Athan really wasn't that well. But damn it, if he was going to pretend, so was I.

He seemed to have Whitney fooled at least, but she wasn't the most observant; too fixated on her own work and the ideas in her own head to pay much attention to anything outside of it. But I was a supercomputer inside a gynoid body built to superhuman specs -- I could see when he missed half a step and only just recovered. Or how often he went to touch the leg that wasn't there, or was off-balance when doing something so simple as sitting up.

I saw it all, but he pretended none of it happened, and so I pretended not to notice. Which had been hard, but it had only taken one mishap to convince me it was for the best.

It was early evening, his shift to sleep, since he and Whitney agreed never to sleep together again, and I was in the tent just listening to him as he mumbled on about something trivial and distracting, something far removed from us and from life.

And in that moment, like in so many moments, I felt something just so absolutely sad for him...like he was broken and gone and had realized it already, but refused to acknowledge it, because that would give it any more sway over him than it already held.

And so I did and said the most stupid thing out of that misguided melancholy. I touched his cheek, gentle as I could, and I told him it was okay.

"It's okay," I said. "You don't have to pretend around me. It's okay to hurt, and I'm proud of you for enduring like you have. I really am."

Interrupted the middle of his sentence, even, and he just looked at me for long moments, his green-brown eyes flickering in the dim light.

And then he continued right on, mid-sentence and all, like I'd said nothing. Like the time between his words never existed.

But in his eyes I could see it did, I could see the damage I'd done, could see his pupils dilated in irritation, his capillaries flushed with humiliation, shame masked behind his dismissal.

I hadn't done anything wrong, but he hated my sympathy, my pity, even my concern. Selfless, stupid bastard that he was, he dealt with his physical suffering readily, but the emotions behind them stymied him dead. He might have even considered his current situation as a fitting punishment for the fuck-ups he'd made. That seemed like him -- if Lia or Karu were hurt or something, he'd lose a leg. If Saga and Rito were captured, he'd break his back.

And if someone ever brought it up, he'd just hate them for that. Easier than blaming others.

But as the weeks drew on, it became more and more apparent that as much as he might choose self-oppression, Athan was ill-equipped for it. While Whitney was shockingly adept at making do with whatever bits she had on-hand or could scrounge up, the more Athan sat, the further he fell into quiet and resentment.

For the first bit, he seemed eager to discuss everything that had happened and what we could do to resolve the situation, where the others might be and how they were faring. But as the days drew on, as nobody could be reached or located, as the darker hypotheticals crowded out the 'I'm sure they're fine' we kept parroting, he shifted to pleasantries and idle chatter only.

And now we barely had that. Instead, he sat in the shade, his still-bandaged stump resting on his leg, staring at the trees, and I could only wonder at what he was thinking. Most days he never went anywhere, never even put on the exoframe that Whitney kept adding onto and modifying, just hobbled far enough from the tent to reach the grass and stayed there as long as the day.

I knew I had to get all three of us back on our feet, but honestly, it was maddening. He looked like he was staring at a grave every day for hours on-end, and while I could force him to eat and move around enough to keep alive, I couldn't force him to believe that Lia was still out there somewhere, or that he wasn't responsible for Karu's injury or Saga's recapture. Sometimes, it felt like all I could do was watch.

Which was true, because I didn't even have 'net out here. When I could, I'd sneak over to the buildings at the south end of the park, maybe even duck into the bathroom of a coffee shop and tap into their wireless, just to reconnect with the larger world and feel like I could do something. But doing that meant leaving Athan behind, and while I trusted Whitney, I didn't trust her. If Athan started walking into the ocean, how likely she was to notice would depend more on what she was working on than how critical the situation was.

But coming on nearly two weeks of this, I'd had enough. I didn't think Athan could take much more of beating himself up, and I knew I couldn't, so it was time for a change. That morning when he woke, I told him to buckle into his exoframe, we were going out.

It hurt me more than it should have that he didn't even ask why or where. Sometimes I thought I might kill him for his stupid quips, but now I would have killed for one. He dressed silently and obediently, stepped into the 'frame with my help, and emerged from the tent into the late morning air.

"G'mornin'," Whitney yawned at us. She was guts-deep in a mobile spread unevenly across the sheets of cardboard she'd turned into a work area, one of the several projects she'd picked up to keep us financially afloat for the time being. She had a good community behind her, despite being from across the 'net. She'd posted about her misfortune, and many had jumped to ply her with well-paying projects which were within her slightly-diminished scope.

Only slightly-diminished in that it seemed every time I turned around, she had new parts or equipment from somewhere. I wasn't sure if she was getting them from her friends or favors, or just spending some of what she was making, but given that she was our only income at the moment, I wasn't about to complain. I only wished I could do more, but with trying to take care of Athan, the best I'd managed was hacking her a valid business licence to keep the city off her for a bit while we were orienting.

"Hi Whitney. You gonna sleep soon?" I asked.

"Probably not. What time is it anyway?"

"Uh, almost ten now. You last slept...twenty-three hours ago."

"Huh," she said, looking down at her work and swaying slightly. "That long? I swore I just took a break. Well, I'll sleep after I finish getting this PCB talking to the main."

I grinned at her. "Uh-huh. You sure you won't need to keep going then because it's only just starting to work?"

She smiled back. "I gotta say, I envy your ability to not sleep. You're living the dream, AEGIS."

I rolled my eyes at her and shuffled Athan forward with me as we headed off. "Set an alarm! Two hours!" I called back at her. "When it goes off, stand up, and then decide if you should sleep."

"Yeah mom, have fun," she called back with a wave.

I sighed with the closest approximation to contentment I reached these days and set in step next to Athan, who, after several steps, I realized was still watching me.

"What?" I asked.

"You two," he said, his voice a little wispy, like he wasn't all-there. "You're cute."

"Well if you're looking to set up a threesome, I think you had better odds with any of the other girls. Whitney's not into guys. Or...anyone." I grinned at him.

"Not like that," he laughed, and as he did, my grin became genuine for a moment there, before he began coughing and groping at his back. "I just meant, I'm glad you have each other. You're both so smart and capable, it must have been lonely before."

"You're a dork," I told him, leaning in as close on him as I could without getting in the way of his steps. "I might be a super-genius, but that doesn't mean the only people I can relate with are other super-geniuses. Of course it's fun to geek out with her, and honestly, I doubt any of you could ever know the thrill of fussing with a PCB and trying to get the inputs and outputs talking until suddenly it just works."

"Of course we couldn't," he agreed.

"But--and this is a big but, that kind of thing is a really small part of me, overall. I might be good at it, because I was programmed to be, but that doesn't mean I'm into it, or even that I particularly like it. I feel like I'm a robot trying to become a real girl, and Whitney's just the opposite."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I can see that," he mused, a wry smile playing on his lips. "You're both doing a great job of it, by the way. But no matter what she does, she's still human...she's a person too, and if you wind up being like her and just being amazingly skilled, that's not...unhuman in any way. Uh, if that makes sense. I mean, if you're trying to tell if you're human, you can use her as a goalpost."

"You mean, I shouldn't dumb myself down to be more human?" I asked sardonically.

"Well...not quite, but yeah."

We walked a few more paces in relative quiet, cresting the path and seeing the buildings come into view. As though by magic, as we peaked and cleared the trees, the sounds of the city washed over us, cars and the murmur of people, distant, distorted music, a million lives all silent just a few paces back.

I welcomed the noise, mostly because I welcomed the city and all of the technology in it I could wrap myself up in. But also because it masked the almost-silent hissing of the exoframe, and its much louder clomping footfalls.

"It's not really about being capable. More a matter of pride, I guess," I said, picking up a little louder as we started walking again. "Which sounds stupid, I know."

"What, you're not proud of what you can do?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "You know, I get a lot of accolades from you and others for hacking and cracking--"

"And planning. And organizing. And mostly because you demand that praise."

"Well it IS deserved." I shook my head. "But the fact is, all of that stuff...none of it ever feels like me, if that makes any sense. I never had to work to be good at planning or coordinating or hacking. I was just born with it, enough that before I even knew who I was, I could bend a computer over backwards."

"So?" he asked. "That's awesome."

"So. The point is, none of it is me. Honestly, it's all just praise for my mother -- and all credit to her, the woman was a damn genius. But it never feels like I'm contributing anything, doing anything, being anything...anything more than what she built a hundred years ago."

We stopped at a street corner and I pushed the button. A man in a grey fedora walked past us, looking down at Athan's missing leg, the exoframe, and then up at him for just a glance before passing by. Yeah, gawk away, buddy. At least he's not wearing a fedora.

"That's stupid," Athan said, completely ignorant of the man's gaze.

"What, my mom deserving credit?"

"Yeah. That's like saying everything I do is because of my parents, because they birthed and raised me. And then the credit isn't even theirs, because they're just a by-product of their birthing and raising."

I frowned at him. "You know, on a very cynical deterministic level, you're probably right."

"And you happen to have a very cynical deterministic view?" he asked? The light changed and we crossed into the shade of a yellow-beige building. Didn't take long to find some decently-sized buildings around here.

"I think your sister does. Which is weird because she's also a huge optimist," I said. "But I do think she just sees people sometimes as something she can just reach inside and touch, making them think or feel whatever suits her. Living out here without her, I'm quickly realizing just how useless I am without a personal element."

"You're a super-genius," he scoffed, and I noted that he hardly flinched at the mention of Lia. He seemed too engrossed in the conversation to beat himself up, and that just sent my heart soaring. "How hard can it be for you to just...hack a bank or whatever it is you want?"

I snorted. "If it was easy to hack a bank, banks wouldn't exist."

"But you've done it before?"

"Yeah, with Lia."

He shook his head at me. "I don't get it. She's really that important to your operation?"

"She really is."

He frowned at the ground thoughtfully, carefully stepping over cracks, and apparently oblivious to the fact that wearing an exoframe gave him an automatic right-of-way against all incoming pedestrians. "Well...don't take this the wrong way...but why? I mean, I know she's amazing, obviously. But it seems to me like you should just...be able to plug into a bank's computer and...boom, ones and zeros, hacker shades, 'I'm in.'"

I laughed at him as he grinned back apologetically. "Yeah, if only banks just left secure access points lying around all around their facilities. I might be able to write up a software attack or exploit some uncommon vulnerability in a heartbeat, but I still have to find someone stupid enough to run it for me, or to point me towards the best place to insert it. Computers are strong and stupid, humans are weak but smart."

"That's not backwards?"

I shook my head and laughed again. "Not at all. Humans are so dopey and sympathetic and understanding, and they'll bend over backwards to help you if they like you at all. But not a one of them would run ten-thousand lines they were just handed a second ago against their main databases. Machines don't give a damn, but they'll do whatever you tell them."

He mused for a bit at we kept going. "I guess."

"No guessing about it. If it weren't true, I'd either have a much easier time with my job, or be out of it."

"Well, this might be a stretch, but going back to that cynical determinism. If that were true, wouldn't humans be programmed too? Everything that happens to us, we're just like a machine, reacting to new data we're being handed? Like, I'm obviously not running code against a database or whatever, but I am looking around--"

We stopped at another light and waited. "I'm seeing things, like the stop light, and I'm stopping because I'm programmed to. Though I guess I could just go, too."

"And that'd be a different program running. I bet there are very rebellious people who always go through stop lights," I told him. "Every person has their own programming. Different parameters where they'll consider it acceptable to jaywalk or not, all based on values and life experiences."

"Yeah," he said. "And isn't that great?"

I blinked at him, and for the first time on our walk, our eyes met. I realized...as into the conversation as he was, as excited as he was to just be out and talking with me, having a little philosophical debate like we used to...despite all that, he was still in pain, and he wasn't completely ignorant of the looks of those passing by us, only pretending to be. It hurt me again in that completely unfair way that I wasn't allowed to show.

"Sorry, what?" I asked.

"It's great," he clarified, "because it means you've succeeded. I'm just a fancy fleshy robot, and so are you. We're the same, so you don't have to worry about becoming any more human. You think like we do, you look like we do, what does it matter if you started with a little more programming than a newborn?"

I looked at him for several long seconds before I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. And as I laughed, I had to laugh more, some dam breaking inside of me, from which more and more laughter kept pouring out. Deep, paralyzing laughter that came from somewhere I felt I hadn't touched in a long, long time. I laughed so hard I cried, and so long we missed our light and had to wait another cycle, Athan standing there patiently and confusedly smiling at me while I worked through my fit.

At long last, I calmed down enough to give him the most gentle hug I could manage, only giggling softly in his ear, as I tried my best not to hurt him.

"Um, okay?" he said after we parted.

"Sorry," I said. "I just...you're such a dork."

"You laughed at me for five whole minutes for being a dork?" he huffed.

"No. No, sorry. I'm just…" the light changed and I ushered us into the street, still snickering just a little bit. "You're a really good guy, Athan. No matter how shit things get, you always manage to remind me why I love you so much."

"Oh," he said, stopping flat, and I had to remind him he was in the middle of an intersection through another bout of giggling at his face. "Well I still don't think that was worth five minutes of chuckles."

"Maybe not," I grinned at him. "But I think I've been needing that for a while. Lucky you that my standards are so low right now; you fill them quite nicely. Uh, not like that...but y'know, also not not like that."

He sighed, but it was through a wan smile. "What are we doing out here anyway, AEGIS? What are you dragging me into the city for?"

"What, aren't my flirty charms engaging enough?"

"They're engaging enough back in the tent, that's why I'm asking."

I beamed at him. "First, we're going to get you some breakfast. I know a place near here that serves some mean tuna-tomato omelette with guac. And by 'know' I mean 'looked up on the 'net'."

"Do we really have the money for that right now?"

"We really do. Being happy every once in a while is important." He frowned but didn't argue. "Besides, I cleared it with Whitney. She's doing okay, and she says she's game as long as we bring her a box of cup ramen."

"That girl…"

"And then, you and I are going touristing. You've never been to 'Frisco, right?"

"Nope. I know enough about it to know the natives hate it when you call it 'Frisco, though."

"Duly noted. Well then, we've got a big day ahead of us. Embarcadero, Golden Gate, Alcatraz, Lombard street, Pier 39...and I'm especially interested in the ethnic district."

"Why's that?"

"There's supposed to be an ancient shrine there, in a pagoda in a small park, of an ancient Hindu spirit that grants wishes. Lots of people say it's baloney, but a few reports say if you wish hard enough, and you believe it with all your heart, it comes true."

I batted my eyes at him while he groaned at me.

"AEGIS, I expected you of all people to not buy into that kinda crap."

"I don't. I'm strictly evidence-based and thoroughly research my conclusions as well as my sources. Where possible, I draw only from peer-reviewed data, with a clear scientific grounding and reproducible testing."

"Yeah. So...what part of that has to do with this hooey about Hindu spirits and ancient wish-granting shrines?"

I grinned at him. "Well, love isn't exactly rational to begin with anyway, so I thought, what the hell."

He groaned but didn't complain as I pulled him forward, towards a day somewhat less planned than I'd prefer, but packed with more fun and energy than either of us had had in half a month.