I sat at my familiar table, pondering everything that had happened. What had Wyoming wanted? What was this all about? Why had Washington and Oklahoma stepped in?

What were they planning?

Shining with aqua light, Mu appeared before me.

"It's about us, statistically speaking."

"Us? As in you and me and Phi?"

"As in the A.I." Phi whispered, appearing near me glass, her light refracting through it like a rainbow. "Us."

"Oh," I whispered softly. Was I hurt by not being included in that 'us'? The very notion was preposterous… Of course it was. "But what about you?"

"Your guess is as good as ours. Without sufficient evidence, any hypothesis would be no more than a shot in the dark."

"Great," I sighed under my breath, "We still know exactly –" I stopped, caught up in a sudden memory.

"Who's Alpha?"

"What?" Both A.I. looked equally flustered, as if I was mad.

"Alpha. Delta mentioned him – it – whatever- but Texas stopped him before he could say anything. He didn't even get the whole name out."

Phi and Mu exchanged looks.

"What?"

"Alpha…" Phi began, uncertain on how to continue.

"Alpha is our source. The A.I. from whom we all originate."

I paused to absorb that. "Okay, I don't understand. What do you mean - originate?"

"All the A.I. come from Alpha. We were all a part of him. We all still are."

I remembered something else Delta had said. "'All are analogous to fragments.' So, you're pieces of Alpha?"

"Fragments." Mu corrected.

"Like… " Phi paused, looking for the right analogy, "Like puzzle pieces."

"Wait, how did you get OUT of Alpha?" I questioned, struck by the thought. As far as I knew, A.I. didn't just spit out new A.I.

Their silence was deafening.

"No one knows," Phi whispered finally.

"You don't remember?" I said incredulous; how could A.I. forget?

"Do you remember being born?" Came Mu's even reply.

"I'm human! You're not! You're a computer program! You CAN'T forget!" I almost shouted, frustrated and desperate for answers.

"It is not that we forgot. It is that we do not remember."

I bit my lip, frustrated and confused. To be honest, I didn't understand much of this. For all I know, A.I. could just create new A.I. But it didn't seem likely.

"Okay, I'll admit I don't know anything about how A.I. work. But this, I know this isn't right. Nothing here is…" I said the last part under my breath, thinking of York, his eye, Texas, Wyoming, everything. Both the agents and the A.I.

Correlation or coincidence?

"Why hello there, Mu. Good day, Phi." My head snapped up at his arrival. Of course he was here.

"And a lovely hello to you, Cara."

"York," I nodded tersely; I had hardly spoken to him since I'd fallen. And since he'd visited me… But I wouldn't let myself waste time thinking about such nonsense. I had more important things on my mind. It was nonsense, I told myself firmly.

You're funny when you lie! Phi looked at me, a half smile on her lips, as I heard the thought she'd sent me.

Phi!

Well, you are.

Mu, help me, please?

She's not wrong…

Oh, you can both shut the hell up.

"I heard what happened today, Cara," York interrupted my mental reverie, jolting me from the silent conversation. "With Wyoming," he said the name with such a bitter disdain, I could tell neither of us particularly cared for the other agent. "And I'm sorry."

I stared at him, surprised by the last part. "Why the hell should you be sorry?"

"I should've been there, I should've –"

"Fought my battles for me? You know me better than that." And it was true. York *did* know me better than that, better than anyone else alive.

"Just because you can fight your own battles, doesn't mean you have to, Carolina," He stared at me intensely, his voice still soft.

I broke his gaze and looked down at the table, and muttered, "So I should just let you do everything for me?"

"I wouldn't dream of it, dear." And even though my head was down, I could feel him smile.

I fidgeted, uncomfortable with his smile, his casualness, his calling me 'dear.' I had tried to break Wyoming's arm for that, yet I couldn't even bear to tell York not to.

"What's the deal with Wyoming, anyway?" I blurted out, in a frantic need to fill the silence.

I looked up to York's darkened face. "He's Tex's partner. Also the worst piece of dirt I've ever met. He'd shoot you in the back, then call you 'mate' and "apologize" for it. He's ruthless and hides it behind a mask of manners and bad jokes."

I nodded silently. I'd experienced it first hand after all. "Are he and Texas close?"

"As close as anyone who's not her fiancé can be." He shrugged.

"Wait, her fiancé?" I asked incredulously. Texas had not seemed… the marriage type.

He scoffed, "Yeah, I know, it surprised the hell out of me too. Seems there's not only someone who puts up with Tex, but loves her. Who knew. The universe is a crazy place, after all."

"The craziest," I murmured, thinking of just this lone place, of my entire life. Loves could be destroyed in a second, and families could be torn apart by death and disaster.

And yet there were unexpected fiancés. Glimmers of light in suffocating darkness. Stars in the vacuum of space.

"Cara? You okay?" York stirred me from my reflections. So often, I drifted away in my thoughts. I wasn't used to talking to people.

"Sorry I was lost in thought, I guess."

He smiled, "You do that a lot. Where do you go?"

"I don't know. The universe?" I shrugged my shoulders and smirked softly, almost smiling. But I never smiled.

He laughed softly. Once I'd broken his nose for laughing at me. Now, I found that I loved his laugh. It was light and happy in the midst of all that was dark and confusing. His laugh didn't belong here, and it was all the more wonderful for it.

But what had changed? Him? Or me? Or something completely other?

You're not convicted to being miserable. Phi's thought shocked me. What did she mean?

"What do you do after dinner?" York blurted out suddenly, before I could ask Phi what she meant.

"What?" It was a knee-jerk response to his sudden and unexpected inquiry.

"I mean, all I ever see you do is train. So what do you do when it's over?"

I thought a moment before responding, "Well, I – "

"All she ever does is train! She never stops!"

"Phi!"

"So she never relaxes? Never just does something for herself?" He was addressing Phi, as if I wasn't even here!

"Never. We don't think she knows how."

"Not you, too, Mu!"

"Well we should probably fix that, wouldn't you say?"

"Definitely."

"Immediately."

"Delta, can't you control him? Stop him? Something?" I called his A.I., a note of panic rising in my voice.

"I do apologize, but York specifically request that I do not interfere."

"You planned this?" I near shouted at him as he got up, drawing a few, but not many, eyes. How quickly they had learned to ignore York's antics.

"Come on, you have to come, now; you're out-voted." He picked up my hand and pulled me out of my chair as he spoke.

"My own A.I. can't vote against me!" I protested as York pulled me along, now by my wrist.

"We can."

"And we did. We do!"

"Sorry, Cara, really, but you'll thank me later, I promise."

"I'll do no such thing!"

"You'll do need this, Cara. If you keep up like this, you'll burn out completely." He was so sweetly sincere for a moment. "And if you don't, you'll just disappear in a puff of smoke and ashes." And then he returned to form, of course.

"Do I even get to know where you're taking me? Against my will, I might add."

"Nope." He looked back at me, winking with his good eye. "It's a surprise." I stumbled over my own feet for a second, almost falling on my face. I regained my balance, red-faced and embarrassed. I never lost my balance...

He looked at me closely, making me fidget, "You okay?"

"I'm fine," I mumbled under my breath, barely looking at him. I couldn't believe I had tripped like that. "Let's just go."

York dipped his head to the side, as if perplexed. "Whatever you say," he conceded with a shrug. Without hesitation, he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me away.

Why had I tripped like that?