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It was uncomfortable how quickly she'd gone from telling him off on twitter, to knocking on his door. The knocks were quick and frantic. She clearly wanted him to open the door right now.

Under her breath Maebe let out several choice curses, most of which revolved around how ungentlemanly Taym was, and how it was definitely a come on.

She couldn't help herself. The beard tipped her over the edge of hysteria, and she let a single bark of a laugh escape, until she pushed her way inside and immediately flopped down on the floor.

It felt so good to laugh.

"Is that part of your whole 'I can't take this s**t' scenario? Not shaving in case you feel the urge to slit your throat? I mean, I'll shave you if you want, but I don't know if I'll be able to control my urge." She knew he was going to yell at her for avoiding the subject. She knew all too well that he wanted none of her s**t. And it felt so good to be able to give it to him anyway.

To forget.

He started closing the windows, and it sobered her up. She looked up at the ceiling, and made faces. "They're going to send me away if all of this is in my head, you know. To the crazy people house. Will you miss me?"

"Aww, damnit, I knew I was crazy."

Maebe closed her eyes, yawned from sheer exhaustion - unable to sleep without someone with her tended to do that - and slurred as she spoke. "Have you seen Lucky lately? Of course you have. Everyone has. Totally normal. Except no, not normal at all, because he's actually made of computer matrix s**t and I'm pretty sure whatever he is wanted me for something. Maybe he was going to turn me into computer bits." Her eyes opened and she smiled. "Ready to commit me yet?"

The sober look in Taym's eyes killed any last lingering sarcasm waiting on her tongue. She met his gaze, and for a minute, she just looked at him. It was always hard to read real emotion in Maebe's face, but buried deep inside of her eyes there was a terror that she'd never really had to manage before. It wasn't fear of monsters and ghosts and dying, but rather a fear of losing someone she cared about - or, perhaps, having lost them already.

"The artist formerly known as Lucky isn't the guy he once was. And I'm going to be frank with you, if I'm right about this and not hallucinating loco crazy, then I think Lucky's dead." Her chest heaved - it was the first time she'd actually admitted that. "And I think he's haunting Deus as a weird electronic-y cyber ghost."

That response sounded like the first thing someone asked before killing someone to keep a secret quiet. She told him the truth, but only because it meant safety. "Otto." She muttered with a hesitant severity. "And Jude. But I know there are people who hang out with him all the time. And some of them have got to know. I mean, he can't hide this. He can't." The last word came out in a whine, and she pressed her hands against her cheeks.

"But I don't want to tell anyone important, because I don't want to be committed or anything. I know how this story goes."

She did not look enthusiastic to explain her encounter. "It's hard to explain, obviously. I guess he was just there, out in the field suddenly, where I was practicing. Everything seemed normal until he started talking. He wanted me to like him the way he was now.. and he was a lot more - I don't know - " Her cheeks burned a bright, telling red. "He wasn't himself. That wasn't such a big deal, until I asked him a question to test whether he was a clone or not, and he got it wrong. So I figure, he's a clone, right?" If only it had been that simple. "I put my weapon on his neck, and he starts.. glitching. There's literally no other way to explain what happened to him. He was glitching. Matrix bullshit. The trees and theeeeholy s**t. Holy s**t!"

She'd jumped up to her feet rather suddenly, as something occurred to her. "I just realized why all of that looked so familiar. I've seen it before, back when I was in some forest. As a cat." She started waving her hands in frustration because she sounded even more like a lunatic with each word. "Wonderland, damn it. Remember? That program? Where we - were you there?" She couldn't remember if their little trippy dream in cyberland had occurred before, or after she'd been entangled so deeply with the man in front of her.

"No." Her eyes opened wide as the word, stern and stubborn, was cried out. "No labs. No doctors. Nobody hears about this until somebody else confirms that this is going on."

She rested back again, settling her hand against her heart as if it could calm the quickening beat.

"Yeah. He was at our last mission, the zombie thing. He was right there, with his friends, just chatting away like everything was normal. And then he looked at me - ******** looked right at me - and smiled. Because he knew I knew." She shuddered.

"Nobody sees anything wrong. And that's why I'm not going to be the one to stick my neck out for this. If bodies start showing up, maybe. Until then, the worst thing he's done is freak me out and make me second guess my sanity. I'm not going to the higher ups with no proof and a bunch of haphazard stories. I know what will happen."

Maebe went silent for a few seconds, before she popped up like a daisy and stared at him in awe.

"That's not a bad idea." She breathed out, a little impressed. "The only problem is, sending someone to get anywhere near him is a little mean. I wish I'd thought of this during that mission, he was talking with so many people.. could have asked any one of them - "

She hedged, and pursed her lips. "Well not any one of them." She was not stupid enough to ask Gomez and Morticia for help with him. "But still. I just need somebody to poke him. Right?"