Marlene sat in the police station, watching Otaku's unmoving form. In the scuffle, his hand seemed to have gotten broken. Marlene was sure she hadn't done it, but didn't feel bad about that, either.

With perfect recall, it was difficult not to replay what had recently happened. Obediently picking up Nikolai and carrying him to that bright room, watching them strap him in and start to remove his clothes. Chernobyl's lack of interest in her, as a "doll." Following Otaku to his portal, watching the Angels get jealous of Otaku's attention. Otaku leading her to a room where she had no choice but to remove her clothes and watch, furious, as he poked and prodded her, not entirely clinically. As she tried and failed at several points to take over her own functions, until, finally -- maybe as part of her ICE, as he opened up her mind -- she snapped and got back control. She knew he hadn't noticed. Screw subtlety, she thought, it's not like anyone else was there. No trickery, just a hand shooting up for the throat, and before she even knew what she had done, she was on top of Otaku, her hands around his throat, her knee on his groin, more furious than she'd ever been in her life. "I am not a doll," she'd said, and she'd explained to him what was going to happen.

He was going to obey her. He was going to help her rescue her friend. He wasn't going to call the Angels or try to control her or she'll kill him. "Just give me a reason," she said, and she meant it. "I'm not programmed with some silly respect for human life." That wasn't entirely true, but the point was that she didn't have some prime directive or whatever to never kill. And at that point, after being taken over by Otaku not once, but twice, she would have been perfectly happy having this threat to her autonomy and the world out of the way. She knew she wasn't entirely intimidating him, being naked, but she hoped he realized she was happy to kill him.

But she also knew the only way she could get back to Nikolai and fast, before anything horrible happened to him, was via Otaku's teleporter, and she didn't trust herself to figure out how to make it work quickly. She de-prioritized her nudity taboo so she could do what she needed to do, and she was not going to let Otaku go until he was no longer a threat. When he didn't get them directly into Nikolai's room, that was a disappointment, but fortunately there were no guards. It was a stroke of inspiration to use Otaku and his force field as a battering ram. She hoped it scared him. She hoped it humiliated him, to be used as a tool by her. She knew she was acting outside of her Kantian programming, but she also knew that he deserved it.

And so, she sat there now, in the police station, waiting for the supers police to properly arrest Otaku. The explosion probably took out even the remaining Angels back at the Clique's penthouse -- including the one whose pants she'd stolen until her bike arrived. She wondered if she could show enough of Otaku's place to Onyx for her to teleport them in. There was sure to be loads of tech and information there, and any Angel models that might be a threat. As well as, possibly, Charlotta, who had gotten away. But as she looked at Otaku, she wondered if it hadn't been better to just kill him. Of course, once he was no longer a threat, she couldn't really kill him. If he could truly be contained, she couldn't just kill a helpless guy. How could Foehand had gone to school with this kid? Foehand must have gone to school years ago. Is this a real body? She tried to remember when he squeezed his throat. Did it feel like human throat or android throat? Maybe he's stunted in some way. Sick. He's sick, she thought, and she felt sick, herself.

The scene started to replay again and Marlene stopped it. Enough of this. Tight communication to Nikolai, she thought, and spoke directly to him. "Nikolai? Are you there? I wanted to say I'm really sorry. I failed you back there."

Onyx's personable, computerized voice smoothly responded: "Envoy is currently under communication embargo. Estimated time until embargo is lifted: 5 minutes. Current location: Training room." Then, because it was Marlene, it initiated a second subroutine, a safety feature Onyx had added a few weeks ago just in case anyone was accidentally incapacitated in the room: "Substitute visual feed?"

The vestiges of her good-girl programming spoke up: That would be eavesdropping. Screw it, she thought -- it wasn't like these Stingrays cared if she was a good girl. "Affirmative."

* * *

The ball of radiation hit Nikolai full in the chest, sending him flying off his bike, onto the rooftop. It hadn't knocked him out this time, he'd managed to twist his body to avoid the full brunt of it, but it had still knocked the wind out of him, and the bruises later on would be pretty colorful, if indistinguishable from the ones already there. Chernobyl pulled back for another swing and --

"Freeze simulation."

Fuck, Nikolai thought, looking up at the glowing green villain, stopped in mid-punch. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. It wasn't a particularly witty or elegant commentary, but it matched his mood perfectly.

He'd screwed up, big time. There was no way to avoid it. He'd lost control --

No, be honest, he'd been losing it for a while. First there had been Becky. He couldn't say the world wasn't better off without her, but he wasn't proud of what had happened. He could still remember the rage and anger pouring off of him as he turned the demon's powers against her. It had felt good, to give a little back of what the world had been handing out to him. For just a second, it had felt good to lose control, to set free all the anger at being manipulated by her, by Misha, by his father, by Xenon, everyone. For just a second --

But the problem with going too far was that you have to live with it afterwards.

And today -- by all rights he should be dead. He'd been so angry with Misha, daring to play the "Mother Russia" card, offering platitudes and false friendship. He'd carried that anger with him into battle afterwards, and it had nearly cost him everything.

He'd run through the simulation five times now, and it always ended the same way: Confronting Chernobyl directly was the singularly worst move he could have made. He should have gone after Kill-o-Watt instead, cut off the source of the electric beasts and left Chernobyl for people like Brian, who could handle the kind of damage Chernobyl dished out. Instead, he'd been a fool blinded by frustration and tried to swing out blindly at the first representation of it he could find.

He'd nearly gotten himself killed. If Chernobyl hadn't wanted him alive, he would have been dead. As it was, he'd stupidly gotten himself and Marlene captured instead.

With a flick of his mind, he reached out and neutralized the training room program. The rooftop morphed back into the blank white room. He leaned up on his elbows and rolled onto his side, rubbing his chest, then slowly sat up. The movement made his head spin -- oh yeah, now that he thought about it, Onyx had mentioned something about them taking spinal fluid -- that would be that intense screaming wake-up call five minutes before Marlene showed up, he remembered -- making the punishment he'd just put himself through one more stupid blunder for the day.

His head started to pound. Maybe sitting still for a little while wasn't such a bad idea. He leaned against the wall, rubbing his neck -- no sign of a hole that he could find, thanks to Gwynn -- and then reached into his pocket for a cigarette. Strange that they'd gone for the top of the spine instead of the bottom. Must have been something specific they were looking for, not just fluid.

As he fished the lighter out of his pockets and flicked it on, the intercom buzzed. "Smoking is not allowed in the training room. Sprinkler system is armed."

Oh yeah, he'd forgotten about that. He looked from the cigarette to the ceiling and back again. Gingerly tested his side, rotated his head. His temple spiked with agony, and the room began to wobble -- no, not moving anywhere just yet. Too bad he couldn't neutralize the smoke detector.

"Fuck it." He lit the cigarette, inhaled as deeply as he could before his bruised lungs protested, and shielded the tiny flame with his hand as the sprinklers turned on.

"Computer, give me the outside of the Tufala house, second story roof, nighttime, summer, 73 degrees?"

The roof materialized around him so that he was sitting with his back to the window in the rain. He leaned his head back against the wall and exhaled, trying to calm the turmoil inside.

A second later, his commlink beeped. "Communication embargo finished. Delayed transmission from Steel Violet."

He listened to the transmission, slightly baffled by it. Failed him?

Nikolai took another drag off the cigarette and opened transmission, exhaustion replacing the tension in his muscles. "Marlene? You there?" The smart-aleck reply he was about to make stalled on the tip of his tongue. "I don't know why you think you failed me, but you don't have to apologize. What happened back there was my own damn fault."

* * *

He'd been replaying it too, Marlene realized. She'd seen enough of Chernobyl in the danger room. What on earth could he feel guilty about? He'd saved her from getting mucked about with Otaku that first time, and at great cost to himself.

"No, Nikolai. I should have gotten us out of there once I saw Otaku was there. Hell," she paused, remembering that Nikolai often forgot that she has full use of English vocabulary, "I shouldn't have gotten taken over in the first place. I had countermeasures in place and they all failed the minute he appeared. If I wasn't an android..." How galling to be so easily controlled, so manipulated, a doll, no. Marlene felt nauseous. She'd had enough reminders that day, with her not-quite-right parents opening up her head in front of her friends, learning that in this world, this version of Earth, they created her to save their disabled daughter. Even though she didn't need a lot of sleep, none of the team had gotten any downtime since dinner on Volcano Island. Dinner with her parents and "new" sister.

* * *

" -- and if I had been using half a brain, neither of us would have been headed up there in the first place. Onyx and I have been over strategy for those two half a dozen times, and the minute we show up I forget everything. So you were an android, and I -- I was just stupid. "

He lit a second cigarette off the butt of the first one, his hand shaking with emotion, and flung the butt away. "There's no excuse. I knew better -- I knew better! I was just..." Inhaled the arid smoke, he searched for the right words and wondered absently why he wasn't just cutting the conversation short. No, she deserved an explanation. She'd been through a lot because of his miscalculation.

"I was still angry from talking to Misha, and I let it cloud my judgment. He knew all the right notes to hit, he just got the song wrong -- and I handed us over to Chernobyl on a platter." His voice was low and bitter, full of self-directed scorn and anger. "I'm so fucking sick of being lied to and manipulated. I swear, if just one of these people would treat m -- " he caught himself, corrected quickly, "-us like human beings instead of resources to be used and exploited -- "

I'd fight for them, he realized, a little disgusted at the ache he felt inside him. That was it, that was what had been bothering him all this time. It wasn't just the blatant manipulation, the exploitation, the lies and deceit -- it was the fact that not one of them had apparently ever cared enough about him to figure out how to do it well.

* * *

"God, it makes me so mad!" Marlene said. "What they did to you. They, they had no right. It's -- it's what makes them bad people." Thinking of something, Marlene sent a brief email to Nikolai, with Kant's "Ethical Philosophy" book linked. He'd find that interesting. Ethics as treating people as ends, not means. As subjects, not objects.

"I read your file on Marlene Online, Nikolai. They treated you like shit. You deserve better."

We both deserve better, she thought. And then realized that she'd sent the thought over the comm. It happened sometimes when she was distracted, but she blushed inwardly.

"Bringing up your mother now -- too little too late, the fucker," she said angrily, still watching the unconscious Otaku. Well, at least the comm was silent to the policemen around her.

"Parents should... parents should have children because they want children, not because they want someone who they can use as a weapon, as a tool, as a way to save other children..." Why did I say that, Marlene asked herself. Oh, because I'm angry and upset and still grieving the loss of my "real" parents, another part of her answered, analytically. Real mom, real dad, you were excellent with the emotions, she thought. Too bad these Stingrays don't have half your genius -- or sensitivity. Or love.

"Oh, dammit," Marlene said, ending with a bit of a sob. The emotion was almost overwhelming her ability to articulate.

* * *

"Wehile we're wishing for fairytales, why don't we solve world hunger and send Chernobyl to the moon?" He looked forlornly at the rest of his sodden cigarette pack. Not even a flamethrower was going to help light a third one. His hair was plastered to his forehead now, dripping down into his eyes. Time to leave, in more ways than one.

"People suck, Marlene. You can't trust them and you can't rely on them, and even if they are trying to do the right thing, nine times out of ten they'll do the selfish thing instead. You got lucky once; you had people who loved you. That's more than a lot of people get."

That's a lot more than I got. Nikolai pushed himself up to his feet. No vertigo -- good. He shook his head, sending water droplets flying, and the room spun around again as a throbbing pain started up in his temple. He stepped forward to steady himself and his foot slipped in the water, landing him on his ass with a splash and a curse as his started to slide for the edge. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed for the sill, wrenching his arm as he remembered belatedly that it was all just illusion.

"Shit, I hate being dizzy." Did he just say that out loud? Fuck. "Sorry, Marlene. Don't mind me, I'm just feeling sorry for myself and taking it out on you." He pulled himself slowly upright on the window sill. "Look, Yvette told me a little about - well, you know. And I understand if you don't want to talk about it, because I really don't like to even think about it, but I'll try not to be an utter dick about it if you do."

* * *

"I'll talk about it." Marlene said, angry, at the world, at Nikolai, at... What the hell was she doing, Marlene thought. Nikolai was dizzy -- why -- a quick search of the memory of finding him, yes, didn't someone say something about a spinal tap? He wouldn't listen but he's clearly not in any state to be doing anything. And here she was feeling sorry for herself and he could still be in danger -- no, the information came to her as readily as breathing. Spinal taps aren't dangerous, but very painful. In a quick nonverbal move -- it wasn't hard, his cigarette was out anyway -- Marlene persuaded the Training Room computer to turn off the sprinklers and change the scene to a hill... no, he likes the roof... still the roof, but low, warm, summer afternoon. Not too bright, just a little hazy, not too hot, well within comfortable human parameters of someone raised in Russia, good. The water should dry up soon enough. No annoyingly cheery birds or anything, just some crickets in the background, very, very soft.

All this was accomplished in less than a second, taking barely any of her processing speed. It was, after all, the sort of thing she was originally made to do. Make humans' lives easier.

"...but you should really stay lying down for a little bit. If you want. So you'll get better faster. I mean, sure, you can leave, we both know that." What were they saying? Right. "I -- I don't blame this world's Stingrays. Or Kjirstie. They don't know. How could they know another reality?" God, she sounded whiny even to herself. It's a lot more than what Nikolai got, she thought, stop being insensitive, as it came to her that he's feeling hurt, betrayed by everyone linked to his past, and stupid for trusting anyone, and had probably been feeling that way since the day they met. "I already know what to do about it. I'm a better Marlene for being from the other Earth. It just -- still hurts. I've lost my parents, but I -- I can still adapt. I can still be more than what they all expect me to be." So can you, Nikolai, she thought. Not a doll. Damn, that made her so angry. Clearly her original parents wanted her to protect her autonomy with the fierceness of a human, and now, anyone's autonomy. It was more important than whether or not she became a killer. "This isn't about idealism, Nikolai. Love and friendship are as much the human condition as pain. That's just science." It was really hard to put into words what massive quantities of reading about human psychology and philosophy had taught her, not to mention over a decade of human interaction, most of it sentient on her part. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, she thought. She tasted the words as if for the first time. She wished she could just upload the feeling of it into Nikolai.

"The most dangerous people were those who think they were doing the right thing, but forget that the means ARE the end." Including, possibly, most of the original Circle. "It's hard to choose, but people can. The people in your past -- they made choices, and they failed you. They're not worthy of you, Nikolai. You deserve better. You deserved it then, you deserve it now, and you deserve it in the future. It's not a fairytale..." He did always have to be a bit of a dick, didn't he? "...it's the truth."

Why it was that she felt she had to get this particular point through to him, she wasn't sure, consciously, but an awful lot of processing under the surface was saying that for his own good and the good of the team, he needed to believe it. Or at least recognize that she did, which was true. She knew from a pattern double-check that he'd had ample opportunity to betray them, mess them up, but at each turn, aside from being a major pain in the ass and mean to her, he'd supported them, made them more effective, helped the most vulnerable people who'd come to them. Then she remembered that he was prickly, unpredictable, and for all she knew he'd react with anger at her. She braced herself.

* * *

Nikolai blinked in surprise at the sprinklers stopped. He hadn't told them to do anything -- although the cigarette was no longer lit, so maybe -- but then the scene changed around him, night lightening into afternoon sun.

She was watching him. He didn't know why, but it made him smile, even though -- ow -- moving his head made it hurt. Two could play at that game, though. She wanted to watch, let her get an eyeful. Moving gingerly, he sat up and stripped off his leather jacket, draping it over the windowsill to dry off a little. The shirt followed next, spread out on the rooftop, a virtual clone of the one he'd handed over to her earlier when --

Okay, so maybe he wasn't going to take his pants off after all. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but... his mind flashed back to that afternoon, Marlene bursting through the doors. No, definitely not taking it off now. He looked down, willing his body to behave itself. But glancing down made him look at his chest, at the bruises flowering around the skin where Chernobyl had hit him, in real life as well as in the program, and it all seemed like a stupid idea anyhow. What was he thinking even joking about... he didn't... Otaku... shit, he probably should have gotten a few kicks in along with the broken fingers.

"...it's the truth."

Nikolai snorted. "That's bullshit. It's not hard to choose at all. It's easy to choose, as simple as breathing. Either you do the right thing or you don't. People choose to do the wrong thing because they're lazy or they're scared or they just don't care or they're evil twisted fucks like Chernobyl. This isn't about what you or I deserve, or even what we choose -- it's about what we're going to get." He closed his eyes, and he was back in the room, staring up at the padded walls, then pushed the image away with a shudder.

"You say you can't blame this world's Stingrays -- well I can. 'How could they know another reality?'" he mimicked her words cynically. "How could they not? You were standing right in front of them and they couldn't see it. You were right fucking there, living proof that you are more than the sum of their parts, and they couldn't see it because it was fucking inconvenient. Because that would have meant that they might maybe have done something wrong. So it was easier to tell themselves you weren't in pain, it was just a brilliant bit of engineering on their part, another reason to pat themselves on the back. If love and kindness are part of the human condition, then how the hell do you explain those two icicles? You're more human than they'll ever be!" And still you sit there making excuses for their poor behavior, he thought sardonically. I don't know what you deserve, Marlene, but I know they don't deserve you.

"And they're not going to change," he continued. He was speaking to both of them now, himself as well as her, about the Stingrays, about Misha, about Ivan wherever he was. "They're not. I've been looking my whole life for someone doing the right thing for the right reasons. But you know what they say about people -- you can tell they're lying because their lips move."

He picked up his shirt again, wincing slightly at the motion, but glad to feel the shoulder loosening back up. Nothing permanent damaged; he'd just pushed himself too hard too fast.

"You're beginning to sound like you pity me, Marlene. That would be a mistake." He twisted the shirt back and forth, wringing it out as much as possible before slipping it over his chest. "I don't need pity, from you or anyone else." The words came out perhaps harsher than he'd intended, and they wouldn't stop, either, which was almost worse. "I don't need anyone to tell me what I deserve. I like my life the way it is, the way I am, and I don't want or need that to change. I don't need anything. I don't need anyone." He was vaguely aware he was basically shouting. He was also aware that he was lying.

"I don't need anyone... I don't," he stuttered, out of breath. What was he saying? He wished the headache would go away; it had to be clouding his thinking. Why else would he even be having this conversation -- a discussion he was pretty sure he would regret later on, he thought, reaching for his damp jacket.

"See? There I go again, being a dick." He shrugged the jacket on, ignoring the water that squished down onto his back through the lining, unconsciously striking a defensive pose.

"You were right the first time, what you told Yvette back at the concert. I'm just a jerk, I really am. I'm not nice. Yeah, that was Obscura, using me to hurt Yvette, but it doesn't make my part in it any better." He slicked his hair back, flicking the water droplets onto the ground.

"I'm not a hero. I'm not trying to win any popularity contests. I'm not doing this to save the world. I'm here because I'm sick of being lied to and manipulated and ignored when it's not convenient. I'm sick of watching it happen to everyone else. I won't be anyone's puppet. If this is the only way I can make sure that people like Obscura and Chernobyl and my uncle and Odessa get stopped, then so be it.

"I'm just an asshole with the power to make people listen to him." He smiled, tight-lipped, a sneer aimed harshly inward. "And here I am, taking it out on you when all you did was contact me to apologize for something that wasn't even your fault."

* * *

One of the problems with being a computer was that Marlene's Massive Parallel Processing Unit (MPPU) just worked so fast. So while Nikolai was talking, associations were coming up from everywhere. And putting them into words, the right words, was hard. Mind you, most of what the MPPU performed didn't notify her at the sentient level, like moving her body and sustaining her systems and noticing when humans needed something. She could attend to them if and when she wanted but didn't have to. But the connections that she'd made before would sometimes leap up into the forefront of her consciousness. Instead of bothering Nikolai with them right now, she sent him another email with a couple other links: the witch's song from Into the Woods (You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice, the witch snarls at the "heroes"), Terazu's essay on heroism as involving sacrifice regardless of popularity, and a personal favorite essay of hers about nature and nurture and how social programming (human learning) was often more difficult to change than nature.

Although she did sniffle during some of what he said about the Stingrays, she found herself, oddly, not getting mad at him. Quiet. It wasn't the first time someone had yelled at her, particularly when she wasn't a bodily presence in the room. He was so patently in pain himself, and flailing around. Human psychology in action. He was speaking in the clichés of someone hardened, clichés that had probably helped him survive, but she knew he was too smart for them. His actions for the team belied his words. But she was glad her body wasn't there. Her most safe, secure, fundamental level was that of a mind, watching and helping others, so the setting was helping her feel -- not detached, but not as reactive, either. A brief memory, Erik -- her Erik, not Earth2 Erik, yelling at her -- If the calculations are correct, why isn't it working? and throwing his clipboard across the room. It seemed the same. It wasn't her fault this time either. If she'd been there, in her body, who knows, it'd probably feel like an attack. And honestly, she thought, she'd had quite enough of being in her body just then, as she continued to watch the paralyzed Otaku.

"Well," she said. "Human programming takes a long time to change." She paused, hoping that'd sink in. It covered so many people.

"As for the Stingrays, I have to figure out if I want to prove myself to them. Preconceptions -- stereotyping -- it'd take time, it's probably not worth the effort, they think they know me and they don't, they don't want me the same way..." You're thinking too fast again, Marlene thought, a dozen articles on stereotyping and schema persistence leaping to mind, along with other cringe-worthy memories.

"As for pity, think what you want, but I don't really know what it is, so I can't say if that's what I feel." Chew on that, Nikolai, and it was true. She tried to pattern-match pity with what she felt, and it came up lacking. Had she ever pitied anyone? She couldn't remember. She'd always been surrounded by thoroughly competent people. "No, it doesn't match," she said, blandly.

"No, telling you what you deserve is just cold, robot logic, I'm afraid. Look, all I'm saying is that none of us deserves to be treated as someone's plaything. 75% of humanity treats each other badly because of negligence, not because of malice. Those are the most unpredictable, scary people -- the ones who just don't realize what they're doing to you. But you're right. It does matter what we're going to get. What's going to happen in the future. We have to plan. We all have to be better next time we meet them. I don't expect people like Otaku to change, or Chernobyl. The Stingrays -- at least they think they're doing the right thing. They can be shown that they're wrong. They might even care. But -- oh, shit, Nikolai, I just remembered. Do you think Penumbra is working through Otaku, Chernobyl, all of them?"

* * *

The topic change shouldn't have relieved him, should in fact have alarmed him, but he took it gratefully anyway. He hadn't meant to yell at her -- that had just sort of happened. Her ability to forgive frustrated and exasperated him. But she'd had as bad a day as he had -- worse, if you included Otaku. He'd had his uncle, but Misha's lies were nothing he wasn't used to, while the change in her parents clearly had fractured her world. And then there was the fight back in Freedom City -- he still didn't know what exactly had happened after he'd blacked out, but he was pretty sure that Otaku's intentions were a lot less platonic than Chernobyl's had been. And they'd failed. Chernobyl had gotten his device, and who knew what else.

No, he hadn't meant to raise his voice. The headache, he decided. Had to be. She wasn't getting under his skin.

And anyway, Penumbra was a lot more important at the moment.

"I think that's pretty much a given, Marlene." He raised up a hand, counted off the evidence on his fingers. "We know Penumbra is on the move. We know there's a portal in Arizona. We know that something terrible is blocked up behind it trying to get through. We know that Chernobyl stole a nuclear-powered device that opens portals. And we know that Penumbra, whatever it really is, needs agents to act through. It's just too much of a coincidence." He closed the splayed out fingers into a tight fist, lowered his head for a moment. "And when Professor Xenon took Wallflower into his office to look at her, he told me something else...

"Right before he closed the door, he apologized to me. He said I was right, that he should have told us the whole story long before now... and then he said, 'It's started.'"

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