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"I was--I was so ********..."

It wasn't fair. He stared at her uncomprehendingly, angrily; his fingers tightened on her arm but she was far away from him and feeling every scrap of exultation that he wished he could.

("It's like talking to someone in their sleep. He just laughs and he looks at you like you're missing the point.")

"We thought you were--"

("You feel like he's in there somewhere but there's just no way to get at him. He acts like he's happier in there but look at him.")

He could, though. He knew the vague echoes of what she referred to: the surge of competence and power when he should have been feeble and weak. He'd gotten shot: he'd felt the bullets and had nothing to show for them but bruises that rapidly healed. They were Beowulf and Cu Chulainn. But these were emotions that for him he'd never given in to fully, that he'd felt most acutely when they'd been accompanied by fear or irrational rage, and the idea that he might have succumbed to them willingly like she had was terrifying and intoxicating.

(Just leave me alone. I look happier in here because I am.)

And it was always there. The supply never ran out. The vein never ran dry.

Let's run, he thought, or maybe Fiona thought--sometimes it was hard to tell where the one stopped and the other started--and he felt the easy flight over a low stone wall, the sound of hooves against the earth. He was staring at her and it was obvious what he was thinking: he was thinking yes. Let's run. Stretch and uncoil and right into the shadows, if they waited.

His phone buzzed in the pocket of the bag against his hip and he jolted, hands tightening around her, and he sounded like he might cry at what had been snatched away from him.

"America," he begged her. "Please. This is dangerous. It's too ******** dangerous. You can't do s**t like this to me."

"I'm sorry," he said, and the exhaustion in it was the sincerity of it. He didn't let her go--he didn't trust her not to become abruptly possessed by some feral rebellious need to run--but his grip loosened, and he traded her arm for her hand as he turned away, slogging through the mud and saying nothing until they were sheltered in the leaking roof of a rickety old storage barn.

He let her go, then, cautiously, and he dried his hands on the inside of his bag so he could send a text.



Because he needed a break. Because he needed to collect himself. He dug a granola bar out of his bag and tossed it in her direction without looking to see if she'd catch it, and then lit himself a cigarette--still dry, miraculously, in an inside pocket--and after a beat offered her that, too.

"You scared the hell out of us," he informed her tonelessly. He wondered if he'd be back up to the point of shouting at her by the time Konstantin arrived for backup, if he arrived at all.

It was unsurprising that Taym's hands were doing what hers weren't and trembling. He leaned against the doorframe the way he'd leaned against the vending machine when he'd woken her up in the common room, with one arm folded over his waist and the other dangling his cigarette, and scanning the field with a watchfulness that bordered on paranoia.

"You left your phone. That was a stupid and unnecessary risk," he said coldly. He'd wanted to yell at her but he'd wasted it all out there in the rain. "It's a good thing it was just our natural ******** concern that had us out looking for you and not you being summoned for something important and not showing up. Just because you're better doesn't mean you're invincible, even if you feel like it. Next time you feel the need to commune with nature, take your phone and tell someone where you're going and for how long. And I'd appreciate it," he finished, "if you kept your ******** opinions about my ability to take care of myself to a ******** minimum after this stunt, you ******** hypocrite."

He hesitated, and put out his free hand for her, not even sure of what he wanted: confirmation that she wasn't going to run off again, an apology, acceptance of him despite the fact that he knew, intimately and painfully, how he sounded and how little it mattered because there were things so much more compelling than another person's feelings and vague ideas of personal safety.

"I know," he said, not even bothering to clarify what it was that he knew. Just that he did. "But please."

The beach had become a terror since the days of the storm.

Too-high tides lapped at the sand with a hunger unquenched, voracious waves of the deep clawing their way inland. The air smelled of salt and ozone and his own fear, the sweat of it beneath the cloying wetness that soaked from from head to toe. In the distance, a darkness lurked beneath the water, a singular tentacle raising above the waves enough to make Kostya's blood run cold.

She was not on the beach, and sporadic messages from Obadiah informed him that she was not near the old school, near the volcano, near the far end of the complex. He sent his own, informing him that the beaches were clear, the coves were empty, the bluffs abandoned.

Kostya stood at the top of the cliffs, staring into the white foam that crashed against the rocks, wondering in a morbid moment if her body laid beneath the surface, broken and bent in ways that bodies weren't supposed to bend.

Water splashed against his glasses, fat raindrops driving into his face through the damp hood of his jacket, clean through the grey of his scarf.

(He did not wear the rainbow one. Not out of shame, but in an attempt to preserve its knitted sanctity, as if the woven links might come undone, unravel and leave him nothing but the ghost of a ghost of a girl he hadn't known.)

Kostya was miserable, drenched by the rain and concerned for her well-being. He had made the mistake of assuming she was unlike Mimsy, that she was capable of taking care of herself without supervision, with no need for restraints to pull her back from the edge of oblivion.

She needed help, too, and he was foolish for not seeing it. His conclusion was that no one was self-sufficient, at least, no one that he knew and remained concerned for, for the sake of preserving their company. Syntax asked if that meant he had an affinity for them, for the both of them, and Kostya ran and reran his mental gymnastics trying to understand the question.

Where are you, he asked, sent through the conduits of his mind and the shouting of her name and through the slippery buttons of his phone, a text to Obadiah, a text to America, even though her phone was indisposed.

Processor affinity, Syntax offered brightly, and as Kostya ran through the sheets of water towards the jungle, he realised it was the first time Syntax had spoken to him, with words rather than pictographs or sounds or console commands. He sounded sweet, with the high voice of a small boy, innocent and Kostya did not understand.

You're a computer n'stuff, with lotsa processors, his weapon said, and an incoming text arrived but there was no way to read it without taking shelter, first, and the trees were getting closer, they're the threads bound to you n'junk. They're bound to a different processor than alla the others, y'know? Even her. She's got one all t'herself.

You are saying I am being attached, he thought back, but Syntax's moment of childish insight lost, blown out like a purged paging file, empty of anything but the pleasant thrum of data. Maybe it was the rain interfering, short-circuiting Syntax into behaving differently, but Kostya had no time to analyse it now.

Leaning up against a tree, gloved hand over the phone to futilely protect it from the falling rain, he read that Taym had found her, and gave a location as to where. Relief flooded him, and it bothered him that he couldn't place why both Obadiah and America occupied a different place in his heart and head than the others. Wiping his mind clear, he ran for the fields: jumping over logs and animal carcasses, through the overgrowth and around the frames of abandoned buildings. His eyes scanned the horizon for a blue barn, breath coming in harsh pants beneath the surface of his scarf, single-minded.

His body was a tool to be utilised and nothing more, a vessel for his mind and a servant to the orders of those more adept than he. It needed to be fed, groomed, and exercised to remain in good working order, for the benefit of others. It was kept in storage, otherwise, and while Mimsy had been with Robert, and all tasks had been complete, it had not been unusual for him to sit and stare at the ceiling, whirring in a constant idle and not utilised to his full potential.

America had changed that.

So Kostya used it, one of the two only tools in his possession, and picked up in speed, running as fast as his burning lungs and aching legs would allow. He pushed past the thresh-hold of what he found to be a comfortable run, and Syntax gleefully presented the image of an over-clocked drive, the numbers ticking up in his Bios, helping plot out the most efficient mathematical path to their destination. Together. They were a team, and they were strong, and they would serve their chosen masters until the day they died.

Kostya did not run to be free.

He ran because he had a purpose, and it was time to find her.

It wasn't a no.

She leaned into him, eyes closing and listened to the rain increase its angry tempo even as her own slowed down to a quieter normality. The sensation of perfection and freedom and pure exhilaration still stood bright and vivid on the edge of her senses but this...

She held on, quietly cataloging the fading scent of smoke over muddied laundry, the texture of shaking fingers, and the inhale exhale of the life beside her.

This too she could appreciate.

Taym had almost forgotten Kostya entirely: he'd been wrapped up halfway between foggy waking dreams of herds of deer coursing over fields and the feeling of America's fingers in his; between regret and wondering if he'd smell anything but rain if he leaned into her soaking hair.

He jerked away from her and detangled their fingers and his arms and stuffing his hands into his pockets as if he could convince everyone that they'd been there all along, and he shot both of them an inexpressibly dirty look once he'd managed to chase the guilt off his features.

"You don't see s**t, Bashmet," he said.

Obadiah fumbled like something out of a cartoon, the tell-tale shame-excitement that characters in romantic comedies were prone to, the sort of movement and proclamation that there was nothing to hide, when it was there, palpable.

He cocked his head, and said "okay," to him, and eyed where Taym had hidden his hands with a significant, suspicious look. The kind of look he gave to project euler problems of the day, a knot that needed unravelling.

When Kostya looked back to America, she was in mid-motion, sharp and coiled before it seeped out of her, and offered a solemn nod. Pulling out his phone, Kostya fired off a text to his current host.



"Come, droog," he said, and offered to her a gloved hand, full aware of the significance he was offering, even if she didn't and Obadiah did, "Going to have much talking about vhat to do vhen vish to become sun on vhim and leaving phone." Konstantin scoffed. "Have heard of plastic bag? For water proof? Is American invention."

It was a very, very good thing that he'd started her on Russian and that was one of the first words she'd had a chance to learn. She gripped his hand with a small, pleased smile. Despite the oncoming lecture, it seemed like she was being rewarded. As they walked, she kept her attention on Kostya, "It was a distraction. I think I checked that phone over a thousand times this past week, I was sick of the dang thing. Maybe..."

America stumbled over nothing in particular, and caught Taym's elbow to regain her balance. "Do you think those Life fellows have any pagers or such? That'd be a good compromise for next time, you think?" She didn't let go. "And if you think I'm going running in a plastic bag..." the chatter continued, entirely unashamed and unapologetic, "...well, let me tell you this, Konstantin Bashmet, it'll be a clear one. See how you like that."