A/N: No, I haven't quit. In fact, I've never started a story on this site and not finished it. I was on vacation in a place with no internet. :D I am back now. If anyone has a review requiring response or a question or message that is unanswered, I will try to get to those as I have time and online access (I am moving at the moment as well).

17

Changeling had to move to one side to let her pass in the narrow space, which was indeed a hallway rather than a back room. The floor and the cargo net had apparently both been cleaned recently. The net lay spread out over the tile with bags and boxes neatly arranged on it.

"Running first aid subroutine," Changeling said.

"And good morning to you, too. Or whatever it is." Xen paused while Changeling scanned her. "How am I doing?"

"Physically acceptable," said the packbot. She reached down with one coarse manipulator and came up with the pack containing Xen's other clothes. "You have suffered no broken bones. Bruising is minor and does not appear to affect intracranial areas. I will have things for you to eat by the time you are finished."

"Thank you," said Xen, and went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She looked in the cracked mirror over the sink as she was washing. There were ovoid bruises on her forehead, the impression of four large fingertips.

Changeling said that Charon put my goggles back on to stop me from seizing. He must have been holding my head still with his other hand, she recognized. I'm lucky he didn't break my neck. Her blood was thin enough that the bruises would not fade quickly.

Oh, well. It's not like I was much to look at before. Xen had hoped she would eventually outgrow her facial proportions. She still had a wide, round forehead and a sharply pointed chin, and her eyes were too big for her nose and mouth – a comical exaggeration of human features, or a shrunken parody of her third contributor's. Her skin was still the same dull off-white that it had always been, making her look unwell rather than exotic. Her lips were gray. The overall impression was of a homely and very sick human.

She shrugged at herself.

At least I don't have acne. Or maybe I'm past that developmental stage already. Maybe I'm going to die of old age before I'm forty. Ha. I should see if I make it that long. Xen made herself face facts as she put on her clean clothes, standing on her flattened moccasins to avoid contact with the now-damp floor.

I have to do better. It might have been exhaustion, or post-traumatic stress, or a nervous breakdown like Changeling said I was going to have. It doesn't matter. It can't happen again. They would move on, and there would be things in the Wasteland that Charon would have to kill in the cause of keeping her alive. She would have to deal with that somehow.

Maybe Changeling will have an idea, once I've convinced her I'm not turning around.

She draped her wet clothes over the sink to dry, put her shoes on, and went back out into the hallway. Changeling had set a pair of food boxes out on the floor and was just now taking up the cargo net again. The first thing she said was, "You should consider abandoning this project."

"It's too late for that," Xen said. She picked up the food and edged past the packbot. The sensor tower turned to follow her. "We'll talk about it after I've eaten."

She was about to step out of the hallway into the main room when she heard someone speaking. Xen stopped and listened. Charon was talking to himself again. If she paid close attention, she could pick out three distinct voices...

"Just about broke da contrack back dere," said one. It was harsher than Charon's normal voice, more heavily accented. "Dis is bad. Real bad."

"I'm aware of dat," said Charon's ordinary voice.

"There is no point in dwelling on subjects regarding which we could neither anticipate nor warn him," said another voice. This one had a more formal diction, a sharper sound than either of the others. "The contract is unbroken. The employer lives. We continue to serve."

"Yeah," said the harsh voice. "But now what? He can't stop her from goin' nuts, and she don't trust the 'bot enough to listen to what she says. Not'ing dere we can fucking shoot, ya know?"

Wait, Xen thought. They're talking about me? She peeked around the corner. Charon stood over by the double doors with his back to her, his posture ramrod-straight. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back.

"I found some items on one of the Raiders," Charon said. "We can use dem as a backup. It will have t'do."

"It is unfortunate that our employer is a juvenile female," said the second voice. "This was not a problem with injuries to Ahzrukhal."

"No shit. When dat kid hit d'ground I t'ought Charon was damn well gonna have a heart attack," contributed the first one.

Xen blinked rapidly at this. Wait, what?

"Ahzrukhal would have been an evil bastard even if he was a teenage girl," pointed out Charon dryly. "Dis one is just a little too bright for her own good."

"Ego does appear to be a factor," agreed the second voice. "Fortunately, it has served our ends thus far. She is not unwilling to let Charon do what is necessary."

Ego? thought Xen. Listening to someone else talk about her was suddenly less appealing.

But it was true. She knew it was. The Doctors' attention had not always been benign, but it had been frequent. Even if she was only important as an experimental subject, she was still important. They had died fighting over her. And after that, there had been no one to take Bunni and Tori's attention away from her. She had been the sole focus of her own little universe right up until she made the decision to leave it.

And even then, she had taken steps, Xen thought grimly.

Servants and protectors. I made them and bought them for myself, she thought. I've never thought of them for a second in anything I've done. I keep telling myself Charon isn't a robot, and then I go right on treating him like one. And now I'm eavesdropping on him talking to himself. Damn, damn, DAMN.

Xen stepped out into the main room, pointedly scuffing a piece of paper litter with one foot. Charon fell silent as he turned to watch her. She carried the two food boxes over behind the counter, where she had left the half-empty water bottle.

"Charon, have you eaten?" she asked, trying to sound as if she hadn't heard anything. She was sure she was blushing as her pulse sped up, a purely physical fight-or-flight response to embarrassment. Maybe he wouldn't see it in the dark.

"Yes," said Charon. His voice betrayed no suggestion that he had caught her listening, and his temperature was unchanged. Neither of those might mean anything, of course, but Xen was reminded abruptly that she was absolutely starving.

This turned out to be a good thing. Cold Salisbury steak, eaten without utensils out of a package that has been sealed for 200 years, is not usually classed among the better culinary experiences. Xen found that she wasn't bothered by this in the least, although she did try to eat slowly for fear of making herself sick. She powered on the computer as she ate from the second box. It had freeze-dried apples inside.

She looked at the password encryption screen thoughtfully. As usual for a Robco terminal, words were scattered among other random characters to form a large block of text.

Half of these are five-letter words starting with S. Another half end in 'nd,' she observed. Xen examined the intersection of the two categories, typed in the word stand, and pressed enter. She smiled slightly as the password screen vanished, replaced with the words unlock safe.

Xen moved the cursor to highlight the phrase and pressed enter. There was a soft click from beside her. She turned and reached for the handle of the safe door. It swung open easily. There were a couple of bundles of prewar money and a few more caps. Xen scooped the bottle caps out and pocketed them. Her current jeans and tee shirt seemed to be holding up well. There was a small fray in the left knee, that was all. The purple knit jacket clashed with her skin, but that couldn't be helped; Doctor Graber had been a blue-eyed blond and had apparently dressed accordingly.

Not that the aesthetics are likely to matter, Xen acknowledged silently. I'm not going to fit the visual preference of either of my parent species, even if I could find a place that both had males of the right age and was safe enough to stay long enough to find one. She sighed at this, shoved her empty packages into a dusty trash can under the counter, and walked back around it into the grocery store proper.

"Changeling," said Xen. "Charon."

Charon walked toward her until he was four or five feet away, presumably within visual range in the dark room. The robot glided silently out of the hallway with the cargo net hanging from all three arms.

"First, what's our supply situation?" Xen asked.

"More than adequate to reach our intended destination," said Changeling. "I found a large number of useful items here."

"All right." Xen took a deep breath and turned to look up at the Ghoul. "Charon, I owe you an apology. I've put you in charge of my security and not given you enough information to do your job. That's going to stop now." She told him everything she knew or could remember about Recon Craft Theta, including that the Doctors had found the body of her third contributor there.

"And dis is where we are going?" Charon said. Xen nodded. "What is the exact location?"

"Changeling?" said Xen.

The packbot recited the coordinates.

"Will this be a problem?" Xen asked.

"Iddis what you wish of me," Charon said.

Xen opened her mouth to say input/output error, then shut it again.

He's indicating compliance in a way he's probably been forcibly conditioned to do. Let him do it in the way that's familiar to him.

"I have been in dat area before, however," Charon said, unexpectedly volunteering information. "Dere was intermittent radioactive contamination. Do you have anti-radiation chems for your own use?"

"Yes," said Xen. "Will you need some?"

"No," said Charon.

"Ghouls are not harmed by radiation," Changeling said, reminding her of something she should by no means have forgotten already. "In fact, they commonly regenerate faster in its presence."

"That's right," Xen said. "I'd forgotten."

"Radiation is not the most significant threat to you at this time," Changeling said.

"You had better not be about to say you still don't trust Charon," Xen said.

"Error processing response," Changeling said. "I have not been equipped with the ability to simulate sophisticated emotional responses. Trust is therefore an inapplicable concept. I have downgraded his apparent threat level, however. I believe Charon and I now agree on the most significant threat to your long-term survival."

Charon had no apparent comment on this.

"Oh," said Xen dryly. "We probably all three agree. But short of removing my brain from my skull, I don't know what to do about it."

"This expedition was ill-advised," Changeling said. "You would be wisest to return to the Lab and prepare a more viable long-term approach to acquiring the data. If we retrace our route immediately, it will still be largely clear of threats. The journey will be much faster."

Xen shook her head slowly. "I can't do that. We're over halfway. If I listen to that argument now, I'll listen to it in a month, or a year, or five or ten years, when Tori and Bunni say the same thing. And even if nothing has happened to the crash site in twenty years, that doesn't mean something won't before I get a chance to look for it again. This is not something I'm willing to risk missing."

"You are risking your life needlessly," said Changeling.

"I am risking my life," Xen said. "I've known that since I left home. But it's not needless. I need to know who and what I am. I'm missing a big piece of that puzzle. I have to find it if I can. Otherwise, what is my life, that it's worth preserving?"

"This is an emotional argument," said Changeling.

"That doesn't mean it's wrong," Xen said. "It just means you don't understand it."