This one, she thought. This one is the real one. I am Astrid Creedy, and this is real.

She'd woken up with nothing but a sleepy sort of bafflement, replaced with a shaky fearful uncertainty as Peyton tried to explain what it was that had happened to her. But she wasn't sure that her sister was right that this was the real one, the waking up that meant something, or even that she was real: she was not even truly part of Deus Ex, not yet, but already she was learning to distrust any concrete assertion of what was real and what was dreamed. Very possibly there was no way of separating the two, not any more.

If this was dreaming, she reasoned as she made her way slowly down the dimly-lit steps, then it was lucid. She'd always wanted to try that, seize control of her own dreams, but the only time she'd ever realized she was asleep her excitement had woken her up. She looked down at her hands, imagined them encrusted with gems, focused hard, and nothing happened.

Maybe, Looking-Glass style, she was in someone else's dream. This was a safer belief than a belief in continued reality, and it was as much perversely comforting as it was terrifying. The unknown was always scarier than accepted dangers, and Astrid Creedy had very nearly had her fill of the unknown of late. Just when she had time to catch her breath some new trauma thrust her into a place where she had no maps: recover from Peyton's death to lose her father, recover from the death of her father to discover that she was being watched by some shadowy organization, recover from the decision to leave behind the world she knew and earn her independence only to discover that her sister was here after all and waiting to protect her once again, recover from that only to discover that it hadn't been real.

Her inclination was to turn back, to dart back up the steps and into her sister's arms, a place she'd always felt safe until she hadn't had that place any more, and it was this, the reminder that she had been alone for so long and not just alone but left alone, abandoned, that steeled her. She would not run back, towards a sanctuary that was fickle. Let Peyton believe that she needed her as a shield, and give her all the kid-glove treatment that entailed. It was Peyton herself and her reckless decisions that had shown her that she didn't. She would move forward, even if there was no sanctuary at all.

(But there would be. Wasn't that how this worked? Someone here that would never leave her.)

She ran her fingers over the rows of gleaming symbols: a knife, a flail, an arrow, an axe, waiting for some signal--she wasn't sure what--as tablet after tablet passed under her touch.

When the signal finally came--after what felt like an eternity--it was not a voice, nor a strange and inexplicable pull. It was a sensation like a cat's purr, a sense of something stirring, stretching its limbs, arching its back against her legs. Her hand was resting on a tablet marked with a circle bisected with an elegant curve. She wasn't sure how, but she reached out.

?

Yes, something whispered, a throaty little hum of pleasure, raspy and alien and a little bit terrifying.

She hesitated, unsure of what to say, unsure of what formalities were expected, the whole strangeness catching up to her at once.

I was hoping you'd be a bear, she confessed.

I am not a bear. I would apologize for the disappointment, but anyone disappointed in my company must have very bad taste indeed.

You're a... a sort of cat.

Very close, it answered, apparently in no rush to supply more details. Close enough.

Took you long enough, she said, again not sure how she did. She would never be able to describe it, later, but she felt the bemused flick of a cat's tail in the back of her head.

I do things on my own time, it said. Is there a rush?

And she thought about it, thought about Peyton waiting at the top of the steps, and half of her wanted to say of course there is and the other, spiteful, wanted to make her wait, wanted her to sit there with her breath bated and fearful as long as Astrid had cried and felt helpless.

No, she said finally.

Good, it said, and as if she'd passed a test there was a sudden weight in her hands, a red glow bathing her feet: two curved blades that felt right in her fingers. I am Reau.

I am Astrid, she said, and she paused, and Reau, somehow, already knew, and rippled with amusement at her tiny act of rebellion.

Just Astrid?

Just Astrid, she said. It was a fragile conviction that would only last until she made it back up to Peyton and let her rising tears take hold, succumbing to the need for comfort, but it was a bitter, spiteful one, and Reau seemed pleased by this.

Good, it said again. Very good.