/ "Master Siren, this is your Mieus calling from the Myau Eighteen, en route to Dezoris. Can you hear me? I'd like to talk with you if that's okay." /

/ "…Oh, Mieus. What is it? I was almost asleep." /

/ "Sorry for disturbing you, Master, only I'm about two thirds to Dezoris and had a great idea you might be interested in. You know how Zelan is not only capable of monitoring weather, but manipulating it too?" /

/ "Yes Mieus. That is possible." /

/ "Well, I was just wondering if you might like to test it out. No time like the present. In this case I'd like to give this arrogant layan here an icy coffin. He deserves it." /

Mieus was leaning back in her pilot's chair, hands behind her head. She was speaking to Siren back on Zelan wirelessly, via the transmission devices on her ship. Behind her Rune was still trussed up into a little ball of fuming hatred, unable to hear a single word of the conversation. To him it just seemed like Mieus was relaxing as the autopilot flew itself. On Zelan Siren had been zoning out himself after so much work had been done. As a half-esper he required some rest that normal androids usually did not need.

Siren considered the proposition his servant was placing on the table. It was true that the weather system did fascinate him and all he needed was a good excuse to use it. This excuse seemed satisfactory enough, especially if it resulted in the dispatching of a layan soul. The wren-type smiled, glancing to the computer monitor and switching on meteorological maintenance program three, localised to the planet of ice. / "A blizzard, then? On Dezoris? What sector will you be landing upon?" /

/ "I don't know, Master. Why not the whole planet? Why not freeze all the layans to death starting with this one I have here?" / Mieus asked sweetly, pushing forward what she already had her little heart set on.

She waited patiently while Siren considered this as well, but eventually she heard him laugh. Mieus had a feeling he was working on the weather programs even now as he spoke to her. She couldn't hear the keys of the computer clacking because she was tuned to the slight frequency of his inner voice. It was just a feeling she had. / "I'll will see what I can do for you. I expect to hear a report once you have returned from the execution." /

/ "Sure, no problem. Have you heard from Warren yet?" /

/ "His report is precisely the reason why I was almost half asleep. I am not up to date with such military lingo." / Siren remarked informally. Mieus giggled. / "Leave me to it, please." /

/ "Yessir. Over and out." /

Mieus lowered her arms back onto the armrests of the pilot's chair. Now there was silence, as Rune was in no position to talk. Her master had actually sounded like he was in a pretty good mood, probably because they had won a rather stunning uphill victory. He did have a tendency towards grumpy and scariness, but it was nice to know that it was only a mood thing. It was nice to know that sometimes, just sometimes, she could ask requests of him.

She liked her master, and frankly she was glad that she finally had one. The android's natural state was servitude; that was what they were made for and that was what they were best suited to do. Mieus had always been unhappy when she was free, with her mother and grandfather giving her no clear idea on what the hell her purpose in life was meant to be. Siren was a good master. She had an inkling he was going to completely change the world and find a place for her in the very midst of it.

That was exactly what she could put all of her faith on. Her life before that had been confusion and loneliness. It really was time for a change, and she did have a soul. She did, she did, she knew she did.

Rune was one great big ache. He would have felt more comfortable with his legs pretzelled around his head and his arms tied to the ceiling. His muscles complained so much not because they were fatigued from movement, but quite the very opposite. His circulation was going to hell; his limbs continuing to shift from numbness to pins-and-needles and back again. The only thing that kept Rune from going absolutely mad was visualizing exactly what he would do to Mieus if only his hands were free.

At least Chaz wasn't here to see him now. The young hunter would have had a field day if the situation hadn't been so serious. Not anymore now that the kid was dead. Gods, Rune had only seen him hours earlier! He had seen how much the kid had grown up! And damn it, despite his better judgement he had felt some kind of fatherly pride for him. He'd let Chaz see him tied up and humiliated if only it would bring his friends back.

The magician made a muffled sound around the gag half stuffed down his throat. Under normal circumstances it would have sounded like a small sob, but as it was it did not count. Nor were his watering eyes tears. Mieus heard the sob with her sharp-as-tacks hearing and spun her pilot's chair around to face him, one leg crossed over the other as she lounged luxuriously and waited. Rune glared.

"Not so uppity now, are you, as you lie and dwell on the deaths of your friends. Dwell on your own death too, as each minute that passes brings you closer to home." She jerked a thumb at the windshield behind her, where the large blue bowling ball that was Dezoris continually grew bigger. The glitter of the multi-globed worldship was only a shimmer at the corner of the screen. It had lost much of its importance now that more pressing matters were at hand. Mieus beamed. "I just heard that my partner has already done his job. Grandfather is finally dead. You are the last."

He was the very last protector of Algo. The others had performed their duty and saved the very galaxy itself, and this was their reward? To be killed by some insane nobody during a time of great peace? Fury boiled in the Lutz's belly. That was so unfair! He felt like a petulant child screaming that in his mind, to any force that could hear, but that was everything balled up into one dark little package. Unfair.

Rune grunted around his gag. Mieus took pity on him and came forward, sinking to her knees in front of the blue-haired man, and then yanked the gloves back out of his mouth. He coughed harshly, his throat feeling as dry as a desert. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a glass of water. "… the last pest is always the bastard… the hardest one to get rid of…" He rasped.

Smiling, Mieus reached up and planted a gloved hand on top of Rune's head. Softly she stroked the messy strands of blue hair, from something that could barely be called a ponytail anymore. He had to grudgingly admit that it did feel sort of good, but it was only a few grains of good in a metric fuckton of bad. "Fortunately I have experience in dealing with bastards," she admitted cheerfully, "and if I really don't have a soul as you say, then there's no reason in psyching me out, you silly man."

Her hand curled into a fist and thumped him hard on the head. Normally it would have only concussed him, but he was weak and already wounded and exhausted. Rune blacked out. Mieus took him by the chin and examined the unconscious man's face, turning it this way and that so she could inspect the profile. Okay, so maybe he was a little handsomer than she thought. He was still a layan, and completely not her type.

She preferred men with barely any spine at all. It was just easier to deal with them that way. Not only that, but they were like building blocks, able to be shaped into any manner Mieus saw fit. This layan was too set in his ways to be changed, and anyway he deserved to die. She let go and Rune's head rolled down against his shoulder. She went back to piloting the ship.

Within the hour the Myau Eighteen touched down gracefully onto one of Dezoris' wide white snowfields. Mieus was proud of her landing. She had more than halfway expected it to be a jerky, bumpy nightmare. Miracles sometimes happened, she supposed. Her lips curved into a smile as she watched the blindingly opaque windscreen. It was like static upon a computer monitor. So much snow…

It was as if the blizzards from three years ago had returned. Mieus laughed out loud in pure delight. Siren could do anything once he set his mind to it! She rushed over to the emergency exit and just about kicked it open all by herself, but the real pull occurred when the howling wind practically yanked the door off its hinges for her. The freezing temperature flowed into the spaceship through the rectangle of white. Snow floated down in hastily-forming drifts on the floor.

Mieus found it amazingly beautiful. Just like herself; beautiful yet deadly. The female android moved over to her unconscious captive and unbuckled him from his bindings, then removed the shackles from his wrists. He kind of flopped, one freed hand swinging limply to graze the floor. Thin red lines where the shackles had pinched and bit into his skin were crusted with dried blood. She tsked briefly, reaching down onto the floor and picking up Rune's discarded gloves. He was going to need any clothing he could get on the surface of the planet, so she slipped the gloves back on his hands again.

Maybe it would be more fun to strip the esper naked and send him out into the storm that way, but he would barely suffer. He'd freeze in maybe two minutes instead of twenty. Mieus wanted Rune to have a good think about what he'd done before he met his maker. The girl gathered Rune up in her arms and passed through the emergency exit into the storm, jumping six feet down and landing in the snow. She barely heard the crunch of fresh ice under her boots due to the wind.

It was like standing in a freezing blender. Mieus felt like a rock unaffected by the environment around her. She was cold but that did not affect her, if anything that made her processing ability even faster. There were some silicon parts in the average android brain; low temperatures sharpened them while high temperatures slowed them.Mieus didn't really need to think right now; all that was needed was action. In truth, the only thing that really bugged her was the way that her hair kept blowing around in her face.

Mieus walked about twenty paces away from the Myau Eighteen, until they were out of its shadow, then she relaxed her arms and dumped Rune roughly into the snow. The sudden shock of the impact and the snow burning through into his wound roused him almost instantly. He tried to rise, stumbled and fell right back into the very same snowdrift, but the second attempt allowed him to drag himself shakily to his feet. He swayed but did not fall over again. He saw the flashes of red hair and bodysuit in the swirling white. He groggily glowered at Mieus.

She already had her claws out. If Rune even tried to attack her with a spell in the middle of the blizzard in the state he was in she'd cut him down before he could raise his hand. Mieus pointed towards the invisible horizon. There could have been a mountain in the way for all they could see. "Okay Mr. Layan," she stated loudly amidst the storm, "march! Walk back to wherever you came from!"

Rune recognised the storm. Had they gone back in time to the storms of the Garuberk tower? Impossible, they had already fixed those storms… gods his head hurt. He was so tired, and a march was the very last thing he wanted to do besides dying. He didn't even know where the hell on Dezoris he was, and the cold was already rending his limbs and digits numb. He was dressed for summer on Dezoris, not the very heart of winter.

"You bitch…" He said quietly, unable to accept that this was where his path would inevitably end. He was the Lutz, it was not meant to end this way! Without a successor or memory storage device Rune's death would mean the death of the Lutz memory line. Two thousand years of experience would be lost. He didn't want to be remembered as the Lutz who helped to save everything once and for all only to fuck everything up for no reason three years later. It was so pointless. It was all so pointless, like an ancient and revered temple smashed down in order to make room for a turnip patch.

He took a step forward as if to attack, or at least try, but Mieus came forward with her claws raised and before he knew it he was trapped in her embrace. Each hand held a wrist and her rather ample attributes pressed softly against his front. The shackles had been better. His ripped wrists stung as she wrapped her fingers around them. "I really am lying, though. You won't go home. You'll walk into this storm and transform into an ice cube before the hour's through. Whether you go as a eunuch or not is totally up to you." She threatened with sugar upon every syllable.

Rune was pretty certain it wasn't a bluff. She was a man-eater, and Rune had known enough black widows in his time to judge that confidently. All he knew was that of all the women he had met in his life he had never hated one as much as he hated Mieus right now. He sneered at the android girl and tried to pull away with his wrists. "You just keep the hell away from me," he snarled, "and I hope someday you see the empty hole where your soul's supposed to be."

"Goodbye honey. Maybe you'll be luckier in your next life." Mieus smiled, then leaned forward and gave him a farewell kiss. Rune automatically recoiled away from her but he couldn't get very far; she was too strong for him and he was too tired. He supposed it was a pretty good kiss, for what it was worth, but his reaction was too slow when she quickly released his left wrist and shoved forward against his chest, over his wound; pushing him back with wicked glee. Rune fell over into the snowdrift for the third time that day.

This time it took a bit longer for him to get up again. Mieus slowly turned away back to her ship. "Prove to me you exist by giving up that existence." She laughed seductively, and then walked away.

Mieus could hardly see the outline of her ship in the storm, but she had a good sense of direction and headed off back the way she had came. She effortlessly leapt back in through the emergency exit and landed in a crouch, then before her little friend could catch up with her Mieus brushed all the intruding snow back out into the exit and tried to shake the excess snowflakes out of her hair. They were like glittering crystals and very pretty, but she didn't want to spread melted water everywhere. She felt extremely good for a reason greater than the purifying cold. She had done her job. Siren would be so proud of her…

By the time Rune gathered his bearings and stood on his feet again he was just in time to hear the entrance to the Myau Eighteen slam shut and lock. He remained there forlornly; a blue-and-white speck in a blue-and-white storm. His face was grim, stony and pale. An unfamiliar feeling washed over him and immediately turned into ice. Rune didn't know what to do. He could do exactly what Mieus told him to do or what? Stand there? Run around blindly in circles? Cling to the hull of the Myau Eighteen and hope to the gods that he could hold his breath all the way to Zelan?

He was too tired for that. Too tired for anything, really. It would be to final blow to his dignity to obey the commands of a death sentence, but possibly the only chance he had was the chance of a miracle within the storm. Rune had to have faith; something that the soulless Mieus wasn't programmed to understand. He would not lose his faith or even consider throwing it away. He would just have to trust in the Great Light's reaching force.

He began to hear the screams of the engines as the spaceship warmed up for departure. Rune squinted through the blizzard ineffectually. He'd better get away fast or risk getting burned by the thrusters at blast-off. As if he were in a nauseating nightmare Rune turned and began to walk the opposite way. To where who the hell knew, but Rune was determined not to fall dead at the foot of where Mieus had once stood.

Walking was pain. It was more of a lurch than a walk. Already he could feel himself freezing. There was bound to be a town out there somewhere, an abandoned hut; even a cave if possible. Anything to keep himself shielded from the elements.

As the Myau Eighteen rose and shot back up into the atmosphere Rune disappeared into the snow.

Cold.

Cold…

So very cold…

And that was all he could remember.

†††

When Mieus settled back down into the pilot's chair she noticed that the little red light indicating an incoming transmission was flickering invitingly at her from the control panel. The transmission signal was coming from Zelan. She accepted the up-link hurriedly. "Hello Master!" She greeted with great cheer. "Your storm worked! It was amazing!"

"Actually it's me. I just got back." Warren replied from the ship's speakers. He sounded subdued. "Master Siren mentioned that you wanted to talk to me?"

Mieus bit her lip cutely. She didn't recall saying anything like that. It must have been her master's doing, though she didn't understand why he'd say anything like that either. "Where is he? I wanted to thank him for the blizzard." She admitted.

"He's sleeping. I don't want to disturb him. He said that casting his magic rapidly wears him out."

"The poor sweetheart." Mieus cooed, then changed the subject. "I heard that you killed Grandfather. Is that true?"

"Yeah, but I feel really bad about it. It felt good for a while but now it's just… you know. He used to be one of my closest friends."

"How'd you get rid of him?"

"The bottom of Motavia's ocean. He won't float. I promise he won't bother you anymore."

The girl leaned back in her seat. So everything had been dealt with now. What a relief. Secretly she was glad that custody of Rune had been passed over to her. If dispatching Wren would have been her job she would have made a mistake, or been too afraid to do it properly. As much as she had hated him his presence had always slightly scared her, like a cold reminder of what she lacked. Actually…

"Warren? Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure Mieus, what is it?"

"Do I… um, do you think that I have a soul?"

She surprised herself by saying that. Mieus had been completely confident that the dumb layan hadn't affected her outlook in the slightest, but the question had burst inside of her like a Trojan horse. There wasn't really anybody else she could talk to save for Siren and Whistler. Of the three of them Warren was the easiest to talk to, so she asked.

The reply she got was puzzled, even a little wary. "Why would you ask something like that? I'm not very smart when it comes to philosophical things, but… do you really think you don't? Why would you think that?"

The transmission was merely audio, so when Mieus looked down at the small blank screen on the control panel it merely read 'Sound Only' with the transmission coordinate code printed beneath it in calculator font. She wasn't sure whether she should be regretful or relieved that Warren could not see her face, and vice versa. "It was just something that the layan said. It got through to me and I just started to wonder. There must be some reason why my mother and grandfather gave up on me. Maybe not having a soul is that reason."

For a while there was silence on the other end. She wasn't sure what was happening on the other side but she could almost hear the void of sound that seemed to occur when her partner was thinking. As he thought, and as she waited, she knew that back there on Dezoris the layan that had reinforced her Grandfather's notion of soullessness was slowly freezing to death. His expiration was a certainty, after all, who else would be mad enough to wander around in that storm?

"I don't know why they gave up on you," Warren said eventually, though firmly, "and I don't think it's possible for me to reason their thoughts out for you. I do think you have a soul, though. Doesn't the fact that you worry so much about it prove that you have it? Mieus, you are an android, not a robot. You're just as alive as I am. Besides…" The properly articulated words turned into a soft mumble that Mieus couldn't understand. He'd sort of rushed the words, too.

"I didn't quite catch that. Could you say that again?" She asked.

There was a sigh on the other end, the embodiment of a person who had just wrangled something incredibly difficult out of their heart with great bravery and courage, only to have to do it all over again. It gave one a chance to think and possibly reason that it was an incredibly silly thing to say. Warren said it again anyway, louder and slower this time. "Besides… if you truly didn't have a soul then there's no way I could react to you the way I do. I was trying to say this earlier on Zelan but Mieus I really do think I am falling in love with you."

It was surprising, but not unexpected. After all, she had been the one leading him on with those kisses and endearing glances. The wren-type was an incredibly simple android, following her around like a puppy scared and far away from home. Mieus raised an eyebrow; an effect that was lost on the 'Sound Only' screen. "What on Motavia led you to that conclusion?" She inquired incredulously.

Warren sounded as though somebody was twisting his arm, or torturing him in some unseen way. Every word sounded like a carefully thought-out plea. "Because I think the very moment I clapped eyes on you I fell in love with you. It's rare in androids but it's not an impossible thing to have happen when a unit has affect. I just think that if we're going to be partners in the way that you dictate it then you should know how I feel. I'm probably just deluding myself, but if I'm not…"

"Yes?"

"I want you to know that you've already saved my life in more ways than one by helping to bring me out of the darkness. You helped to give me a reason to live again. No more living in the past from now on; only learning from it. I really do love you, Mieus."

Wow. Mieus was pleased but at the same time humbled by the sincerity of Warren's words. She had only been having fun; she'd never thought that it might escalate into something like this. It had been her idea to revive him from the dead, she freely consented to partnering herself with him, and so this was probably the next step in their relationship. The only thing that didn't seem quite right was the fact that she didn't love him back. Oh, sure she liked him, thought he was cute and easy to manipulate, but that extended no further than fond amusement.

Like a toy. Everything was a toy to Mieus. She could tell that Warren was expectantly awaiting a reply, and that she could deeply hurt him just by saying the wrong words. She smiled. No breaking of toys today. "You can love me all you want, darling. I don't mind. It's good that you saw me first instead of Master Siren, however. Things would have been a lot different and much stranger."

This elicited laughter from both sides. Another part of having a soul was also having an imagination. "Thank you for understanding." Warren said with huge relief. "I was afraid you might think I was crazy or something. This is wonderful! Thank you very much!"

It was as if the fact that they had just murdered two people held no importance at all. They had gotten away with it. Now they could laugh. "We can continue talking about this once I get back to Zelan. Possibly other stuff too. Do you mind talking to me through the trip? It's just that I'm the only one here now and it's getting kind of lonely…"

"I don't mind at all. I have no further orders anyway. Um… do you mind if I say it again?"

"Go ahead."

"I love you."

"That's right." He was probably grinning like an idiot as he said that. It'd be adorable. Mieus was looking forward to getting back to Zelan so she could see him again. "Honey, can I ask you a favour? I've always been curious about what things were like back in the Collapse Wars. Do you think you could tell me a story about it to pass the time?"

"Oh, okay. Did you have anything in particular in mind?" The request had sobered him slightly, but only slightly. He was still in a very good mood. As he had said minutes earlier it was time to learn from the past rather than re-live it. The hard part was thinking about what stories to tell. Some were too bloody, too gruesome, and others definitely were not suitable for women and children. Little did he know that that was exactly the material Mieus wanted to hear about most of all.

Mieus thought back to the military profile she had read long ago. "You received a medal once for being wounded, for losing a limb or something like that. Tell me about it. You have all your bits attached right now, as I recall."

"Well, I was eventually repaired, but I was still on a crutch for a week before they could get a mechanic in. I lost my right leg. Stepped on a landmine and the explosion took it right off me up to the knee. I wound up lying in a minefield for three days waiting to be rescued. It was really boring. The wait, that is."

He stopped talking. Mieus waited. "That was it?" She asked.

"More or less, yeah."

"Do you think you could tell it in a more… storytellerish manner?" She pressed sweetly.

Warren sounded embarrassed at himself for being so curt. "Oh, right, sure. Let me think. It was the spring of 1285 and the territory of Arima was covered in ruined crops and dust, on account of the weather stations going berserk due to Mother Brain's death. The rebels had reclaimed the territory from the government and coated the place from top to bottom with live mines, but we had to cross anyway to assist the squads on the other side. There were eleven of us, maybe twelve, and then we decided…"

Mieus listened with rapt attention as the Myau Eighteen zoomed its way home. Those who wronged her were dead, those who cared for her were waiting, and soon her true purpose would be known. She just had to be patient.

For the very first time in her life, she was finally happy.

†††

Shortly after he had delivered to Mieus the blizzard she wanted so much and spoke briefly with Warren, Siren slept.

It was the kind of sleep in which no other person in the Algo system could relate. It was not deactivation like an android, though there were similarities, and it was not like the mysterious slumbers of living palmans, though there were similarities there also. It was an amalgam of the two states of being, and in the slight cleft between both of them Siren dreamed.

On the outside he was slumped over a dead computer system with his head resting against his folded arms, the bare metal of his vaguely palman face framed by his vibrant hair. He could fix himself from the wound that the layans had inflicted upon his body, but he wasn't certain if that was what he wanted yet. The pain had gone down and all the synthetic nerves had died; the android having pulled away all the remaining dead flesh like a child picking at a scab.

It would be a pain to repair something that was essentially a cosmetic procedure. It'd subtract time away from repairing androids that actually needed the service to survive. Siren dreamed about the future as much as a half-esper, half-android could. Realistically, tactically, and yet fantastically. He had plans. He just had to gather them into order.

There were two planets: Motavia, the planet of dust, and Dezoris, the planet of ice. In his perfect world view there were to be only two main races; the true followers of Lord Orakio and the liberated android people. The layans would be wiped out and the Motavians and Dezorians could be subservient to his chosen children, if they so desired. Death was their other alternative. He held no ill will towards either group, but every race should yield faithfully under his power.

Two races. Two planets. The solution was obvious. There would be a planet for orakians and a planet for androids, and together they would form an alliance made friendly by his ruling hand and way. He would be kind to them. He would take care of them, but if anybody cared to step out of line they'd immediately be put to death. That was the way the worlds should be run, with an iron- or steel fist.

Along with the races and the planets he also had two servants. They would each go down to the planets as his disciples and spread the word of his Way. They would capture the planets and make them his; ready for proper colonization. Meanwhile, Siren would stay on Zelan and get to work on reviving the android people. They would need an army and he knew exactly how to make one. Whistler would keep him company while he worked.

Motavia was so hot and that heat would slightly slow a positronic brain, making android followers easier to handle. In the dust and sand his fellow androids would build themselves a new home. They couldn't all live on Zelan, anyway. Major Warren would make a good commander for them. He had experience and the honest tenacity to get things done. Siren didn't trust him completely, but he would keep an eye on him just in case his suspicions came to fruition.

Dezoris was cold and harsh, yet so much life thrived there. If cared for properly orakians would be able to survive with ease. Siren had not forgotten about the worldship from whence he and his history had come. The loyal people there needed a place to call home. Why not Dezoris? Why not cut them a break and end their great journey, allowing them to rest on natural soil at last? He just needed somebody to weed out the weaklings, a devoted servant who could perform the dirtiest works with a smile, and better than that, enthusiasm. Mieus, his beautiful little servant would be just perfect for the job.

This kind of idealistic thought and planning could take months, even years. Fortunately with their current foes defeated they would have plenty of time on their side. He wasn't afraid of a little hard work.

Siren shifted a bit in his sleep. Give him another hour or two and he'd be ready to get back to work. Then it would be time to get right down to business.

The new master of Algo slept, and the world moved on.