*Haha, oops. I thought I posted this a week ago. My bad! Here you go.*

The next day I brought the new people into the Coders' room. Mollie sat on the side of Karin's bed, holding her hand while Michael sat in a chair across from Sarvajna, who looked positively giddy. "This poor woman," Mollie sighed, brushing a single tear from her face. "She feels so lost. She's fully present…hell, she's more present than the rest of us." She turned to face me. "She can feel every change in her body and the air around her. She's hyper aware. It's what has brought her to this state. She just kind of…overloaded."

"That sounds about right," Phelan sighed. "She could smell a change in the weather coming or when the number of people in an area changed. She…she said the wind told her. She was already kind of crazy when I joined her group."

Mollie shook her head. "That wasn't insanity, it was misunderstanding. If one becomes completely in tune with the world around them then they can feel when the wind blows differently or has a slightly different scent to it." Mollie put a hand on Karin's cheek. "She's really quite extraordinary." The passion with which Mollie spoke made her even more beautiful. Even Phelan, who I had learned was gay, stared at her like she was a goddess come to earth.

"This is amazing," Michael chuckled. "She thinks at the speed of a million thoughts per second."

"Sie ubertreiben," Sarvajna scolded jokingly.

Michael laughed. "I'm only exaggerating by a little," he replied. He looked over to me. "It's amazing. I can hardly read her thoughts. She has so many going all at once in all different languages it's like…it's like a giant multicultural fair going on in her head equivalent to the population of Tokyo."

I nodded. "Many tongues in her one head." Sarvajna grinned at me.

"I have no idea what that means," Michael replied bluntly, continuing to examine Sarvajna.

The girl looked at me and rolled her eyes. "So self centered this one is," she sighed, though Michael hardly noticed.

I tried not to laugh then mouthed to her Be nice. Sarvajna shrugged then stared back at Michael. I left Tyler, Sonja and Phelan to watch the new people and went down the stairs toward the dock. I flopped down in one of the large lounge chairs by the dock. I stared up at the moon, which would be full in a few hours, and the beautiful starry sky. There wasn't a cloud in the sky which made the breeze a little chilly. Autumn was still a month and a half away but I could tell by the breeze that we'd have an early one. I could always smell season changes. Kind of like what Mollie had been saying about Karin. It was just a different smell on the wind.

Gia walked up, derailing my train of thought, and plopped down next to me on the wide chair. She smiled at me then looked up at the moon. I examined her, cautiously. "You're not going to try and seduce me are you?" I asked, half joking. "Because I'm not going to let you get away with it this time, missy!"

"No," Gia laughed. "I'm here purely in a friend capacity."

"Oh," I said happily, grinning. "That's nice….wait." I sat up and narrowed my eyes at her. "So I'm going to need a friend? What's wrong?"

Gia rolled her eyes. "Calm down, Mari." I waited but she didn't deny my suspicions. She placed a hand on my shoulder and pulled me so I was lying next to her on the lounge chair. "It's okay. Just be here with me in the moment. Stop worrying about what's to come. You do enough of that."

I shook my head, looking up at that beautiful moon. "I do it, sure, but not enough. If I thought—"

"Oh blah blah!" Gia sighed, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at me. "So the people that you freed are crumbling. It sucks, yeah, but it's not because of anything you did, you moron."

"Hey," I started to retort but Gia gave me a warning look which said SHUT UP.

Gia narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "They were being experimented on. Stuff was being put into their bodies. They were trying to change poor Sonja's basic genetic structure!"

I closed my eyes. "I know what they were doing. Please…don't remind me."

Gia tapped my forehead and I opened my eyes. "But you got them away from that. Okay? Stop doing this stupid tortured thing. It's terribly unattractive."

I wrapped my arms around Gia's shoulders, hugging her tightly until she complained that I was sucking the life out of her. When I let go she laughed and put her head on my shoulder. "Thank you," I sighed. Despite any romantic feelings either of us may or may not have had, Gia was one of my best friends. She was one of the few I had let get close to me. "But I do have to think about what we do next."

"I know…it makes you a good leader," Gia said, smiling. "Even the Trickster thinks you're a good leader."

"What?"

Gia lifted her head to look at me. "He could have just sent some of his subjects or something to do his bidding. Instead, he sends some powerful humans to serve you." I began to argue but stopped. Why did he send them to aid me? But I didn't have much time to consider it because Gia started talking about the stars. I told her what I thought the constellations were and she…corrected me. Apparently Orion isn't in the sky during the summer, no matter how many groupings of three stars you see. I didn't know.

I don't even remember what we were laughing about when Tyler came out. I'd never seen him look sad before. It was painful. "Tyler?" I asked, standing up. "What's wrong?" Gia remained seated because she knew what had happened.

"Karin uh…Karin passed away," Tyler sighed, his eyes red.

I shook my head. "I was…I was just up there. She was fine!"

"A minute or two after you left Mollie started telling us that Karin was afraid. That she could feel her body…erupting, she said." Tyler couldn't speak anymore.

"The equipment in her head and around her more vital organs finally overheated," Gia sighed softly from the chair. Her big brown eyes met my gaze. "She…she basically burned from the inside out."

My eyes widened then I looked over at Tyler. He was actually crying now. Angry tears. "She was in so much pain," he finally managed to choke out. "I knew it. She would look at me like…" He balled his hands into fists. "She would look at me like she wanted me to kill her. Put her out of her misery. She didn't deserve that kind of death."

I hugged Tyler, putting my head against his chest, and he cried into my hair. He honestly blamed himself for her painful death. He couldn't have known what she was feeling or how painful her death would be. He's worse than you, a voice told me. I still can't be certain where the voice came from. If it was a god or a ghost or just my subconscious mind. All I knew was that it was right.

And just like that, I knew what we needed to do.

"Look," Phelan sighed. "I agree, we need to do something but…split up?"

There was a clamor of people agreeing with him. "We can do it," I replied loudly. "You guys are extremely tough. I mean…this place is great. It's safe. But if there's one thing I learned from the war it's that trouble will find you. We can't just sit around. There are people out there, like Phelan and Sonja and Sarvajna—"

"And Karin," Tyler added.

I nodded. "And Karin. People out there who need help. It's too much to expect them to come to us. We need to find them and help them. Scour the country looking for them."

"It's a lovely thought," Lin sighed. "But, and I don't mean to simply be a naysayer, what good can we do for them? We have no idea how to help them." Some people murmured in agreement.

"I'm more than a little aware of that. Which is why I'll be leading a group to find some people who will be so gracious as to help us out."

"How?" Tara asked, softly. "How will you find them?"

Mollie stood. "With Sarvajna's help I can do an extremely potent locator spell. Find all of them. Well…all of the living ones at least. And, since Michael and I are psychics of sorts that will probably be of some use."

"And the other Coders?" Lin asked. "How will we find them?" Some people turned to glare. "Again, not nay saying. I just want to be sure all of our bases are covered."

I smiled. "It's okay, Lin."

"It will take some concentration," Gia sighed, "but I think I could easily find some. I'll just have to look through connecting lifelines…" She trailed off when she realized that no one else understood what she was talking about. "I…I can do it."

A redheaded Son of Erebus, named Eric, raised his hand. "I can sense vampyres and their abilities. With vampyres who have been meddled with their presence is…altered. So that's kind of helpful. I mean…I can't sense humans but—"

"Good enough," I replied with a smile. Then I looked out at everyone. "Any other suggestions? Any…complaints about this idea?"

David stood and walked over to me. "You're our general, Mari. We'll do as you say."

"No," I replied. "I'm not…I won't be the one to give orders. I want this to be a group effort. We aren't at war anymore. We're cleaning up after it. In war there is no room for voting or whatnot. There must be one voice, and it happened to be my voice. But in life we all have choices to make all of the time."

"Fine," Tyler chuckled, despite the depression which was clear in his eyes. "Let's put it to a vote. Those in favor?" All but three or four people raised their hands. "Those opposed?" Two of those people raised their hands. Tyler turned to me. "The ayes have it."

"Good," I sighed. "We have no time to waste."