I woke up in that hazy, druggy, dreamy state after going through the regenerator again and considered for a moment just how nice it was to have access to one again. There were a lot of people...probably ninety-nine percent or something, who didn't have that. Not everyone could get smacked around with a sledgehammer and be up again later that day, no problem.

Well, not no problem. I was sleepy and confused and laid up in a hospital bed. It took an embarrassingly long amount of time to puzzle that bit out, and longer still to notice the woman on my left, seated in a chair with a sprawl of parts and devices beginning to expand out of her bag and into the area surrounding her.

She'd been glancing up at me from under her bandana, blue today -- or, if not today, then the last time she'd changed clothes -- but didn't commit to talking to me until I caught her looking and we made eye contact.

"Made it out from LA?" I asked. She nodded.

"What'd you do to your exoframe?" she asked, holding up a piece of plating I should have recognized as mine. It had a large crater in the middle where some asshole had smashed it with a hammer.

"Some asshole smashed it with a hammer. Don't worry, I got him though," I joked.

She didn't laugh, just reached through her bags and took out a ball-peen hammer and began working the dent back out with deliberate taps. After a while, I kinda got the impression I was being ignored.

"Sorry I never named it," I tried again.

She kept tapping away at it. "Naming's not for everyone. By which...I mean...you, not her."

"It's a she now?"

She shrugged. And I realized that even by her social standards, something was off.

"Uh, 'cuz that's just what I've always wanted, y'know? A sexy lady wrapped around my legs and waist every day."

With a clatter she put the hammer down and stared at me through her thick plastic frames. Her hair looked greasy, like she hadn't showered in a few days. I wondered if that was just the trip over here from LA, or if she'd been neglecting herself again...without really needing to wonder, if I was honest.

"Look, is all of this just a joke to you?" she asked.

"The uh...the exoframe? I mean, I need that to walk so…"

"No, all of this. You're waking up in a hospital bed. You're back from some private Exhuman mission. You almost died. You killed two men."

"I...did, yes. But that was also all in the past. I'm here now, with you, safe. I don't know that there's a better time to make jokes."

She took off her glasses and tried to find somewhere on her tank that wasn't more smudged than the lenses but seemed to give up and put them back on with a grimace. Again, I got the impression I was being ignored somehow, which was the opposite behavior I expected from the usually-straightforward, even tactless woman.

"Hey, Whitney," I pressed. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" she echoed, talking more to her tools than me. "What's wrong. What's wrong, indeed."

"Yeah, you're being...strange."

The corner of her mouth twitched as she glanced at me. "Honestly, Athan, I'm not sure I'm being the strange one here."

"Well, I am a little drugged, so forgive me some loopiness--"

"No, not that. Not now. In general."

I blinked at her. "What?"

She paused for a long minute and then sighed, seeming to deflate in her chair despite her good posture.

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I should be happy you're alive and safe. I mean...that's why I'm here right?" She looked around as though only now taking in the hospital room she must have spent an hour in. "That's why people wait at bedsides, for the person they're waiting on."

"I…guess? I'm super lost."

She frowned, and it was a small, bitter one. "Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."

It was my turn to stare, perplexed, until she continued.

"I'm afraid you're getting lost, Athan. Not...in this conversation that I am managing super poorly. But in life."

"Oh."

She began to tick off her fingers. "You always talk about solving things peacefully, not wanting to kill. But of your adversaries, Colonel Teryn's dead, Blackett's dead, Director Albion's dead, Senator Irenside's dead, TARGA's dead--"

"Was she ever even technically alive?"

She adjusted her glasses threateningly at me. "AEGIS is. Don't nitpick."

"You're nit picking right now."

She continued. "And add those two from today to the pile, along with countless others I'm sure I've never met or heard of. You couldn't kill Dragon, so you blackmailed him with murdering his literal god--"

"Dragon was a completely contemptible piece of shit."

She looked at me like I had a thick unibrow. "So? I'm not talking about him."

"You literally just mentioned him."

"I'm talking about you," she stressed. "You always bang on about how peace is an option, but you leave a trail of bodies behind you. Even if they're monsters, it's you saying there's a better way, but then not following-through."

"So what, then? Is that what this is, you think I should have done better with Dork-hand and the tattooed asshole who wouldn't even hear me out?"

She continued yet again. "You were going to kill Director Hall, but it was more advantageous to mind-rock him instead."

"How about Mage?" I sniped. "How about Ethan, from Eryendria? Those sleeping XPCA I threw out of a plane over Tokyo? You just want to wring out all the blood on my hands? Dillon only rounds out the whole of the Defiant. Alyssa."

"I'm not trying to damn you or anything," she retreated.

"Oh, you're just keeping track? That's great. I really needed someone other than the nightmares to do that for me."

"No," she frowned bitterly. "I just want you to do better. I'm scared and worried, I told you already. I don't...I'm not...it's not like I'm sure I could do better or anything. But I'm just this…"

She looked down at herself with this tragic look of defeat.

"I'm just this girl. I don't have all the powers and responsibilities you do. I mean, I did, for a minute there. And it was the most uniquely awful thing, and that's why I'm so worried."

"Jesus, you fucking suck at making sense."

She seemed offended by that, which was good because that made us even on that point.

Delicately, she cleared her throat and started over. "You don't think it's a problem that you head out somewhere, with the express intent of resolving something peacefully, and then it ends up in blood?"

"Of course I do. You know I hate killing. You do know this. And AEGIS hates things going off-plan. I can only imagine what kind of damage control she's having to do right now."

"And see -- you did it again!" she veritably squealed at me. "These are dead people, Athan, and you're sweeping them under the rug. Imagine if it was...if it was Lia, who died out there. Lia and Alyssa. Would you be talking about how torn up AEGIS would be over her plans right now?"

"No?" I cocked my head. "But it wasn't Lia and Alyssa."

"But it was two people who didn't have to die. People whose lives are worth as much as Lia and Alyssa's."

I sunk back into my pillow and thought about it. She didn't exactly stab me with the point there so much as burbled over it, but I did think I now got the jist of her angst.

I did talk a lot about how I hated killing, but she was right that at some point, it had given me a whole lot more pause and pain than it did now, with those two. I could lie to myself and say it was the drugs, or it was necessary, or any other number of justifications, but the truth was...I wasn't sad to see them go at all. I was sad that I killed, but not really upset that they were dead. Because Dork-hand was one of the uniquely worst people on the planet, and his friend refused to ever even hear me out, and attacked at the drop of a hat.

…

And that was enough that I should sentence them to death? Even neglecting the necessity of it, putting aside self-defense and the threat they posed...even now, I didn't really consider it a mistake, and I was safely divorced from the consequences by now.

Simple fact was, in my head, those two deserved it. But an Athan from a year ago wouldn't think that. Whitney had noticed that change, and I hadn't.

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"Hmm," I mused. "I get what you're saying."

She perked up. "You do? Oh thank the moons, I thought...I thought I'd just blundered over my words again."

"Well, you kinda did. But I also got it."

We fell into another silence, but a lot more contemplative.

When had I changed? Sometime in Japan? After seeing the damage I'd done in Tokyo, I'd definitely taken the approach that a few deaths here and there could prevent widespread havoc and devastation. Justified killings, to keep the damage small.

But even before that, I'd been willing to kill any number to get to Lia in Vegas, hacking through the assembled XPCA in the suicide run which had cost me my leg. That wasn't morally justified in my head in any way, that was just kinda...me turning my morals off, because Lia needed me. But after that, they'd never quite come back on, had they?

I remembered us stopping halfway through that chase at the rest stop where there were a couple teens and their boss. I'd allowed Saga to mindfuck them into acting as a diversion for us so we could escape XPCA awareness. It was brutal and cruel, and those three definitely were super murdered by me, selfishly and remorselessly. And yet, they never haunted my dreams like the others did.

Maybe it was because that was when everything started to break. Maybe Lia was the justification I needed to...to do what Karu was always banging on about and becoming this monster. Maybe it was a slippery slope, and I was falling down it.

And maybe it was because of my position at the bottom of the hill now, but looking up...I wasn't convinced that being up there was so much righter than where I was anymore.

If the last few, fucking godawful experiences had taught me anything, it was that everyone else was already down here. Not just Karu, urging me down, not just Saga who thought Morals were a brand of shampoo, but everyone. All those people Whitney had just listed off, not the least of which being the two most recent -- it felt like everyone was willing to settle their problems with murder, when it came down to it. And somehow, I was the only sucker in the world who's mommy told him that people didn't do that.

"It's not really the killing," she sighed. "Though, of course, that's an issue. But it's about using the wrong means for the right ends. Using Saga to take control of everyone...no matter how noble your goals are, can that ever be the proper way to achieve them? And then, I'm not sure the ends are so right either."

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?" I vented. "I've tried talking to these people, all of them. Nobody will even hear me out, even when I've got 'em by the balls, they just...they're just too stubborn and closed-minded. It's literally impossible without something to open their minds."

"I think...that something is supposed to be like...how the world has done historically. Slowly, painfully, winning acceptance and increasing awareness and fighting back the lies."

"And dying and suffering endlessly."

She paused for a moment to inspect her work on my exoframe plating before tapping at it again. Probably kind of inappropriate for a hospital, but nobody had caught her yet.

"I guess, at the end of the day, I see it like this: Your plan is to mentally enslave the XPCA until...I assume, their and the world's policy on Exhumans has changed enough that you can step back and let it go and things will work out. Right?"

I nodded.

"Well…" she cleared her throat nervously. "Blackett's master plan was to use Saga to mentally enslave all the Exhumans so they'd act as a loyal police force to make Exhumans toe the line, until others like the P-force could start becoming normalized, and their and the world's policy on Exhumans has changed enough that he could step back and let it go and things would work out...Right?"

"I'm nothing like Blackett."

"I didn't...say you were. I just said your plans--"

"My plans are nothing like his. Just because they both hinge on Saga doesn't make them the same plan."

"Well, what's the difference?"

I found myself seething. "The difference! It's fucking obvious, isn't it? It's that he was mindfucking innocent, helpless, trying-to-fit-in Exhumans to be his personal slaves, and I'm taking it to the XPCA, who are the ones who prop up the whole problem. They're the oppressors."

She frowned. "Well that's just as bigoted as seeing all Exhumans as evil, isn't it? Seeing all XPCA as evil?"

I was about to start yelling my retort when the door slid open and AEGIS strode in, seeing Whitey and myself talking animatedly and her face immediately crinkled in disgust. But only for an instant.

"Heya, Whitney, thanks for coming," she said, holding the door open. "I've got it from here."

"Um, we were actually--"

"I said I've got it, thanks."

Whitney looked between us for a moment, her eyes wide. I didn't know why she was bothering to look at me after calling me Blackett the Second. She could piss right off with that attitude.

Gradually, slowly, she began picking up the pieces of the sprawl she'd started and repacking them, which seemed to take ages. And then, wordlessly but with many glances, she tottered out of the room.

And AEGIS closed the door as soon as her face was beyond it. She put on a cheery smile.

"Hey, sorry, I meant to catch you before you woke up but, y'know, work is crazy. How are you doing?"

"Doing okay. Thanks for the regenerator." I moved my arms experimentally, happy to find that both of them could be raised above my shoulders. I stretched my legs, the toes on my good one wriggling beneath the sheets while the other was...more of an inert lump of meat. AEGIS beamed at seeing me whole, though.

"Oh it's my pleasure. Saga helped...but I'll happily take the credit," she winked. "Not something you should be counting on, you'd be amazed how much of a fight everyone puts up in involving them, when it's really just a few million credits. Better than wasting millions on missiles and bullets, but what do I know? Cosette must love you a lot, because she got you one of these a bunch of times, and she didn't even have Saga around to make it easy on her."

"Yeah, we got pretty lucky with her. Did she come over with Whitney? I haven't seen her yet."

"She did. Still kind of a fat drunk if you ask me, but she's here."

"Hey," I said, and AEGIS cocked her head questioningly. "You don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Throw insults at all the other girls. That's what...that's what the previous AEGIS did, and it really pissed me off."

She chewed her lip for a long minute, before walking over to sit beside me where she apparently finished her thinking.

"Sorry," she muttered, finally. "Didn't mean to."

"It's okay. I mean...it's not. You've got a bunch of awesome in there, it's just...sad when it gets buried behind the ugly parts."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just really stressed. Work's crazy like I said, and right now, I probably...probably shouldn't even be here. I've got Moon looking after Saga but--"

"You left Saga alone?"

"I left...Moon there."

"But Moon can't keep an eye on what Saga's doing. She's not tapped into every camera and computer and casualty report of every exosuit in the XPCA. What's she gonna do, stare at Saga as she mindfucks some general into giving orders to execute everyone in New Eden?"

We'd upgraded to full-on hair-tugging now.

"Of course you're right. And I know that. But it's important for me to be here too. You just got beaten with a sledgehammer, Athan. That must have really hurt."

I shrugged. "Yeah, but...I mean...I know I should trust Saga more, she's my friend and everything and I don't think she'd deliberately screw things up for us. But she also is a little vengeful, and these are the people she wants revenge against."

AEGIS stood up abruptly, then froze like she'd been hit with a compel. She hadn't obviously, but it was a little strange anyway, as she took a few deep breaths, gave her hair one final stroke before tossing it back over her shoulder, and forcing herself to sit down.

"So how'd it go with Dork-hand?" she asked. "You shut him down pretty good."

"Poorly. I really did just want to tell him that the XPCA wasn't his enemy, and to go back underground. But that's such a poor sell for most Exhumans."

She laughed. "Yeah, I can imagine. 'Hey, you know what you should do? Nothing. And a lot of it.' I don't see it taking."

"I know. It's kinda bullshit hypocrisy, because I never sat around doing nothing if I could. A different me would just be those guys out there, trying to knock the XPCA down, too."

"A lot of our current struggles are our fault, kinda. The weapon shortage in particular."

"Right? So I'm just doing the best I can to make sure that things hold together, to...to sorta repent for my sins in a way. Because if the XPCA fell apart because of shit I'd done…" I shook my head as I trailed off.

I couldn't even begin to imagine the damages. All these dozens of Exhuman events cropping up aimed at counter-XPCA movement, if they were all aimed at their neighbors instead of us, jerkasses who felt, like a newly-born Exhuman like their powers were without check, the country would boil into anarchy in a week. Maybe just a couple days.

It wasn't a future I intended to indulge.

I shook my head at the thought. "That won't happen. That's...that's why I had to kill Dork-hand, against my best interests."

She took my hand, which still felt a little weird to the touch from the regenerator, but the warmth was the same as ever.

"I know. And I'm right here with you, working as hard as I can."

"Except...for right now," I informed her.

Her eyes narrowed instantly, and the comforting grip became just a little crushing on my hand. "I said specifically what I said. I'm right here with you. I'm not...up there, working away by myself, like some machine."

"I got it. I'm sorry. I'm still...a little drugged, that was bad of me."

She relaxed a little, but her shoulders were still tense. "Okay. I'm sorry too. I should get back to work though."

"I should too," I said, attempting to stand to see how it felt. Sitting up seemed to move all the blood out of my head and all the drugs into it, but other than that, I felt relatively normal right up until I had my feet on the floor, and one of them could feel the cold of the tile and the other couldn't.

"Tsk, did that girl walk off with your legs?" AEGIS asked, looking around pissed.

"They were broken anyway, and I appreciate her fixing them for me. I'll just use a crutch."

"I'm a crutch," she volunteered, stooping to put her shoulder under my arm. She was just the right height for that, and I didn't think I'd ever be pressed up against her without having to note just how warm and soft that body was.

"Yeah, but you should go back to the XCPA. I should go...home, wherever that is, and help Whitney with my legs."

We'd taken a couple steps towards the door and she paused at my words. I felt her heave a tiny sigh beside me.

"I'm sorry," I offered. "I know...you'd rather be with me. I'm just worried about Saga fucking up everything."

"Me too. I know. I am," she confessed. "It just doesn't feel fair. I wasn't even here when you woke. Instead, that bi--that, uh, friend of ours--who gets to play with her toys all day and see you whenever she wants, she's here. When I'm the one who struggled to get you the regenerator. It doesn't feel fair."

"It's not," I agreed, as she took us over to the corner where there were crutches laid out, slowly and sadly exchanging herself for one of them. "And I'm sorry."

She sighed. "It's only for a short while. I keep reminding myself. And...in case I wind up becoming something I hate, I just made a full backup of myself. In case...the worst happens. We have a version of me I can go back to, that I don't hate."

I looked at her with alarm. "AEGIS, you're talking about...planned suicide here."

She gave me a bitter smile. "Oh, is that so? Didn't notice."

"I'm serious."

"And so am I. I don't like this path for myself, Athan. I'll do it for you, out of love, out of hope for this world. But don't think that jumping into fights beyond yourself is the only way to kill yourself for the greater good."

The crutch under my arm felt cold and infirm compared to the goddess who I'd traded it for. She accompanied me through checking out and making sure my papers were in order and loading me into an auto-taxi back to Hall's house. And then she gave me a sad farewell and a lingering kiss.

"See you tonight," she assured me. "Unless...I guess...Saga did mess things up. And then I'll...be back as soon as I can."

"Don't worry about me. In fact, set me up another mission if you can. I think...I think Whitney was right about some things."

"Oh?" she asked. The auto-taxi beeped its irritation at us lingering with the door open.

"I need to keep trying to solve things peacefully. Even if, in the end, killing everyone is kinda the only option open to me...because I'm better at that than talking...that doesn't mean I can afford not to try."

She messed up my hair a little and leaned into the taxi to give me a kiss on the noggin.

"See you later, Athan. You're a good one."

Then she checked that my feet were clear, shut the door, and waved her sad farewell as the taxi took me away.