Taiga had made it almost thirty kilometers when Lu began to stir in his arms.

Wary of what response his position might elicit and concerned about causing her any discomfort, Taiga placed her gently on the ground with her back against a rock. She moaned as she came around, head lolling back and forth as she fought her way to consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Taiga. She caught her breath sharply, wincing at the pain in her ribs, and Taiga raised both hands in a gesture of harmlessness.

"I'm sorry," he told her, hoping that his voice and eyes would convey his sincerity. "I am so, so sorry."

Lu looked down, touching the bandages gingerly. She was silent for what seemed to be a long, long time. "...no," she responded, at last. "...I should be sorry. I shouldn't have said--"

Taiga shook his head. "It's not your fault," he said simply.

She didn't respond.

"I know what you think. You probably think you shouldn't provoke me like that, that it's really just aking for trouble, but--" He took a deep breath. "...we're not like this, you know," he said quietly. "Cyborgs, I mean. We're not programmed to consider everything a threat, to attack--to kill even if there are other options available."

Lu looked at him, eyes strangely empty. "What?"

Taiga picked a couple of rocks from the ground, dropping them from one hand into the other. "We have hierarchical programming. When one option is rendered unavailable, we progress on to the next--unless violence is immediately necessary. We're not programmed to be like this."

Lu shook her head. "I still don't understand."

Taiga's hand clenched, a sharply mechanical motion that crushed one of the weaker rocks into bits. "I'm malfunctioning," he explained.

Lu didn't say a word.

"...we're programmed so that we'd malfunction this way. They thought that, in a war situation, it would be better for the troops to start finding everything a threat than finding nothing a threat. So we're programmed so that, in the event of a malfunction, it's the nonviolent subroutines that go out first. That's why I can't stop myself. ...why I can't stop killing."

Lu seemed surprised by that, but only barely. "...how?" she asked.

"Reconditioning." He made a dry little chuckle in the back of his throat. "When they recondition you, it isn't a psychological thing. They just wipe your programming and reinstall it. They reason that, no matter how discontent a soldier is, the programming will be too powerful for them to disregard. But the programming begins to work its way down into your brain, the longer you have it--it's impossible to get rid of it all. That's why problems start occurring--why malfunctions occur. Because there's no way to regulate it once it's that ingrained." He shook his head. "It--it isn't a choice. It's a compulsion that overrides all reason. It's not easy to fight it--it gives you some of the most godawful headaches, and then there's that damn ICI--that's why no one tries, more or less. That's why I'm almost the only deserter in the whole Corps. Certainly the only one who's done it more than once."

"Why?" Lu looked at him, trying to isolate something. "Why is it only you?"

The dry chuckle returned. "I'm different."

"How?"

"I... just am." Taiga shook his head. "I'm out here for a reason. There's something I'm looking for, and if I find it--well, then I'll tell you."

"What is it?"

"Just a place." He looked out, toward the horizon. "A place out in the wilderness. Someplace where w--where I could be alone."

Lu watched him carefully. "You weren't going to say 'I' there, were you?"

Taiga sighed. "It's a long story," he said. "And I don't feel up to telling it."

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "It's just hard," he said. "You want to talk about your dead husband?"

Lu frowned sharply at that. "Cyborgs can't marry," she said.

Taiga shot her a tired look, tinged with exasperation. "Think I don't know that?" he demanded. "Or maybe you think we just can't be close to anyone, denied that institutional pleasure?"

Lu was about to snap something back at him, and then took a deep breath--wincing--and thought better of it. "...sorry," she said--not sounding particularly sorry, but also not sounding as if she was being condescending or false. "So, was it... someone from your unit?"

Taiga grimaced, and looked away. "...yeah," he said quietly, declining to look in her eyes. "Yeah, the unit. You remember back at Hawk's Pass?"

Lu nodded. "Yeah."

"I used the name Seiken C4452610. He was... a friend of mine."

"And you ran away together?"

"Deserted. Took our chances and ran with them. Stole ourselves." He glanced up. "Here's a bit of trivia for you," he said, voice gaining cynicism with each word. "Did you know that if you were to kidnap a cyborg, you could be charged with theft of government property?"

Lu digested that. "What?"

"Stupid, isn't it? Who would try to kidnap a cyborg?" Taiga snorted. "But it's down in the lawbooks. See, a cyborg isn't just a person. We're also some expensive weaponry, microprocessors, sensors, data relays... really quite an impressive ensemble. If the general populace knew how much Adel spent on us, they'd turn blue in the face."

Lu didn't say a thing.

"Seiken and I... that was the first time I deserted. We got a fair ways out before they caught us." He swallowed. "Did some disreputable things to get by." He closed his eyes. "...killed a few people, even. And, you know... I still have nightmares, sometimes."

Lu watched him, making an effort to accept the story. "So why do you want to come back out here?"

Taiga was silent.

Lu pursed her lips. "You weren't lying to me, were you?"

Taiga looked at her, quietly wounded. "Nothing I said was a lie."

"Then--"

"I just don't want to talk about it." He looked away. "It doesn't matter, anyway. Not to anyone but me."

And, barely moving his lips, he appended the words Not anymore so softly that Lu couldn't hear.