized I was just an angry, ignorant, blame-shifting person, regardless of what happened in my past, and I had to stop being those things. Even if I had the worst past in the world, if I never moved past it, then I may as well have died in that car with them."

"I'm sorry, Whitney."

She sighed, but otherwise seemed unmoved by her words or memories. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've always seen Exhumans one way, and I don't think you're that way. Violent and pointless, like my family's deaths. So...I'm sorry, I guess. You seem to have a lot of reasons for everything you do, even if I don't know if I agree, I can't pretend I haven't judged you harshly."

"Thanks. It means a lot coming from you." I grinned at her. "And now that I have earned that sliver of approval, we're done here. I got what I needed from you, you may go."

She blinked at me in confusion. "Really?"

"I'm only kidding. Joudan, as Moon would say."

"Oh, good. Because I was all ready to teach you all my new techniques I'd thought up, and it'd be ridiculous if you kicked me out before then."

"Woah. Really?"

She winked at me from behind her plastic frames. "Joudan. As Moon would say?"

"Oh that's just cruel."

"Never happening. Upgrade from thoughtless and violent to just violent is still not good enough."

"Ugghhh, so cruel."

"Well, I should go," she said, rising. "Though, admittedly, I'm not sure where."

"AEGIS is probably still out there working. I wouldn't uh...bother her."

"I have also been forbidden from entering the garage," she mused. "Lia is still out, do you think she would mind if I stayed there for a night?"

"Yeah, actually. She's kind of particular about her sleep. Look, just sleep here, it's fine. Take the bed."

"Is that...really fine?"

I shrugged. "Why not? I've slept on much worse than carpeted floor. I've got blankets and shit. Knock yourself out." I smiled. "Literally, I guess."

"I hope you're not just being nice for my sake. I am...very tired. Up too late last night with the calculations for the experiment which failed today, and then stress like today just wipes me out. You are sure you don't mind?"

"I really don't. Just uh, don't step on me or Tem in the morning."

"Is Tem here?"

"Assume that unless otherwise specified, Tem is always here," I laughed. "She's like fleas."

"That doesn't seem like a very nice comparison," Whitney said with a small frown. "Maybe more like...um...a favorite mechanical pencil."

I half-smirked at her. "Man, you were a nerd in school, weren't you?"

"I am fleas if Chariot says I am!" Tem argued from the direction of the door.

I made myself a crude nest and Tem curled up at my feet like a stray dog. Whitney only got so far as taking off her glasses and shoes before yawning and collapsing into the bed. Seemed nobody was interested in going out and provoking AEGIS' displeasure, though I wondered how much of our conversation she'd watched on drone.

With a start, I realized that a lot of things I'd said about her when talking about AEGIS Prime weren't...very…flattering. I'd just shooed the drones out of here not too long ago...but a sweep revealed there was definitely one up there. I just had to hope she wasn't listening, though something told me she was.

Fuck, I was an idiot. A big, insensitive idiot.

I laid there dwelling on my mistakes long after we put the lights out and Tem was snoring softly. I was trying to remember everything I'd said and how it might hurt AEGIS, but the specifics probably weren't important. Just the fact that I'd defined AEGIS Prime as the one I loved was enough.

"Still up, friendo?" Whitney whispered from the bed.

"Yeah. Just thinking. What's up?"

"If you are what you seem to be...I don't think you're a bad guy. Everybody makes mistakes, and friends forgive you, right?"

"Right."

She didn't say anything else, but hesitated for a moment in what might have been giving me a smirk, before she rolled over and went to sleep.

Before I followed suit, I went through all the striking surfaces from my martial arts book, and mentally catalogued the different angles they could come from and how to block or slip each one. When I finished, I started over. This is how I'd been falling asleep most nights.

And this night was no exception. What was an exception however, was what happened that night, with Whitney and me sleeping together. Something bizarre and unexplainable, a night that would change my life and that I'd obsess over every thought and detail for weeks.

That night changed me forever, and at the time, I didn't even know it.