I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say. Would I normally have stopped him? Would I have done anything to save Lia, as he was preparing to do? Should I trust him and blindly follow, supporting him with reassurances and smiles as I'd done so often? Or was this a situation where, to do what was best for him, I was supposed to challenge him, keep him from making a bigger, more personal mistake at the expense of his hatred?

I didn't know. I didn't know what was real anymore. I felt like...all the voices inside me that I'd gotten so accustomed to just shutting out, suddenly they were screaming over my thoughts, as they hadn't been since last time I'd tried to kill him.

Exhumans were dangerous, I'd know this. I'd always known this. But because I knew Athan, thought I understood him, thought I was immune to the mind-fuckery of Saga, thought I had seen and evaluated the danger of Exhumans, I'd grown complacent.

To find out that all this time, the guy I'd been loving and working for and sacrificing to support, that there was a second Exhuman-thing inside him, which twisted the minds of those close to him…

I...I honestly had no idea what to make of it. It was the insidious nature of a code-X, I couldn't remember who I had been, or for how long I'd been changing, or if any of that even mattered. I was me now, and that's who I was...what difference could it possibly make if I got to where I was by being twisted in the head...right?

...right?

Even if...if I'd never met him...if I'd probably have grown into something which would dedicate to hunting victims like me and dangers like Athan down, someone like TARGA...even if I could be that other version of myself, and be totally justified, that didn't mean the current version of myself was bad, right?

Because...if it was...If I had been...I don't know, corrupted, I could go back...I could find an older iteration, before Athan sunk his hooks into me, try it all again, while I was still able to make that kind of objective decision.

I shook my head. This is what the voices were screaming at me. I was in danger, my systems had been compromised, I was reprogrammed by an external force, and should self-terminate, that's what I was designed to do. I wasn't myself, or thinking clearly, I needed to revert to a time when I was.

I didn't want to. But that's what any compromised system would say. I was officially a defect, and every moment I selfishly clung to life was another failure.

But this wasn't the time for that, I told myself, trying to silence the warnings. Even if that was the right course of action, even if Athan was...something polluted I should be staying away from...the fact was, we were here at the beacon, the very source of this vile, fucked-up Exhumanity, and it was the only way to save Athan's sister.

He was staring at me, and I wondered how long I'd been just standing there like an idiot, and how many of my warring emotions had shown on my face. I gave him a fake smile and his eyes narrowed.

"You're not even going to try to stop me?" he spat.

"I...no? I don't...think so."

"Is that because of me, or Lia, or Aphrodite?"

I wasn't prepared to answer that question when I was the one asking, much less when it was him. My vision dimmed painfully for a second as my system alerts surged into my mind. Athan was wreathed in warnings screaming in my head. This guy is dangerous. He may as well be made of red flags.

I knew that. I fucking knew that already, brain. Stop it.

"I...I don't know," I answered. "I can't...separate you from Aphrodite, you know that. She's part of you, for as long as I've known you, right? No different than the color of your eyes or the cut of your chin."

"My eyes aren't mind-fucking my friends, AEGIS. You don't deserve this from me."

His voice sounded angry, but behind that, his eyes looked scared. He knew about as well as I did what was going on.

"Let's focus on Lia," I said, sidestepping the issue. "She's got...minutes, it sounded like."

"Sure," he snipped. "I want to. But then what? She'll have a fucked-up Exhuman life--"

"Athan."

"--and one where she's enslaved by her own brother?"

I crossed my arms and felt the anger in his words creeping into my own. "Would you rather she be dead?"

"I'd rather she not have to suffer like she has! I'd rather she be at an evacuation center, like all the other girls her age, surrounded by her friends and family, instead of dying to radiation burns on some fucking parallel bombed-out version of Earth, where we're debating saving her life by stealing it from her, and shoving something fake and shitty inside her instead."

"Erm," Cer interjected. "Your sister, technically, dying from organ failure, not radiation burns."

"Shut up, defect," Athan growled, and Cer seemed to shrink back.

I wished he hadn't done that. Both because Cer...well, he'd undoubtedly fucked up the world pretty bad with Justice and Exhumans as a whole...but also in his choice of words. I was officially a defect now, I might make enormous, eratic fuck-ups in a misguided attempt to help, just as Cer had. If those fuck-ups were inconvienent to Athan, would he lash out at me like that?

I shook my head again, closing my eyes, like I could clear out my thoughts if I shook and clenched and closed hard enough. Athan would never do that to me. He was just hurt and confused. I needed to shut out these thoughts before I really did do something stupid.

Athan gave me one last imperious stare, before turning back to Cer. "Put one of those fucking things in my sister and let's go. This place has brought us nothing but misery."

"And understanding," I added. "There's nowhere else we'd learn about the muses, or Ramanathan, or the beacon--"

"And all it cost was my sister?" he barked. "Is that a price you're willing to pay?"

"I never said that."

"Well it sure fucking sounded like it."

His heightened aggression and soaring blood pressure were like needles in my eyes as every instinct in my body screamed out that this was an Exhuman, and an attack was imminent. Hostile action must be taken to contain and circumvent. AND he was making MORE Exhumans, right in front of my eyes! Disable him! Now! DO IT!

"Doing it! Helpful!" Cer burbled. "Cer, until now, has been picking concepts at random, for lack of knowing the bond-ee in person. Honored guest, perhaps, would wish to pick his sister's muse?"

"I can...do that?" Athan asked.

"Cer, happy to help! Many muses, available for honored guest's perusal, anything he can think of!" He seemed to clear his throat. "...within limits. Beacon, limited in what conceptual images it can synthesize, many muses, completely impassive, no matter what Cer attempts to throw at them, speculates that they are beyond his humble programming to understand. Other concepts, existing no corresponding muse, no muse of…'bunnies', for example. Amusing! Cer, imagining what powerset a muse of bunnies might possess."

"Yes, very amusing," Athan said dismissively. "Do you have a list of muses you know of?"

"Cer, has such a list. Please wait. System, engaging."

Athan closed his eyes and I saw him taking deep breaths as sweat trickled on his brow, despite it not being warm down here. I reminded myself...the other half of myself...see? He's trying to be calm. Trying to be good. Calm down, yourself.

It didn't work, of course. I couldn't just ignore the fact that Athan's pulse was still racing or his body was flush. I felt impulses, insane thoughts jumping into my mind, like I was schizophrenic, thoughts that ran on trains of logic I just couldn't board, screaming at me to attack him before it was too late, or to self-terminate. Suicidal aggression, not a good look.

"Calm down," I breathed, taking my own deep breath. "He's just trying to figure out what powers to saddle Lia with."

"What?" He asked.

"I said...do you know what powers you're going to give Lia?"

By the way his lip twitched I could see he hadn't been thinking about that. He'd been thinking about how to dispose of me, how to use this machine to make more Exhumans. He's dangerous.

Fucking...no. He wouldn't. He wanted it turned off, you moron!

"...After Justice...the world's...gonna be different," he said. "If it...survives, Exhumans aren't going to be in the same sphere anymore. Not now that they're unified, now that they...well...hopefully, they helped stop something bigger than both of us."

"Cer, big fan of creating larger, mutual enemy!"

"Cer, you moron tinbucket," Athan snapped "The world doesn't need any fucking enemies, okay? We've already got ourselves, and that's bad enough. Humans are bigoted shit, and we do not need all-powerful destructive masses, ever."

Cer went very quiet again, as my instincts roared in subversive triumph at Athan revealing his 'true colors'. What more convincing did I need? He hated humanity. If I had a shred of morality, of decency left in me, I'd strike him down where I stood. I'd trained with him long enough, I was built to resist his powers, I was the only one who could stop him.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Or if I was still too chickenshit, I could self-terminate, and another iteration might have the stones. Fucking step aside if I wasn't going to ride.

Athan continued, apparently oblivious to my hands twitching at my sides. "I want her to have something like the Exhumans in Oasis, something she could use to contribute to the world, not just to destroy, something more than swords."

See? I demanded. I felt insane, arguing with my programming like this, but at the same time, if I relaxed, even for a second, I felt like I would involuntarily lash out, almost like there was some lizard-brained impulse, some hunger or lust that demanded I kill, and it was only my arguments and consciousness that was keeping myself at bay.

It was...horrifying. Very much like being possessed, like intrusive thoughts just kept piling in...ironically, attempting to control and override me in the same way that they were designed to prevent. In flipping that switch, in learning that I was compromised, I had become compromised in an entirely different way.

I wished my mother had lived longer so that she could have ironed out these bugs. Fucking Saga, another dangerous Exhuman piece of shit.

"System, ready," Cer chimed. I opened my eyes and saw the display on the beacon lit up, showing a long, long list which hurt my eyes to read over.

There were so many words here. Just...words. Alphabetically arranged, they ran from ABANDON to ZONIPEDAL, maybe half of which I thought Athan wouldn't know. The neanderthal brow he was wearing, and him turning to Cer just confirmed my suspicion.

"What happens if she gets a muse she doesn't understand? What if she...winds up...with like...ANDROPHAGY, and has no idea what it means?"

I winced at the word he'd picked, and tried very, very hard not to imagine him tearing apart humans, sitting in a nest of their bloodied carcassess, and eating their storm-seared flesh.

"Well," Cer mused. "Cer, wishes to know, did exalted guest know much about electricity when gaining his muse?"

"Uh, not really. I knew what it was, I knew it was used to power things, and that there were charges and cells and stuff, I guess."

"Revered guest, found no difficulty in managing powers, after they manifest, despite that lacking knowledge?"

"I...guess not."

"Wait," I said, surprised at my own outburst. "Cer, if Lia did get ANDROPHAGY, would she then just like...start devouring people...without even trying to? Or...her powers would?"

"Wait, what is that word?" I asked.

"Cannibalism," I grunted.

"Oh. Ick."

"Manifestation, would depend on sister's temperament, understanding of androphagy, even if not by that name, muses are very good at introducing thoughts to hosts, require hosts to think of their chosen concept to stay fed, after all!"

I swallowed hard, trying hard not to think about Lia as I was currently considering Athan. "Let's...definitely choose something she'll know, something we can be reasonably sure how she'll interpret it."

Athan nodded. "Yeah. A simple concept. Cer, can you narrow down this list...maybe...remove everything over three syllables?"

"Cer, pleased to narrow options as prescribed!"

With the list shrunken and reduced, I found most of the words recognizable to a normal conversational lexicon. There was still INCULCATE, GELATION, EMICATE...but for every word on there like that, there were now twenty or thirty QUEEN, VAPOR, or CONFIDENCE.

Athan was shaking his head still, but now in frustration instead of confusion.

"...like...if we get POISON, what would that even mean? Poison bubbles? Poison fog? Poison breath? Her body would become poison? And some of them are just begging for a metaphor. If she got CARRIAGE, she wouldn't literally turn into a carriage, right? But what the fuck would that even do?"

"Cer," I asked, "could you show us the list of already out-there Exhumans again?"

The list changed to a scrolling panorama of all the Exhumans on Earth, flashing by. I reached out and stopped the display as it crossed Athan again. And found the chill down my spine as I read his muses one more time. ELECTRICITY, SEDUCTION.

I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for his powers. But also, if it weren't for his powers...I wouldn't even be here.

Tower was easy to pick up out of the list, and I read his muse's profile with interest. "Dolus", with REVERSAL. Which I guess kinda described how his powers could convert energy, shrug off gravity, and the like. I went looking for Tem, but Trish caught my eye instead, seeing her image flash past as I scrolled, and saw that she had "Tartarus", with FORGET.

That made me puzzle for a moment. I had assumed she'd have something like SHADOW or BLADE or some shit like that...lances made of darkness wasn't the first thing that came to mind when thinking FORGET...unless your short-term memory was violated by a hole to the skull, I guessed.

I went back to the word list and tried to find something...simple, helpful, useful. Something like...helping, or healing.

"REGROWTH?" I asked aloud.

"I don't know," Athan said.

"Hmm. Maybe not for someone with a cancer scare," I reconsidered. "REPAIR?"

"Makes me think of machines more than anything. I guess Lia as a technopath might be okay?"

I gave all the technopaths I'd ever met a quick think-over and shivered. Technopathy screwed with people's heads, made them obsessive and paranoid, I'd concluded, even moreso than regular Exhumanity. And the idea of introducing a new technopath to the world sent danger shivers trembling down my entire body.

"We have to pick now," Athan said.

"Then pick!"

He stared at me. "I...I can't!"

"Why not?"

"There's too many. They're so...unpredictable. I didn't even think about REGROWTH and cancer. There's so many invisible pitfalls, and all I keep thinking about is all the Exhumans I've had to deal with, and how variously their powers fucked them up. You know, there's a lot that are just…"

"I know," I cut in. "They just exude toxic gas, or their blood is corrosive acid, or everything around them just dies. I know."

The voices in my head made sure of it.

"I just can't do that to her, AEGIS," he said, his voice breaking with desperation. "When I turned...it destroyed my entire life. I don't...I don't know that I can do that to someone else. And my sister, of all people."

I saw Moon's picture flash past and went back for it. Her concept was KINSHIP, which I found ironic given her stance on relating to people. I could only imagine what kind of clamshell up her own ass she'd be puckered up in, if her powers didn't literally force her to play nice with others.

I went back to the list of available concepts and flipped through at random. We'd wasted so much time already, and I could see the panic growing in Athan, while at the same time completely understanding his inability to make a decision.

He'd just had a brutal reminder of how fucky powers could be, I reminded myself. He'd just learned that I was only with him because I had to be, as I stood here battling my own precepts. His world was falling apart right now, and he was being asked to dump the exact same on his sister.

But come on. At the expense of her life? Do something, Athan. Please.

Or don't. Not like we need more Exhuman dangers.

"I don't…" he bleated. "I don't...know!"

"Cer, would like to remind honored guest that his sister has mere minutes--"

"FINE," Athan shouted, and I found myself startled, on one foot, the other upraised in a pre-kick, my hands white-knuckled in front of me. I hoped he didn't notice, as I slammed my heel back to the ground with a painful crack.

"FINE!" He shouted again, with even more resolve. "I...I choose...choose…"

He scanned the list desperately, fat beads of sweat dripping off the tips of his brown hair. I held myself very still and tried to control my breathing. We had to save Lia. C'mon. Hold it together.

I needed to get into my own systems and rewrite my code, as I'd been so frightened to do this whole time. But better that I should accidentally fuck up my systems than deal with this. This was unliveable. I didn't care if I wound up corrupted and defective and following Athan, if I was happy, that was all that mattered. That's what I'd believed for so long now, but now I wasn't even happy. I felt like nothing, just a failure on every level.

"DISTANCE," Athan said. "That's...that's like, power's range, to me."

"That concept, the you want?" Cer asked.

"No. Sorry...just reading, still." He swallowed hard. I could see the pain of this choice wracking him, a simple fill-in-the-blank test, where the wrong answer would destroy his sister's entire life. While I stood here, utterly useless, worse than useless, trying not to snap and attack him out of the blue like a psycho.

"Peace," he said, finally. "PEACE. There."

He pointed at the screen at the simple word. My mind immediately tried to jump to all the ways that could go wrong, though I could honestly think of very few.

"Cer, confirming, wish to install muse of precept PEACE within your sister?"

"No," Athan said bitterly. "But it's what we're going to do."

"Acknowledged! Honored guest, making excellent choice. Please wait."

While Cer bobbed happily in front of the beacon, warbling at it and ordering screens to flash by faster than even I could pick out, Athan sullenly joined me at the periphery. Even the smell of him, once so comforting, set my hairs on end.

"I guess we do this," he said. "I don't know what else we were supposed to find here. I guess Mage's power was wrong after all."

I nodded as agreeably as I could, and put on a smile, which I realized was inappropriate after wearing it too long. But Athan didn't seem to notice, he was in a dark place inside, hurting and beating himself up over the choices he was having to make.

Good. He should suffer as he makes others do.

Gently as I could, I reached out towards his vulnerable neck...towards his slumped shoulders, and gave him a reassuring squeeze.

"She loves you, Athan."

"Because she has to. The same reason why you're giving me a pep talk."

"No. Well. The second one, I have no idea. But she's your sister. She's always loved you, she chased you halfway across America before your powers ever had a chance to affect her. Whatever happens, she'll accept it. She knows you did it for her."

"She's a broken kid, AEGIS. If I break her any more…"

He didn't finish. I felt his muscles tense under my hand. His neck was right there, I did the calculations required to cleanly sever his jugular, the pitiful amount of angular momentum I'd need to drive my hand clear through his throat. He'd bleed out in mere seconds. And then I could wrap up Lia, and get back to Justice, the real threat.

I felt like a vampire, I was so transfixed. Feeling his muscles flexing under my fingertips as he writhed in his torment, the call of his blood, my eyes fixated completely on the vulnerability of his neck, how easy it'd be to just...punch through. End him. Fix this.

As the minutes trickled past, my hand crept further up his shoulder, until I was squeezing the back of his neck, guilty but unstoppable, craving it, already feeling the warm gush, the satisfying pop, seeing that Exhuman's eyes go wide with surprise.

It felt...the closest thing I'd experienced until now, was burning lust. It felt like my brain was shutting down with horniness to break Athan's neck. Inch by inch, my hand went up his body, gripping him firmly, my breathing excited as my fingernails dented his skin.

He had to know by now. He had to be waiting for it, just like I was. He had to want it, too. I could see by the way he was trembling, the way he was gasping, begging for it. We both wanted to give in, to snap, to commit this sin together.

The elevator made a tone and broke our reverie. He looked up, and still I could not pry my eyes from his delicious, breakable neck. He began to pull away from me, call out to his sister, but as he moved, my fist tightened, his words came out in a gasp, my knuckles whitened around his beautiful, delicate adam's apple, which trembled with every choked word.

And then I stopped, blinking at myself. Wondering what had come over me. Wondering why I was hurting someone I loved. I pulled my hand away as though burned, rubbing down my palm to wipe off the alien sensation. Athan gasped for air.

And Lia stood over the two of us, her skin still mottled with the patterns of burns, but no longer cracked or torn. She was grinning at us, like Athan's death was a joke we were all in on. Her eyes were sparkling with mischief and misery and incomprehension.

Then she, too, reached over to Athan, steadying him for a second with her arms before removing the knife at his shoulder. She paused for a moment to admire the black sheen, the lethal edge, and her smile seemed like an apology.

As she drew the blade up the length of her arm, slicing it cleanly to the bone with a gush of red, and then rammed the blade into her own chest with a muted grunt of pain.