It felt like things were sorta getting out of hand. No one thing specifically was a disaster, but the fourth day in a row I woke up and found Moon in my bed — there by invitation so nobody would snatch her in the night — and then try to eke past her and stepping on Tem while winding through AEGIS’ towers of machinery, only to make it into the living area where half-assembled rig prototypes from Whitney, or sprawling loadouts of weapons from Karu, or just Lia being sideways dominated the small space. It felt like we were all crammed into some apocalypse shelter. Too many people and weapons and machines and not enough space.

It’d been necessary, I knew. It was proven when Ichiro Ikeda’s goons had come for Moon yet again (only to be put down hard). But it sort of felt like we were a body trying to do something unsustainably strenuous, and the adrenaline was wearing thin. Soreness was replacing vigil, and as we turned to bickering over our uncomfortable lifestyle, I wondered if maybe all Ichiro had to do was wait.

“Why is there a gun part in the sink?” Lia shouted at the house, her mittened hands full with a pot billowing steam. “I need this sink for sink things. Come on, dudes.”

“It needed an acetone bath to remove all impurities,” Whitney said, skipping up from the couch, and almost clobbering AEGIS on her way. “Even fingerprint smudges would throw off the proper conductance. And it’s not a gun part. I’m not Karu.”

“So can I dump my water on it?”

“No! Didn’t you hear what I said? The starch in the water will ruin everything. Come on, Lia.”

“Well what the heck am I supposed to do with this freaking boiling pot?” Lia spat, the red in her face visible through the steaming veil.

“Put your strainer in the toilet?”

“That’s foul.”

“Okay, the shower. It’s just a drain.”

As though on cue, the shower suddenly hissed with rushing water as someone turned it on. Lia stared at the wall as though she could kill its occupant by glaring through it, the pot still in her hands, her shoulders sagging by now.

“Okay. It’s fine,” she said, banging it on the counter and then recoiling as boiling droplets splattered. “People will just not eat.”

“I’ll take it,” AEGIS said, getting up from her work. “There’s storm drains outside.” She deliberately unlocked and opened the door and then picked up the steaming pot with both hands and took it out.

“Whitney, you can’t leave your stuff everywhere” I said, frowning as Tem tried to wheelchair closer to me and got stuck on a pile of crap by the couch. “This isn’t your apartment.”

“I know,” she said, darting over and stooping to rescue the components before Tem ran them over. “But work takes space.”

“So work at your own place,” Lia fumed.

“I would,” she replied, holding armfuls of components and moving them to the dining-room table, where they were just going to be in the way as soon as someone tried to sit down to eat. “But I need to work on and with your brother, and he’s made it clear he needs to stay here with Moon.”

The front door opened and Karu walked through it, full armor and guns onboard. “Why is this door unlocked? Have you all no concept of basic security? I had believed the premises to be on lockdown.”

“Hi Karu,” I mumbled. “We’re just discussing how shit everything is.”

“So I see,” she said, surveying the room with a small frown. “I had planned to pass the time by doing maintenance on my armor, as the shoulders have become inflexible, yet I see nowhere open to do so. Is this the source of your issue?”

“Oh I’d love to help,” Whitney chimed in. “What are those? Acrilax? Duraplate?”

Karu shrugged. “I knew when I acquired them. Now they are simply my armor.”

“Oh. Well. You don’t find it helps to know the mass-weight ratio to adjust for flexibility tolerances? I don’t know much about armor, but from what I’ve been reading–“

The door banged and something swore outside. “Why is this locked?” AEGIS’ voice shouted through it. Karu gave an unabashed chuckle as she opened it and let her in.

“Hi Karu. Did you lock me out?”

“Food should be ready then, I’m starving,” Lia said.

“AEGIS. Good day. I only just arrived.”

“A lot of people are saying that you need to compensate for higher weight with reduced range of motion, which sounds backwards to me.”

“Just set that down anywhere, I’ve got the sauce made up.”

“Do you think Tem’s going to eat or will we have to blend it for her again?”

“I know not the science or heuristics of armor modification, I merely do as I have always done. You are welcome to join however–“

“–probably ask Athan, to be sure. He might be able to make her.”

“–might be fun, but I dunno about how many projects to have in the air at once–“

“–careful, it’s hot still. I mean, you knew that but–“

“Hey, watch the table! These components are delicate.”

“–liable to seize up at the worst of times, particularly in the cold…though heat has its entire range of difficulties…”

Moon, emerged from the bedroom, hair tousled from sleep and eyes unfocused…but focused enough to glare at me like the growing rumble of mingling voices was all my fault. My Moon-speak might not have been perfect, but I understood her meaning here well enough. I’d rather be kidnapped than deal with this shit.

“Guys,” I said, to no effect. “GUYS!.”

At least Tem looked up at me. Always had that going for me at least. I snapped my fingers with a thundercrack which made Whitney jump.

“HEY!” I shouted.

“Yes, we hear you,” AEGIS said, irritated. “What are you yelling about?”

“Moon was sleeping. Can we keep it to a dull roar?”

“It is very nearly ten in the morning. Nobody should yet remain asleep at this hour.”

I looked at Moon, and as I did so, so did the others, which made her go red and shuffle ever so slightly behind the door frame. I sighed.

“She had a long night. Lia and AEGIS were up in the living room where she was trying to sleep, and she wound up sneaking into my bed–“

“She what?” Karu snapped.

“Not like that,” I rolled my eyes. “She’s just…being hunted and can’t do anything about it, and her life has gone to crap as a result.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I didn’t mention to them Moon’s other, recent secret. Her kidnapping at Diallo’s hands, and how he’d tortured her. The incident that made her resolve stiffen to resist her dad in the first place. To her, the prospect of being nabbed again was probably ten times as horrifying, given her experiences, and we were still just making things worse.

“Well I hardly see what she has to complain about,” Karu crossed her arms. “She has protectors and provisions as she could possibly desire. She is secure, and that is the bedrock of any lifestyle. If she wishes to complain about luxuries, by all accounts, let her compromise her own safety for it, and when she is victimized she will see clearly her error.”

“Dude, Karu.”

“I speak nothing but truth, Ashton. Those who would trade their security for luxury will find themselves with neither. She can accept this, or learn it herself.”

I sighed. “Yeah, well, we don’t just have to go off the deep end. There’s probably things we can do. Not the least of which…” I looked at Lia. “There’s just not enough space here for all these people. We picked this place out for you and AEGIS and myself…and Tem. And now even she’s taking up a lot more space with the wheelchair–“

“I can lie on the floor,” she whispered. “Or under the bed.”

“–and Karu and Whitney and Moon are here, it’s just not working out. Do you think we can go back to Vegas or something?”

“It is a lot bigger there,” Lia said, pulling at her bottom lip as she thought. “We’d be adding Saga and Chiho back into the mix though. But still, overall a lot more square feet per person there. Your and my rooms we could definitely put in another couple beds for Whitney and Moon.”

“I would be with Lia,” Whitney cut in abruptly. “I’m never sleeping in the same room as Athan again.”

“Why? Do I snore?”

“No. But you dumped your Exhuman powers on me once doing it, and I’m not going through that again.”

“Oh. Yeah. I kinda doubt that’s a recurring thing.”

“So maybe only other Exhumans in Athan’s room,” Lia shrugged.

“Or AI,” AEGIS added.

“Can we stop with that?” Lia sighed “This is why it’s such heck living here, everyone just looking out for themselves. Nobody’s picking up their junk or keeping the place tidy. Haven’t any of you had roommates?”

“Moving is a start at least,” I said. “Does anyone have anything here in California they’re really attached to and can’t leave?”

Nobody spoke up. Buncha freakin’ nomads we were.

“Then…” I looked around, sorta surprised at the concept of things moving this fast. “Uh, I guess I can call Rito and have us sent over.”

There was hardly any other discussion or objection, which just felt weird. Like, yeah, moving was a totally mundane thing that hundreds of people did every day. But it was also a big deal, wasn’t it? Nobody just got up one day and decided to move and that same day — poof, there they were.

And then I blinked my eyes a few times and realized we were back in the living room in Vegas, with not even a poof. It took a few more moments before I had a sensation in my head which was kind of the mental sensation of a puppy wagging its tail at a new friend it just made.

[Athan!]

I closed my eyes and winced, same as everyone else in the room, minus AEGIS.

[Oops. Sorry.]

“Hi Saga,” I said. “We’re here.” Someone started yelling from the hallway, and Saga chuckled apologetically. “Who is that?” I asked.

[Maybe come talk to me before we piss her off more.]

I got about half a step towards the backdoor before the door in the hallway banged open and a girl I thought I recognized stepped out, took one sweeping look around at all of us loitering in the living room, and then flipped us a pleasant gesture and grumbled her way right out the front door.

[Or, she can leave. Works for me.]

“Wait!” I heard Chiho shout, as she followed the other girl’s path. “Oh hi…everyone. But wait, come back!”

And then she was gone too. I felt like we’d all just stepped into a comic misadventure here and waited to see if anyone else was going to go running by us. Maybe some talking anthropomorphic animal, or derpy mascot character. But it seemed the rude girl and the distressed one were all that were going to blow past us, so we all began to disperse through the house. Whitney and AEGIS took Rito to the garage to discuss transporting the machines over, Lia bounced down the hallway towards her old room, and Moon picked up behind her old book in her old chair like she’d never left.

I headed outside to find some shade next to Saga.

“How’s it going?” I asked her, flopping down.

“Boring as hell,” she said. Her voice was quieter than I remembered, maybe she hadn’t been speaking much. Nobody really here to talk to except Chiho I guess. “I tried to tame some pet humans to pass the time but apparently that was amoral or something.”

“Oh Saga,” I sighed at her.

“So I did this instead. Up you get you two. Hoo. Hah.”

I had no idea what she was doing or talking about until something poked me in the brain to direct my attention towards the little murky pond in the corner of the yard. I blinked, scowled a little at Saga’s apparent laziness growing to where she wouldn’t even physically point at things, but checked on the pond regardless.

In the middle of it, there were two fish. Goldfish, or something which looked like them, small, orange, one speckled with white. And they were dancing, for lack of a better description.

The two of them swam in circles around each other, twisting one way and then the other, moving in rhythmic bursts, spinning like they were in the hands of some contact-juggling street performer. With a tiny plop, one breached the surface and flopped in the air for a moment before crashing down, the other circling like a hawk.

“Uh. Neat.”

“…yep. Pretty bored.”

“I mean…I guess it’s a good way to practice?”

“It was cooler when I had it planned out for human pets. Only problem is they kept drowning in the pond.”

“You’re…”

“…kidding, yes. Thanks for giving me the benefit of checking first. Always nice that even if I feel I’ve gone soft, everyone else still has the right amount of trepidation.”

She let the fish go and they seemed very confused for a moment, or at least insofar as fish were capable of expressing confusion. And then they swam off to go suck on algae or whatever. Saga let out a little sigh.

“But hey, you’re back now,” she said, her voice filled with sudden energy. “Something happen?”

“Kinda. A lot of things, really. Do you want the short version or the long version…or the really short version?” I asked, tapping my forehead.

“Long version, please. Anything to keep me entertained.”

“Before then, who was that girl?” I asked. “The one Chiho ran after?”

“Oh that’s just some bitch.”

I blinked at her, waiting for an explanation but apparently that was about it. “Uh.”

“That’s Chiho’s squeeze. She thinks she’s gonna get murdered by Exhumans but keeps coming back because she’s got a sad, dumpy, pathetic life, and this is the most exciting thing in it. Kinda not fair to Chiho, honestly, and I’ve considered just doing them both a solid and rewriting her to be a little more fun and interesting, but hey…you came back before I got really bored.”

“Neat. And she just…comes over?”

“Pretty much. First time I talked to her was pretty great though. Man, she almost pissed herself. So I helped, and then she did.”

My face met the palm of my hand. “Gee, I wonder why she dislikes Exhumans. Can’t possibly imagine why.”

“Yeah, me neither! Some people are just so closed-minded.”

I went back to the tree and sat next to her stretched-out form. In the distance I saw Tem struggling to get her wheelchair through the backdoor before Lia helped. “Anything else happen?”

“Some guys came around. Real shifty-like. Suits, sunglasses, earpieces. Real government agent types. Looking for your pretty, round-bottomed, Japanese girl.”

“Great. We’ve dealt with them twice now.”

“Well, I made them think that the whole house was made of fire ants and if they touched any of them, they’d burrow into their flesh and lay eggs in their brain and keep coming out their ears forever.”

I gave her a sideways glance. “Uh…”

“…nope, not joking this time. I was bored, okay?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Anything else?”

“If there were other things, I’d be less bored. Ergo: no.”

“Boring can be nice,” I said, reflecting back on the last few weeks. Whitney, Dragon, Alyssa, the barrier Exhuman, Senator Irenside and Ichiro. “Actually I’d love some boring.”

She chuckled. “Well, tell me all about your adventures and hopefully things will stay calm here for a while. Get your fill of all the boring you can stand. At least, until you go traipsing around after that assassin guy, eh?”

She gave me half a glance over a small smile and I nodded. “Yeah that’s still the goal. For even more reasons now. And we don’t have forever, he’s targeting the XPCA.”

“Oh good. I love it when two things I hate try to kill each other. Maybe they can both lose.”

I laughed. “I missed you, Saga.”

She reached up and put her lanky fingertips through my hair before messing it up aggressively. “Same here. But you knew that, because I was bored.”

“Yeah. But as you said, let’s hope we keep some of that boredom, right?”

There was a slam as the backdoor flew open and a roar as AEGIS jumped over Tem in a single bound, sliding to a stop in front of me.

“They flew cam-drones into my workshop!” she shouted. “They’ve been here! And they’re droning me!”

I gave Saga a smile as I stood up with AEGIS, keeping a few feet from her superheated body where her engines still blazed.

“Let’s go in there and light them up, I guess,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of experience hunting those things down.”

“They touched my stuff, Athan. This is so not cool.”

“Rain check on the story?” Saga asked.

“Yep. Boring will have to wait. One crisis at a time.”

She laughed, her gentle, reserved laugh, and as I headed back into the house, reassuring AEGIS through her sputtered threats, I heard a plop plop and glanced over to see the goldfish once again dancing, jumping out of the water in synch in a needlessly elaborate display.

It was…ultimately…exactly what I’d hoped. A mess, of course, because my life couldn’t exist without being that. But one with some really good people in it, no matter how screwed up they were. Even if things continued to get more hectic and worse, at least we had this time and with these people, like a cheery reminder of why I always had to choose to fight.