"So what is that guy's problem?" I asked Rio as we hustled towards the city. We couldn't take the most direct route because, uh, somebody had smashed up one of the gates and we'd had to go around.

"Liwei?" Rio asked.

He wasn't with us. He'd stayed behind to keep an eye on Saga. Which was also the subject of her endless gloating. When we stepped out, she was reciting all the things in the world more useful than he, starting with the balls of a priest and getting worse from there. The others, in turn, had stayed to keep an eye on him, and so it was just Rio and myself, the only ones not involved in the circus of keeping eyes on other people keeping eyes, the two of us jogging through the streets now.

Streets which were...subtly different than before, but still not real. There'd been something of a reset when Saga did her thing and cracked the visions, but the fact I couldn't feel her mind still meant we were in the fake realities. But at least it seemed like all of us were in the same fake reality...at least until we diverged, which was another reason everyone wanted to stay together as much as possible -- and with and around Saga to make sure they didn't get duped again.

Of course, things like 'peaceful solution' were a low priority, which was why I was here on my own while they stayed together. We'd try my way, and if it didn't take...well, Oasis was a crap place anyway. They weren't really wrong, so I tried not to take offense.

"Yeah, Dragon," I answered. "What's his beef? I know your god decrees to hate all code-X and junk but you seem much cooler with letting that kind of thing slide than he does. Is the stick up his ass just that much bigger? Was he raised by someone who only spoke douche or something?"

She gave me a glance as we jogged on, her breathing a lot heavier than mine, and her lab coat flapping around, far too hot a garment for this climate.

"Liwei's got...an interesting relationship with our god. Don't get me wrong, I revere and believe and worship as much as he does. But...my power, my calling, they're everything I build. His is...well...you've heard that he was born here, yes?"

"Yeah, which is creepy, considering his parents might not even have known who the hell they were fucking when they conceived him."

"Would it matter, if they were happy?"

"Let's skip that argument. We've had that one before."

She jogged in silence for a couple seconds and then seemed unable to resist getting in a final word. "I'm just saying, lots of the world outside make children with strangers and without happiness or even consent."

"Yeah. It's perfect in here, got it," I snapped.

"Anyway, with Liwei, as with all, he was born...without powers. Human. And so he was a normal laborer in the outer ring. But then something happened which had never occurred before: he turned Exhuman."

"Is he?" I asked, actually a little elated to finally get confirmation. "What are his powers then? Wait...woah," I said, my mind suddenly reeling. "Wait. Do you...woah. Do you know the Ramanathan Window theory?"

"No." She shook her head. "What's that?"

"I won't get into it but...basically it says that in a way, what powers people get is based on their troubles. But people in Oasis have no troubles, or at least think so, right?"

"Correct. But...from that day he woke, he was apparently a changed person. He had the sight, but was still in the visions, still had the mind of one who lived in them. If I understand correctly, his powers, and the visions created by our god, they are...symbiotic within him somehow. He is more than himself, while still being himself. Something unique, never seen before. I'm unsure of the details, because...well...there is no one to ask of it but him, and...you see how talkative he is."

I just wanted to stop and think for a long time about what all that meant, but I was still just following Rio as she bobbed along. I couldn't quite dedicate my whole attention to it when she seemed intent on taking the most twisting, convoluted route possible to cut through the city...and her sweaty and bouncing along in front of me wasn't exactly great for my focus.

But still. Jesus Christ. An Exhuman's powers completely based on throwing off another's. Suddenly him kneeling and crying and wailing didn't seem quite so melodramatic, when the visions were shut off. Maybe...that was honestly the only way he could experience the world. Without the visions, without his powers interacting with them, maybe he was literally nothing.

Blackett's power, if he was to be believed, was also the result of Exhuman trauma in his life, and he'd developed the terrifying power of completely annulling anything Exhuman-related by his presence. Dragon was a step beyond, his powers intertwining with another's?

Scary shit. But most Exhuman powers were. It went a long way explaining why he was, to all scrutiny, merely human, but also the most superbly gifted human imaginable. I had to wonder what his perception of the world was, and wished -- for a new purpose for once -- that Saga could get in his head.

Rio hesitated and I almost crashed into her, but she started forward again before I did, stepping lively down a set of white stairs that finally meant we'd regained the main street. As she moved ahead of me, I saw the reason for her hesitation, and paused a few seconds myself.

In counterpoint to the gleaming white of Oasis were a line of vehicles parked outside the front gate in gunmetal grey. Some cars, a couple of parked VTOLs, already spun all the way down, but mostly trucks, more on the courier or military side than freight. The glasslands were probably too rugged for freight trucks, and they were compensating for the smaller size with a huge quantity.

"Just how many guns do you fucking sell to these people?" I asked. "There's a hundred trucks out there!"

"Being the best does not mean producing one piece of art and stopping," she huffed. "A true artist constantly seeks improvement. A true artist's work is never complete; in the making of it, they have already learned how to make the next."

"You're absolutely insane. You need to find a boyfriend or something, because you have got way too much time on your hands for playing with guns."

She spun on me, her eyes blazing. Speaking of learning new things about her art, there was a line of dried blood on her face from where Lia had taught her a new use for them.

"I am not playing. It is my calling."

"Yeah. Right. Those people are not playing. They use your guns to kill people. You are in here, fucking around with your silly tech and make weapons because it's fun. Playing."

"I refuse to have my life's work dismissed like this," she fumed.

"Then pick a work which doesn't dismiss people from their lives, lady. Maybe you don't feel even slightly responsible for all the lives your weapons take, but I've seen the carnage firsthand." I gestured at my leg. "Does this handiwork look familiar?"

She bit her lip and turned back, and I followed. I could tell just by the way she was still tense, reading her more with my powers than my eyes, that she was just trying to come back with something biting and devastating to say, and I thought I'd just cut her off right there.

"Look," I barked. "Right now, it's a very good idea for me to just kill you, and I'm trying hard not to. Can you meet me halfway and just agree that maybe, selling a bunch of things which are designed to kill people just might promote killing people?"

"It's my art," she said, bitterly.

"And my art is waving lightning in people's faces. You don't see me doing that to everyone I meet."

She spun on me again. "No, that is your power. You have no calling, because you are unfocused, undisciplined, and weak. You have no idea what it means to wholly commit yourself to a single cause, and uphold it through anything. You speak of your high morals and how hard you try to avoid killing, but at the same time, veil threats to end me if I don't bend the way you want. You've never believed in anything longer than it took for that belief to be challenged, and you never will."

I stared at her a long moment while she caught her breath. "You done?" I asked.

"Hardly. But we don't have time for the rest."

"Well you listen here, sister. While you've been sitting here in your literal white tower, having literal servants waiting on you hand and foot so you could play with whatever gadget strikes your fancy, I've been out there, doing my fucking damndest to leave a positive impact on the world. I've tried again, and again, and again, to do everything in my power to change things for Exhumans, by word or by deed, and to protect not just those close to me, but everyone I meet, even self-absorbed pieces of shit like you. I have never wavered in trying to do what I thought was right, even if I had no idea what that meant, even if I had to sift through thousands of lies. Even if I had to make myself the enemy of the world, even if I had to throw away my personal values and principles, I'm fucking doing it. I have sacrificed my life, endangered my friends, thrown away any chance I'll ever have at happiness or a meaningful existence...hell, I've destabilized the whole goddamn world because the path it was headed down was wrong. So don't you tell me about commitment, sister. I'm fucking committed, and I see the damage I do with my choices and do them anyway. Can you say the same?"

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

She glared at me. "I know what guns do, moron."

"Do you though? Do you know what IkaCo is? How many billions they make every year? How about a group called Hibakusha, ever heard of them?"

She continued her glare as she shook her head.

"Little protest group that didn't like the parallels between IkaCo's weapon proliferation -- your weapon proliferation -- and the spread of nukes. They were peaceful, met one of their leaders, a fucking bureaucrat, until IkaCo decided to just wipe out them and their family, with enough money to make the legal repercussions disappear."

"That's not me, though. It's not my fault people choose to do that."

"That's what people do. That's what people always do when there's a power disparity. That's why so many Exhumans go bad, why there's so much fear and hate and bigotry out there. You know the last time a group of humans had a monopoly on guns, it led to them colonizing and enslaving two-thirds of the planet?"

"But that's not my fault!" she shouted back, her voice catching.

"Except you know it's happening and you can stop it, and you aren't. How is that anything but your fault?"

She sputtered at me another few moments before turning and running, not at a jog anymore. I sighed, thinking she was just refusing to face reality, but then I realized the ground was keening again. Some hell of a doorbell they had here. We were close now.

It took me only a few seconds to catch up with her, but I didn't press further. She seemed already on the verge of crying and it wouldn't do any good to rip her to shreds any more when all I had to do was tell them no deal anyway. Instead we ran in painfully awkward silence, her short legs slapping the ground at least twice for every stride I took, it seemed.

I considered telling her that she could spend her talents building an exoframe, but the look on her face reminded me that not everyone made stupid jokes at inopportune times. That and, I really didn't want her spreading into new markets on my dumb ideas.

Finally we arrived, and she huffed and puffed, doubled over for a few minutes before she issued an order that the gate be opened. She was still flush and her hair was matted with sweat, but we'd already been probably fifteen minutes since they'd arrived.

"Hello," said a strict-looking asian man through a distinct accent. He wore a slim suit which didn't match the environment in the slightest. "We were concerned something had happened. We have never been made to wait before."

"Yes, sorry," Rio said, brushing at her bangs. "We had...ah...a situation."

"Is...everything alright?"

"No," I said, stepping forward. "Afraid not."

He looked at me with some alarm but no recognition. The same could not be said of his escort, possibly a bodyguard, who whispered urgently in his ear. I had to grimace as I saw his face stiffen in comprehension.

Didn't feel good being known around here. But I didn't expect much more after being on every headline in Japan the last week. Didn't feel good at all...but might be useful anyway.

"Shop's closed," I said, crossing my arms. "Go somewhere else for your weapons."

"We really...we can't," Rio said, turning on me with pleading in her eyes. "The city needs what they offer to survive."

"Not really my problem. The world needs you to stop offering to do the same."

I saw word spreading through the dozens of others behind him. Maybe half of them were military of some sort, if the arms were any indication. The rest were probably just...I dunno, drivers or loaders or something. None of them really seemed pleased I existed either.

The man cleared his throat. "That really remains to be seen. It is critical that this shipment be made."

"Why? Somebody rich in Russia have somebody that needs oppressing or something?"

He looked at me like I was stupid, and I tried to resist the urge to agree with him. It wasn't my best line. I'd already yelled my best at Rio just a few minutes ago, and I'm sure if I'd turned that on him instead, he'd be thoroughly wowed and impressed. Probably.

And then he actually asked. "Are you an idiot?" Which was kind of impressive, honestly.

"I've been accused of such. But I don't think you're going to earn your guns by calling me names."

He conferred again in whispers with his escort, and then that man approached me with a mobile extended.

I gave it a pass with my powers and felt nothing off about it. Seemed like a normal mobile to me. Just in case, I let him continue holding it and leaned forward to scrutinize the image on the holo.

It was a video of...something blowing up. It was hard to make out, being taken at night time. It was taken from a building window, looking out over city streets, lined in skyscrapers, but above them, there were flashes of light instead of the dark sky. Clouds I recognized as plumes of concrete were washing down the streets like tidal waves, and fleeing from them were dark shapes which might have been people.

"What is this?" I asked.

"An Exhuman crisis," replied the man, as his friend put the mobile away. "That was downtown San Antonio, Texas. Yesterday."

"Yesterday?" I echoed stupidly. Giving him more reason to think I was an idiot, I guess. "So it's an Exhuman event. The XPCA will handle it."

"They have been 'handling it'. This is a crisis, and they need more." He turned to Rio. "I have been authorized to purchase up to eight times our normal order, at four times our normal rate."

"...four times?" Her eyes went wide. "We could...that could set us for years."

"Such is the nature of this crisis," he said, turning back to me. "That we would be willing to forgo that amount of business. You understand the situation, then?"

I turned it over in my head. I did understand the situation, unfortunately. Some kind of big-ass Exhuman threat was chewing through the XPCA and they were trying to buy their way out of the situation. I couldn't imagine how much profit IkaCo was making if they were willing to pay four times as much for their product but I was certain it was a lot.

But at the same time…

The need was probably genuine. Soldiers were out there fighting and dying against some monster threat which was demolishing a major city. From the people on the streets to the one shooting the video I'd seen, it didn't look like a perimeter had been established properly, and civilians were caught up in the mess.

"Please," Rio asked. "We need this."

I rolled my eyes at her. "What, gun parts? White stone? What could Oasis possibly need?"

"Many things," she said, her lip trembling slightly. "But mostly...salt. Water and stone, we take from underground. Food, we can grow, but without salt...we die."

My mind flashed back to the bizarre toad we'd met in the desert, who'd been single-mindedly focused on dragging a cart full of salt water. He didn't seem like he was going to make it. I had to wonder how many other skeletons were lining the glasslands, trying to bring in a paltry harvest.

"So...get some. You've got a whole city of Exhumans here, you're telling me nobody can...get salt somehow?"

She gave me a sad smile. "Nobody can that we know of. Dragon has long looked, but not yet found any who would both remain in the city and be able to help."

Nobody kidnappable, she meant, and that made sense. Rito, for example, could bring them salt, but also couldn't be trapped in a vision easily. Ease of transport and ease of escape were probably pretty interlinked in Exhuman power sets.

I stared at her, her eyes wide and pleading. When I glanced at the man, he stiffened, but tempered it with an apologetic smile. His escort watched me with eyes that flickered between each of our faces.

And I had no idea what to do. It had been so simple when I'd come here. Shut it down, go back, rescue Moon, we were done. But somehow, I'd become embroiled in this place, from my senses to my history with Dragon to my connection with Rio, which even if it was some bullshit fabrication as part of a cage to keep me here, the fact was, she still needed my help.

Instead, I felt like I was a boot, coming down to stomp on her and everything she was trying to build and maintain out here. Fucking salt, she needed. The most essential goddamn thing to life after water. And I was kicking it out of her hands.

And then the news about the Exhuman. The video had only been maybe twelve seconds long but...even from that, as something of an expert on those kinds of ops, I could tell things were terribly, terribly wrong. Civilians in danger...buildings coming down around them, damage across the city...none of that should have been possible, the XPCA were supposed to be able to contain and hold, that was all they did.

And somehow they weren't doing it, and these guns would help.

Frustrating. Head-poundingly frustrating.

"We are...actually...on something of a deadline," the man said. "The XPCA needs the arms as soon as we can possibly deliver them."

"I'm thinking, okay?" I barked at him, and he clammed up.

I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell them, no deal. But take me, let me at that Exhuman bastard, let me fix everything by the strength of my own back.

But I also knew there was no way anyone would accept that. Rio wouldn't get her people their salt, the businesses wouldn't get their money, the XPCA wouldn't be handling things their own shitty, convoluted way. And worst of all, I'd be back in the public eye, in arm's reach of both IkaCo and the XPCA, where more than likely, both of them would throw every remaining resource they had at me rather than have two rampaging Exhumans on the loose.

It felt like I had no choice but to just give in. As much as I hated it, the world needed the XPCA. I'd seen the anarchy that could be unleashed when they lost control, even for an instant. Even if we were bitter enemies, I could never let them lose.

Besides, what was I even doing here? Destroying a whole city of peaceful Exhumans so I could save my friend, who wasn't even in danger? It was selfish and stupid. I had no reason to do this, no reason to subject the world to even greater jeopardy just because of my stupid self-absorbed wishes. It was moronic. It was putting the whole world at risk. Everything in my mind seemed to crystalize, once I took my ego out of it, all pointing one way.

I took a deep breath, turning to Rio, and her hopeful eyes.

And the only problem was all the words I'd just said to her a few minutes ago. About who and what I was, and how I always acted. About the things I'd sacrifice and the depths I'd go to in order to do what I thought was right, no matter how stupid, no matter how painful, no matter the risk.

"Rio, I'm sorry," I said. "No deal."

I whipped out my blades and forced the two men back. When the escort drew and aimed his weapon at me, I cut him to pieces.

It was all I could do for her to wrap her in my arms as the caravan started shooting.