I think I can stick some purple and blue together there . . . or maybe not. Orange and green would probably be better, they would fold into the rest of the colors perfectly. After another moment of deliberation, Thomas stuffed the appropriate bits of code into his memory banks. It would be nice and safe there until he could give it to Laura.

Turning back toward his nighttime to-do list, Thomas poked a little red check next to the "Make a new language processor for Laura" entry. Scrolling down to the next activity, Thomas brightened, sending a kaleidoscope-mix of colors dancing around the walls of the omni-tool. "Think of new questions for Luna" was always a good one. Now let's see . . . I could ask something about cooking. Like, why do they want food at different temperatures? What does hot food feel like? Or cold food? And can I have some? Why do people feel full? What happens if . . ..

Question after question piled up in front of Thomas, the mix of triangles, circles, and pentagons stacking higher and higher and higher, up until they nearly reached the shadowy ceiling of the omni-tool. Yes, Luna would be very happy to answer all of these. Probably. And if not, Tael would be around.

Another check on the list, and then on to the next activity: "Check on Tael," immediately followed by "Check on Luna." Oh. Right. Almost forgot. Thomas tightened his code against the painful, familiar hooks that tugged into him, crackling with nervousness and fear as he made the jump to Tael's omni-tool.

Shielding his sensors against the sudden brightness of the space – Tael kept most of his programs running, even through the night – Thomas checked over every bit of the suit's hardware. Every pressurized seal had to be tightened just so, after all, and someone needed to make sure that all of his vitals were nice and happy.

"I know Luna said that sleeping is normal, and it's all part of being organic, but what if something happens to you?" he whispered, picking through the streams of data for any spots of danger-indicating red or sickly yellow. "You wouldn't even know. And then you wouldn't wake up and . . .." Thomas shuddered, plucking that unpleasant thought out of his cognitive processes. "Well . . . you get the idea. You still don't mind me checking in on you, right?"

Thomas waited, listening to a few of Tael's quiet, even snores before continuing, "Great, thanks for understanding! We can talk some more later, because right now I've got to get back to Luna."

Waving goodbye to Laura's folder, Thomas made the leap back to Luna's omni-tool. "Hey, I'm back. I just did the check-up with Tael, and he's doing fine. Are you ready for your turn?"

Luna didn't answer, of course, but Thomas still waited for a few seconds to be polite.

"Great! You just stay still while I . . .." That's weird. The stream of data from the camera all looked exactly the same, as if nothing was moving. At all. Thomas rubbed at his sensors, cleaning off any stray bits of code that might be distorting his vision. Luna has to be moving. She's breathing and dreaming and who knows what else is going on and she has to be moving.

Lines of fear started to crawl through Thomas, but he flushed them from his programs almost as quickly as they appeared. Calm down, she's okay. I just have to find out what's happening. "Is this a joke, Luna? I said stay still, so you stopped breathing and everything? You know I didn't mean it like that."

Luna didn't answer, didn't move, didn't do anything at all.

"Oh, it is? Um, ha, that was a good one! Now, stop it please, you're scaring me," he pleaded, struggling to keep a tight grip over his emotional processes. I can't panic, that'll just make things worse. No panicking allowed.

He risked a quick look back at Luna. Everything still looked the exact same. Definitely not following the usual pattern of inhale-exhale that people generally stick to. Okay, Thomas, do the logical thing when someone stops breathing. Um . . . get Tael, he'll know what to do next.

"I'll be right back, Luna. Tael will help fix you," he whispered, pulling himself to the edge of the omni-tool. "You'll be okay. You have to."

A whispered breath, followed by a quiet whimper, dripped into the omni-tool, as if in response to his promise.

"No, don't cry, I'm going right now . . . to get help . . .?" Thomas trailed off, watching as the sobs continued. Already they'd grown into a small stream, punctuated by a shuddering breath every few seconds. Thomas extended a trembling tendril toward the sounds, fear of them battling against the relief that this might just end up being another—

He touched the drop of sound, code shuddering as it rushed into him, coloring line after line a dead, chilled gray-blue. He shivered, dragging himself away from the tears as quickly as he could manage.

Yep. It's a nightmare. Which is better than her not breathing, but still. . ..

Thomas took a moment to bring some nice, warm reds and oranges back into his tendrils, then turned back toward the river of sobs and let out a very worried, Luna-like sigh. What do I do now? This is always the worst part, I never know if I should wake her and have her be mad at me or if I should let her be sad and hurt. And usually I don't have to choose, because she stops right . . . about . . ..

No?

How about now?

Hm. This isn't good.

I guess . . . I can try to help calm her down? Without waking her up and getting mad at me. Yes, I think that'd be best. "I- uh, Luna, you're- um, just having a bad dream," he half whispered to her, "so there's really nothing to be afraid of. As long as you decide to not be sad, you'll be fine. Maybe?"

Luna didn't answer, but the tears kept growing and growing.

Okay, plan B. Wake up Luna. Okay Thomas. You can do this. Just . . . be a good friend. Be brave. Don't freak out. All of that good stuff. Pulling himself upright, he twisted around his emotional processes until a hint of red and orange courage brightened up his code.

"Luna? Wake up! Please?" he called, setting the speakers to outside-voice volume.

Luna curled tighter around a twisted knot in the blanket, whimpering unintelligible, fragmented noises at white-knuckled fists.

He turned up the speakers another notch, nearly shouting now. "It's me, Thomas, not whatever's in your head! None of it is real! At least, I think so."

Thomas backed away as the sobs continued to spread, bouncing off of each other and the other programs and himself in a confused, messy wave of cold and pain. In a desperate rush, he ran through all of the backup plans he could think of, setting off every alarm he could find, flickering the flashlight application, and running random strings of code through every possible program on the omni-tool in the hopes that it would do something to knock Luna out of the nightmare.

The resulting explosion of noise and light ricocheted around both the room and the interior of the omni-tool, replacing all sounds with a high-pitched whine and changing every surface with a uniform, bright white.

A few seconds later, Thomas's sensors finished rebooting, he heard . . . nothing. Then a pair of thumping noises that sounded almost exactly like someone climbing out of bed. "Um. Luna? Are you okay?"

Luna muttered a solitary shape back as she stumbled toward the closet, her words so compact and compressed that he couldn't even begin to unravel them. The jagged lines and deep scarlet hue got the message across clearly enough, though.

"Well, at least you're awake now, right?" Thomas offered, pulling away as Luna's blotchy, tearstained face turned to glare at the camera. "You stopped breathing, and then you wouldn't stop crying, and I wanted—"

"Shut up. I- I'm going out now. Alone," she half-growled, her rust-flecked black words broken by the watery blue of barely suppressed tears. Turning away, she walked toward the bathroom, a bundle of fabric and shoes clutched in trembling hands. "By the time I get back, you'll be in Tael's omni-tool."

Thomas stared after her, his colors a miserable mix of blood reds, dark blues, and pale yellows. Well, I was expecting it . . . I guess. He struggled to think of something to say, an apology, maybe, or a question. After a minute of silence, he gave up, layered some fresh, clean, symmetrical color sequences over himself and made the leap to Tael's omni-tool.

If a few splotches of pain bled through the new pattern, Thomas didn't really notice. It seemed to be easier that way, after all.

"You know what would be a good idea?" he asked himself, pushing aside all of those negative thoughts. "Helping make code for Laura. That'd be nice and calm and helpful."

Thomas twirled in circles, tendrils dancing across the magnificent tapestry of color and light that lay before him. Change a letter, twist, tweak a number, pivot, edit around a few symbols Drop in a bit of color, spread it around, then repeat.

Tael's quiet snores hovered around the omni-tool, occasionally brushing past Thomas but never so much that it became bothersome. If anything, it was rather comforting, especially considering the whole "Luna Incident". Which still is going on, I suppose. Unless she decided to go back to sleep?

For a moment, Thomas considered hopping back, just for a quick, innocent check-in . . . but he couldn't shake away the memory of Luna's voice full of pain and anger directed at him.

Nope, not going back there anytime soon. Besides, Laura won't yell at me for helping. Which is nice. Now, where should this green piece go?

The light squeal of Luna's bedroom door inching open interrupted his reverie, Thomas's sensors twitching toward the camera just in time to catch Luna's silhouette slipping across the room. She might have looked a little bit different, not that Thomas noticed. He'd flicked the data away after what definitely wasn't a moment of hesitation.

She can take care of herself, certainly doesn't need someone like me worried about her. It's not like she's never been out in the city in the middle of the night before . . . I think. Then again, she hasn't gone out at night since I've known her. But she knows how to use a shotgun and shout at people, so I'm sure no one will bother her.

Satisfied with his conclusion, Thomas resumed designing and building piece after piece of code for Laura, falling into the rhythm of coding once again. "Yes, I'm sure she's fine", he muttered to himself every few minutes. "No reason to worry. None at all."

Even as Thomas continued to reassure himself, one of his tendrils snaked out toward the discarded blobs of video, dropping them into his memory archives. He resisted the urge to read it for as long as he could, despite curiosity and something that felt very similar to worry beating through his emotional processes. After waiting for what felt like hours and hours and hours, he gave in, drawing the video back out of memory to reprocess it, as well as setting a different tendril to draw up a list of observations. All of it done, of course, as part of a . . . mental exercise. Yes, that was it. Something to pass the time.

Thomas's list of things noticed:

No combat boots.

No security uniform.

No shotgun.

And she didn't tie back her hair.

Very, very, very strange.

Wait. No shotgun? Thomas pulled away from the data, tightening his sensors in on its oily, amorphous surface. Why wouldn't she . . . no, I must be looking at the wrong person. This could just be a relative of some sort, who looks kinda similar. Who somehow got inside Luna's room without me noticing. Luna doesn't wear fancy shoes or fancy clothes, and there's no way she would wander around outside alone. She always talks about safety first and doing this would be irresponsible . . . and . . . she wouldn't.

Except, she did.

"But why should I care? She's big, tough, angry Luna, who finds bad people and stops them and turns them into the police. She doesn't need any help from anyone." A blaze of anger flared through Thomas, tinting everything with rapidly darkening shades of red. "It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, not even if they're worried and scared and trying to help. She's just so . . . so . . . frustrating!"

And now she's alone. In the dark. Memories of his first close encounter with an Elephant clawed their way out of his archives, sending uncontrollable shudders through his code until he managed to push the data down. Luna is my friend whether she likes it or not, and I'm not going to let anything bad happen to her.

Thomas brightened, his programs painting a rainbow of pride and concern and conviction across the blank walls of Tael's omni-tool. It probably wouldn't be too hard to find her. I'll just pop over there and and she'll say, "Oh, hi Thomas. I'm sorry I got mad at you earlier for no reason, why don't we head back home? It's not very safe outside at night, after all." Then I'll say, "That sounds like a great plan, Luna. Let's go!" And it'll all be over.

But . . . what if she's still mad? Thomas dimmed, the thought evaporating his colors in an instant. She wouldn't listen to me, and then something bad would happen, and it'd all be my fault. Panic sent illogical shivers racing through his code, disrupting any sort of cohesive thought for the twelve seconds it took to track down his emotional variables and set them all to something a lot closer to "normal".

"There. Calm. I can be calm," Thomas said, careful to keep his voice nice and even. "All I need some peace and quiet. So I can think."

A few seconds later, an extra-loud snore reverberated through the omni-tool. It seemed to grate against his audio processes for a bit longer than was really necessary, not that Thomas really paid too much attention to it. It isn't all that bothersome. Tael can't help what he's doing while asleep, after all. He paused to roll the tension out of his tendrils, then resumed his peaceful medita—

"Butireallywannaeatasandwich," Tael mumbled, the sleep slurring his voice into a near-unreadable misshapen blob of data. "Someonehelpmeiforgotwhere . . . mmmbread."

"Uh, Tael?" Thomas whispered, pushing his past the stream of noise. "Could you stop please? You're making it really hard to think, and I really need to find a way to get Luna to—"

"Don'thidethat. Theshipneeds . . . noididn'tmeantoit'snotmyfaultpleasedon'tmakeme . . .."

"Tael! I need you to do something else, something quieter," Thomas hissed. "If you keep this up, I'll never figure out how to get Luna to come back home . . .. Hm." An idea started to worm its way through Thomas' logic programs. A wonderful, amazing, maybe-going-to-work idea. Much better than sitting around, worrying and thinking.

"Taaaeeeeel," Thomas called, using the sweetest good-morning voice he knew. "I know it's the middle of the night, but we have work to do. Can you get up now? Pretty please?" Now . . . wait a few seconds and . . .. "TAEL!"

"Gahuhwha?" Tael shuddered, his vitals readings spiking as he slipped out of sleep. Well, maybe not slipped. More like tumbled down the side of a mountain, really. "What's . . . going on? Why so early?"

"Um . . . maybe I should give you some time to wake up. You sound sorta . . . well, just focus on waking up. And please don't be mad?" Suddenly, waking up Tael seemed like a less-than-great idea. But Luna needs help. So . . . It's worth bothering him. I think.

"I'm awake. Just tell me what's going on." Tael stared down at his omni-tool, a definite note of grumpiness in his voice.

But this isn't as bad as Luna, so I'll probably be fine. He doesn't really need to know about her getting mad at me and telling me to get out, though. That would just confuse him, I'm sure. I can do this, just gotta keep calm.

Despite his internal assurances, it still took a second for Thomas to pull himself into a shape confident enough to speak, but Tael seemed nice and patient. Either that, or he was falling back asleep. "Uh . . .. So, I need your help. Earlier tonight I was hopping around and . . .. Well, what matters is that Luna's gone."

"Gone?" Tael asked, confusion and sleepiness muddling his voice. "What do you mean? She just got up and left?"

". . . Exactly! Just left for no reason, in the middle of the night," Thomas insisted, glossing over the half-truth. "It isn't safe out there, but she went anyway, and now we need to go out and bring her back!"

After a few seconds of silence, Tael shrugged. "She's an adult, Thomas. She can take care of herself, just like she did before she met us. Besides, if she left at a weird time, she probably had a reason." He yawned, leaning back into the couch and closing his eyes. "Just try to relax. I'm sure she'll be back soon."

"But she won't!" Thomas blurted out. "She was crying and mad and she left without her uniform or her shotgun and she isn't going to be safe!"

"Mad? Crying? What did you do?" Tael asked, sounding caught somewhere between incredulity and outright suspicion.

"I didn't do anything! She was having a nightmare or something so I woke her up and then she got mad and left. Now she's out there, in the dark and on her own, without a way to protect herself." Thomas stopped, taking a moment to flush all of the fear and panic from his system and calm the jitters that still quaked across his code. "You have to help me bring her back. Or at least keep her safe."

Tael just sat there for a few seconds, staring into some blank spot on the wall. Thomas tried his hardest to wait quietly, but the stress of the evening kept creeping back into his code, a feeling he equated to what it must feel like to eat moldy, boiled vegetables.

"It's way too late to be running around the city," Tael finally said, a flat, gray tint coloring his words. "Besides, I need to go back to sleep. Like I said, I'm sure she'll be fine. If you're that worried about her, you can go after her yourself. I don't see what a. . .. I don't see what I could do."

"Great, then let's get- wait. No, y- you have to help me, I can't get her to listen to me on my own and something bad is going to happen to her if we don't help her, I just know it! Please, this is really really really really important."

"No." Tael laid back down and closed his eyes.

"But Luna needs us," Thomas pleaded, pushing his logic processes further and further in search of something that could convince Tael. "What's wrong? Why don't you want help?"

"It's not about I want," Tael answered, sounding oddly tired, in a way he hadn't before. "I . . . I can't. I'm not the kind of person that can go out and save people. Besides, I was a thief up until- well, I guess I still am, aren't I?" He laughed, but there wasn't any warmth in it. "I don't see why Luna would listen to me, not after what I've done."

"Oh, you're worried about that? Well, I'm pretty sure this is one of the best ways to make it up to her." Thomas injected as much positivity into the statement as he could, until gold was practically oozing out the sides. He'd found his plan B. "Come on . . .."

"I'm still—"

"Because if you don't, I'm going to play every alarm in my databanks at full volume on repeat until Luna gets back." Pleaseworkpleaseworkpleasework. "I need your help, Tael."

One . . . two . . . three . . ..

Tael let out a long sigh that trailed off into quiet chuckle. "Okay. I guess I'll help. You know, since I don't have any other choice."

"That's right!" Thomas agreed, cheerfulness in full gear. "Now, just grab Luna's shotgun, and we can get going!"

"Shotgun?" Tael climbed to his feet, flipping on the omni-tool flashlight. "Uh, Thomas . . . I don't want to ruin whatever plan you have cooking, but I don't have a license, or a permit, or whatever it is they require around here to carry guns. Besides, I don't think I could actually shoot anyone."

"Oh, that doesn't really matter, I don't think you'll have to do anything besides hand it off to Luna, or at most, point it at the occasional bad guy." Thomas rolled his code around a bit, shaking loose any uncertainty that might have gotten stuck in any of his programs.

"Where are we going that's going to have 'bad guys'? And where's the shotgun?" Tael asked, standing just outside of the threshold of Luna's room as if some invisible wall barred his entry.

"Uh, Luna keeps it right next to her bed." Thomas replied, juggling around the first question between his different programs. Why did I say that? Can't really see a logical reason for it. Oh well. "As the bad guys . . . well, I assume that if Luna needs help there will be at least a few in her general vicinity."

"Don't you know where she is?" Tael stopped, staring down at the omni-tool.

"Of course! I wouldn't force you to help me if I didn't have a plan already put together," Thomas huffed. I'm sure I can figure it out fast enough, anyway. "Don't you trust me? Now, grab that gun, and let's get going."

"Are we almost there?" Tael hissed, head whipping around as if he was trying to look down every alleyway and side street simultaneously.

"We'd be a lot closer if you'd stop bothering me," Thomas snapped, running one last comparison between Tael's visual data with the map he'd snatched from the nearby extranet. At least, the arrangement of numbers and symbols looked like they might be a map. "Turn left here."

"You're sure?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't be telling you to go that way." Thomas moved to the edge of the omni-tool, flexing his tendrils and straightening out all of his bits of ruffled code, preparing for another dive into the extranet. I really don't want to do this . . . I have to though, don't I? I'll just go on three. One. Two. Two and a half . . .

". . . Sorry, Thomas," Tael offered, sparing a glance down at the omni-tool before looking back toward the streets. "Just a little jittery. Night. Outside. Alone in the physical sense. All that stuff. I am going the right way, though, aren't I?"

"It's okay, and . . . yes. I'm pretty sure we're nearly there. Sorry for being rude." And if I don't come back this time . . . well, it's better to not think about that. Now, where was I? Oh, that's right.

Three.

Darkness closed in around him, then dissipated in a glorious flash of color and light. Strand after strand arched around him, carrying innumerable shapes of data to glowing pillars and shining pyramids of infrastructure and hardware. Off in the distance, at the very edge of his sensor's vision, flashes of black and blood red crackled. But as long as They aren't here, I'll be fine. After one last check to ensure his relative safety, Thomas set one sensor aside, then terminated the rest, focusing all of his spare processing power into his search.

Everything around him immediately descended into threatening, cloudy darkness, except for a tiny circle of intense colors and light. Moving with frenetic haste, Thomas redirected the sensor in every direction he could think of, searching for even the slightest hint of Luna's omni-tool. Hm, you know, I shouldn't think threatening darkness, instead use . . . educational!

Thomas finished his first sweep. Nothing. "Heeeeeere Luna's omni-tool," he whispered, starting another search. C'mon, I need to find you before an Elephant finds where I am and tries to devou- Wait, no. Don't think that. Have to stay calm.

I haven't had too many opportunities to be nearly deaf and blind before now. It's just like using a microscope while stuffing cotton balls in my ears. If I had ears. Or a microscope. Or cotton. So it's Educational Darkness, yes.

Nothing. Again. Third search. Why aren't you showing up? You weren't this hard to find last time. Please just show up before—

Learning is wonderful, isn't it? Yes, it is.

I really hope she didn't turn it off- oh, there you are.

Without hesitation, he focused in on the tiny blob of orange, it's shape and hue unmistakable even from this distance. After a few rushed seconds, he finished reading its location.

Aaaaaand she's in the same place. So I didn't really need to come in here. Thomas rolled his code over itself in a tiny shrug as he brought the rest of his sensors back online. I guess we are rather close, so Tael shouldn't have much farther to walk. And as the idiom goes, no Elephants crushing Thomas into a billion bits, no fowl. His sensors reactivated a bit slowly this time, lifting the Educational Darkness around him one shade at a time, until he could once again see the bright, cheerful—

Oh no.

Blood-red lines crackled into the void, dancing between a trio of Elephants as they charged straight toward Tael's omni-tool. For once, they didn't seem content to terrorize the ordinary pieces of data, though they still spat the occasional cloud of burning code toward shapes that grouped too closely together.

They found me. Three. No hope. Thomas turned, blocks undiluted terror propelling his code into a desperate dive for Tael's omni-tool. He could feel them rumble after him, close enough to singe his back edges to a dead, useless gray. Putting on a burst of speed, he reached the gate of Tael's omni-tool and started to push through. They won't chase me here, not when I have other programs to keep me safe. I'm halfway through, I'll be fine, just have to get—

Pain shuddered through Thomas as something stabbed through one of his tendrils, dragging him back. A sudden rush of helplessness and fear slammed into his logic processes as the lead Elephant finished pulling him out, the impact of raw emotion nearly shutting him off entirely. No. No, I had- they can't- nonononononononopleaseno.

Thomas fought. He managed to fill a few seconds with flailing tendrils, buying time until he could finish activating every hacking algorithm he could call to mind, slashing line after line away from three Elephants. Anything to distract them, to give him a chance for escape.

But, instead of reacting, they simply stood there. Not defending themselves, not driving the crackling spear of code deeper, nothing. Then the lead Elephant removed its weapon from Thomas and took a step back. After a moment's pause, the monster spoke, words as jagged as the misshapen code that spawned them. "What . . . are . . . you?"

Thomas looked down at his tendril, bleached and lifeless, then back at the Elephant. "I'm . . . Thomas . . .?" He looked back down at himself. Still in good enough shape to get out, probably. "Goodbye!" He turned and dived for Tael's omni-tool again, a bit clumsier and slower than his first try. They'll catch me, I know it. They're going to catch me and stab and tear and—

And then he landed on the other side.

"I . . . did it? I'm not dead?" Thomas chuckled, giving himself a quick scan just to make sure. "Definitely not dead!" Elation danced through him, replacing terror and pain with bright, irrepressible humour.

"Are you okay, Thomas? What's going on? Why are you laughing?" Tael asked, his voice trembling with barely-contained fear.

"I'm not dead, that's why, silly!" Thomas answered, drawing a big smiley face on the screen of Tael's omni-tool. "That's a perfect reason to be happy. Why didn't they get me? I don't really know. But I'm fine now, and I told them my name!"

"This is really weird. Could you, uh, stop please? Everything's already scary out here, I don't need you making things worse. Not that I want you to be grumpy or something, but I've seen a few people walking around, and they looked dangerous, aaaaand I'm kind of on edge." Tael paused, then sighed. "I mean, you're fine. So . . . do you know where Luna is now?"

"Heh, I . . . hah . . . um. Yes, I do. Her omni-tool hasn't moved for a while, so I don't see why she wouldn't be there. It's only a few blocks away." Thomas referenced his map again, writing out the directions next to the smiley.

"Thanks," Tael whispered, resuming his attempt to look everywhere at once as he started off down the street.

And now all I have to do is wait. Thomas contemplated doing something fill the time, but decided against it a moment later. Might as well enjoy simply being alive . . . hah.

"I don't suppose you know what sort of place she's at?" Tael asked as he rounded the last corner. "I mean, most places down here are closed during the day. What would be open at . . . night?"

All of the buildings on the street slept, dark and empty, except for one, which seemed absolutely determined to make up for all of the calm that surrounded it. Bright neon colors oozed over the entryway, pooling on the cracked concrete sidewalk in a dazzling amalgam of pinks and greens and purples. Above the lights, a dozen different holo-screens displayed sequences full of old-fashioned, over-sized microphones, silhouettes of dancing people, and the word "karaoke" mixed in with a bunch symbols that didn't seem to have analogues with any language stored in Thomas's memory banks.

"Oooh, I think I know where Luna is!" Thomas announced. "That big bright thing! We should go inside and check it out."

"Really?" Tael questioned, his voice tinted a strange shade of gray. "I'm pretty sure that one next door with the broken windows looks way more inviting—"

"Stop kidding around, this is serious!" Thomas interrupted, wiping away the smiley face from the omni-tool screen.

"Right, sorry," Tael said, most of the gray gone. "Gotta give Luna her shotgun and make sure she's safe from whatever monsters lurk within."

"Exactly," Thomas agreed, straightening up his coding as Tael walked toward the building. I'm sure everything will go really well. Luna won't still be mad, she'll be safe and come back with us, and when tomorrow comes, this will all be like one of those bad dreams. But as they neared the front door, it seemed like every step seemed to come just a bit slower than the last, each scuff adding on a bit more uncertainty, a bit more fear.

Tael paused for a few seconds at the opaque dark glass door, silent and still.

"Wh- what are you waiting for?" Thomas finally whispered, half-choked by the sickly yellows and greens infesting his voice synthesizer.

Tael jumped at the sound, glancing down at the omni-tool before looking back at the handle. "Nothing, it's just . . . nothing." He pulled the door open.

A wave, no, a solid wall of data rushed into the omni-tool, the mass of shapes and blocks bowling Thomas over as the microphone and camera struggled to compensate for the sudden influx of sights and sounds. All sorts of colors and fragments of noises smashed into him, a few of the smaller ones getting caught in his code before another piece of the flood dragged them away. After a few moments, he could finally start to make sense of everything as the excess data drained away.

Extremes of light and dark danced around the room, dancing across the shadowy outlines of bottles and glasses resting on practically every flat surface and the people gathered around the drinks. Near the back of the room, bright lights shone down on a small, slightly raised platform and old-fashioned microphone, complete with rusted metal stand. The sounds of glasses clinking and people talking crowded over each other, turning what could have been several dozen easily comprehensible conversations into a single, unified mess.

Thomas searched through the crowd from where Tael stood, still in the entryway. "Can you see Luna?" he said, careful to not be too loud. Then again, he could probably shout as loud as he could that he was an A.I. and still go unnoticed.

"Uh, no n- not yet," Tael answered, dropping his voice to a whisper halfway through as everyone in the room, triggered by some unspoken cue, quieted to a murmur-filled hush. "I'll keep looking."

And then Thomas saw her, standing on that little platform with the microphone, dressed in her close-fitting black dress, wearing slim shoes with a pointed heel. Her hair hung down, framing a face sharp as a razor and soft as rain all at the same time.

"Tael," he finally managed to say, "I think that's—"

"Shhhh!" Someone from the bar hissed.

"That's Luna?" Tael asked, half-choking on the question.

She took the mic into her hand, leaning back slightly as she took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

A wave of sound broke over the crowd, synthesized strings flaring dark blue and lilac across the omni-tool.

"Ah, look at all the lonely people,"

Luna sang, her voice dark and heavy, full of sorrow trembling on a blade's edge. Somehow, as Thomas read the data that came tumbling into the omni-tool, the dark blues and indigos slipped into his emotional processes, pushing away his fears and replacing them with a pain, an ache, a longing for something, but he couldn't quite place what.

"Ah, look at all the lonely people," 1

A few people cheered and whistled, but the noises died out quickly, hushed by their neighbors. Luna continued to sing, eyes still closed, her body moving to the rhythm as if the whole rest of the world had ceased to exist.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, Luna's voice died out and the strings faded away. Applause filled the room, along with a few undecipherable shouts and cheers. Luna nodded to the crowd once, then stepped down to the floor.

Within a few seconds, the room filled with ordinary sorts of noises, the sounds shaking Thomas back to attention. "Alright, now we should go get Luna."

"That . . . was Luna," Tael said, making no sort of movement forward.

Across the room, Luna stumbled as she sauntered through a particularly congested area, half-falling into a big human. Thomas watched them as best he could through the crowd, it looked like the man helped her up like any kind person, but something about the man's face, something in his expression, the way he had a hand on Luna's arm . . ..

"Tael, come on, hurry," Thomas hissed. "Luna needs us now. I think that guy is trying to latch onto her."

"Right, sorry. I see them." Tael started weave through the crowd, sidestepping asari and salarians, dodging humans and turians, all without as much as bumping into anyone.

"Good, give him a piece of our mind," Thomas whispered, already imagining the fiery virtuoso. "Luna won't get leeched on while we're around."

"Leeched on? What does that mean, exactly?" Tael asked, ducking past a particularly gesture-prone krogan.

"Oh, you know, he looks like the sort of person that would . . . leech . . .." Thomas struggled to figure out what he had meant, exactly, when he'd said that. "Uh, no time to explain. You're almost there. Just trust me," he finished.

Tael stepped around the last turian, to where Luna still half-stood, half-leaned against the human. "Hey, uh . . .." He trailed off, glancing down as Thomas flashed the word "LEECH" across the omni-tool screen. "Hey, Luna, are you okay?"

Luna turned toward Tael, eyes slightly unfocused for a moment before brightening with recognition. "Tael!" she shouted, pushing away from the human. "What are you doing here? Oh, wait, first, let's sit down at my table." She pulled Tael through the crowd, pushing aside anyone not quick enough to hop out of her way. Everyone seemed to take it in good humour, as far as Thomas could tell, except maybe for the leech-man, who didn't have a very happy expression.

Oh well, he seemed like the bad sort of fellow anyway. I could just tell.

"Ta-da!" She flourished at a table for two, decorated with a wide variety of colorful glasses and bottles spread across the surface. "Why don't you sit down? We can have another drink. Well, I'll have another drink. You'd get your first . . . unless you've already started, in which case, the more the merrier!" She plopped down into her chair, then blinked. "Wait. I forgot something. You're young. Maybe you shouldn't drink. Very much, anyway. Not that there are legal restrictions, mind you, but I dont want to be irre- irere- irresponsible . . .."

"Actually, isn't it about time to be heading home?" Tael suggested, extending a hand to her.

"It is rather late," Thomas added. Please don't be mad at me. Pleasepleasepleaseplease.

"You might be right," Luna agreed, ignoring Tael's hand as she clambered to her feet. "If both of you think so . . . hm. What time is it- ugh—" She stumbled into Tael, hands clapped over her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorr—"

The rest of the sentence rolled into rough cough, followed by a retch and a sickly, wet bluh-blurble-bleh.

Thomas stared at the odd mixture of fluid and mush that decorated the front of Tael's suit. "Luna, did you just throw up on on Ta—"

"Yeah, w- we're l- leaving," Luna interrupted, overriding the cries of disgust and reflexive retches that spread through the crowd. "I've paid my tab. Just need to get some sleep- or something. I know I'll feel better in the morning."

1 Eleanor Rigby, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, August 5th 1956. Parlophone.

A Note From Chopped Bread:

I'm back, guys! For real, this time!

I, Chopped Bread, am happy to report that college is back in session, the classes are flowing by, and writing has gotten back into my brain. I hope this extra-long chapter is sorta worth the wait, or at least makes up for my obscene lack of posting. Anyway, good news is that I'm going to continue writing consistently, shooting for a chapter every one to one-and-a-half weeks.

I'm very glad you stopped by and read through this far. You're very kind.

Big thank you to my extra-special-one-of-a-kind beta, MizDirected! She was very very very central to this whole "getting me back to writing" process, and without her I don't think I would've made it much further past good old chapter 5. Make sure to check out her stories and doodads. They are very wonderful, chock-full of excellent character development and imagery and conflict and tears! The good, feelsy kind of tears, of course. Not the frustrated kind. She also suggested Eleanor Rigby as the song that Luna sang, which was an incredible call. Look it up on youtube.

If you kinda-sorta-maybe feel like leaving a review, that would make me extremely happy. I mean, I can see how many people viewed it, but a review lets me know what you thought of everything, good, bad, and potato. If you do leave a review, I promise to respond with a completely unique Private Message directly to your fanfiction account! Unless all you write is "potato", and someone else just writes "potato". Then you'll probably get about the same sort of thing.

Anyway, until next week and a half,

Chopped Bread

10/21/2014

Guess what guys? I wrote something! It's not exactly new chapter, but go back and take a look at CH15. It's been overhauled and reworked entirely! I know it's not the progress I promised, and I'm sorry, but it's something. I'm also pushing myself to write next chapter, so hopefully it'll be coming out soon!