AEGIS' brilliant eyes were waiting for me when I opened mine. Her lips curled into a gentle smile the moment she saw me awake. I rubbed my eyes, and when I reopened them, she was still there.

"You're acting like we haven't been sleeping together the last month," she whispered with just a hint of excitement.

"That's one of the things that makes it so weird," I said. "Last night really did happen, didn't it?"

"Definitely."

"Just seems...crazy. Like one of those stories about falling in love with a childhood friend. It feels like we've been together so long...and now we're...together."

"It's been less than a year, mister. And I've only been 'alive' that long."

"Right?" I laughed. "See, I've known you your whole life."

"Whatever, I don't care, so long as I can call you mine." She leaned forward and kissed me gently, her face blooming into an enormous smile as she pulled away. Her smile was just so damn infectious.

The smile, however, turned a little devious as her hand pulled away from my face and instead began tracing lines on my chest.

"Want to do…'it' again? Before we face the day?" Her eyes gleamed at me.

"Did you have a good time last night?"

"I mean...I'm the one who programmed this body, so I know I shouldn't be surprised...but fuck, Athan. I think I found God last night. You pushed me way past any expected operational parameters."

"Yeah, very sexy pillow talk," I grinned. "I'd love to but...not while Karu might be awake...y'know?"

She sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Just sucks. I got a new toy...I wanna play with it." She grinned at me. "I can't even be mean to you right now. I just sat up all night thinking of how happy I am."

"I'm glad you are. I am too." I was also happy that neither of us were stressing about today anymore. Come to think of it, taking my mind off of that had been her original objective in coming onto me last night...it worked a little too well, and on both of us. Not that I'd complain.

We both dressed while paying more attention to the other's body than our own and then headed downstairs together, where I found Karu sitting at the table staring at her guns laid neatly out in front of her with glossy eyes.

"Good...morning?" I asked.

She sat silently for another moment before suddenly snapping to face the source of the sound. "Oh. Good morning, Ashton," she said reflexively. As we continued down the stairs, her eyes remained unfocused on the point she'd looked up to.

AEGIS and I exchanged a small concerned glance. "I think I'm going to make breakfast. Athan, would you help me in the kitchen?" she announced. I took the hint and followed her down the hall and out of Karu's line of sight.

"She uh, does not look good," I said. "I'm...going to assume she knows what happened last night."

"She...kinda...stopped by a few times last night," AEGIS confessed. "I just ignored her every time, but I could hear her on the steps, could see the red of her visor through the crack in the door, just for brief moments."

"I...uh...see." I said, not sure what to make of this. "That's bad, isn't it?"

"Pretty bad, I'd say. Charitably, she was checking up on you. You could maybe argue she was keeping an eye on me. But more likely...girl was creepin'."

"Well...she is my ex, technically. And I know she still has a thing for me."

"Yeah, I'm lacking in personal experience, but from what media and the 'net tell me, attached exes are...not a...good archetype."

"Let's make some food," I said, not sure what else to say. Karu's existence hit me like a needle, just as AEGIS was filling me up with so much happiness. Small, sharp, painful. Probably not fatal unless it stabbed me right in the heart.

AEGIS must have been thinking something as well, because we made a simple breakfast of eggs and toast without speaking. Still, once or twice when our paths crossed in the kitchen, we would have lingering touches as we danced around each other, matching gazes, unspoken words on our lips.

"It's not fair," AEGIS said as we were finishing, almost under her breath.

"What isn't?"

"Sorry. Nothing."

"No, seriously." She picked up a plate of toast and I stepped in front of her and held her occupied hands in mine. "Seriously, please."

She shook her head. "It's going to make me sound petty. I don't want you to think of me like that. Forget about it."

"I won't, I promise."

She looked at me and sighed after she saw I wasn't moving. "Well...it's...petty and stupid. But she's been doing what she wanted with you for months now, and I just...took it. I thought, maybe if I kept loving and supporting you, someday you might accept me. And you did! And I...I couldn't possibly be any happier. But the second you start to swing my way, she can't deal with it."

"You're fine," I said, burying my nose in her hair and giving her a kiss.

"I'm annoyed," she said "because...and maybe I'm just...overthinking...but it sort of feels like it's expected that the robot would just put up and shut up, and the real human girl has feelings we need to tiptoe around."

"I don't know. We saw her for like, five seconds. Nobody had to do any tiptoeing yet. Let's just eat breakfast and blow some things up and find Steffie, okay?"

"Okay."

I gave her another quick kiss by her ear, and then her lips turned towards me and puckered outwards slightly, jealous of the attention the side of her head was getting. I smiled and planted another one on them.

"We have food," I announced as we returned to Karu. "Toast? Eggs? Should I have made beans?"

She blinked and shook her head. "Ah, breakfast. Thank you, Ashton." Then as though it were the subject of her sentence, she awkwardly picked up a gun as though to polish it, ran her fingers over it for a moment and then lapsed back into motionlessness.

I took a piece of toast and some eggs onto a plate for her and placed it in front of her. She didn't react except to blink at it when I had finished, as though wondering where it had come from.

"Eat?" I suggested.

"Yes. Correct. Right." She began automatically moving food from the plate to her face with poor accuracy and speed given the seemingly intense focus the task required. I said nothing else, now that she was actually eating but I'd be lying if I said it didn't kill me inside to see her this way, because of me.

She only managed a few forkfuls before she stared blankly down at her plate again and wobbled slightly in her seat. I thought she was just spacing out again when suddenly she lurched, making a retching sound, and clamping her hands to her mouth. She jumped to her feet, knocking her plate of eggs and the buttered toast all down her satiny pajama pants.

"K-Karu?" I stammered. "Are you okay?"

She nodded with wide eyes at me and swallowed heavily, moving her hands to her neck and chest to cough. AEGIS appeared behind her and rubbed her back gently through the coughing, handing her a glass of water which she accepted and drank gratefully.

"You got food all over your pants," she fretted. "Athan, can you grab a towel so the butter won't stain?" Karu shook her head but I jumped up and went towards the kitchen to find one.

I thought there was one hanging on the front of the stove, but there wasn't. Maybe on the door for the fridge? Or someone didn't put it back, so it was on the counter? Or set down on top of the fridge when someone got something from in there? I kept thinking of more and more random places it could have been and just spun in circles in the kitchen.

Spinning almost as fast as my mind, and I knew I'd probably have the towel in my hands by now if I weren't so distracted, but there was something fundamentally incompatible with the Karu I'd just seen and the one I'd known this past year. It felt impossible, like I was in a nightmare, or an Exhuman had taken the real Karu from us in the night and left only this. I wasn't used to seeing Karu weak, or ruffled by anything, and it wasn't anything I wanted to see again.

The towel was on a hook by the pantry and I took it and started back down the hallway, almost tripping over my feet when I was stopped by a heart-rending wail I recognized as Karu's, followed by sobbing. I crept forward until I was just on the other side of the corner from the two.

"...it is not...not fair," I heard Karu say.

"Karu, Athan will be back any second--"

"I made a mistake. I recognize this. I should...should never have let him go."

"Karu, please. Not the best time for a heart-to-heart."

"Should my heart be punished for...forever, because of one error? Is that justice?"

"He's going to hear you!"

"And it had to be you, of all people. I considered you friend, at long last. I do not know if that makes this better or worse. Were I a decent person, should I not be happy for you? I do not know. I do not know!"

Something slammed against the table and AEGIS made soothing shushing noises while Karu wept. I didn't know what to do, but at least they'd stopped talking for the moment. I didn't want to be anywhere near Karu while she cried, but...I had this towel in my hands and she had butter on her pants. For some reason, that seemed really important right now.

I slid slowly around the corner, and quickly as I could, dropped the towel on the table in front of the two, before bolting upstairs and locking myself in the bathroom.

I splashed water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror. And felt sick.

Not ill. Just...sick in the head. Twisted and wrong inside. Because despite everything I'd just seen, heard, knew that AEGIS and I had done to Karu, even with all that…

The me in the mirror was still glowing. What was wrong with me? I had plenty to be happy about, sure, but...surely right now, I could focus a little more on Karu and less on AEGIS? I forced myself to remember every happiness Karu and I had ever shared together until my heart grew heavy and confused again, which was as close to normal as I knew.

I looked into the mirror again and slapped my cheeks a little until they were a little more flushed than glowing. I didn't deserve this happiness if it was going to hurt people. I had to keep a lid on it, for Karu's sake.

Filled with temporary resolve, I marched right back downstairs. From the table, I picked up her visor and handed it to her, which she looked at blankly with tears streaming from her face.

"We have an op today. Are you up for it?" I asked.

"Athan, what the hell?" AEGIS hissed.

Her nose was running and her lips twitching and she didn't even bother wiping the tears from her face as she slowly took the visor, turned it on, and used it to cover her tear-stained eyes. She gave me a deliberate nod.

"There is no room for tears on a battlefield," she intoned. "I will not permit a life to be lost on account of my weakness. We do what we must because we must. Habere Caelum."

With much more fluid motion than she ate, she rose, gathered armfuls of her equipment, and brought it up the stairs with her to where her luggage was. Only after the bedroom door clicked shut did AEGIS speak.

"Did...did you know that was going to work?"

I sighed, feeling something like the worst person on the planet. "You said last night that I'm your world and protecting people is your purpose. I think protecting people is Karu's world. It's everything to her...it's why she dumped me before. She felt like she had to choose between being able to do her job and me, and to her, there's no competition."

She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Started a sentence a few times, but then stopped. Ultimately, she said, "You've been through a lot, haven't you."

"Just life," I shrugged. "Come on, it'll be better for her if we're also ready to go when she is. Nobody wants to sit around at a time like this."

When Karu came back down, she was dressed to kill, guns and armor gleaming in the morning sun through the windows. She did not have fluid movements, but instead, practiced, tightly-controlled ones. I wondered why for a moment before I noticed the patches on her bare neck on either side.

"Are all preparations complete?" she said, her voice somewhat rushed but the sounds in her words as exact and precise as a machine.

"Yes, we're all good," I said. I noticed AEGIS was deliberately keeping her head down and finding things to do, probably wanted to talk to Karu even less than I did. "Let's go, huh?"

"Let's."

AEGIS and Karu split off from me at the doorway, Karu moving with agitated precision, AEGIS giving me a final glance with worry-filled eyes. They had to be nearby, but the next stage of the plan was for me alone.

I went east now, right up towards the wall, in a different quarter of the city than I'd blown out last time, and waited a few minutes for the girls to get in position. There were a few Exhumans moping around, but apparently I looked stressed or annoyed enough that I blended right in and wasn't harrassed.

I didn't have a mobile or holo on me to check the time, so I just waited for another couple minutes before beginning, sitting in a dark alleyway with my back against a house. Inside, I heard the news going on a holo, talking about the score of a football game I probably would have been watching if I weren't who I became. When it seemed long enough, I stood up, dusted myself off, and got to work.

In each hand, electricity surged. I closed my eyes and focused on drawing as much power as possible into my hands until I could hear the air crackling around me with shackled energy. The power built and escalated, growing with every second, trapped by my force of will, yearning to be free, to be released, to jump from my hands into the metal, the ground, anywhere where it could be set loose.

I didn't let it go. I held the lightning like Zeus in my fists, feeling the current swirling against my palms. Every hair in my body stood on-end, every inch of my exposed skin tingled. I'd never held this much electricity before, and it was exhilarating.

Arcs jumped off of me as I reached the edge of my control. The air around me seethed and flashed as a cloudless thunderstorm boiled in the alley. I took one more deep breath, pushed the energy from my lungs into my hands and held them aloft and open, facing each other. Instantly, small arcs flickered back and forth between the two, despite my control, and I knew I was at my limit. Without waiting another moment, I drew my hands back, and then slammed them together.

I felt the world shake under me. My vision distorted and the straight lines of the concrete around me looked warped as the shockwave tore through the air. I was thrown backwards into a wall, all the air blasted from my lungs. Inside the house next to me I heard a scream as the holo exploded into a waterfall of sparks, a fate which would be played out a thousand times over a thousand devices all around me.

Cameras and lights on the walls exploded. A tower nearby, not dissimilar to the one I'd used to climb the wall before became supercharged with the wave washing over it, and arcs of lightning played up and down it like a Jacob's ladder. Sparks and arcs and scorches appeared all around, and as they did, the screams of many filled the air.

And in an instant, it was over. Some fires remained burning, black marks marred many surfaces, like a shadow of the blast. But the damage was done, and now all I had to do was wait.

Both the resistance and the XPCA were good, I had to give them credit. Guards on the wall were yelling and moving supplies, their numbers swelling at the epicenter of the damage, even without their comms or equipment to coordinate. It took only minutes before I saw the first red-shirted resistance member, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, before launching himself straight into the thick of the clustered XPCA and begin cutting them down with what looked like an ordinary sword.

He only got a couple bodies in before gunfire erupted from the others on the wall and he fled, bouncing erratically with each step before jumping off the wall and sliding down the vertical surface, kicking off of it at the perfect moment to roll onto a rooftop near me to disperse his momentum.

Perfect for me, I thought. I pulled myself up onto a rooftop from a dumpster, and then jumped across the narrow alley to slam my chest against a wall on the opposite side, catching the rooftop with my arms and elbows and leveraging my way up.

The resistance member was easy to see from up here, collecting himself before going up again, and staying out of range of the XPCA's small arms on the wall. His attention seemed focused on them, and I couldn't help but grin to myself as I primed a nice fat bulb of electricity in my hand, the size and shape of a football, and prepared for a throw which would be impossible for a ball with any weight to it.

He stood up and I let go. The bulb jumped from my fingertips and exploded on the side of the building just under him, sending tendrils of electricity all around him. From this distance I could barely hear his yell as arcs went up and down his legs and he fell over. I took one second to draw an excited breath and then slid myself back down off the roof and began running.

After what felt like way too long, I finally reached where I thought he was and began looking for another building I could get on. I ran past alleyways and streets, watching them flash past, keeping an eye open for any sign of a terrace or dumpster or, hey, crazy idea, maybe someone left an actual ladder laying around I wouldn't have to keep improvising, when I saw something that rendered the whole situation moot.

There in the street was the man in red. He was moving, moaning, lying down. As for how he'd gotten there, the answer was apparent.

It took a moment, but the two others in red turned and advanced on me as soon as they saw me, their Exhuman powers flaring to life.