I sat paralyzed in my bed, my eyes darting across the room, wondering if somehow, I'd finally managed to sleep, and this was one of those 'nightmares' I'd heard so much about.

But conventional wisdom of pulling at my cheeks confirmed that no, this was reality, no matter how insane and outlandish. I absolutely wished it wasn't.

We'd been here about half a day, it was the first morning in Oasis, and the others were just waking up. Tem had wordlessly slipped out of the room after dressing, and Athan had joined us...in a fashion. He was going from bed to bed, speaking in the general direction of the inhabitant, and complimenting each on their choice in fashion.

He came to me and complimented me as well, though I was wearing the same as ever, one of the few dresses I still had packed and not ruined.

"Athan are you okay?" I asked.

"Terrified of cultural appropriation," He replied with a shrug. "You hungry?"

"I don't eat."

But apparently I'd said yes, because he turned on his heel, happy as could be, and strolled right out the door and back into the city.

While this was happening, each of the other girls was acting bizarre as hell as well, each holding a one-sided conversation with everyone else here, nobody waiting for answers and all responding as though they'd gotten them. Karu was blithely discussing rank and military experience, a rather normal conversation while she shamelessly undressed and changed, and Saga cradled her head and babbled incoherently in a complaining fashion.

Lia seemed mostly asleep still, at least, but I wasn't going to wait around for her to go off as well. I bolted past Karu without her so much as batting an eye and found Athan downstairs.

"Athan! Athan!" I shouted, shaking him. He looked right through me, apparently oblivious to my touch. Instead he just kept walking, and not knowing what else to do, I followed.

I pulled down every page I had cached on medical conditions which matched these. Sleepwalking was my first guess, but there wasn't any kind of mass-hysteria which could cause the effect in multiple victims at once that I found. That led me to gasses causing hallucination, but everything I found of those would either kill if dosed continuously overnight, or be completely ineffective, given the topography and distance of coverage we were looking at here.

A large part of me which I'd grown accustomed to ignoring gnawed at me, and I indulged it just this once. My old programming, and the constant paranoia that everything wrong, all the time, everywhere was somehow the result of Exhumans.

Because what else did I have to go on here? Nobody had eaten anything last night. Athan and the others were in two separate rooms. I didn't see any signs of physical distress or injection...and I was up all night with the girls to confirm they hadn't been victim of anything.

I had no idea. And if it were Exhuman, what kind? If it were a code-X, why would Saga be affected? And I wouldn't necessarily be unaffected...using that rock in Eryendria confirmed that some code-X powers could interface with a synthetic organism like myself.

But it couldn't just be visual or audio illusions or the like, or we'd all see each others'. It had to be inside the mind somewhere. Which...by definition, that was a code-X. But why all the sudden this morning?

Athan served himself a bowl of watery gruel which looked about as good as some of the cooking I'd done in a past life and ate it with apparent relish. Not for the first time, I wished I had that kind of interface so I could try it for myself and see if his reaction was reasonable or not. But I really didn't need to. Really, really, given the animated one-sided conversation he held while he ate.

He was promising the air that he wouldn't do anything to risk the city's safety. If only he knew.

Lia was arriving for food as well. There were many others around us I'd mostly been ignoring, random residents of Oasis who all ignored us as they assembled and ate. I could tell from their clothes that the majority of them were laborers, probably getting an early start on the day.

And not one of them looked up at the scene of Athan pompously talking to himself, gesturing into the air, dancing with it almost.

I had a terrifying thought, and measured the risks. And then I looked at Athan and threw out the calculations. I sprang to my feet and landed on a table adjacent.

Nobody stirred. My dusty heels were between two bowls of gruel being eaten. I kicked one of them over.

Its owner muttered something like a swear in a language I didn't recognize. An exclamation of some kind, as he moved to clean up his mess. And again, nobody reacted.

It wasn't just Athan and us, I realized. It was everyone. Nobody here was interacting with anyone else here. Athan was just the chattiest monkey, but they were all still monkeys.

That was more than enough for me. I raced outside to try to find Athan again, but instead ran into Tem, walking down the street with a stranger, one hand extended in front of her in his hand and her face bright red.

"Tem," I sighed. "Thank God. Where's Athan?"

She didn't hear me, didn't react. Just kept right on walking, squirming and flush as she went, as excited as a new bride.

I was terrified to know what was going on in her head, but that wasn't half as bad as the fact she'd somehow completely and willingly let Athan out of her sight. Given how pleased she looked, I had to assume she was still with him in her head…

The arm outstretched. The blush. I understood. In her dreams, the hand-holding little degenerate.

So what then? I thought, following her, my mind racing. Mentally, she was being led off by Athan by the hand to do something...I wasn't sure I wanted to see her reenact. But with a stranger? Did that mean this mass hallucination was some kind of wish fulfillment? Was every person here a victim of their own dreams, forever laboring away for the city while enslaved to its will?

That seemed horrifying. And more, I had no idea what to do if that were the case. Could I just grab Athan and drag him into the desert until he came to? But if he was enslaved, wouldn't the slaver come looking for him? Or worse...realizing I was a threat, turn him on me?

I was reminded how much I hated code-X's. Saga had somewhat desensitized me, but when that old loathing flooded back in, it came back with a vengeance. It was just unfair...my mind, my plans, my observation and preparation, they were everything I was, and something which could just instantly annihilate that capacity--

Yeah, I hated code-X's. Saga could deal. This was bullshit.

I followed her down to the outermost wall where she sat and cried and talked to herself a lot...really had a whole emotional moment there by herself with this unresponsive nobody. I spent a bit of time alternately trying to figure out what all was going on in her head, feeling bad about eavesdropping on what was clearly a personal moment, and then feeling less bad because doing that was basically her entire existence in a nutshell. Mostly, I just kept on low-key panic while I tried to figure out anything which might help me.

I went over every single piece of data I had from yesterday. Every word Rio said might have been a clue.

She'd said a lot of bizarre things, but this being a bizarre city, I was prepared to worry about them as they proved themselves relevant. This 'god' of theirs, for example, living here since before the war and somehow creating the entire city? That just stunk of superstition. Rio wearing a labcoat and working in a lab, in the inner, closed-off parts of the city? Yeah, that had red flags all up and down it. And her explanation that everyone in the city was free to do whatever they wanted...in a place like this, with everything so immaculate and organized?

I could tell how that worked already. Everyone did exactly what they wanted, while enslaved. No wonder things seemed so functional here. 'High priestess' probably just meant 'mind-fucking slaver scum'.

Because it had to be them. Exhuman powers all had ranges of influence, so it made the most sense for them to be positioned in the center of the city. I didn't know for sure how her powers worked, but putting it together with working in a lab…

I frowned as I watched Tem cry a bit more, squeezing herself in a hug.

...it kind of screamed technopath, didn't it?

I was of course familiar with the XPCA's recorded phases of technopath operation -- their cycle of paranoia, fortification, resentment, attack. And I knew how dangerous they could be, I had the numbers for any number of XPCA missions, how many bodies they tended to claim depending on each phase of their development. And I knew the stages were cyclical, that after attacking and establishing a 'safe space', the technopath would begin anew, afraid of attacks against their new haven, and so forth.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It fit almost too perfectly. The need to control literally everything in the city as the only abatement of their paranoia. The caste system to keep things organized and secure...the constant hints of the city being attacked and the need for a whole friggin' warrior caste to fight back. We were in the middle of the goddamn glasslands, how many enemies could Rio have?

But what I didn't know, what really scared me was nobody had ever seen a technopath's cycle run to its conclusion. Always, we were focused on stopping them as soon as we could, before the damages shot into the exponential part of the curve. Nobody knew what happened after that.

I hoped, for the world's sake, that it peaked at controlling a city. But given that we were here to stop the source of mysterious future-tech weapons that nobody else could reproduce, I kinda doubted it. However satisfied with Oasis Rio was or wasn't, it seemed apparent that she wasn't done.

Every little conclusion in my head only seemed to reaffirm how fucked the situation was while adding to the depressingly huge pile of numbers that informed me in plain math how little chance I had and how limited my options were.

As it stood, my best chance looked like crawling back to the states somehow, begging for my life, somehow deluding everyone for long enough that I was a real human and also, not an Exhuman nor a military threat, being given a public trial with a huge amount of publicity, and riding that awareness into a platform of revealing the existence and threat of Oasis, somehow forcing the government's hand to action before dying horribly and permanently for my and Athan's crimes.

Which sounded really, really bad. And that was the best option I'd come up with thus far. It wasn't like Skyweb was floating around on this half of the planet, or we had a lot of allies who could besiege a city full of Exhumans. Even if we did somehow talk every friendly Exhuman we'd ever met into joining us in a suicide roadtrip to China, we were facing an unknown force here.

Which meant, simply, I needed more data. As bad as this all looked, I was confident that data could fix everything, if only I had enough of it.

In a way, that conclusion was liberating. My job wasn't to fix all our problems and fight, it was to not get found out, to pretend to be just like the others -- batshit insane and all. Right up until the time to strike...or to flee...amassing as much information as I could about the threat.

I turned and looked up at the white towers, and there, on the wall above me, saw Athan standing and looking out, just a brown speck on the white wall. I surprised myself by frowning as I saw him, and felt my heart tumble.

That was...the optimal plan, of course. But I wasn't an optimal machine. I'd been trying so hard for so long not to be a machine at all, actually. All this threat-assessment of Exhumans, all this...killing myself to eradicate their menace and save the planet, all this bigger-picture stuff...I had to remind myself, that's not who I was anymore. I'd put down that role, and chosen another one.

I wouldn't just sit by and passively analyze the situation so some military bigwig could take apart my memory core and figure out just how many more kilotons of nuke it would take to glass this place as well. Because then I'd be dead, and Athan would be dead, and for me, that was a loss condition. If the rest of the world bit it, but we were the last two standing…

Well, that wouldn't happen. But it was a damn ways better than the other alternative. I frowned as I futzed with my internal parameters for a minute, trying to tune out that voice inside me that told me who I was and what I was built to do.

That voice was, after all, only technically correct. Which wasn't good enough.

I took about a dozen strides and one bounding leap to land on the wall next to Athan.

He looked lost in thought as I arrived, but when I approached, turned to smile at me. For one fleeting moment, my heart skipped a beat and sung, and I waved and spoke to him.

"Athan! You see me!" I cheered.

"Thank you for showing me that," he said, to a point just on my left. "I...never knew Exhumans could do good like that."

I sighed as my heart sank again. Yeah, that'd have been too easy, wouldn't it? I fell against the wall, flopping over it, my fingertips dangling over the drop far below. It was stupid, so stupid, for me to have gotten my hopes up like that, and it irritated me how readily I could get myself crushed.

"Are high priestesses supposed to say 'shit'?"

I turned sideways to look at him, talking to himself. But not to himself, to a high priestess, apparently.

And again, surprised myself a little bit at how readily my emotions flared up. Suddenly I didn't care quite so much if Athan were to die in a tragic nuking. The way he was all smiley and lit up as he imagined himself talking to Rio. He'd known her for less than a day, and was beaming like she was teaching him new ways of getting his dick sucked.

"I think tomorrow, I'll wear the silks," he said.

"Yeah, tomorrow, you wear whatever the hell you want, moron," I told him. I knew I was being stupid but fuck him. Playing dress-up with her already. When was the last time he ever noticed or commented on what I wore?

...other than this morning, when he was already in her delusion. That didn't count.

A horrible thought crossed my mind that if Tem were living in her perfect dream-world with Athan, than...this must be his? For starters, I was suddenly much more interested in what outfit he saw me in this morning. But past that, in his idea of paradise, he'd gone and left me so he could spend all day with this girl he just met?

My heart literally skipped a beat as countermeasures jumped up to suppress my spiking emotions. I felt every bit the stupid, hormonal, irrational girl that I both loved and hated that I could be, as I unloaded a string of thesaurus-enhanced explicatives at Athan which would have given a one-eyed carpenter pause. Bolstered all the more by the stupid fucking grin on his face as he took it without a glimmer of recognition.

Oh yeah. I wasn't just going to sit here and gather intel. Rio had another thing coming.

I stormed off, neither sure where I was going nor what I'd do when I got there, but I needed something to do, and I needed it now. But of course the whole fucking city was already in pristine condition, so all I could do was stomp around and fume, until I found the dining area Athan had been in this morning and set myself to work pushing in all the chairs and making sure they were all lined up exactly.

Which was, again, stupid, I knew. I was really doing a number of my opinion of myself today, but given the situation, I think I could expect some justifiable panic and/or outbursts.

Which was just an excuse, I knew, so I sat down and just tried to breathe for a while. I dialed back my indices so I'd stop freaking out and then freaking out about how much I was freaking out, and basically just arrested the entire slow-rolling panic attack which had been my morning.

Just...deep breath in, and out. Watch that O2 gauge rise and fall. Relax.

I had the right idea before. Not necessarily the whole mole-agent crawling, begging to the world government to please, save themselves. But to observe, gather data, act with precision and determination, once I knew what was going on.

I reminded myself that everything I'd just concluded, all the endpoints I'd reached about the technopathy and weapons distribution and recurring cycles...that was all speculative pending further analysis. Rio was a woman in a lab coat, who'd said some strange things and lived in a strange city where strange things were happening to all my friends and loved ones. That didn't mean anything I'd thought was true.

Except for the bit where she was making Athan fall for her. I'd kill her for that one.

Or, y'know, so I thought. That could have been a mistake as well. But it was still enough of an aberrant thought to make me jump when I saw her sit down opposite me.

For half a moment I thought, prayed, that it was literally anyone else, but there wasn't any mistaking her. She gave me an almost...apologetic-seeming half-smile, and straightened out the front of her coat.

Me, I made a very dignified noise and pointed at her as though to say 'hey, you're that person I've been secretly considering plotting against and/or killing'. Something halfway between a seagull and a leopard. It was not my most graceful moment.

"Um, hello," she said. "AEGIS, right?"

"Yes. And you're Rio."

She nodded. "And you can see me, it looks like?"

It was my turn to nod. This conversation was going great. I didn't know why we were having a conversation, or why she wasn't killing me, or me trying to kill her.

"Great," she said, with sudden enthusiasm. "Great! I can hardly believe it. But imagine, another high priestess after all this time. My word, you have no idea what it's been like all this time. But now you're here, and I'm so happy you are!"

I blinked at her, wondering again if maybe...I could just like...snake my hands over and subtly break her neck. Both to end this whole debacle, as well as escape this conversation I was somehow in. I swallowed hard and committed myself to the role I'd already decided on. We'd get some data. Then we break her neck.

Because honestly, based on how she was talking, and the excited way she was nearly bouncing in her seat, I had no idea what to make of anything. I could feel my previous conclusions flying out the door.

"Um...yay?" I offered tentatively.

She chuckled and stood up. "You must be so confused. And I'm sure I'm not helping. But I'm so happy you're here and so excited. I can't wait to show you everything and see what you think. It's been a real long haul, but...well...if it's not too forward of me, I'm really dying for a girlfriend, you know what I mean?"

I blinked at her. "No, I have no idea. And I'm...not lesbian."

"Not...oh no...not that kind. Oh I'm so sorry. Shit, I'm already fucking this all up, aren't I?"

That was something I could agree with, even without understanding the rest. Somehow she still managed to laugh as I nodded, though at herself.

"Okay, how's this," she said, smoothing down her front again. "We'll go in to the center ring, I'll explain everything, and then...you'll have some better understanding what's going on, okay?"

"Sure. Sounds good."

"Awesome," she said, and turned to go, waiting for me to join her at the door.

Well, there it was. Everything I wanted, handed over to me in an instant. The thought of it made my heart sink even lower than when I saw Athan hitting on his new girlfriend.

Because things didn't work like that. Reality didn't come along and offer you the person you wanted carrying a silver platter laden with the things you desired. Nothing was this perfect, here, or any other freaky place on Earth, and that led me to a terrible conclusion I wasn't sure any amount of data was going to refute.

Using that rock in Eryendria confirmed that some code-X powers could interface with a synthetic organism like myself. And now, here I was, living in a world where only the clues I picked up and my careful planning could save Athan from a fate worse than anything. And those clues were being handed to me on a silver platter.

It seemed impossible. It seemed too good to be true. Like Tem going on a date with Athan, or him rescuing some lady-damsel by literally becoming her newest, shiniest white knight.

It sounded fake. And if I thought I was hopelessly screwed and helpless before, then God help me now.