Rina hung around the housing center for a few hours, helping Mrs. Green and the others, reminding herself of what she was protecting with all the fighting. After everything was taken care of and the center was closing down for the night, Rina went back to her office on base by herself, and automatically sat at her computer. I should check on those reports Heero made, she told herself. Double-check his numbers, or something. Rina called up the figures, and tried to concentrate on them, but she just couldn't seem to focus. She was tired, worn out by her fight with Arthur. But it was more than that, something she couldn't put her finger on... I slept last night - not well, but what else is new? I ate this morning... Rina often forgot to eat and sleep when she got very engrossed with a project. Because of what she was, she could go for long periods without eating or sleeping, but as Heero had said, even their bodies couldn't go on forever. This morning she had remembered to eat, but that reminded her of something she did forget. Rina reached into the drawer and took one of her pills. She'd forgotten to, this morning.

"You really aren't human, are you?" Mike's angry words rang in her ears as if he was still here, repeating them for her.

She rubbed her eyes and cleared the screen. That was it. Mike's words, spoken in a moment of thoughtless anger, had hit home on one of her deepest fears. Despite everything she'd said to the boys, Rina wasn't sure she was human. Would a human have been able to do what she did to Arthur today? Mike obviously hadn't thought so. But I had to do it, or we would have lost him. If we lose one, we could lose everything. She had freed Arthur from the Alliance's training - whether or not he ever forgave her was another matter.

Rina had few illusions about herself, or at least, she thought she had few illusions. What a joke it would be is if that was the biggest illusion of all! She knew that she made the people around her uncomfortable - the more they knew, the more uncomfortable they got. Most of the time she convinced herself that it was because they were uneasy with the conflict between the gentle, innocent image she presented and the harsh, ruthless words that came out of her mouth. But sometimes, after a particularly hard day, she wondered if it wasn't something deeper, something that made them uncomfortable because on a basic level, they knew she wasn't human. Humans had always fought against that which was different from them, and she was as different as they came without losing the basic appearance of humanity. Appearance, yes, but do I actually have any humanity, or have they engineered it all out of me? That's the real question.

Her musings were interrupted when Heero opened the door. "Did anyone ever teach you how to knock?" she asked absently.

"No." He stood there like a statue, watching her.

"What do you want?"

"I came from Refuge. Arthur wants to talk to you."

Rina closed her eyes against the pain she was sure awaited her down in Refuge, and for a moment she considered refusing his request. No one would have blamed her - today was a Sunday, so she didn't have the hours in school where she sat, bored out of her mind and thinking of the thousands of things that had to be done at base. She could practically sleep there, and still appear to be the most alert person in class. She didn't do that, of course, that would draw attention. The teachers caught her napping just as often as any of the other students, but she could basically get the little rest she needed there. Not today - today she had been up before dawn, and hadn't stopped for a second until she brought Arthur down to Refuge. Then they'd had their face-off, and then she'd worked for several more hours at the center. No, no one would blame her if she put off this reckoning for another few hours, or until tomorrow.

No one except me. Rina had made it a policy to always take responsibility for whatever she did, and saw no reason to discontinue it now. Or at least I fool myself into thinking I do. "All right. Let's go."

"I'll drive," Heero said as she started to climb into the driver's seat of the car. Rina stared at him, realized that she wasn't at her best right now and it would be a pretty stupid way for the Phoenix to die, driving her own car into a wall, and surrendered the seat to him.

As they drove, Heero remarked, "I remember the first time Arthur killed, when he came back from his first real mission." Rina glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, wondering where this was leading. "He cried. He sobbed, while Michael, our Michael, tried to comfort him. The commanders decided that his crying was also a weakness, and they punished him until he didn't cry any more. It would have been easier to remove the tear ducts."

"Heero, what are you talking about?"

"I don't think you understand what the emotional training was really like." Rina didn't argue - he was right, she didn't know. "They made it so the only way I could feel any pleasure was when I completed my mission. One of the happiest moments I can remember was when I killed Representative Surd, my first mission." There was no hint of apology in his voice, he might have well have been another person, or a computer reporting the facts of an incident. "The others are like that too. When you first started telling me the truth, I couldn't even think badly about the Alliance. I can be angry at them, now, but I don't feel anything else. I felt a little pleasure when we succeeded in capturing Arthur. This is the first time I have ever made my own mission - I think I will feel more pleasure when I get used to the idea." Again, there was no emotion in his voice, no longing for pleasure, no sense of anticipation. He was just stating facts. They really did a job on him. "With Arthur, they failed partway. He could feel no real joy in anything other than completing his mission, although I think they had to train that into him much longer than the rest of us, through punishment when he did feel joy about other things. But because he retained some feelings, the remorse he felt when he killed overpowered the pleasure he was supposed to feel. I do not believe he has felt any real pleasure in years."

Poor boy, Rina thought, but she didn't think that was the point Heero was trying to make. "What is this about, Heero?"

His eyes didn't leave the road. "As you said before, at some level he realized that what he was doing wasn't right. He now knows what the Alliance really is, what it's real motives are, so he can reject the desire to kill openly. I imagine that that will have a lot of meaning for him, and that he will appreciate what you have done for him. He is intelligent, as you well know. He doesn't blame you for what you did."

That shocked Rina's weary brain to alertness. "He doesn't?"

"We all do things that we do not wish to do, and that we regret. I predict that Arthur will be much... happier, experience more pleasure now that he is away from the Alliance. I also think, him being who he is, that he will not want you to suffer over what you did to bring him happiness."

Rina found Heero's words mildly reassuring, but something else interested her. "Heero, why are you telling me this?"

"I don't want you to suffer, because Arthur would not want it."

"But why does that matter? I think that you do have emotions, they're just hidden very deeply."

"No."

"No? Does that mean you refuse to concede the possibility?"

Heero, right on the edge of another denial, hesitated. Refusing to concede the possibility of something was always wrong. There was nothing so certain that circumstances might not change it. One day the sun would not rise again, it would dwindle as it ran out of fuel, or go nova and swallow this world. If she had asked him a week ago how he would spend the rest of his life, he probably would have said, "Serving the Alliance." They had trained him too well, in ways. He was a slave to efficiency, expediency. He was logical enough to search for and find the truth in her statements, at which point it was no longer logical to stay and serve those who had betrayed him. "I concede the possibility, but I think it's as likely as the Alliance handing over control of Alpha colony to you tomorrow."

"I think you do have emotions. There is no gain in you trying to ease my suffering."

"I told you, I did it because it's what Arthur would want."

"And what gain is there in that? You want to make Arthur happy - why? There's an illogical motive in there, somewhere."

Heero only grunted and stared out the front window of the car.


---------


Arthur turned his head as he heard something coming up the hall. Two pairs of footsteps. That would be Heero, returning with the girl, the Phoenix. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Mike asked, a dark expression on his face. "I can't believe you want to do this... after what she did...."

"She did that for my own good," Arthur said, thinking of how many times he had told himself that it was for his own good as he was punished, over and over again. How wonderful it felt to say the words and actually believe them! "I never thought I would see you again, and I never thought... I never even dreamed about so many things. This place... this place is so beautiful. Do they even know how beautiful it is? I heard music today. It was wonderful."

Mike stared at him with a half-doubting, half-jealous expression on his face. "Still..." he broke off when the door entered and the other two strode into the room. Although the girl held her head erect, Arthur suddenly realized that she was tired, exhausted, and not just physically. It was easy to see that she was one of them, but it was hard to remember that she was also the Phoenix. In some ways how much harder her life had to be, making so many decisions that influenced so many people's lives. To have all of the weight of those decisions on her shoulders... Poor girl.

All he ever did was follow orders - Arthur felt anger growing inside of him at the way he had allowed himself to believe what they were telling him, even when he saw the signs that told him they were lying. He had known the truth, but had turned away from it - he should have fought them. I can fight them now.

"Hello. You wanted to talk to me?" the girl asked, drawing in a deep breath. He was startled when he recognized the mannerism - it was the way he prepared himself for punishment. Why would she think she was about to be punished? I may not blame her for what she did, but she does.

"I wanted to thank you," Arthur said as earnestly as he could.

"You what?" There was a hint of hope in her voice.

"I realize I was being foolish, blinding myself to the truth," he told her. "I apologize for that, and I want you to know how much I appreciate what you've given me."

He saw tears in her eyes before she turned her head away, and wanted to comfort her. Well, why couldn't he? He wasn't at base now, the commanders weren't watching him, ready to punish him if he showed the slightest weakness! He pushed aside the covers on the bed Mike had put him in. He'd had something to eat in the last few hours, and felt much stronger. The food was good here, not the protein bars they gave him back at base. There were so many good things in the colonies! He reached out and touched her shoulder gently, not sure of how she would respond. She gasped and drew back, raising her hands defensively. Then she relaxed slightly. "Sorry. I've been a little on edge in the last few days."

"Because of us," he guessed.

She nodded agreement. "Because of you. I am sorry for what I did to you."

"I know you are." He sat back, looking at her. "I never imagined that there might be a girl."

"No reason you should. They concealed the evidence well. I expect that even some of your former masters don't even know I exist."

"You're not what I would have expected, if I had guessed."

A flash of amusement passed over her face. "And what would you have expected?"

"A girl more like them, not really a girl. But you are a girl."

"Thanks, I think."

"You're beautiful, too."

"I'm exactly the way I was designed, same as you. It's an ugly truth that some rules are easier to get around if you have a pretty face."

"That's not what I was talking about," he said, leaning forward again. He studied her and said, "And you know it, too." It was strange, but he felt as if he had known her his entire life. She seemed to feel it, too. "There are so many beautiful things, here."

She smiled again, and he was amazed at how beautiful she was, inside and out. "Refuge has it's own charm. Sometimes I wish I could stay here all the time. There are almost no lines of communication to the outside world from here - it's too dangerous. It would be very easy to forget."

"No it wouldn't."

"Not in some ways. In others..."

"Can I look around?"

"Not right now."

"Why not?"

"Because it's two in the morning. All the normal humans are asleep, so there's nothing to see, and I have to get back to my house. I have school in the morning."

Arthur smiled, then let it broaden into a chuckle. "What do you do in regular school?"

She grinned back at him. "Sit around and wait for the day to end so I can get some real work done." She paused, and the laughter left her face. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

He understood that she still felt guilty about what she had done earlier. "Yes. Tell me how I can help. I want to fight the Alliance."

"Are you sure?" she asked slowly, but he heard her heartbeat speed up a little, and knew she was excited. "I don't want to force you to fight again if you don't want to - we're better than the Alliance."

"I don't mind fighting - it's the killing I don't like. There are ways to fight without killing your enemy. Mike and I have been talking about everything the Alliance has done, not only to us, but to all the colonists. Everything they ever told me about their intentions was a lie. A lot of things they told me about me were lies, too. I want to pay them back for everything they've done." He smiled eagerly.


----------


Rina managed to make it through the entire day of school without falling asleep once. She had plenty to occupy her mind. It was frightening how quickly and thoroughly the boys changed their loyalties. Rina thought that she would never be able to change so quickly, then rethought it. If she had been shown good evidence that the Rebels had lied to her, that their goals were the same as the Alliances, and had been through what they'd been through, maybe she'd come over like they had. The Alliance was it's own worst enemy - it's training and recruiting methods bred no true loyalty to unchanging ideals, just to one greedy, power-grabbing person after another. The only reason the boys hadn't seen through it before now is that Director Yirtz had been smart enough to cloak his goals in an idealistic view of the Alliance. It was very easy to find evidence that shattered that idealism, though.

That thought, however, caused her to reevaluate the danger Director Yirtz posed to her, to the Rebels, to everything. Before now most of his attention had been focussed inward, while he played God-Creator to the boys and was able to force his every whim upon them. Now that they were going to free the other three, his attention would be focussed outward, on the Phoenix who had taken his toys from him. On her. Rina shivered, and one of the boys leaned over and whispered, "Are you cold, Ri?"

"Just a little chill," she assured him, and went back to her thoughts. She would have to be extra careful from now on. Not that she wasn't always careful, but Yirtz was dangerous. He knew her capabilities, knew her limits...

Rina was disrupted from her thoughts by the bell that signaled the end of the day. She quickly gathered up her things and climbed into the limo that waited to take her home. To her surprise, her father was waiting inside. "Father!" she exclaimed, and hugged him. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk to you," he said. "I thought we might get a little bit of privacy here."

Rina immediately checked the internal scanner in the limo to see if there were any bugs.

"It's clean," her father assured her. "I've been worried about you. There are all sorts of rumors at the highest levels of the government of a security breach, defectors, and God-knows what else."

"I'm sorry, but the surveillance has been heavier than usual lately. It hasn't been safe to talk. And..."

"And it's really not safe now, even if there isn't anyone watching," he finished her statement. "I was just worried."

"I'm fine," Rina assured him, then dropped her voice. "Father, two of the others, like me, they've joined us." His eyes widened at that little revelation, and she saw him starting to fit bits and pieces of information he'd heard into the bigger pattern. "We're going to free the rest, too. I can't tell you more than that."

"That's plenty," he said, sitting back, and she could practically see him putting the pieces together. "It may be too much. I'll do my best to forget it. Just so long as you're safe."

"I'm in no more danger than I ever was," she reminded him. "It's strange, these boys. In some ways, they're so much like me it's frightening. Sometimes I think I can read their thoughts, and they can read mine. But they're so different, too. One of them never has any expression at all, and the other... he's even stranger. Most of the time he acts like a normal person, if not a normal boy. Then, there's this sudden switch, and he's the soldier that the Alliance created. It's frightening, in a way. They remind me of caged wild animals, docile most of the time, waiting to strike."

"Are you sure it was a good idea to bring them here?"

"I'm sure of nothing. But I can't help but like them, or at least empathize with them. They understand me in a way no human has ever been able to. No, it's not your fault, Father," she said as he began to look upset. "I'm just not entirely human. They're the same as me, in a number of ways, and they can understand me, even take over for me. It's a refreshing experience."

"So they will be able to take over some of your duties."

"At least at first. There isn't much time remaining."


----------


When Rina got home, changed out of her school clothes and into some more appropriate to the street, she snuck out of her house through the back door, careful to evade the Alliance spies still watching her house. Officially, Rina Krace was not feeling well, which was why she didn't leave the house much after school these days. Unofficially, everyone knew that her father had grounded her for some unspecified activity. Rumors ran rampant through the press about what that activity was. Rina didn't care what they thought about her, as long as it pointed them in the wrong direction.

By the time she got to the base, it was in an uproar. Mike had his hands full defending the two boys from half of the base's security. Or rather, he was protecting the security from the boys by not letting them attack the two seemingly defenseless youngsters. "What's going on here?!" Rina demanded, and everyone fell silent. Not everyone there knew she was the Phoenix, but those who didn't know who she was knew that she spoke for the Phoenix, and thought it was best to humor her.

"They're playing havoc with our security system!" Brandon, head of their computer security, complained.

"What did they do?"

"That one," he pointed to Arthur, "said that he was just going to fix up some holes in our security, and he built an entirely new level around everything! I don't even know if the old passwords will work."

"They'll work," Arthur said firmly. He radiated quiet confidence.

"And then..." Brandon continued, "that one," he pointed at Heero, "starts ordering me around, saying that me getting in the other one's way is inefficient, or some other garbage."

"Does the system work?"

"What?"

"Does the system work? Is it superior to our old one? I haven't had the time to make up a new layer of defenses lately."

"Yeah, it works," Brandon said grudgingly, shooting an admiring glance at Arthur. "It's some of the best work I've ever seen, except yours."

"It's probably better than mine," Rina said honestly. "So, other than the fact that you weren't notified of the changes beforehand, there's no problem?"

"Well... he's just a kid!"

Rina stared at him until the obvious problem with his statement was readily apparent to everyone present, then made it more obvious. "He is just a kid," she said softly. "Like me."

Brandon paled. He knew what she was - not exactly, but enough to fill in many of the blanks, and enough to identify the boys. "Sorry, sir," he said softly. "I didn't realize."

"No, it's my fault," Rina said. "I should have introduced them before, explained some of our protocol to them... I should have warned you."

"It's all right," he said, shaking his head and backing up.

"And you guys?" Rina asked, turning to the head of the guards who'd come.

The guard, not knowing who Rina was but realizing he was in well over he head, held up his hands defensively. "We just came when we heard shouting, and saw Mr. Brandon shouting at a couple of kids we'd never seen before. If the Phoenix brought them in..."

"The Phoenix did bring them here. They've joined up, and may need weapons from you later."

"Weapons?" he stared doubtfully at them. Then he caught the look on her face and saluted. "Yes sir. Whatever the Phoenix says."

As they went back to their posts, Rina turned wearily to the other two, wondering how many more problems they'd cause today. "What say we go introduce you to all of the department heads, all the ones who know who I am? That way no one gets shot by Rebels before we can hurt the Alliance."


---------


Rina went around and introduced them to everyone important, and a few people who needed to know them in order to do their jobs. They were met with a fair amount of distrust on all sides. Those who didn't know who and what they were couldn't trust them because they looked like kids, and those who knew who and what they were didn't trust them because they came from the Alliance. Nevertheless, Rina was determined to integrate them into the Rebels, and sooner rather than later. She was in the middle of explaining the system Dr. Green had developed, the one that allowed them to keep Refuge a secret, when Trish, their head of communications, came in. Trish was a brilliant woman whose home had been destroyed by the Alliance when one of their experimental missiles went off course and cracked the dome that her family and a few hundred others had lived in. They'd been experimenting with plants, seeing if they could balance the oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange between the humans and their animals and the plants, to create a completely self-sustaining bubble. Once the dome had been breached, Trish and a few others managed to seal themselves in their homes until the Rebels rescued them. The few survivors from Trish's family were currently living in Refuge, but none of her children had survived.

"Phoenix, there's something you need to see." She went up to the computer terminal located in that room and activated it. "We just got a feed from one of the Alliance lines we tapped, one of the old ones. We didn't expect to get any more information from that source - the Alliance knew what we did, and stopped using that line, but they never bothered to remove the tap, and neither did we. Then this started coming through." She hit a few more keys, and the screen was suddenly partially filled with... well, she didn't know what it was.
Rina stared. At the beginning of the message, if that's what it was, there was a number 1, then a space, then a number 4, another space, and from then on the there were hundreds of letters, numbers, and symbols, half of which Rina had never even seen. They continued that way until the very end of the letter, when there was another space, then the number 3. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" Trish asked.

"No."

"I have," Heero said, and when Rina turned, Arthur nodded agreement. "This was one of the codes we made up years ago, when we were learning how to break them." He took a step closer and peered at the screen. "It's a message from Michael."

Rina was momentarily confused, then realized they were talking about one of their comrades, not the scientist who had deserted the Alliance years ago. "What does it say?"
"He wants to meet with us," Heero said. "In an alleyway at the edge of the dome. In less than one hour."

"That doesn't give us much time to investigate," Rina observed. "It could be a trap."

"I don't think so," Arthur said thoughtfully. "Can I get on there?" Trish hesitantly backed up, allowing Arthur access to the terminal. He worked feverishly for a few minutes, using Rina's back door to get into the Alliance's system. He'd been both dismayed and impressed when she showed him how she got into his system, showed him the back door she'd planted that last time. He'd shaken his head ruefully. "I knew that you were buying time. I tried to tell the commanders, but they wouldn't believe me, and they were angry that I cut off the trace." Then he fell silent, probably reliving the memory of their displeasure. Now he used the program as well as she could, making her feel that she had been lucky they hadn't listened to him, hadn't given him free reign. She never would have been able to get back in if he had.

"I'm looking through their recent orders," he explained after a he got into the system. "I want to see what they've been doing..." he broke off as words appeared on the screen. "What the hell..."

"What is it?" Rina looked over his shoulder.

"The most recent data concerning Project Titan is an order for the capture and/or execution of Three! They're trying to kill him!"

"Why?"

"It doesn't say - they never told us much about these things. They've already ordered Herc and Kan to kill him. There are probably more agents out on the streets, too."
"Is there a chance that they planted this information so that we could find it?"

"Yes."

"Well, come on."

"Phoenix, you're going?" Trish asked. "But you just said it could be a trap!"

"Then we'll spring it and turn the tables on them. Please call Supply, tell them to have a scanner waiting, and a car." To be sure, several of her advisors had spoken out rather strongly against her going out on these missions to capture the boys. She tried not to risk herself too much, and had exposed herself more in the last few weeks because of them then she had in the two years since she became the Phoenix. Her advisors had not been happy about that. She'd said, "Fine, if I don't go, who do you recommend? What if something goes wrong and they turn on us - is there anyone here except me that can keep up with them?"

"Perhaps there is someone expendable..." Finley ventured, but stopped when she spun around.

"Expendable... how about if you go, Finley?"

"Me?! But..."

"No one is expendable," Rina told him, furious. "That's the way the Alliance handles things, not me. I only send people to die if there's no other choice, and I won't ask anything of anyone that I won't do myself."