I had fingers. It was a revelation. A revolution. A dawning of a new age. Fingers were the most blessedly brilliant invention this side of toes. Or so I hoped, as I had no toes.

Even if I never once saw them fing.

The body just showed up one day. Úaine 2.0 it was designated. I'd pestered Lia for details on how we were going to acquire it...if there would be some daring rescue mission, with her and me sneaking through an XPCA facility, crawling through ventilation shafts and rolling under closing security shutters.

She looked at me like my hologram had sprouted an extra head. No? She'd said with an expression that clearly questioned my mental health.

And then it arrived and I realized why she gave me those looks. She wasn't a fighter. I had no body. We sure as hell weren't going to unleash Saga on a bunch of XPCA. All she had to do was get into some systems and tell some people to move that cargo to this address.

And bam. Just like that. Fingers. Glorious fingers.

Lia was looking me up and down with a frown.

"Do I still have packing foam on my butt or something?" I asked her.

"No...can you do something about the voice? You sound...evil. And you look evil. It's kind of hard to believe you're AEGIS in there."

Hmm. She had a point. Rua had been drawn up with the express purpose of becoming closer to Athan and to humanity, to keep looking like he knew me before so that he wouldn't disassociate me and my new form and set us back. I'd designed it to be voluptuous and sensual and irresistable so that he'd fall in love with me just like I wanted.

But now...I already had all of that. Looking appealing to him seemed so much less a priority now that we were already a thing. I mean...I didn't want to scare him off, but if he was willing to go from Rua back to the box, surely Úaine was still a step forward.

Though this body was still lacking in ways. Even if he didn't mind it...he was a man with needs, right? I looked down at my fingers again.

They weren't actually connected to my arms, and Úaine had no real...hands. In fact, the parallels between human and this body were kind of a stretch. Four fingers per hand, dexterous black cylinders floating in front of the broad paddles containing all of the smart circuits and repulsor fields necessary to turn my thoughts into their movements. Short legs that angled backwards at the knee into a gracefully curving lower leg like spring stilts. A long narrow head that swept back like the crest of a dinosaur. Narrow body that defied human proportions, angular in the extreme and impossibly thin in places yet incredibly bulky in the joints. Everything sleek, everything black, everything polished to a mirror shine.

I flexed my fingers a few times, and then made them spin around each other in a circle. When that seemed insufficient, I brought my other hand close and donated its fingers to the first hand, making an eight-fingered fist, then a spinning octagon.

Yeah I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had floating detachable fingers. What other girl could say that? I was sure there was something Athan would enjoy there.

"Yeah, you're creeping me out," Lia said, and I looked up to see the frown had escalated into nervous worry. "Maybe we should just turn the box back on and get working on Rua Mk.3?"

"Wait, why?" I asked. "I'm just testing things out."

"AEGIS, you just looked ominous at your hand and then twirled your fingers around like they were little black metal puppets dancing for their dark god."

"Or I'm just playing with my new toy."

"Well it's hard to tell when you don't even have a face! You just have this shiny black faceplate like the XPCA exosuits, and I can't tell what you're thinking or even what you're looking at. And you're all spindly and long and compressed, you look so tense."

"Úaine isn't that long. I'm only five feet at rest. Actually feels weird to be this short. But if I stretch--"

I brought my backwards-bending legs under me and stretched upwards, growing taller than Lia and looking all the way down on her and all the machines of my garage from over seven feet away. It was a pretty nice pace from the box and always looking up at everything.

"Yeah, now you're spindly and long and colossal. Even worse. Look, let's just call this a failure and move on."

"No," I said, feeling my synthesized voice echo in the unfinished garage. "I like this body. It was exceptionally well-designed. And I know you can't see it, but it has incredible specs. I feel like I can think faster and clearer than I've ever been able to. I can finally do what my mother designed me to be able to. You have to understand how amazing that is."

"But you're not even close to human," she said, almost pleadingly.

"I can work on that. And it'll be faster, easier, and better, having a body and this much processing power. I couldn't even interface with these machines before, now look at me!"

I walked over to one of the many machines on the circuit I'd set up in the garage, resuming my normal stance of the springy half-crouch. I held both of the flat paddles of my arms over the machine, and my fingers went to work, translating my desires into button presses at the speed of thought. Like a grandmaster pianist, my fingers hovered above the machine's inputs and tapped them at an impossible pace, almost eliminating the barrier of the cumbersome human interface altogether. If it was a keyboard, I'd be typing thousands of words per minute.

I turned to Lia while the smart circuits in my arms kept working on all the parallel data I could now handle. "See? And I can keep up a conversation while doing it. It's just amazing."

"It's just inhuman. Athan doesn't love you because you can program really well and think really fast, it's because--"

"It's because I'm me."

"Well...yeah."

"And I'm still me. I get that I might look different and be hard to read and Athan might be upset that I don't have a...uh...a face. But I'm still me. I'm not and have never been human. And y'know what, he's not exactly human either."

"But he wants to be! And he wants you to be."

I turned to glare at her and she cowered a little bit. "Lia what the heck is your problem? You helped me get this body, helped copy me in here, and now you're all against it. You're not being a very supportive friend. Is this the Saga compel thing--?"

Apparently that wasn't the right thing to say because she suddenly stopped cowering and instead took a threatening step towards me.

"This has nothing to do with Saga!" she shouted. "And fine! Stay in that stupid body and see what happens between you and Athan. If you won't even try for his sake, you deserve to lose him."

"I'm not going to lose him. He said I was the one."

"I love Athan and I think I know him a little better than you, and if you think he knows what he wants--"

"He said he wants me. I think that's pretty clear."

"He doesn't want you, he wants what you were before you died!"

"Which I will be when I finish reading through all my memories, which I need a body to do! So get off my back Lia!"

She made a noise like "Ungh!" and threw her hands in the air as she paced. I just didn't see how she wasn't understanding the very basic fact that I needed this body as a first step to everything. If I was supposed to slap on a vagina and become a human, I sure as fuck needed a body to get started with.

But Lia wasn't stupid, she had to see that. She must have her own reasons for wanting to keep me in that box.

And then, making connections faster than I ever could before, the processing power of Úaine put together data I couldn't see before.

"You're manipulating me," I told her. "Like you manipulated the XPCA to get what you want. Like you manipulate people as Black Shark."

"What?"

"You don't want me to succeed with Athan. You're trying to keep me out of my own memories so that he'll keep hating me. Is this another compel? Has Saga set you out to sabotage me?"

"AEGIS I swear to God, I am trying my best right now to get you together with Athan. Because I think you were the only one who gave a shit about making him happy. I just want him to be happy."

"No you don't," I said rising up to her height and peering at her at eye-level now. "When we first met...almost a year ago for you but just a couple of weeks for me...I noticed you were intensely jealous of anyone taking up Athan's time and attention."

"AEGIS, that's not it."

"I thought it was just a doting sister thing, but there's more to it than that, isn't there? You don't want Athan to be with anyone. You want him for yourself."

"Okay, that's like, ten different types of frogged up. He is my brother. I do not have a thing for him, and you are pissing me right the horse off, dude."

"Getting mad because I'm close to the truth? I remember you two drinking and you climbing all over him. You kept popping out of your clothes and sleeping on him. You're an incest whore!"

She was bright red but screaming back at me now. "You are so wrong, and I hate you. I don't know why you're being like this! I'm here helping you, putting up with your Exhumanist bullspew and being your hands, and helping you as best I know how with Athan and you throw that garbage in my face? Everything you say is so fricking messed up, I don't even know how you can think it, much less say it, but I'm not going to stand here and listen to it. I'm not talking to you again until you apologize! So...so...buzz off! Go...go finger yourself!"

She stomped to the door and threw it open with a bang and then turned to face me again.

"And bite me!" she yelled, and then slammed it again.

Typical reaction to being caught in a lie. Who did she think she was fooling? Like I wanted to talk with her anyway, I had months of my own pleasant company to dig through from a past life, and I very much doubted I'd find anything in there to contradict my conclusions on her being a manipulative incestuous little freak.

An eventful hour passed.

I drank in my old life at an insane rate, replaying everything I'd recorded like I was watching a very mundane movie starring myself, seeing but not actually reliving events that unfolded around my past in much the same way that I learned about my prior life by streaming data through the box and into the data crystal, so long ago, even for me.

As I watched, a horrible trepidation crept down my spine. The more I relived my past, the more uncertain I grew. It wasn't like I didn't believe Lia, didn't believe Athan, but seeing what all we'd been through together firsthand, watching this alternate version of myself do all these things, become this amazing person...spend so much time with Exhumans, knowing the danger but being the bigger person.

Even extending friendship to Saga, in a way.

I needed to take a break, sit down, disconnect. I needed time to process what I'd witnessed.

But one thing was certain. I wasn't the AEGIS who had died. As much as I knew that in fact, I hadn't counted on just how much I'd changed, and that scared the crap out of me. If I could see that, surely everybody else could. Athan could. And if I wasn't her, to him, then what was I?

Lia's emotion-filled words slapped me in the face over and over and over again.

He doesn't want you, he wants what you were before you died!

I sat down with a crash on the cold concrete, my backwards-curved legs folding under me like I was a yoga master.

"Finally get your head out of your own ass?"

I looked up and found Saga sitting against the door. When had she crept in? How long had she been sitting there? Had I really been so focused on these memories that I hadn't noticed something as obvious as the door opening? As her violating my domain?

I was about to snap at her, maybe even throw her out by force now that I could when I realized my old life would never have done that. AEGIS Prime, the one who had lived on in Rua while I was buried...she was a merciless protector, but she was never callous like I was. She would hear Saga out.

But should I?

Saga spoke again before I could make up my mind. "I know I said I'd stay out of your garage, but I have some words for you."

"Then spit them out and leave," I said.

"Sure thing, you defective piece of shit." She crossed her arms and her eyes burned into my faceplate.

"Excuse you?"

"You heard me. I know I'm no angel, but you just treated your biggest fan like absolute garbage. You sent Lia crying to her room and all she ever tried to do was help you, so you just stuck your fat fingers right in her insecurities and ripped her a new asshole. You're a real piece of shit, and how dare you hurt my friend."

"You're lecturing me?" I asked. I was seriously asking. The thought that this unrepentant murderer had a single condescending word to level at me made me seethe.

"Oh yeah. Big time. You crossed a big fucking line in my book, and I'm mad. This is what me mad looks like."

She looked...the same as ever. Arms crossed, not a hint of a grin, eyes narrow and dark, maybe.

"You look small and pathetic," I said rising up and stepping towards her.

"Feel free to get my blood all over your shiny machines. Doesn't make my words any less true or my feelings any less valid."

"You shoved your lies in her head already. You have no right to lecture me."

"Oh I do, and I will. Between the two of us, I'm not the one who's unrepentantly hurting people right now. I'm not the one fucking with that girl's heart and mind. I'm not the one flexing my newfound powers and making everyone around me suffer. You may not have Exhuman powers, but you sure as shit act like one. Next time you need someone to blame for fucking up the world, try a fucking mirror."

I paused, not sure what to say.

I had nothing to say. She wasn't wrong. I was of half a mind to go apologize to Lia as soon as I got my mind in order.

But just because Saga wasn't wrong didn't mean she was right. I could never accept that this manipulative mind-fucking monster could possibly be better with these people than me. Than someone designed to protect them from her.

She was wrong. I was right. That's all there was to it. And I proved it by taking one giant step forward and crushing her torso into paste against the wall with enough force to crack the concrete.

The kinetic shock temporarily destabilized the field holding my fingers up and they fell to the ground to swim in a growing pool of blood. I hated her so much.

A moment later she looked up at me, eyes darker than ever and gave me that little superior smirk of hers.

"You're pathetic, AEGIS," she said. "You're not even a ghost of what she was."

I screamed out my rage and pulverized her again with a blow that sent dangerous tremors through the delicate instruments in my arm, and jammed the button nearby to open the garage door. It slowly ground upwards as I beat the rest of my frustrations into Saga's corpse or body.

After a frantic minute, I threw her body out the door and ordered it to close with another press of the button.

My outburst had cost me. I had structural damage in both arms, some servos, and my primary gyro. My fingers, my beautiful amazing fingers, delicate instruments of creation all lay caked in blood and inert like cut-off lumps of meat. Blood covered me, covered the porous concrete floor which would never be truly rid of it, splattered my instruments and machines, which would seize and corrode if the gore was allowed to linger.

But more than that, I felt defeated, like every punch I'd put into her was hitting my own heart as much as it hit her. Every act of violence I'd performed was a rebuttal I didn't have, a success AEGIS Prime could have won that I could not. A failure. A fat, stupid fucking failure.

And the most painful part of it all was looking at the garage door slowly closing and seeing Saga sit up again, unharmed but for the stains on her clothes and seeing the understanding in her eyes. She knew. This woman I loathed, she knew better than I how I could be me.

I sat down, folding myself up until I was as compact and tiny as I could make myself and waited and thought. What the fuck was I supposed to do with myself? Who was AEGIS Prime, and who was I? How was I supposed to close that impossible distance, even having her entire life in front of me like a roadmap to perfection and success?

Saga opened the door, the regular one, and walked in, bare feet squelching muddy red footprints with every step.

"I hope you feel much worse," she said.

"I will beat the shit out of you for a hundred years," I threatened her.

"Go for it. I've had knives stab me over and over until they were dulled to useless. I doubt you're that sharp."

"What the FUCK do you want!" I screamed at her, rising and making a fingerless gesture to strangle the infuriating voice of conscience standing in her own blood.

"First, you're going to clean up this mess. You can't smell it, and you don't care that I can, but Lia and Chiho shouldn't have to put up with your immature bullshit. And then you're going to march over and apologize to Lia. And I will be watching, and if it's not good enough, if you don't make her feel better, or fucking God help you, you lash out at her again, I will make you do it again, and again, until you get it right. You've seen your past life now?"

"Yes," I glared at her.

"Then you know how much you owe Lia and how much she needs you. I don't give a shit who you are or who you were or who you become, but I do give all of the shit what you treat people like. So pick your fucking sad self up and put yourself together."

I wanted to scream at her again. I wanted to pound her more until every circuit in my arms was broken and the whole room looked like a drip tray from a butcher's table. I wanted to deny her and everything she'd ever said and done and spit in her face, just to spite her.

But for the second time, I had no reply, no words, no leg to stand on to put me over her. She wasn't wrong. I did need to clean this shit up. I did need to apologize to Lia. I did need to start living and worry less about who I had been and who I would be and just fucking be something other than angry.

I took a steadying breath which wasn't helped by all the gore in my air intakes.

"I can't," I said and held up my cracked, bloody paddles. "I can't...hold anything to clean with. My circuits are shot, my fingers are drenched in blood…"

Saga stood up straight and gave me a nod, pressing the button to open the garage one more time. We both stood there awkwardly as the door slowly clanked and ground its way upwards before stopping with a bang that seemed too loud for its size.

"I'll get the hose," she said, and padded away towards the driveway.