Jake gave an impressed smirk as he stood, hands on his hips, in the midst of a rather vast building which consisted mostly of a single, high-ceiling, open room. It was neatly arranged with gym equipment grouped together by what type of workout it provided, as well as a few padded areas for sparring or exercises that didn't require equipment, like the push-ups a group of marines were pumping out. Off to the side were the showers, toilets and changing rooms, the only closed-off sections of the place, and light filtered in through high windows which didn't allow creeps to peer in and stare at the half-naked guys and gals getting sweaty.

"Advena, stop being a dick," he scolded his partner when his roaming eyes spotted her. She was laying on her side on a bench next to a marine who was hefting dumbbells, droplets of sweat clinging to his brow as he grunted with effort. Meanwhile, Jake's girlfriend was holding two of the very same dumbbells in a single hand and pumping them up and down effortlessly with her Cheshire grin fixed to her face. In all honesty, however, Jake had to stifle a laugh at how panicked the marine looked every time he glanced to his side. It seemed Advena was quite off-putting for the man.

The Xenomorph finally relented, placing the weights back on their rack and trotting over to her partner.

"The one on Reveles was better," she observed.

"This place is pretty damn good considering the resources we have at our disposable, and nothing short of a miracle with how over-worked our construction guys are."

"Yeah, but there's no rope course."

"That thing was a glorified jungle gym."

"I liked it. It was fun. There's nowhere to parkour here."

"Except for, you know, the big-ass forest over that-a-way."

"You know, that's actually a brilliant idea!" Advena exclaimed, her perked posture reflecting her sudden burst of child-like excitement. "We should build little platforms and bridges and zip lines and stuff in the trees, make a little obstacle course. It would be a massive hit with the Xenos. Ooh! We should get in quick and make it ourselves; charge five bucks an entry and we'll be rich!" Jake laughed at her and stroked her head while they walked to the door together, having already done their morning exercise routine.

"Hey, would ya look at that," Jake said amusedly, nodding his head towards where Jeica and Tyler were chatting next to the front entrance. Tyler smiled appreciatively at her, then made off into the gym. He was too out of the way to catch on their way, so the duo continued on to meet up with Jeica. "He seemed to be in a good mood," Jake noted once close enough to be heard. Jeica laughed at him.

"That wasn't Tyler; it was Sal. Tyler's outside on the shooting range," Jeica informed him. "I was actually just about to see what he was up to, if you wanna come with. He seemed quite worked up yesterday."

"Yeah, if Tyler sounds happy, there's probably something serious going on here," Jake jibed. Jeica rolled her eyes at him and sauntered outside, Jake and Advena following along dutifully behind her. Once outside, the new building's soundproofing lost its effect, and gunshots could be heard ringing out across the flat area sporadically. As they got closer to their destination, Jake flinched suddenly as a porcelain plate went spinning high above his head, only to explode into a thousand pieces with a resounding boom. "What the hell?"

Sal – or rather, Sal's body – hurled another plate at ludicrous velocity, his movements jerky and unpredictable, likely in an attempt to keep the Xeno next to him on their toes. The unfamiliar Xeno didn't falter, however, and pivoted gracefully to level their sniper rifle, firing a single shot which had the plate exploding into tiny shards, much like its predecessor.

"I have a lot of questions," Jeica announced as the three of them drew to a halt nearby. Tyler, currently inhabiting his boyfriend's body, turned to them and lowered the plate he was getting ready to throw. His company slid a pair of chunky goggles which looked like some kind of prototype VR headset off their head and made safe their sniper, flicking on its safety and adjusting their grip so it was no longer on the trigger. "Number one being: are you seriously making your boyfriend exercise your body while you're out here having fun blowing stuff up?"

"Hey, this isn't for fun," Tyler protested, "it's science. And to answer your question: yes, he does exercise my body for me. He was the one who insisted that I should work out, so he can be the one to put the effort in."

"Dude, that is so lame," Jeica told him, her tone a mixture of confusion, mirth and bewilderment. "What the hell kind of 'science' are you doing here anyway? Looks like the kinda shit my hick of an uncle gets up to when he's had one too many beers with his friends."

"Eagle here asked me to customise a sniper for her; she couldn't use the sights on standard ones, and I decided to make the weapon as a whole more balanced for Xeno use – you know, bigger, more space in the trigger guard, heavier stock, longer barrel, higher calibre – the works. Oh, and a completely custom-built sight. We're testing out the wireless scope," Tyler explained. He motioned towards the goggles, which were obviously the method of viewing through the scope without trying to jam your bulky, elongated head against your weapon.

"Her name is Eagle?" Jake demanded, then quickly realised how rude that sounded and instead addressed the Xeno in question. "I'm sorry, your name is Eagle?"

"I'm Un-Bonded, so the only name I have is my Hive name." Jake looked to Jeica, who had the same curious expression as he did, so he instead turned to Advena.

"Christ, you don't know about Hive names?" Tyler scolded them. "What, you thought that the Xenos just called each other 'Runner Number Two' until they find a human to name them?" Jake huffed at the scientist's attitude, and let him know how much of an ass he was being via an annoyed glare. "Due to Xenomorphs not having a native language, they use names from that of their Host species'. Normally, a Xeno would be named once they hatch from a Host's chest, but because in this day and age their Hosts are a bit too dead to name things, Queens have started taking it upon themselves to name their subjects until they can get a name from a human. These Hive names are usually a noun or adjective which describes their personality, traits or feats. For example, Sal was raised by someone named 'Coward' – I'm sure you can imagine why he was called that. Eagle is named Eagle because she is an excellent hunter, and has the eye of an eagle. Brilliant sniper material." Eagle beamed brightly at the praise, her chest swelling a few centimetres as her body unconsciously shifted into a showy pose while the humans' eyes were still on her.

"Wait, so what's your Hive name?" Jake asked of his girlfriend. Advena shuffled her feet embarrassedly, keeping her gaze on the dirt below her.

"Oh, uh… it's not really important."

"Aw come on, it can't be that bad."

"I'm not going to say it in front of all these people!"

"Then just telepathic-whisper it to me. I'll stop blue-balling you," Jake sing-songed. Advena grimaced, knowing she couldn't refuse that offer. She was already getting sick of her punishment which came of pushing her partner off a boat, so that bribe sounded rather enticing.

"Fine… it's Nutshell. Happy?" Jake bit his lip. It was a hopeless endeavour, trying to hold his laughter in, seeing as she could feel the mirth bubbling inside his mind, but he tried anyway.

"Aww 'Vee… hey… it's alright. It's gone now; you have a cool name now." Advena huffed ashamedly.

"It feels wrong to hate it, seeing as it's the one thing I have left of my mother, but I do. I hate that name." Jake crouched down to her level and quickly hugged her.

"Hey, if she were still around, she would just be happy that the name was only temporary, and so should you. Imagine how proud she would be to find out you were the first Xenomorph to ever receive a name from a human they're Bonded to," Jake reassured her, deciding to use telepathy to tell her privately, due to their audience.

"Handcuffs," Advena growled.

"What?" Jake said dumbly, aloud due to being caught off-guard.

"I demand you let me handcuff you to the bed tonight, for making this ordeal happen."

"Christ you're just… I mean, done deal and all but… Jesus 'Vee, do you ever – never mind." Advena grinned her devilish grin of hers, seeing her partner getting all flustered was enough to shake off her darker thoughts and return to the present. The happy, wonderful present, trapped between the death and misery of the past and the grim and uncertain future.

"Well, that was entertaining to watch," Tyler commented dryly, seeing the duo were finally done with their silent exchange. "But if all of you are done, Eagle and I have some work to get back to."

"Actually, do you mind if I stick around, maybe watch a bit?" Jeica requested. "I've actually been sniper-trained, and I'm curious as to how good Eagle is. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to give her a few pointers." Tyler shrugged his big, awkward, Xeno shoulders.

"Sure, just try not to have your head taken off. Eagle won't hit you, but Sal's body can turn even the bluntest of circular objects into saw blades if I throw them hard enough." Eagle slid the goggles back over her face and readied her gun once more, prompting Tyler to wind back and toss the plate at an incredible speed. It curved slightly in the wind, giving it an arc-shaped path which would throw off a lot of untrained individuals, but Eagle managed to land a single, accurate round in it. Jeica whistled approvingly.

"Not bad."

"Best part is, she didn't even let me pimp out her scope with range-finders and vector-predictions. All her goggles do is show her a real-time feed from her scope. From this," Tyler explained as he pointed out a small cap which could screw onto the back of most standard scopes. "Of course I'll need to modify it to have wire transmission if she's ever going to use it on the field; wireless connections introduce unnecessary amounts of lag which could make or break a shot at longer ranges."

"A couple of milliseconds is all it takes," Jeica agreed.

"Actually, come to think of it Jeica, I've done just about all I can for now, so why don't you take over here? You can teach her properly and I can get Jake to help me out with my latest experiment," Tyler suggested.

"My help?" Jake echoed.

"As a test subject, of course. It's an amateur's folly to assume something that works on yourself will work on others too, so I need some more human test subjects to try out. Should be safe enough."

"Oh boy, that's reassuring." Advena elbowed her boyfriend good-naturedly.

"He'd love to help, Tyler," she said in his place.

"Yeah, I'll see what I can do here," Jeica agreed. "You kids have fun, and try not to blow anything up. Unless you get it on camera and it looks sick, in which case, send those files over to me."

~~~~~~~~~~()~~~~~~~~~~

"So, a bit of background before we get started," Tyler announced, back in his old body, once they'd reached the grounded shuttle which he called a home. "After my initial discovery of telepathic waves and my further discovery of how to read them, I've found that converting between artificial waves and telepathic waves is relatively simple. Here, I have an example application of this discovery." Tyler gestured to a box with a camcorder atop it, wires sticking out of its side and travelling into the box, which was a mess of glass, resin, lights and wiring within. It looked of dubious quality, being held together in some places by alligator clamps, paperclips and even rubber bands, which set Jake on edge a little.

"That looks… dangerous," Jake commented dryly.

"On the contrary; it's a camera," Tyler explained.

"Then why the…?" he asked, gesturing to the object in question.

"The mess?"

"Yeah, I was gonna say – yeah, let's go with 'mess'."

"Well, this camera happens to have telepathic capabilities, as it is wired to an experimental aerial node which can send, receive and convert telepathic waves. But before we go any further into that, I'll get into the reason you're here. See, I have a working theory about these 'mental barriers' we all have – you know, the ones which stop you from being able to body-swap with Jeica or any other rando off the street. Quite simply, telepathy seems to work similarly to a computer – which is probably why conversion is so easy, but I digress. In theory, every brain, in all its uniqueness, produces a unique encryption key. Any Bond abilities or private information sent to an individual is encrypted with this key, thus only those who possess it may unencrypt it and use the information."

"But then how did Advena get my key?"

"Ah!" Tyler exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as he pointed at the dumbfounded sergeant. Something told Jake the scientist had been expecting that question. "Isn't it obvious? She was inside you. She had a physical connection to you. I'm no biologist, so I can't tell you the specifics, but if I had to guess, the Xenos grow pretty close to the spinal cord; they could probably forge a path to your brain from there and grab your encryption key that way. And before you ask, the Queen, according to my scans, has an auxiliary telepathy node which is unencrypted; it functions in a similar way to this camera – it has no key, and therefore can Bond with anyone who chooses to Bond with it. So basically, this node grabs the encryption keys from those who offer them, gives them to the Queen and enables her to interact with her subjects as a Bonded would. And, because she has these keys, she can give them to other people or take them away, which is how she can break and form Bonds within her Hive."

"Impressive," Jake admitted once he'd made sure Tyler was done talking. "I think I understood about half of that."

"Irrelevant; all you need to understand is that this camera is specifically designed to capture encryption keys and feed them back to you – kind of like the Queen. Once you Bond with this camera, you'll be able to tune into its 'eye' any time you like, just like you can with Advena, except the camera can't refuse you access."

"This… is a little unsettling," Advena confessed. "You're telling me we can Bond with machines now?"

"It's weird at first, but this could change everything. Imagine being able to control attack drones with your thoughts, being able to call an airstrike with your mind – imagine Bonding with an AI!"

"He's right," Jake agreed. "This could be huge. Alright, so how do I Bond with it?" Tyler grinned broadly at the cooperation. He looked like he was about to explode with excitement.

"Advena will be able to help you a lot better than I can; it's basically the same as Bonding with a Queen. Show 'im 'Vee." Advena shied away from the attention slightly, still feeling uncertain about this whole ordeal. Something didn't seem right about this, about using her kind's most intimate of traits, no, exploiting it. A hand found her neck, stroking it lovingly, and before she knew it, Jake was crouched before her, placing his chin on her shoulder and hugging her tightly.

"Come on 'Vee; this could really help us. We need advantages like this if we're going to win the war." She sighed, doubt still churning in her stomach, but relented, silently sharing the necessary instincts with her lover. Jake kissed her dome appreciatively and stood. "Okay, here goes." He concentrated, using the mental exercises Advena had just taught him to relax his mental defences, concentrating on a single feeling of welcoming. Then a wave of sensations crashed over him. He briefly saw four figures – himself, Advena, Sal and Tyler – through what he assumed was the lens of the camera, before he was overwhelmed by flashes of images and voices.

He saw excerpts of his life – the day two marines knocked on his door to inform him of his parents' death, the day he signed up with the marines, boot camp, his first mission, his first kill, the mission where he'd been impregnated with Advena, and the rebellion of Reveles station. All defining moments for him.

And then, a rush of unfamiliar sensations. A muffled voice called to him, the words blurred and hard to make out, but Jake could have sworn he heard the words 'welcome home, Tyler'. Then he was a teenager being hauled from the wreckage of a crashed ship, and then he was being attacked and waking up in hospital, where a charming young man with a scar running down his smiling face was being treated for a bullet in the shoulder. Jake saw through the eyes of an adult now, excited for their eighteenth birthday, stripping the scarred man and pushing him onto a bed, he saw the day the scarred man failed to come back to a small rebel base, he saw Jeica rescuing him from a band of Insurrectionists, he saw Director Lenex patting him on the back and handing him an ID card, he saw the first time meeting the voice in his head, he saw, again, the rebellion of Reveles Station, but from different eyes this time. And finally, he saw the most recent defining moment of one Tyler Doelle; the choice to aid the rebels in their time of need, the scuttling of the USS Black Hand.

Still, the torrent of images didn't stop. Now he was viewing the life of a Xenomorph, being raised in a cage with her mother, a Queen. He watched as her family was slaughtered, as her Queen was put down, as she died, as she killed, as she escaped from her new prison, as she died again, as she hatched from a greenhorn marine, as she trained, as she escaped again in the rebellion of Reveles Station and as she lost her virginity. Advena's defining moments.

Next up, another Xenomorph, this one starting out similarly but digressing into a horrible display of slaughter, then starvation, then rivalry between two Hives for food, then the death of the Xeno's only family, then the Xenomorph himself dying, only to hatch from a young scientist, Bond, fight in the rebellion of Reveles Station and be accepted by his Bonded. From what he could gather, that made those Sal's defining moments.

But it all happened so fast Jake hardly had a chance to process what was happening, finding himself reeling back from a powerful wash of emotions, from the past and the present. Finally, everything seemed to calm down, the darkness began fading from his vision, and he could hear a voice crying out to him in his mind.

"Jacob? Jacob? Please, answer me!"

"'Vee?" he croaked, sitting up slowly, still trying to blink away the confusion. He was on the floor, having crumpled soon after trying to Bond with the camera. "What the hell just happened?"

"Jake! I think, I think I just Bonded with Tyler. And… Sal…"

"FUCK!" Tyler screamed.

"Don't. Yell," Jake growled, clutching his throbbing head. All the chaotic influx of memories gave him a feeling akin to having his head peeled open with a baseball bat. "Just tell me what the hell just happened."

"I – shit, such a fucking simple… coding error. It was a fucking coding error. I must have… the return code was…"

"You messed up the differentiation code," Jake interrupted, bitterly amused at his ability to gather Tyler's meaning from his thoughts. "The camera sent both our encryption keys to both of us, Bonding us together."

"And when Sal and Advena used telepathy to check on us, they inadvertently received both my key and yours, essentially creating a cluster-fuck of a four-way Bond. Shit."

"It's okay," Jake soothed before the scientist could begin his frantic pacing. "We can get Asphid to break off the Bond. Easy."

"That only works when we're part of her Hive, Jacob."

"So we'll join her Hive then," Jake exclaimed, throwing his arms into the air out of frustration. He wasn't exactly keen on charging into this whole 'Queen' thing, but they could end up with bigger issues on their hands if they didn't resolve this soon.

"Absolutely not. I refuse to let anyone have free roam over my body and mind like that; it's a violation of our most basic privacies. Besides, there's now three people who have my most personal and close-guarded memories in their heads, and I'll be damned if I let that become four – or five, considering Abraham and Asphid probably share everything between them. Then Asphid will probably tell all her Xenos then the whole god-damn neighbourhood knows."

"Asphid's not like that."

"You don't know that – and don't even try to bullshit me, I can feel your apprehension. You were just thinking about how hesitant you are to join her Hive a minute ago. Besides this, there's also the fact that Asphid doesn't like me due to my involvement with her Hive's imprisonment, so she'll be prone to search through my mind in excruciating detail."

"Let's all stop yelling for a moment and consider this," Sal pleaded, getting in the middle of the room and patting the air in a calming motion. "We actually have somewhat of an opportunity here. Our relationships haven't exactly been great of late." He paused to give Advena a look, though it was unclear whether it was because she still held animosity for Sal's initial treatment of Tyler, or because of her constant pestering of her boyfriend to reconnect with the young scientist. "And right now, we have the most efficient means of communicating our thoughts and feelings known to both our kinds at our disposal, so why not use these circumstances to… figure things out. Between us all. Then we can put more thought into how to solve all this."

"Sal," Tyler sighed, "there's really not much to –"

"Advena and I are going to have a chat outside. Use this situation wisely, Tyler." Tyler huffed and folded his arms, able to do nothing but watch his boyfriend leave, Advena hesitantly following. When he failed to take his eyes off the door, even after it shut, Jake cleared his throat.

"So… I guess I tried to kill you that one time." Tyler stiffened, his heart rate increasing slightly as fear crept into his mind. Jake found himself surprisingly fond of this development; usually it was very hard to read the young man through his snark and anger.

"It doesn't matter; you didn't succeed." His tone was cold and biting, but his mind was awash with nervousness. Sal was right; this could make smoothing things out millions of times easier. Jake stepped into the ship's makeshift living room, flopped onto the couch, and patted the cushion next to him. Tyler sneered, but obliged, moving stiffly to take the spot.

"C'mon Tyler, tell me what's up. You haven't been the same since Reveles. When I first met you, you were timid and compassionate, and now you're just… an asshole."

"Well, what do you want me to do then? Do you want me to hold hands in a big circle and dance around and sing and pretend that we're safe and all is right in the universe? Do you want me to put down all my work, slack off and give up our only chance of ever beating the Wey-Yu? Do you want me to stop thinking logically, critically and objectively? The fact of the matter is you are all far too relaxed about our situation and that frustrates me. It frustrates me that I seem to be the only one concerned with our imminent doom and it frustrates me that nobody here has an IQ above double digits, so I have to take all the workload. Nobody else can even understand the problems I'm trying to solve here, and to make matters worse, all these pricks seem to want to do is distract me from my work. Forget about the fact the Wey-Yu is about to go to war with Russia and our time is limited, Tyler, come waste our valuable time on a yacht chatting up the Queen."

"Tyler, I don't really know how to put this gently but… we're all going to die one day, and for a lot of us, here," Jake said, gesturing lazily in the air, "on Altin, that's going to be rather soon."

"That's the opposite of how to comfort someone," Tyler grumbled snarkily.

"I'm not finished. We could all die very soon, which is why we shouldn't spend all of what little time we have left working and worrying. I know when I'm lying on my death bed, I'll be able to look back on these days and say to myself: I lived good, I had a good run. Will you, Tyler?"

"What are you, a nihilist? We're all going to die anyway so may as well make the most of it while we got it?"

"I'm not religious, if that's what you mean. I don't believe some great bearded all-knowing man in the sky is going to reward me for working hard my entire life after I die, so I've gotta kinda reward myself along the way, y'know?"

"Fuck, Jake," Tyler chuckled, slapping a palm to his forehead. "This is the second time you've stopped being a twat long enough to surprise me. And you know what? You're right. You're right; my life has been pretty shit so far, and we're probably all going to die horrifically no matter how much effort I put into this war, so yeah, maybe I should make some happy memories. I've had a shit life, why have a shit death too?"

"That's… the spirit?" Jake encouraged uncertainly. He awkwardly slapped Tyler's back supportively like a dad would to their child at their first sports game. The sergeant didn't need his new telepathic link to feel how awkward the whole interaction had been, and they both unanimously decided to drop it and never speak of it again. "So, uh, wanna like, play some video games or something while we wait for our partners?"

"You don't have to humour me, Jacob," Tyler laughed, with a genuine smile.

"I dunno, I've been playing with Advena a lot recently and I think I'm getting pretty good. Hey, I've got a fun idea: teach me some tricks so I can beat her and watch her panic over it for a few days." They snickered together, set up, and flopped down on the couch to play video games for the next couple of hours.

~~~~~~~~~~(The Next Day)~~~~~~~~~~

"So, uh… what's this then?" Jeica inquired nervously. She cast a sceptical glance to Advena, who was brooding in the corner of the room atop a steel bench, spread out like a cat. She shifted her eyes back to the sergeant with concern crinkling her face, partly because of how anxious Advena seemed, and partly because of the messy device spread out in the centre of the room. It looked like somebody had taken four computers, strapped them together, then put a big box of Christmas lights and Hive resin on top, before shoving wires into every available surface haphazardly. A single screen, keyboard and mouse stood off to the side, wired in via a much tidier bundle of cables.

"Well, I got thinking, you see," Jake began. "I got thinking about Tyler's new discovery; the telepathic waves and the wave converter he had set up. Now, to my understanding, the adrenaline effect of Bonding where time appears to slow down is caused directly by an increase in processing power due to the Bond – adrenaline improves the telepathic abilities of humans, causing them to become closer to their partners while the chemical is in effect. So, in theory, if one were to Bond to a machine with high processing power, you could cause a slow-down effect of much greater magnitude – i.e., time will be even slower, allowing you to think about your actions more carefully etcetera etcetera. This device is a prototype, well, brain of sorts. Like a synthetic's brain, but with no personality or memories installed; only processing. Specifically, I paid strict attention to the creative and logical processing cores of synthetic programming to maximise the effects of the slow-down." Jake paused, to catch his breath, and took careful stock of Jeica, who looked confused beyond reason.

Not understanding the reason behind her confusion, he decided he needed to dumb down his explanation. "Basically, this machine will increase the amount of thinking and information processing you can do within a small time. This increase in perception means you can do things that would take a lot of time in a small amount of time, thus appearing to slow down time. For example, catching a ball thrown at your face with no prior warning would be quite difficult under normal circumstances because, A, your brain needs to process the image of the ball travelling towards you, B, your brain needs to recognise what the ball is and that it is in fact moving towards you, and C, needs to decide what to do about it so it can, D, send the appropriate signals to your body in order to make your limbs move to catch. Now, let's compare this to uploading a file. If you upload one five-hundred gigabyte file from one computer, it will take a while. However, if you upload five one-hundred gigabyte files from five different computers, you will upload the five-hundred gigs much faster this way. Basically, increasing the brain's processing power increases the amount of computers you have to upload the information, decreasing the time taken. Is any of this making any sense to you?"

"But… how did you make this?" Jeica demanded.

"Well, I did have to pull apart a few bits and pieces to get the necessary parts. You know, radios, motion trackers, computers, the usual suspects. But I think you'll agree that –"

"No, Jake, how did you make this? These words you're saying make about as much sense as the shit Tyler spouts. Are you feeling okay?"

"Ah, actually, that's an interesting comparison. I've actually thought about it a bit, and the obvious answer seems that Bonding to Tyler has resulted in somewhat of a…" Jake rolled his finger through the air a few times while he searched for the right word. "An information exchange. I've inherited a few things from him, and he's gotten a couple of things from me. I talked to a couple of Xenomorphs about it, and they call it the 'bleed effect'. Well, there's also the 'meld effect' but it seems near impossible this would be the case at such an early stage of contact."

"Explain."

"Well, the 'bleed effect' is: when a Bonded pair are in contact with each other, traits will 'bleed' over their telepathic connection and 'infect' the other person. Say if person A has a nervous fidget, person B might develop that fidget while in telepathic contact with A. Now, the 'meld effect' is somewhat different in its permanence. The 'meld effect' is when two individuals spend so much time telepathically Bonded to one another that their minds sort of, cache information of the other person. Some of this information can be actively used by the brain. So say person A can speak English and Russian. Person B, when he focuses on that cache of information in his head, can open the little package and take that information. Now person B can speak Russian too, even when out of telepathic contact. This effect is a little unnerving actually, because a grieving mind can use these caches to reconstruct part of their partner's personality should their partner die, giving them temporary bursts of what could be compared to a multiple personality disorder."

"And this effect is only showing up now?"

"On the contrary; looking back, I can see several instances where opinions and pieces of personality which belong to Advena have manifested in myself – for example, at first I was unwilling to partake in interspecies sex, but Advena's opinion of the matter slowly bled into my mind and melded with me, and now I'm okay with it."

"Okay, but there's a little difference between being okay with fucking someone and suddenly developing hyper-intelligence. Advena, something's wrong here, right?" Both humans turned to the lone alien, who finally acknowledged their existence, nodding slowly.

"Any Queen is perfectly capable of Bonding two Xenomorphs together, but it has never been done. There is a rule forbidding it. I can't help but feel there is a reason for that, and the reason may have something to do with same-species telepathic Bonds. And I'm scared of what could happen to Jacob, but he keeps telling me he is fine, and that this new Bond is good for us all."

"It is good for us all. Imagine how overjoyed Tyler's going to be when he finds out I can help him with all his projects, that he doesn't have to stress out and be alone in his efforts! We can do twice the research and propel this Resistance straight to being war-worthy. It's – it's going to be… to… whoa…" Jake swayed unsteadily and held a hand to his head. Advena immediately leapt up and grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him, but he waved her off soon after. "I'm fine, I'm fine. It's just a dizzy spell. Y'know, all this new stuff coming into my brain can probably be a bit overwhelming for it."

"I don't like this," Jeica confessed bluntly. "I don't like any of this. Go get Tyler and figure this out. I want to know the ifs, buts, hows, whats and whys, you hear me?"

"Roger. I'll go find Tyler – not that he requires much 'finding' seeing as he spends all his time in his 'house'." Jake chuckled at his own joke, and Jeica offered an uneasy smile, her heart not really in the matter.

~~~~~~~~~~(Later)~~~~~~~~~~

"Well about fricken time!" Jake exclaimed. "Of all the days he could choose not to be a hermit crab, he chose today." He and Advena were strolling down the main street of Altin's colony, weaving their way through crowds and shops, their voices mingling with the idle murmur which covered such busy places like a shroud. Ahead, the sergeant had spotted the man he was looking for at an ice-cream shop, and they were currently pushing their way over, until they popped out of the stream of people at Tyler's feet. "There you are; we've been looking all over for – what are you doing?" Tyler raised an eyebrow with a playful smile while handing a kid who looked no older than ten an ice-cream.

"The kid got shoved and dropped her ice-cream, so I bought her a new one," he explained simply.

"Right…"

"So, there something you needed pal?" Tyler waved the child goodbye and began walking, silently implying Jake should follow.

"Yeah… I'm sorry, I have to ask: I thought you hated kids?" Tyler shrugged at this.

"Well, hate's a strong word… I definitely don't want any of my own, but, y'know, they're just kids. What decent human being is going to just ignore a crying kid?"

"Holy shit," Jake realised. "You inherited my ability to be a decent human being. I got your intelligence, you got my social skills – we both got something from the other which we lacked ourselves. It's so obvious now."

"But then what did you get from Sal, and what did I get from Advena?" Tyler smirked as he let that question hang, and his grin only grew wider when Jake had an answer for him. Was that pride?

"We haven't inherited anything from them yet. Which means… Which means Advena was right. This has something to do with us being the same species."

"Bingo."

"Cross-platform media?" Jake questioned, picking up on his friend's thoughts.

"Well, it's a good analogy, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

"What are you two talking about?" Advena demanded.

"The situation seems to be similar to cross-platform media – a rather outdated concept seeing as the Corporation got monopoly over everything tech-wise a century or two ago, but it fits," Jake elaborated. "You see, back in the old days different companies would make different computers. For example, Windows and Mac. Both operating systems have their own file types, so a Windows computer would save text file to a txt, and a Mac would save to a note. If you try opening a txt on a Mac, no comprehende; it wouldn't work. Same for a note on Windows. But, there are universal files which can be opened by both, like a png image. Now, imagine Xenos are Windows and humans are Macs – because Windows was the superior operating system of course, so naturally that would be you guys. So, because we have different operating systems, a lot of our 'files' aren't compatible, so a lot of our traits aren't exchangeable. But for two humans, because all our file types are the same, it's very simple to transfer them backwards and forwards. All of them."

"Which means this has to stop," Tyler summed up. "Because if we don't, it'll be like the purple glass scenario."

"Explain," Advena grated out frustratedly.

"Uh, right, sorry," the scientist apologised. "It's where you have a glass of blue liquid, and a glass of red liquid. Now, little by little, with two spoons, you scoop out a little bit of red and a little bit of blue, then put them in the opposite cup. Not much difference at first. But if you keep doing this over and over again, eventually you'll have two purples cups, exactly the same. That's what could happen to Jacob and I; both of us would be identical – half me, half him and completely different to our original selves."

"Yeah, no. We're going to Queen Asphid now and getting Un-Bonded. Immediately."

"Let's not be so hasty," Jake protested, "we simply don't have the data to back this up; it's all guesswork at this point. I think Tyler's just being a bit paranoid. We should give this a shot and call it off only when we see the warning signs."

"Oh, look at you," Tyler snorted. "You get my intelligence for one day and you're prancing around like you own the place. Well guess what buddy, we're already seeing warning signs."

"That's your paranoia talking and we both know it. Our current behaviours are well within resolvable parameters."

"Well… that's true, but it's a hell of a risk just so you can feel better about yourself. You don't have to prove anything, Jacob. You're good at what you do, I'm good at what I do. We can leave it at that."

"Exactly. Let's go," Advena agreed sternly. Jake held his arms out in a wide shrug, glancing from one person to the other with a mixture of confusion and something more sinister on his face.

"So… what? We're just gonna go over to the Hive and get Tyler on Asphid's hit list? She'll be on him like a hawk once she sees how involved he is with the Wey-Yu."

"Ooh, manipulation, that's low," Tyler snarled.

"Not as low as the man who uses it so often he can so easily recognise it."

"Oh give it a rest. At least I care about my significant other enough to listen to their feelings and concerns. If I were you, I'd apologise pretty quickly before she ends up despising you as much as the entire universe seems to hate… me…" Tyler trailed off hesitantly. A drop of cold sweat rolled down his spine as he realised under most normal circumstances, he would have told Jake to 'fuck off' and stormed back to his shuttle-home, but he had the sudden urge to try and help people. This was getting out of hand, and being nice was hard. "Well, I'm willing to make that sacrifice to get my sanity back, so let's do as the lady said and get going, ay?"

"Always taking each other's side… and you know what? If you know so much about pleasing women and she wants her dumb old boyfriend back to fuel her self-superiority complex, you can go ahead and keep her, fag." Tyler was speechless, and a little surprised when his heart fluttered in genuine hurt. Advena likewise let her jaw gape a little and, whether because he thought he couldn't take that back, or because he genuinely was sick of them, Jake turned and left them standing there together in the busy street.

Advena, through her newfound link to him, felt Tyler's pain and touched his hand with her own gently to grab his attention. He glanced down, still a little shocked.

"Are you okay?" she asked gently.

"Yeah, I mean… wow… if that's the kind of anger I'm capable of, I think I've been doing a pretty damn good job of keeping it suppressed." He offered a weak smile, and Advena chuckled, relieved. "I think… for both your sake and his, we should let him cool off. You can crash at my place if you like." Advena smiled gratefully and pressed her flank against his leg appreciatively.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Thanks Tyler."

~~~~~~~~~~()~~~~~~~~~~

"So, how have you two been holding up anyway?" Tyler asked idly. He was curled up on the couch in his shuttle-home's living room, with Advena curled up into a ball next to him and Sal lounging on the ex-pool-table atop a small mound of pillows. "Like, clearly the human-human Bond is a shit-show, so how's the Xeno side of things going?"

"Not good," Advena huffed. "I, the Sal part of me, is constantly anxious about how well I'm performing in my relationship, and I, the Advena part of me, feels like shit because I'm probably responsible for that after berating him and trying to kill him a while back."

"I can't stop thinking about sex," Sal complained. Tyler chuckled lightly when he figured that was probably the reason he had been so awkward and quiet all day. "And I'm afraid of my specie's natural abilities and characteristics because it might scare my partner away." Advena lifted her head slightly and exhaled peevishly. Oh, they were going to play that game, were they? She didn't care to stop and think the confrontational behaviour was uncharacteristic of Sal, and instead focused on her rebuttal.

"I also feel like bottling up my personal problems because I don't want to be a burden to my partner."

"I've developed the sudden urge to act irrationally when faced with someone who makes mistakes which I deem to be stupid. It might be due to my newfound need to overcompensate for my intelligence which I deem to be low when compared to the ingenuity of humankind." Advena growled and stood aggressively, baring her teeth at Sal.

"I'm afraid of confrontation, especially when my significant other is involved. If I disagree with something he says, I'll keep it to myself because I'm a coward who feels everything they know is wrong and therefore I should not express myself, all because of a few mistakes I made long ago!" Sal hissed at this and matched her stance, refusing to back down.

"I am very stubborn and refuse to admit I'm in the wrong even when I know full well that I am. I'd rather die than back down from anything!"

"Stop it!" Tyler commanded them, placing a hand on Advena's dome in an attempt to forcefully coerce her into lying back down. "Both of you," he added, shooting Sal a glare. Both aliens reluctantly dropped their aggravated stances when faced with the visibly-upset human, settling back down into slightly-tenser versions of their previous positions. Once he was sure they were placated, Tyler allowed himself to flop back and release a whoosh of breath. He needed to think of a solution, but that would take time, time he needed to spend with his friends and lovers trying to help them and soothe them in the confusing circumstances. "Damn it," he uttered aloud. He knew it wasn't him, but it's not like knowing something was wrong ever stopped anyone before, especially when powerful emotions are involved. He knew he shouldn't give a damn about hurting people's feelings if the help he was giving them in the long run outweighed that, but Jake was such a little do-gooder and now he was stuck with those tendencies.

Advena nuzzled him gently, trying to bring him out of his dark thoughts.

"It's going to be okay, Tyler. You'll figure something out; I know you will. You're the smartest guy I know."

"It's just… such an indescribably depressing feeling," Tyler confessed with a grimace. "Feeling yourself changing. Your morals, your personality, it's not you but you can't do anything about it. Feelings just don't go away, even if they aren't yours."

"Come on, we're a couple of bad-asses. There's nothing we can't fight together – not even feelings." Tyler chuckled and put his arm around her as she snuggled closer, craning her neck to sneak in a little kiss from her lover, placing her lips on his from below. Tyler gently adjusted his grip on her, accepting the gesture and returning – wait.

He pushed her away suddenly, with enough force to topple her off the couch entirely. He stood and placed his hands on the top of his head, his eyes wild and confused.

"FUCK!" he screamed. "That's not – you're not –"

"Tyler, I'm sorry I –" Tyler was hyperventilating at this point and doing his best not to pull his hair out. He began pacing, reciting something under his breath fanatically, like a man possessed by a fever dream. He could feel the emotions shifting below Advena's cool exterior as she silently ran through the same motions he was. She was desperately trying to convince herself that she didn't love Tyler; those emotions belonged to Sal. Tyler shuddered as he tried to console himself with memories of him and Sal, all the intimate moments they'd shared. His stomach churned a little and his face contorted at the thought of two males going at it. His panicked breath shortened further and he screwed his eyes shut, blocking out every voice and feeling which dared try to enter his mind via telepathy, cutting himself off from the entire world, except Sal, specifically. Maybe if he just isolated himself with his lover, things would go back to normal? To further this, he quickly pressed himself into Sal's arms, desperately embracing him while hoarsely whispering apologies to him.

"It's alright Tyler, we'll fix this in the morning. It will all be over soon," Sal soothed him. He cast a sour look at Advena, but otherwise did nothing but comfort Tyler for a few minutes, before picking him up and taking him to their room, leaving Advena to claim a place on their couch sullenly.

~~~~~~~~~~()~~~~~~~~~~

"Ugh…" Tyler moaned, clutching a hand to his head. His throat was dry and his head was pounding. His memories of the previous day were hazy at best and every inch of his body was filled with regret. "This is why I don't drink," he grumbled to himself because, quite simply, he didn't have the brainpower to form coherent thoughts without the crutch of speaking aloud. "Because this is what I imagine a hangover would be like."

"Tyler!" Sal exclaimed once he'd sensed his lover had awoken, bursting into the bedroom as fast as the auto-sliding door would allow. "I feel like myself again!" His hands were on Tyler's body in a flash, shaking him gently in an attempt to rouse him faster.

"I know, I know," he groaned, refusing to peel his hands away from his pounding head. "The personality displacement was only temporary because it was a side-effect of our brains processing the sudden influx of information. To understand the material given in a timely fashion, we had to temporarily become the person from whom the material originated from."

"But why didn't you –"

"Because I was more Jacob than I was Tyler, so I didn't have the intelligence to figure it out."

"But then why did he –"

"Because he was more Tyler than Jacob, so he was feeling rather spiteful and didn't want to tell us."

"But it doesn't usually –"

"No, because the only two circumstances you can normally Bond under are when you have the Queen's mind as a buffer, or if you're Bonding to someone of a different species, which means the information flow is much more gradual as – according to the cross-platform theory – a human brain can only process so much of a Xeno's mind – and vice-versa – and it has to find those parts it can before it can process them. In fact, personality displacement does occur, but it's so slow that we don't even notice it beyond calling it the 'bleed effect'."

"So does this mean –"

"Unfortunately not," Tyler mumbled, pausing to grimace beneath his hands. "I can already tell there were some permanent effects, such as how I'm no longer just able to put my empathy aside when I feel like it. Man, Jake's life sucks if he's always caring this much about other people."

"Still, it doesn't seem –"

"No, it doesn't. And that's what I'm still working on figuring out. If this is the worst of it, surely that's not bad enough to warrant banning Xeno-Xeno Bonding. Maybe we were wrong about the reason behind the rule? Or perhaps we'll encounter more problems down the road. All I know is for now I'm having a hard time thinking straight, so the theorising will have to wait. Ugh, speaking of straight… I'm ninety percent sure that me kissing Advena wasn't a dream."

"It wasn't." Tyler shuddered, feeling a sickening lump form in his throat.

"Ick. There wouldn't happen to be some kind of Bond ability where you can suppress memories for me, would there?" Sal chuckled and gently scooped the human up in his arms.

"It's good to have you back, Tyler." The scientist smiled and let go of his head in favour of returning the embrace, albeit while cringing from the cranial pain.

"Good to be back."

Meanwhile, Advena had managed to tear her way across the open plains which spanned the area between Tyler's home and the colony of Altin. She weaved her way through the early morning crowds, past the shops and to the small house near the outskirts where she lived. Not bothering to knock, she barged the door open and ducked inside, already searching the interior for her boyfriend.

There, on the couch, an unconscious Jacob was slumped over the cushions with a blanket barely covering his lower half while a bare arm draped over the side, fingertips almost brushing the floor. Miffed, she stalked over and jabbed her finger into his side repeatedly, punctuating every poke with an impatient command.

"Up up up." Jake jerked awake, sitting upright for a moment, before clutching his head and falling back down.

"Ah – my bloody head!"

"Apologise," she demanded relentlessly.

"Soon – I think I need a coffee and an aspirin first." He chuckled and peeled his hands away from his face, gently taking her hand in his. "Nice to see you back to your pushy old self. I was kinda worried when you just took that verbal beating I gave you."

"Sal is a bit of a pushover. But don't worry, now that I'm feeling myself again, you'll never have to worry about getting any slack. Now get up and make that coffee." Jake grumbled, but did as he was told, rolling out of 'bed' and shuffling into their modest kitchen area. While the coffee machine warmed up, he folded his arms and leaned against the sink, facing his girlfriend.

"So… what do you think this means for us?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, the way I see it, like it or not, we're part of Tyler's experiment now. So far it seems that I can block Sal out just like I can when I'm mad at you, so we shouldn't even notice the Bond is there unless we want to."

"So… back to business as usual then?"

"Not quite. There are some… minor, lingering effects. A little bit of retention of Sal's traits. Are you saying you haven't noticed anything of Tyler's that you've kept?"

"I don't know… I can feel his intelligence still lingering in the back of my mind, but I can't seem to bring it forward, you know? Like, I can't use it, but it's there." He frowned when he noted that all-too-familiar lost expression on Advena's face – except this time, it was directed at him, not his young scientist friend. "Like, I could explain to you how Tyler's Bonding gizmo works, but I couldn't make one for myself anymore. It's a really weird feeling. It's as if I have the know-how, but not the creative spark needed to use it." Jake handed her a steaming cup of black coffee before grabbing one of his own, albeit with a higher content of milk and sugar. "So I guess, uh, sorry for being a Tyler on you back there."

"That's not a real apology."

"Well, I mean, to be fair, it was kind of his fault. Actually, not even 'kind of'; it was entirely his fault."

"Jacob."

"Okay, okay, sorry for being an asshole and saying all that shit about you. I love you 'Vee."

"Apology accepted. And I suppose I should probably say sorry for that thing with Tyler."

"Thing?"

"Romantic thing. I wasn't thinking straight – ironically, he was. Get it, because he's gay?"

"Wait, wait, did you and Tyler have sex?"

"Well, goodness, would you look at the time? I've got some morning drills to run through, catch ya later Jake."

"Did Tyler fuck you?" Jake demanded, but Advena had already turned and sauntered over to the front door, a massive grin splitting her face the whole time. "Did Tyler fuck my girlfriend?!" Jake yelled after her.