Delta deactivated his depth perception compensation sub-routine immediately.

Riding passenger side with South was a matter of coordination and research; York's memories were familiar, but hers had the capacity to surprise and shock him, and it was those things that kept him quiet about the adjustment for a while. Logically, there was no reason to tell her that she saw the world differently than his previous partner had ever done, or that the armor siphoned records and bio into him immediately after the implantation. He had done his calculations already. He didn't need to tell her that the moment he saw the newly contoured world from inside her head, he knew what happened to North.

She almost crashed the Banshee on a rocky beach. "What was that, D? You said we had clearance!"

"I am not accustomed to advising an individual possessed of two eyes."

"That isn't my fault!"

She was saying it under duress, he knew, as the stolen ship shook around their armor shell. Her heart rate was escalating, her undersuit prepping the biofoam it might need as her brain registered the danger. She barely knew what she was saying as anger and adrenaline shoved its way into her nervous system. This was normal operating procedure for a Freelancer.

She could see, though.

The ship creaked and rocked into the sand. South's head slammed forward, and things came to a stop with her forearms braced against the alien console.

"It would have been safer if you had kept your arms off of the console," Delta said. "Your muscles have tensed. You arms could have been damaged."

South kicked her way out of the cockpit onto a sunny beach. Gulls called. "Yeah, I'll try to relax as I crash a ship on an alien planet while running from the government. Brilliant."

Delta reshuffled algorithms. York had been picking locks for a long time, and he liked even hesitant compliments for his illegal actions. "For what it is worth, I believe a human might even admire your forward behavior," he said.

South turned to look at the ship, assessing the purple-glazed, tangled wing struts. Another glance at the rocky outcrop above - the one they had almost hit - and she shook her head. "Did you always tell York how great he was after something he did crashed and burned?"

"Actually … "

"Don't tell me." She started to trudge along the beach. The armor seemed to weigh heavy on her, but Delta could factor in her brother's death and the Meta's attack and surmise that the affect was not physical. "I didn't expect that to be a side effect of having one of you guys. It's like a motivational speech."

"Does this make you more or less wary of my presence?"

She stalled, looking out at the beach. "I'm not wary."

"You expressed hesitation when Wash suggested I implant with you."

"Yeah, because it was Wash saying it. Hard to complete your mission when proof of its failure is staring you in the face."

"Wash's AI was … possessed of unique traits."

South kept walking, sticking to the wetter, darker strip where each step was an effortless fight against the sand's tendency to pull. "You don't have to explain that one to me."

"Acknowledged. My commentary on events which you practically witnessed yourself is not necessary."

South gritted her teeth. Humans liked favorable comparisons between themselves and others, Delta thought. Compliments received positive results 80 percent of the time, considering an individual as naturally self-reliant and willful as York. South's current emotional state might require more sensitivity than the rapport Delta had developed with the synapses that had once been York, but the premise was the same.

"Your eyes make battlefield assessment much more smooth - " Delta began.

South said, "You know why I wanted one?"

The percentage went down.

"I believe you are talking about the AI," Delta said. He recognized the tone South had taken with Wash before he had set the charges on her brother's body: introspective, comfortable, memory piled on the years between when the project had begun and when it had broken. Likelihood of telling the truth: slim but increasing.

"I thought it would make me different from him. I wouldn't have the same AI, so there'd be something that could never be identical for us. I could tell it things. It could do what I told it. Like a pet, but smarter."

"A younger sibling."

"No. That would be different. You AI are smart, but I know you're just machines."

"While that is technically true, the very nature of being a smart AI made from a human brain, or in this case, a fragment of a smart AI made from a human brain, means that we are just as self-aware and intelligent as a human, more so than many children."

"Still machines. Some lines don't get crossed, D." South spotted a modern lighthouse in the distance, a thin pole emitting radio waves. "We'll head to the next town and see if we can get transport off this planet. I'm going … to Earth, or home, or somewhere, and changing my freaking name."

"I have to warn you that I may not be operating at 100 percent if we get into a firefight, despite you possessing typical vision capabilities. Changing from Wash's storage to your neural port was … disorienting for me as well."

"Tell me about it."

"While the electrical current is standardized, the - "

"Not like that!" She almost snorted.

"I am aware of the humor this may provide you, South. But I am also aware that humans like to talk. I could replicate a different sound, if you would find it soothing."

"Stop talking."

"What happened to your brother, South?"

The question had been prompted by her command. If the agent told him to be silent, he would have to be silent. This question, though, needed answering before she figured out the command words that Wash had already known.

South stopped walking. The lighthouse was a black needle in the distance. Closer, waves wrapped around her cloven boot.

Delta knew that South had stood by while North fell to the thing they couldn't track: that video was in her armor's onboard records. The challenge now, though, the question that would have been the whodunit if he was a detective standing at a metal desk, was what she thought she'd done. She would be glowering at him in cuffs, just as angry in custody as if she was free. In the hypothetical interrogation room scenario, South would be planning escape routes.

She said, "He died." She kept walking, kicking up clods of wet sand. Water trickled dark down the crevasses of her boot.

"You said that some lines should not get crossed," Delta said. "Does that include the line between killing your brother and letting him be killed?"

"I said some lines do not. Don't you have perfect recall?"

"Of a sort."

"He could have gotten out of the way, D. I was sure of that much."

"And do you think there/s nobility in that?"

"Where's nobility in Freelancer? You're telling me being put on secret corpse duty is noble? At least York got to live out his lone ranger fantasies or whatever he thought he was doing out there. None of us are noble, D. We didn't sign up for that program."

Judging by voice analysis and comparison to her conversation with Wash, her envy was a little under 50 percent sincere. There was another option she could have taken, though. Why did she talk to him at all?

"Why are you telling me all of this, South?" Delta said. "You clearly have resolved to be less than helpful. You also could remain silent."

"I wanted to see if you could get distracted."

Delta considered. "It is likely that we are going to encounter the Meta again, is it not?"

"It's possible."

"It would be beneficial to both of us if I was not distracted."

Now she took the hook on the end of her own line, caught in the trap for which the quietude had been bait. He felt her trepidation growing. It didn't debilitate her, however: her breathing had deepened and relaxed, her brain already forgetting its shock and noticing that she was not, at this very moment, in danger. That ability was part of the reason she had been accepted into Project Freelancer in the first place. As with many things, she shared it with her brother.

"For what it's worth, part of the reason I knew so quickly that you had forewarning of your brother's death was because I agree with it," Delta said. "You made the logical conclusion. Place one asset in front of the enemy to preserve another. Potentially even two, if North's death bought Wash any time."

South didn't voice her agreement. She kept walking, and Delta placed a ping on the lighthouse and what they could see of the small beach town behind it. One thousand, four hundred sixty two feet and counting. He stopped himself just before telling her. She didn't need it.