It was her own fault, really. She was just too stubborn and prideful for her own good. Which wasn't to say stubbornness and pride hadn't saved her life a few times - 'cause they had - but she definitely lacked the ability to turn off the pride when she ought to.

Take, for example, when she'd been given the chance to not drive for six hours. No way, she'd said. I can fly a jet, I can drive a van. And then, No, I don't need company. Go to sleep. I'll be fine - stop being such a dork.

Yeah. Really good planning. Drive straight through midnight, get a lousy three hours in before sunrise, be tired and underwhelming at the competition tomorrow. Way to show the boys how tough and awesome she was.

"Face it, Ryan, you're your own worst enemy," Kat muttered, turning off the van's engine. Van - ha! It was a bus. It was a boat. A fat, slow, aggravating cow of a vehicle and she hated driving it. At least when she'd piloted Behemoth, she'd had the entire sky to play around in; the van was trapped on a lane of interstate asphalt. Gravity sucked.

She sighed and flipped all the little switches that armed the security system, then gratefully quit the driver's seat in favor of her bunk. Her miserable, tiny bunk, with its miserable, paper-thin walls that did zilch to block sound of any kind. The mattress was divine, but that was all her sleeping space had to recommend it.

A sharp twinge shot up her back as she stood, and she winced. Cramped muscles - another lovely benefit to driving all night. In the morning, she would have to do warm-up stuff until her head exploded from boredom. Great.

She turned off the tiny overhead light in the tiny hallway, which someone had left on, then, out of habit, pushed back the folding "door" of the first bunk, and checked.

Berto hadn't left anything else on. His laptop was cold, black, and silent, and there were no stray bits and pieces of projects blinking their merry circuits at her. He'd even managed to get himself into bed this time, instead of passing out in his desk chair. He had, however, fallen asleep with his glasses on. Again.

She reached up and carefully disentangled the black-framed specs with a young lifetime of stealth and delicate maneuvering. His eyelids didn't even flutter. She felt pride, but the victory was less a comment on her skills than on Berto's propensity towards heavy sleep.

Wish I could sleep like that, she thought, envious and sad and happy for him at the same time. She couldn't sleep like the dead because she didn't want to be dead, and at one point that would've been the consequence. Berto's pre-N-Tek life had been charmed and innocent. He could sleep.

The glasses got a new home on top of the computer, where he'd be able to find them tomorrow with little fuss.

One down, one to go. She shut the folding door again and moved down to the next. Typical - Josh hadn't bothered to close his door in the first place. They had five square inches of privacy in this stupid van and he left his door open so he could be a hero, or something ridiculous like that. Like he can't hear through the door anyway.

She peered into the darkness and failed to see an eerie green glow snaking from his desk to his arm, so she turned the hallway light on again and, in the dim glow, fished around for the portable transphasic generator's magic plastic tubing.

And made too much noise for his enhanced hearing. He stirred and mumbled, "Kat?"

She found the generator and followed the tubing to its end - a terminal that would snap into the port on his wrist biolink. "Shh. You're unplugged."

Josh frowned, blinked, and made a vague dismissive noise. "I'm good."

Sometimes Kat could almost see why her predecessor had risked censure and dismissal to fool around with the boss' kid. When he was nearly unconscious, his many annoying qualities were masked by the fact he was, actually, pretty darn cute.

Not that she had any plans to be the next Rachel Leeds. He wasn't that cute. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Full up." Another frown. "Mostly."

She let the plastic tube slip. " 'Night, then."

More mumbling, which she took to mean "good night." Mission accomplished, she exited the bunk and dusted her hands off. Everyone tucked in and sleeping, except for her. Sometimes she wondered when she'd turned into a mother hen. It sure as heck wasn't in her job description. Or her nature, for that matter.

She switched the idiot light off again, stepped into her own bunk space, and debated, briefly, the merits of changing into clothes more suitable for sleeping than a pair of blue jeans. No - it'd only be for a few hours anyway. Not like she hadn't slept in street clothes before.

She kicked off her sneakers and settled down to the last task of her waking hours.

A note. Just a short one. Sent out on the sly, ducking Berto's computer surveillance, so that no one would know except her and the person receiving it.

Arrived safe & sound, she typed. Boys asleep.

She hesitated, then added, He needs the real generator, before sending it off. On the other end was Jefferson Smith, watching and waiting for the daily report of his son's bodyguard.

Not partner. Not teammate. Not friend.

She was all those things, of course, and maybe she would've elected to stay with the boys anyway, but that wasn't her job. Her job was reporting behind Josh's back, behind Berto's back. Hanging out, just one of the crew, until she saw trouble.

With N-Tek being shut down, Agent Ryan, I need you to keep an eye on Josh...

No problem, boss. I can fly a jet, I can save your son. Extreme sports? Heck yes. Since I was a kid, why?

It was the most thankless job in the world, chaperoning Max Steel. And how was she supposed to do that, when he was the one who usually saved her - much as she hated it - and besides, anything that could get Max in trouble would be way more than a mere mortal like Kat Ryan could handle.

But an assignment was an assignment. She was too proud and stubborn to give it up, even on nights like this when she so wanted to. You didn't tell the boss you couldn't handle things, especially when the thing you were handling was the boss' kid.

A light flashed on the computer and she went to see the response. All business, as usual. Not a word about the generator. She shouldn't have said anything; Jefferson couldn't fix it until the FBI let him, and until then Josh was just going to have to manage, nevermind that he was slowly running out of juice. A death sentence, but one that everybody was ignoring.

He was annoying, way too into the total Boy Scout hero thing, and pathetically unable to admit that she was better than him at - well, at everything. But... he was a good guy. A nice guy. Her friend. And he hadn't asked for it any more than she had asked for the assignment.

Which reminded her - she hadn't shut the stupid door on Josh's bunk.

Kat padded back out into the hallway and the half-step to the door. Without shoes, she moved more quietly, and that was probably why he didn't hear her this time. Or maybe it was just that he'd finally dropped off into real sleep, now that he had no one to listen for.

Whatever. Josh was asleep, with the biolink collapsed into a watch. She was glad. It meant she didn't have to see the digital readout of his transphasic energy levels.

She took a last look at him, making sure he was breathing, making sure that she still had a job and still had a friend, then slid the door shut and took herself to bed.