It was, as the ICI informed him coldly upon request, 7:13 AM local time when Taiga crested the last hill of his pilgrimage.

On the west side of the hill the land sloped down dramatically, forming a kind of quarter-basin still caught in shadow as the sun rose slowly behind them. Pale green grass covered the landscape, and small trees stood here and there. There was a line of them only a few minutes' jog away, a shallow curve that seemed to reflect the line of the hill.

Cradled at the bottom of the quarter-basin was a small house of red claybrick and white-painted wood panelling, surrounded by a sadly neglected picket fence. A tiny garden was overgrown and choked with weeds, although the stones that marked it off were still visible. A shallow dip in the backyard--like a crater, but less severe--suggested that once, someone had planned a pond. It was an odd sight; as if this little cottage had been dropped here in the middle of the wilderness on the whim of some god, and then forgotten.

Lu, standing beside Taiga, stared. "What--" she began. "A house? Here?"

"It belonged to people who wanted to forget the world," Taiga said. "People who wanted a nice, remote place where they could--could watch the world go by." His voice caught on the last works, and he shook himself off. In another instant he had regained--or forced--a smile, and he motioned down the hill. "Come on!" he said. "Let's--let's go inside."

And he took off, walking rapidly toward the house. Lu frowned--there was something odd in Taiga's demeanor, from what she could tell. He wasn't nearly as eager to get into the house as he pretended to be, but he was hurrying as if he was--he wasn't nearly as happy to be here as he let on, but he didn't want to admit any unease or sadness. She didn't quite trust it.

Taking a deep breath, she followed him down. He had gone around to the front of the house by the time she got to the fence, and she sighed. Making her way gingerly across the unkept grounds, she pushed open the front door to allow herself in. Stepping inside, she took a look around.

...it looked like the disaster area of days gone by.

Nothing in the room was upright. Chairs and tables were pushed over onto their sides and lay strewn about the room; the one couch had fallen and lay on its back near the fireplace. Bulletholes were everywhere--in the woodwork of the floor and upper walls, in the furniture, in the large painting over the fireplace. Most of the furniture was broken, splintered and smashed beyond all use. Stains had soaked into the floor and faded--red stains. Bloodstains. There was a thick layer of dust over everything.

Taiga sat on one of the arms of the felled couch, hunched slightly with his back to the door. His hands were, to all appearances, in his lap; his eyes fixed on the floor in front of the fireplace. He didn't give any indication that he had heard her coming in.

Lu shook her head in quiet disbelief. "This is what you wanted to come all this way for," she said. "What happened?"

Taiga shuddered, ever so slightly. "This was the first time," he said. "The first time I lost it. The only time I ever wanted to lose it--to kill someone."

Lu swallowed. "Why?"

"It was after my first reconditioning. I swore I would never go back--even if it meant dying. If it meant killing."

Lu frowned. Something wasn't right-- "When?"

Taiga shook his head. "Years. Seventeen or eighteen or fifteen or thirteen or something years. I didn't want to keep track."

"No." Lu shook her head. "You said this was after your first reconditioning. But you said when you deserted with your friend--Seiken--it was the first time you deserted."

Taiga didn't answer.

Lu suppressed a slight shiver. Seeing him here, framed by something of civilization, was surreal--she was used to seeing him out in the wilderness, wind and sun and dirt surrounding him. It had never crossed her mind that he could sit like a normal person inside a normal house--

--even if the house was anything but normal.

"Taiga. You've been lying to me."

Taiga shook his head. "Nothing I said was a lie," he protested weakly.

"Then how--"

"Let me... tell you a story." There was a trembling edge to Taiga's voice. "It's not a very nice story--you probably knew that. It's one you've probably heard the like of before. It's about cyborgs."

Lu took an uneasy step back. "What is this, confessional?" she asked. "What the hell's come over you?"

"Once upon a time," Taiga started, "there was a family of three that lived in this house. A man, his wife, and their daughter. They lived here happily for a few years. One day, come autumn, the wife went out to pick flowers on the hill. A basket full of white flowers...."

"Stop it." It had been easy, when they had been at odds, to deal with Taiga. She could see him as a something--Taiga, the cyborg. Then came the night by the riff, the nightmare of pain that followed it, and into her face had been thrown the concept of Taiga, the man; someone who it might be possible to understand, to empathize with. She had just begun to come to terms with that when they had arrived--and now, here he was, quietly telling her this in a voice that reeked of impending tragedy and a way that her wonder, all over again, who and what the hell he was. Taiga, the enigma.

"She looked up to see two strange men coming toward the house from the east, several hills away. She must have known what was going on, because she ran so fast she spilled the flowers she was picking. She left a trail of them all the way to the back door. They knew what was going to happen. They couldn't have run-you can't outrun cyborgs, especially not with a child, not with a woman in weaker health. They thought that if they cyborgs found the child, she'd be killed. So they gave her her favorite toy and told her not to cry, and hid her in the fireplace. Then they pushed the couch up against it to hide her. And then the cyborgs came in."

Lu shook her head. "I don't want to hear this," she begged. I've heard enough stories like this. Too many.

"The cyborgs came in," Taiga continued, voice shaking a bit more, "through the back, as the husband and wife were wondering what to do next. They--we--we fought them--"

His voice cracked, and Lu winced. There was a moment of terrible silence.

"I don't know how long the girl stayed there without crying. It's unnatural, really, not to cry through something like that. It was noisy--gunshots and shotels and punches. It was a terrible fight. But I don't think she cried. I don't think she ever cried. There was--there was a moment when someone got thrown up against the couch, and shifted it.... One of the legs broke, and got driven into the fireplace. It must have hit her. You would think she would have cried then. But I can't--I can't remember hearing her--"

He took a deep, shuddering breath. Lu closed her eyes, breathing in the silence. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked, doing her best to keep her voice dispassionate and level.

"I wanted you to know what happened here," Taiga said. There was a minute movement in one of his arms, and something dropped to the floor.

"Why?" So I could judge you?

"Because you deserve to know," Taiga said. He took another deep breath. "I'm going to weed the garden," he stated, with a finality of purpose that took Lu offguard. Then he stood up, walking back into another room of the house. After a moment, there was the creak of a door opening on long-unused hinges, and then a quiet thud as the door closed again.

Hesitantly, Lu walked to where he had been sitting and kneeled, feeling the dull ache in her side as she did. She caught her breath--the floor was damp with tears.

In their midst lay the object Taiga had dropped, face-up on the fireplace tiles. It was a toy soldier, inexpertly but lovingly carved from wood and painted. Its helmet was carried underneath one arm, and upon its face was a lopsided, but happy, smile.