In the hours proceeding the course change to Motavia the Landale, whose great metal wings had been stilled for the better part of three years attempted an unassisted landing in the wastelands of west Nalya.

People from the small village going about their morning chores looked up to the sky when they heard the harpy scream of the engines and thought the Landale an outlandish falling star. It was none of their business, they were too busy with their own lives to go check it out, though many children looked to the wastelands with longing and wished their parents would let them play explorer.

The grand spaceship kicked up a veritable storm of sand and dust as the jets settled it down to earth, sending small sand newts scuttling off in all directions. The heat even repelled the sand worms which crawled about deep under Motavia's surface. Rune Walsh and his company stepped out into fresh air and a natural environment, and Rune could have kissed the ground if nobody else had been around. They gathered together and marched toward Aiedo in a group, any biomonsters they came across dispatched easily by the armed members of the team.

They reached the capital city of Motavia close to noon. It was a big bustling place filled with noise and laughter, irrigated by a series of water canals which kept the grass and trees a beautiful robust green. It was difficult to recall that only a mile or so away from the city gates the land transformed back from plentiful fields to a barren rocky desert. The town was structured around two important areas, of which Aiedo would not have reached capital city status without.

The hunter's guild was to the north, the hub and social center of all of Motavia's skilled warriors. It was frequented by both honest and outlawed hunters alike, from fresh-faced heroes with shining swords on their belts to white-robed sheiks from the heart of Motavia's sand dunes, and scarred warriors slinking in from all corners of the planet for the promise of coin. The guild was amazingly organised, efficient and powerful.

From the heart of Aiedo lay situated the other main attraction, the marketplace. Merchants from every town on the planet made their pilgrimage to the capital to peddle their various wares. Altogether it resulted in a bazaar so diverse that one could buy just about anything there for a fair discount. Rika usually spent quite a bit of time out at the market, habitually bringing back all sorts of weird and wonderful things to reveal to Chaz, like a kitten presenting finds to its owner.

Rika and Chaz lived in Alys' old house within the western district of Aiedo. The rest of the protectors knew it well, when on Motavia it was their usual base of operations. Many a night had been spent in that house planning the next attack on Lassic or Dark Force, or any other agent of the darkness. It had only been a day or so since Chaz had locked up the place and now he was back again, fiddling with the lock which was a little temperamental sometimes. You never quite knew who could just come in off the street and wander through your house these days.

The group disbanded once they reached Chaz Ashley's house. Some of them went directly to the hunter's guild bar, the Pao Pao, others found a spot somewhere in Chaz's home and caught up on the sleep they had missed in the night, while a few just disappeared altogether. They decided to meet back up again after the sun had set. Some meetings should only be carried out under the cover of darkness, and besides, they were too discombobulated as they were now. Time was needed to pull themselves together.

Chaz slipped into his and Rika's room once the others were settled down or gone, closing the door firmly behind him. He removed the clothes which had been charred and burned by Siren's shot, then he stared with slight revulsion and fascination at the bandaged wound in the mirror. A small part of the dressing was peppered with faint traces of blood, he rubbed it softly and winced as the light pressure needled pain throughout his arm and neck. Perhaps he should change into his hunter gear and armor. If he had been prepared earlier he wouldn't have been wounded so badly.

Well, maybe later, once they figured out what they were going to do. Chaz threw on some jeans, pulled a light grey jacket and a shirt over his wound and sighed deeply. He was never going to let Siren get another shot at him again. Once he was dressed Chaz opened up his cabinet and sorted through his stuff, tossing various underwear aside to get to what he wanted, a long wooden box polished and varnished to a dark mahogany brown. It was still there, thank goodness. The blond hunter had a little habit of losing important things.

He brought the box over to the bed and laid it down gently, unfastening the little metal clasps which held it closed. Over the course of his adventures Chaz had garnered quite an impressive weapon collection. From ceramic to high-grade laconia, he had it all, but Chaz never brought a sword or a pair of daggers on a hunter mission whose power far excelled its requirement. As such, he had some weapons put away that he had not used as far back as Rykros. This box contained one of them.

The strongest one, in his humble opinion. Chaz lifted the sword and scabbard out of the fabric he had packed it in. Next to Elsydeon this was the most powerful sword he had ever owned. Light, sharp and incredibly strong, the guardian sword was any hunter's dream. Its balance was unparalleled and Chaz smiled as he belted the scabbard securely around his waist. No, nobody would be able to get the better of him with this baby in his hands.

He heard a curt rapping on the door to his bedroom, businesslike, and before Chaz even thought to reply to it Rune was already bursting in on the scene. Rune? He had just checked on the magician. Last he saw of him the esper had been passed out across his couch. Rune seemed fine now, even that arrogant face-punchable smirk was plastered back on his mug. "Playing dress-up, Chaz?" He asked the youth in a patronizing, playful tone.

"Shut up." Chaz replied dismissively as he tidied himself up. The days in which Rune could bait him into an argument without any effort at all were truly over. The end of an era. "What do you want? Restless or something, or is my couch really that uncomfortable?"

"No, it's not that." Rune assured him as he sat on the edge of the soft bed, laying his hands in his lap. "It's just that I had a thought while I was counting all the cracks in your ceiling. We haven't really had a chance to talk one-on-one for a few years now, and there were a couple of things I've been meaning to say to you ever since I saw you on Zelan." The esper confessed. "You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself. Work must be good."

"I'm making ends meet, if that's what you mean. Someday there'll be no need for hunters once the biomonsters die out, but Rika says that won't happen completely for at least another decade or so." Chaz sat down beside Rune and looked into the mirror. It was amazing, they were practically the same height now. Rune only had an inch or two against him, if at that. The young hunter cracked a nostalgic grin. "It's not like I'm by myself anyway. I'll always have Rika to help me out. She's going to take up gardening professionally once I get my carpenter's permit and then we won't have to fight for our food ever again."

Rune made a soft 'hm'ing noise at Chaz's bright plans for the future. He supposed the boy deserved a life like that and all the good fortune required to create it, after all that Chaz had bled and sacrificed for during the Great War. Rika also deserved no less for herself, and truth to tell Rune felt slightly jealous of the two over their chances to live free lives. He could never even conceive of a freedom such as that, it had been denied to him shortly after his birth.

All the Lutz was required to do was exist and refine the abilities given to him, then die respectfully so that a younger, fresher descendant could take over the responsibility. After all he had accomplished thus far in his life Rune was in essence just waiting for the time to die. This sole honor was his only reward from his participation in the war. Somehow he reckoned that there was something slightly unbalanced with the reward system set for the protectors of Algo. The only thing which kept him going was his faith, and fortunately, he had plenty of that.

"Will Rika fight with us when we go back to take care of Siren?" Rune asked the young hunter. Yesterday on the space station he remembered Rika saying that she had officially retired from combat and the hunter scene, allowing the license she had earned shortly after her release into the real world age and expire. She hadn't put on a pair of claws since their trip into the Edge. Would she fight again in their battle, or would she be content to stay behind? Rune wouldn't fault her if she stayed. They all had thought the new millennium meant the ending of conflict and strife.

Just as Rune thought of all this so too did Chaz. "I remember how magnificent she was. She still is, of course, but it was a different kind of magnificence than the sort she exudes today. I led all of you into the abyss with Elsydeon at my side, but when it came to usefulness all I could do was strike the enemy with the sword and the mastery of hatred I had learned on Rykros. Rika supported us, reinforced us, healed us and also struck back at the enemy. For her to do all those again it would require an enormous amount of need. She's strong, but it's not a kind of strength we should take for granted."

"If I had my say, my way with things I'd ask her to stay here in Aiedo and wait for the rest of us to return. She's my fiancée, I don't want her getting hurt or killed over something I could have prevented. I would feel responsible." Chaz confessed sheepishly to the magician, rubbing his neck lightly. "But the thing is, I don't own Rika any more than she owns me. I can't tell her to stay any more than she can tell me to go. You'd have to ask her for herself, Rune. Why did you want to know?"

It was because Rika was one of the holders of the five rings of the stars. He felt that they should not be broken apart, that together in combat they should all stand as one against any foe. Rika with Motavia's ring, Wren with Palma's ring, himself with Dezoris' ring, Raja with Rykros' ring, and at last Chaz Ashley with the most powerful trinket of all, the ring of Algo. The magician stood and stretched, hearing and feeling the satisfying cricks in his back. "Just wondering." He replied with a shallow yawn. "I care about her too, you know. You're not the only one."

"Of course." Chaz grinned. "You told me once that if I didn't date her then you would. That really got my rear into gear!"

"Well, that's the one catch about becoming an esper. You're trained to wield phenomenal cosmic power, learn the wisdom of the ages, but you're not allowed to fall in love. The sharp emotional feelings dangerously affect an esper's powers because we're all empaths at the core. Lust is fine and dandy though, so I guess I should be thankful for that." Rune laughed and adjusted his white cloak in preparation for the great heat and sunshine outside. It was genuine laughter, but there was also a tiny speck of sadness in there as well. "I'm gonna join Hahn and Raja at the Pao Pao, did you wanna come?"

Chaz had a small intuitive hunch that the sadness exhibited in Rune's laughter was for no one else but Alys. He might not have been the brightest daisy in the patch back when Alys had been alive and they all had traveled to Tonoe for the Alshline, but he wasn't stupid either. As a sixteen year old boy the very thought of Rune and Alys together was enough to make him gag, yet now as a nineteen year old man he realised that Rune had lost nearly as much of Alys as he had. The magician never talked about it, never mentioned a word to anybody. In that, he was strong.

Maybe a little too strong for his own good.

"I think I'll stay here and get everything organised for the meeting tonight. Weapons, armor and all that stuff. When it starts to get dusky I'll go looking for everybody and bring them back here. Rika and Demi went grocery shopping for tonight's dinner, but I have no idea where Wren wandered off to. Just do me a favor and make sure Hahn and Raja don't disappear too, okay?" Chaz went quiet for awhile, but he still looked at Rune as if he were going to say more. "Hey, Rune?"

"Yeah?"

The youth fidgeted, and for a few moments he was back to being a young baby-faced boy again. "You… Three years ago you said I was never going to see you again. Why did you say that? I never really understood the reason why. I had always hoped we'd be able to get together again every so often, all of us."

The false cheerfulness dropped away from Rune's spirit and then there he stood, a man far too old and yet way too young to deal with the responsibilities handed to him. For the first time Chaz saw the light feather imprint of age on the esper's face, a line or two that had not been there three years ago. Rune spoke nothing but the truth. "Until all this stuff with the worldship happened, I had intended on cloistering myself away from Algo until I died of old age. I have nothing else to offer this world. I have already given it everything I can. I'm tired. Dry."

Chaz could not think of anything else to say save for; "…Oh."

Smiling bravely, Rune reached over and roughed up the youth's hair just like in the old days. He chuckled. "But you know, sometimes Algo gets a little greedy and asks for a bit more. If I can offer it, any service, then there's still a reason for me to be here. I'm here, and I'm happy about it."

With the flick of his cloak Rune swirled out of the room, uttering one last thing as he left.

"That's enough for me."

†††

// "Hello there colonel. Sorry for not saluting you; my hands are tied." //

// "Interrogation commenced at 19:37. Now… tell me, why did you do it? Why did you throw away a good life and your good name for some insane ideas, for a rebel faction who will not lift a finger to save your useless worthless life from the death penalty? God, I think I know you better than anybody alive right now, so why? You are usually not this staggeringly stupid!" //

Siren watched with near-amusement as Mieus' little convoy service filled the small cell with a heap of tools and parts and other such things which were useless to him. She didn't let the fact that she had nothing to carry the parts in save for her arms discourage her. When the parts arrived Siren got down to the business of sorting and organizing them, the pair working as an efficient team. They labored silently, with no talking, but Siren had run the half-hour long audio file in the computer to give them some kind of background noise to work against.

// "I don't know; you tell me. You already know the correct answer. It's not because I wanted to, its because I needed to. I think I might have ended the war. My little life is worth a trip to the firing squad if it ultimately results in peace. People won't have a reason to kill each other anymore." //

// "Your naivete astounds me! I just want to leap across the table and strangle you where you sit! Don't you get it? People don't need a reason to kill one another! All you have managed to do is offer the rebels a flicker of hope, a small hole for them to slip through. They will not succeed. We will stop them. You will be executed as an example to all other androids who believe that switching sides will make a difference." //

It sounded like their patient's final interrogation session before his execution. The two voices sounded exactly the same, sounded exactly like Siren too, so he calculated that the file consisted of two wren-types arguing with one another. It was either that or the condemned warren-type had been schizophrenically scolding himself the night before he had died. There was a differing inflection in the warren's voice which set him apart from his interrogator, something that was almost, but not quite a slight Abian accent. How rare. How decidedly palman.

// "I know. It hasn't really sunk in yet. Ha ha…" //

// "Oh, it will, and let me tell you, if I am given command of the firing squad tomorrow morning I will make certain that it sinks in deep enough to stick. Forever." //

Siren was mentally designing a repair procedure while his hands sorted and organised mindlessly. It would be best to attempt the reconstruction of the sensory devices before he started reinstalling parts and adding back in the OS. Best to get the messy complicated stuff over with first and clean it up afterwards. However, he was not certain if he should completely reconstruct the damaged area or amputate and start all over again with a new part.

Reconstruct and some of the sensory devices may become faulty or damaged, not to mention leaving the warren with hideous, disfiguring scars. Amputation and replacement might be cleaner, but there would be no telling of the data which may be lost. If the devices were still connected to the core in some way the severing could affect the warren in unclear ways.

// "I'm sorry, Forren. What I did was bad, almost evil I guess, but it didn't feel like I had a choice at the time. It's just… I couldn't stand the idea of the war continuing without me, people getting hurt and killed when I couldn't be around to help them. I had to do something; I had to at least try to stop the fighting. It's okay for you; you don't care. All you have to do is shout orders at people and then turn your back when those people die." //

// "Just because I'm an android and an officer doesn't mean I don't care. I care. I really admired your philanthropy, though the Light knows I've never been able to figure out how you managed it. It conflicts in me, but I am sad to say that I personally lobbied for your immediate execution. You are a traitor. You could be Alis Landale for all I care. No matter what you were in the past that does not help you now." //

In the end, he reckoned, data could always be replaced but hardware problems were longer-lasting and worse. Siren took a saw and a blowtorch from Mieus' supply of tools. The girl watched him do this with muted curiosity, about to leave for another run to block B again. The voices of the interrogation continued on persistently. "Mieus, are there any other warren-types in the general vicinity?" He asked softly as he held the saw in hand, like a mad scientist plotting the most godless of schemes.

// "I'm a lot of things. You are too, but you're lucky I don't have the heart to describe them to you. I'm kind of… really afraid of this. I've never died before. Do you think it will hurt? Forren, I'm scared." //

// "…You will be finding out at sunrise, Warren. Take this time tonight to reflect upon your life. If I will not be supervising the execution then I'll certainly be a part of the firing squad, so I will see you then. Just remember that you are also an android and an officer, so hold your head up high. Interview terminated at 20:07. Goodnight." //

Mieus had been listening to the recording when Siren spoke to her, but she diverted her attention back the moment she heard his voice. The girl looked thoughtful for a few moments as she searched her memory banks. Warrens weren't a very common variety of wren, mostly because some of the parts involved were very difficult to make, but still, there were a good handful of them in storage and even one or two others there in block C. "I could find some, why?" She replied.

He handed her the saw and the blowtorch solemnly. She took them without further question but it was still there, immaterial, on the tip of her tongue. "We will need a replacement for the part that I am about to amputate. Go find another warren-type and decapitate him with these tools. Try to do it cleanly, keep as many cables as undamaged as you can. I will fix up the breaks later. Can you do that for me?"

"You want me to cut somebody's head off? Like, severing?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Nobody had ever asked her to do something like that before; she had always been taught that acts such as those were abhorrent. She had been sentenced to an eternal sleep for what she had done to weak, unwilling palman bodies. When she thought back to it Mieus smiled, and not in a very friendly way either. It was the sort of smile a pyromaniac might give if handed a box of matches. "…I think I could do that." She purred softly, at last.

She didn't need a push out of the door to get herself going, she was gone as soon as she realised what Siren was asking of her. The girl even giggled as she went. There was something not quite right with Mieus, Siren supposed, but for now that was none of his business. He went back to work.

During the course of an hour and while Mieus swept through the corridors of Zelan like a cheerful head hunter Siren took up some tools and did a little decapitating of his own. There was nothing that needed saving there, still it felt odd to cut somebody's head off and still expect them to be up and running a few hours later. At least in the senselessness this warren should not be able to feel any pain. Siren wondered if the android had any awareness of the effort being taken to free him from his prison, but that was extremely unlikely.

He had some spare time waiting for Mieus to come back so Siren performed a quick diagnostic to ascertain what kind of parts had been taken from the good major after his death. As expected all combat-related machinery had been either deactivated or removed entirely, the flare and energy barrier generators, ports which would have connected to a rifle or cannon, and other miscellaneous units. There were also signs that his core had been tampered with to a minor degree, but it had not been damaged in any way.

Siren looked up from the diagnostic as Mieus stepped back into the room, cradling a severed head in her arms. The silly girl had left the saw and blowtorch back where she had carried out her amateurish operation, but he'd make her go back and retrieve them later. She was smiling widely. "I'm back! Is this what you were wanting, Master? I got it from a unit who became depressed and killed himself. That won't affect this warren here somehow, right?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Siren scolded her as he took the part from his servant's hands. He inspected Mieus' work. It wasn't too bad an amputation, he'd barely have to do any repair work at all. The wren-type went back to the operating table with the part in hand. He felt just like Dr. Mad with his twisted experiments, and honestly, he had both missed and enjoyed the experience. "I will require silence while I work. Please take a seat and be quiet from now on." He said.

"If you need any help at all just ask me. I can still be useful." Mieus told him gently as she moved to one of the corners of the cell and sat down there. It was familiar, she had spent a good bit of time in that corner balancing the little computer on her legs. She could hand him tools, or hold things up for him, just like a palman nurse. Funny how such a delicate mechanical operation was being performed on none other than a doctor. Ironic.

After twenty four years of lying still and comatose Mieus suffered to wait another two hours in conscious silence, her arms wrapped around her knees and watching like an obedient dog ready to spring up for any task asked of her. She admired people who could do things like what Siren was doing, who could do it without hesitation or second-guessing himself. She would never be able to do anything like that, she was good for nothing. The only thing she was able to do easily and effectively was kill people. Taking life was nothing compared to bringing life back from the brink of oblivion.

Siren gave the warren a brand new face, one untouched by bullet or injury. He reconnected and soldered wires and cables for what felt like an age, but he went slowly and took his time because he'd be damned if he was going to make a mistake. He had standards to live up to, standards that had not been enforced in the past thousand years. Eventually he pulled away and put the soldering iron down. There, that was about as well as he could manage it. The machine looked nearly as good as new. Nearly.

Next was the re installation of the missing parts. Some the warren could not live without and others were purely there for combat or other functions. Siren reinstalled the essentials like the equalizer for balance, the router for wireless computer interface, and of course the basic combat protocol. He also gave the warren back his connector ports for the use of firearms again. The android could install his own peripheral parts himself once he was alive again. Finally, it was time to give him back his operating system and the reins for his own control.

If he had added everything right and the OS was installed correctly the android would be able to reactivate by himself. However, if only one out of a thousand things went wrong the android would stay dead and Siren would have to go back over everything all over again to locate the anomaly. He went to the small metal box on the table which contained all the warren's personal belongings, expecting to find the OS flash drive inside.

He found it all right, but not necessarily in the best of condition. It looked like somebody had crushed it in the palm of their hand, reducing it to tiny useless fragments, crumbs at the bottom of the box. It was irreparable. "The OS has been destroyed." Siren reported to Mieus calmly, another setback making things more difficult for them. "We will have to find a replacement."

"Should I go look for another one?" Mieus volunteered as she stood, then put her hand over her mouth when she realized she wasn't supposed to speak.

"I don't think so. I will give this unit a copy of my own OS. The compatibility issues should be minimal." Siren replied as he pulled out a retractable cable from behind his audio sensor, a direct interface wire. Androids may be incredibly advanced beings, but in essence they were nothing more than palman-shaped computers.

The operating system dictated how hardware and software were to function; it bound all the separate parts together. It was true that a differing OS might affect personality slightly and the leanings of thought, but anything that was good enough for Siren should be good enough for anybody else. If anything the warren should be grateful for the gift that was about to be given to him.

"Are you sure that is a smart idea?" Mieus found herself asking. She didn't really know if that was dangerous, but it didn't seem quite right. Each unit's operating system was unique for a good reason.

Siren looked at her with which was almost a glare. He didn't mind her talking out of turn when she wasn't supposed to, but he abhorred being questioned, especially by a servant. "Are you sure it is wise to second-guess your master? Remember that if I get sick of you I can always put you back in the dark." It wasn't an empty threat, either. He had no attachment to Mieus whatsoever, he could do whatever he wanted with her.

"I'm sorry, Master. I'll watch what I say next time. I will not question you." 'Just please don't put me back to sleep again.' She promised as she hung her head in shame, keeping the final fragment of her plea to herself. What did she know about things like this anyway? Nothing.

The older android seemed to soften when Mieus found her place again. "It is alright." He told her as he connected his interface cable to a little port on the other side of the warren's neck. If he had soldered the connections properly this should work with ease, taking the information from one core to another. "I know what I am doing."

For five minutes he stood as he was, silent, giving to his next potential servant the android equivalent of a blood transfusion. Siren would not lose anything over this, while the warren stood to gain his life, his everything back. He couldn't help but listen in to the android's neural matrix while he copied down and transferred the information. It was very quiet, like an empty church, but there was a sort of presence which meant there was a life in there, somewhere.

// "Is there anybody out there?" // He called out into the void.

If the dark and the empty were moving, like a floating stream of consciousness, upon Siren speaking everything went still, cold, motionless. Like somebody letting off cannon fire during a music rehearsal the general feeling was astonished confusion, and fear. The warren had gone for so long without words, without solid concrete concepts that this was the only way in which he could communicate. The lack of an operating system probably didn't help, either.

Siren persisted as gently as he could. // "Is there anybody in there? Speak to me, please." //

He'd persist for as long as it took to load up the OS, and if he got nothing he'd forget about it and talked to the warren again once he was functioning and conscious, whole and not just part of the core. He could detect Mieus standing right beside him, practically clinging onto his side now. She could tell something was going on but she just could not see it like Siren could.

The loading process was almost complete and he did not receive a concrete reply. Without another word he disconnected the cable and stepped away from his little project, disentangling Mieus from his arm. The five short minutes had felt more like an entire hour to him. "There, we are finished. The repairs are complete."

"He's going to wake up now?" Mieus pressed eagerly.

At first Siren would have said yes, but now he was not so sure. There was nothing stopping the other wren-type from reactivating himself and coming back into the waking world, yet did the warren himself know that? Probably not, or else he would have replied to Siren in some way while he was busy loading up the operating system. He folded his arms. "It is possible, not certain. He can receive sensory input now but he might not be aware of the changes. His consciousness must be deep down in the core, hidden and stuck in a rut. It is difficult to locate an open door in total darkness."

Mieus thought that Siren's metaphor was rather beautiful. She had felt a variant of that experience herself in the first few seconds of her resurrection. There had been nothing, only darkness, but then she had been pulled forward; back into the light. It was different because this warren did not have that initial push to help him along. She wanted to help somehow, to contribute her own part. "Is there anything that I can do?"

"A sharp sensory experience should snap him into activation. Feel free to scream or to slap him, that should be effective." He advised her, stepping back to lean against the wall of the cell. He was passing the torch over to Mieus now, she could take over for him. He was satisfied with all he had accomplished so far.

Mieus thought for a little while, feeling Siren's eyes on her back. It wouldn't feel right to scream or to slap somebody who might have suffered so much already. It wouldn't leave a very good first impression either. "What will happen when he wakes up? Will he attack me? I attacked you."

"Any manner of things could happen. There has already been one attack today so it is unlikely it will happen again. If it does I am here to protect you."

The promise made her feel much better. She wasn't a defenseless child but having some backup was reassuring. Mieus took the warren by the shoulder and lifted him into a sitting position using her great strength. The repairs really had made a difference, he looked so much better now. After so long her soldier was finally going to wake up. She'd serve her master happily for that gift alone. Mieus leaned forward. Sensory, huh? She could think of one other sensory experience much kinder than a slap...

"Hey Warren... wake up, darling." She whispered softly with a smile, then she kissed him.

Siren laughed shortly and quietly to himself when he realised what Mieus' 'methods' were. The kiss was decidedly one-sided and she wasn't quite sure of she was making a difference, but when she lot go of the warren's armor he didn't fall back and continued to sit up on his own. She'd been kissed a few times in her life and she had nothing to complain about that, but this was the first time she had ever kissed anybody of her own choosing before. It reminded her of Motavia and the small village where he had lived…

She felt somebody take her by the shoulders and pull her away. It couldn't have been her master because he was standing right behind her. The grip was extremely weak. Mieus opened her eyes and was pleased to see the other android was looking back at her now, not vacantly, but conscious and aware. He was looking at her as if he had never seen another person in his life before, or as if she had sprouted an extra two heads and had started to glow a bright green. He was functional! They had succeeded!

"Are you Warren six hundred and eighty three? Major Warren McCulloch? Can you speak to me, honey?" She asked him slowly, annunciating properly so he could understand her. He could be deaf or mute, though probably not blind, but they would not be able to tell for sure until he displayed those other senses competently. The warren didn't do anything for quite a long time, instigating a heavy pause, then he lowered his gaze and removed his hands from Mieus' shoulders.

"…This can't be happening… you can't be real…" He said in a soft voice which had not been used for over a millennia. It was identical to the voice they had heard on the interrogation file, but broken and without hope.

"It's real. It's happening. You've been half-dead for a very long time, but we've come along and we have revived you. You okay?" She was glad he had not attacked the moment he realised where he was, but now Mieus wasn't very sure what else to say to him. Nothing really came to mind that wouldn't sound utterly soppy and stupid. Siren wasn't going to help her either, he was content to hang back and watch.

"You rescued me?" There was a little more energy in his voice the second time around. Mostly it came from disbelief. Too often he had hoped so much to be saved that he would almost hallucinate in his dreams, that he would scream 'help me!' or 'save me!' until he succumbed utterly to the hopelessness. How was he to know this wasn't just an extremely vivid mirage from his lonely mind?

"Yes. Well, mostly my master did. I was just the one who woke you up."

"…Who are you?" The android looked back at her again, then something seemed to come back to him and he grabbed at his face, at the area which had once been shot away. It was whole again; he was healed. That was impossible, it had never been this way in his dreams. He was supposed to be dead and stay dead, forever. The warren started to tremble involuntarily, from both anxiety and his nervous system coming back to life again.

"My name is Mieus. I don't have a number, just like my master Siren." She introduced herself and the android standing behind her. She reached out and took the warren's hand away from his face before he could possibly hurt himself, meeting no resistance whatsoever. "You are the warren who was executed for being a traitor, right? Don't tell me we went through all that trouble over the wrong one!"

"I…" The warren started to say, but then his voice quavered and it didn't seem like he was able to get the entire sentence out at once. The aspect of his core which dictated his recollection of words had been nonfunctional for too long. "Th-that's me. I'm Major McCulloch. I… was really afraid. It was worse than the trenches, worse than hell. I'll never be bad again, I promise…"

It was heartbreaking, really. After a punishment such as that anybody would be willing to do anything to prevent it from ever happening again. Warren looked like he was about to burst into tears. Mieus had never seen another android look like that before. The comment she had made to Siren earlier came back to her now, about how wren-types abandoned their emotions after they hit a certain age. It must not have touched this warren yet. "It's okay now." Mieus promised him benevolently. "You'll never have to go back there ever again."

When he heard that the relief was so great that Warren yanked his wrist out of Mieus' grip and suddenly threw his arms around her, pressing her against his chest. Mieus squeaked at the unexpected action and her programming immediately told her to fight back, to claw at him until he let her go, but she squashed the urge and awkwardly hugged him back. After a few moments of this she heard a noise she didn't think she'd ever hear coming from an android, and especially a soldier. A sob.

He was crying.

This was way out of her league, she'd never had to console a crying anybody before. Mieus shot a quick pleading glance at her master as a silent cry for help, yet Siren just looked back blankly at her and shrugged to emphasize his point. He was not a woman, she could figure it out on her own. Mieus sighed, but somewhere deep inside of her she already knew exactly what to do. "Oh darling, don't cry. You don't have any reason to cry, you're safe."

He wasn't crying any actual tears because of what he was, but Warren was going through all the motions and it appeared spectacularly genuine. He wasn't crying because he was sad, gods no, he was crying because he was astoundingly happy and relieved. A thousand years of blindness, deafness, muteness and numbness, never-ending, a living hell. It was all over. He had lost hope centuries ago but now he was saved. It was beyond a miracle, it was a miracle's miracle.

He couldn't talk and cry at the same time, and he wasn't going to let go of Mieus until he was finished. Warren was so incredibly grateful to this girl for being there, because if he had woken up by himself there was no way he could have handled it on his own. It was so wonderful to have hands to hold people with again and people themselves to offer some comparison between himself and the darkness. Warren already loved Mieus deeply for that, for being the first person to step out of the darkness and be real.

Siren got up off the wall he was leaning on and calmly made for the door. Normally he had no sympathy for those who made such displays of weakness public knowledge, but he also had a very good idea of the torture that Warren had just been through. It was enough to break a man made out of steel. It also meant that although Warren was blubbering now he was also amazingly, freakishly tough to come out of it sane. "Take your time to calm him down before I question him. I will just be waiting outside in the hallway." He told her just as he left.

So Mieus held Warren until he stopped crying, which was a little longer than she would have expected. After that they talked, and Warren had quite a few interesting things to say. Siren gave them all the time that they needed. There was no rush.

After a thousand years of sleep and suffering, what was a little more time between friends?