"Okay! So, fair warning, this is gonna be at least a little bit weird, because it's like, you know, a naked human skinsuit, but we can be professional about this!" Thea babbles, leading me into her workshop. The rest of the Dark Rebellion follows us, presumably out of boredom and maybe also just wanting to see a naked human skinsuit. "It's a pret-ty impressive technological achievement, if I do say so myself."

  "Well, if I end up being weird about it, I promise to at least try not to voice it out loud," I answer, stepping inside and immediately spotting the work in question. It rests on a hollow, cobbled-together clothing dummy, similar in shape to the kind you'd find at department stores, but composed of an empty wire frame allowing it to be reached through. The skinsuit is draped overtop of it, the back open as it faces away from us, letting me see some of the electronics and machinery inside. Altogether it's a lot thicker than I expected, less a bodysuit and more a full-on costume, with quite a bit of padding between the outside and where my actual frame will rest.

  "…Huh," I say. "Is there any particular reason you made me chubby?"

  "Well yeah, the suit needs space to hold all the components that make it actually function as a disguise, not to mention the fact that, without the extra space, anyone that touches you will figure out that you're hard as a rock."

  "Phrasing," I say.

  "Huh?" Thea asks. "What do you mean?"

  "Never mind, just breaking my promise," I wave her off. "I'm a little worried my haptics won't work through something this thick, but we can definitely try it."

  "Yeah, there's only one way to find out!" Thea grins. "You'll need to open your plating to plug some of the wires into your ports so you can control the important bits of the suit. I'll show you where those are. There's, uh, also some clothes over there if you don't want to be naked."

  "Technically, I'll be less naked," I point out, making my way over to the suit. Thea shows me how to safely remove it from the stand and step inside, though she assures me that the suit is remarkably resistant to damage, since if it ever does get damaged it'll reveal the game immediately.

  "If you can actually break anything just by putting it on, I'll have to go back to the drawing board," Thea explains. "I mean, technically this is just a prototype, but durability is part of function. I'm already aware of a number of things that could be improved on, but I just wanna make sure it all works."

  "Sure, I get you," I say, slipping my feet into the homo sapiens fursuit. Even my little robot toes have a snug place to wiggle inside the fake human ones. I have fake toenails! It's remarkably detailed.

  "Kind of freaky, ain't it?" Anath chimes in, a big grin on her face.

  "How do I finish putting it on?" I ask, plugging the internal wiring into my ports and slipping my arms through the sleeves, the whole thing clammy and loose against my plating. "I imagine it doesn't have a zipper."

  "Well, assuming you can properly interface with the software, you'll seal it up with a mental command," Thea explains. "You're going to have direct manual control over pretty much the whole thing, most notably facial expressions and the other minutiae important to blending in."

  "This is very cool," I tell her honestly as my mind starts to poke away at the data flooding through the link between me and the suit. "Yeah, give me a few minutes, I think I can figure out how to work this thing. I can't believe how impressive this is, Thea. How did you get so good with magical supertech?"

  Thea blushes, shrugging.

  "Uh, well, having magic helps," she says, her tail flicking back and forth behind her. "I'm not really sure how else to explain it."

  "She's just our little genius," Melpomene smiles, her own tail reaching out to wrap around Thea's. "No magic needed."

  This only makes Thea's blush deeper, of course, but I opt not to comment. The part of my mind dedicated to chewing through the bodysuit's software has finally figured out the sealing controls. All that's left is to wrap up my head and pull the rest of the suit up and over my face, blinding me immediately. Well, from normal sight, anyway; most of my sensors still work fine. I send the command to activate, and everything starts to move, the baggy outfit tightening up against my frame and sealing behind me without a trace of a seam. A few moments later, I figure out how to interpret the suit's built-in camera feed, replacing my usual vision with its own. I look down at myself, seeing something I never expected to see again: the body of a living human woman.

  I can measure, but not describe, the emotions that well up inside me at the sight. It's nothing like how I used to look; I was skinny as a rail and borderline washboard-chested the last time I was breathing, almost dangerously underweight as a result of my self-destructive eating patterns. Not to mention my… let's call it lackadaisical shaving habits and general hygiene issues. I was, to put it painfully clear, not a pretty girl. But… I am now. Or at least I look like one.

  Thea's appreciation for freckles is apparent when looking down at the top of my new breasts. They're quite a bit larger than any I've ever had before, though I can say the same for my stomach, thighs, and… well, everything else about me. I won't deny being the sort of basic bitch that wishes she had a flat tummy and huge tits, but the way I look now is considerably more realistic, and that somehow makes it a lot more… personal. Like it's more than just a suit, more than just a… a dress-up fantasy. This could be my real body, in some weird, ephemeral, yet still meaningful way. It certainly does its best to play the part.

  All sorts of unconscious processes run while the suit remains sealed, working to sell the illusion. My chest lightly expands and contracts to mimic breathing, air flowing in and out of my nostrils. A fake heartbeat thumps throughout my body, making it possible to check my pulse. My eyelids blink automatically at semi-random intervals if I don't take manual control. None of it would withstand an actual medical examination, but even if I were to give someone a hug they wouldn't suspect a thing. I poke and prod the outside of my body, testing how well I can feel it through all the layers, and yes, propriety be damned, I grab my boobs. They're squishy again! Hell yes. Hard metal plating just isn't the same.

  "Do you really need to grope yourself?" Melpomene scowls.

  "Oh, sorry about that, do you wanna grope me instead, Mel-Mel?" I ask her innocently.

  "Excuse me!?" Melpomene roars, while at the same time Anath bursts out laughing, Thea lets out a high-pitched, kettle-like squeak, and Nanaya simply pinches the brow of her nose, shaking her head. I, having just figured out how to wiggle my eyebrows, wiggle my eyebrows. Woah do I have a lot of face muscles! This is wild!

  "Well, I am clearly not needed here," Melpomene grumbles, crossing her arms and moving to exit the room. "Please let me know how it all goes when you're done."

  She leaves, which is always nice, though Anath and Nanaya opt to stick around. I suppose they're also a lot more welcome; Anath is annoying and Nanaya is callous, but I am regrettably growing to like them both, at least a little. I continue playing with my face muscles for a bit, eventually noticing a rather major issue.

  "I can't figure out how to open the mouth," I tell Thea.

  "Yeah, that's intentional," Thea says. "Or I guess more accurately, it's unavoidable. There's no way for me to fit a realistic-looking mouth, let alone a throat, into the space we have available. It's going to be the absolute biggest weakness of your disguise. I'd recommend covering your mouth with something as often as possible, and probably also pretending to be mute."

  Wow. That's some crazy irony. It's almost like we've come full circle: as a human I wasn't mute but kind of wished I was, then I became completely unable to communicate with anyone, then I finally got my ability to speak back, and now I'm going to have to go around acting like I'm mute again anyway.

  Oh, well. I can't be too mad about it. There shouldn't be anything stopping me from learning sign language, or writing notes to people, or any of a dozen other methods to communicate. It's not that big of a deal, it's just kind of depressingly funny. There are definitely other problems, though.

  "Not being able to eat will make it a little difficult to pretend to be human," I point out. "That's probably a bigger deal than not having a realistic mouth structure."

  "I thought of that," Thea nods. "I can't give you a working jaw or anything, but your lips can be parted a bit. You can kinda press food in there a little and the self-cleaning systems will slowly obliterate it."

  "What!?" I gape. "What do you mean by 'obliterate?' That sounds super dangerous!"

  "Nah, it should be fine," Thea assures me. "Like I said, it's a pretty slow process, and you have to manually turn it on so it's not like you're going to accidentally annihilate someone's finger if they try to shove it in your mouth. They'd just feel a sharp pain like you were biting them a little, and they'd have plenty of time to pull their hand back before there's any permanent damage."

  "That doesn't answer my first question," I point out.

  "What, the obliterating? Don't worry about it, it's not important," Thea insists. "What matters is whether or not it works. You'll kind of look like a chipmunk the way you nibble everything slowly to eat it, but I figure eating weird is better than not eating at all."

  "I… suppose," I say, the back of my mind still poking through the suit's available functions. "Do you have a mirror? I should probably practice these facial expressions."

  "Yeah, right here," Thea confirms, setting up a sizable mirror on her desk so I can look into it. I turn my head and… woah.

  Okay. So. I'm a little embarrassed by how often I've been looking at this Silence of the Lambs-ass skinsuit and going 'omg pretty.' It's not an especially great mark on my reputation, I think. But also: omg pretty. Is that my face!? Aaaah! It's so cute! I have pretty green eyes and a little dollop of a nose decorated with cookie-crumb freckles. My straight brown hair is a little shorter than I personally like, only making it down to my chin, but I suppose that'll make it easier to manage. I can always ask Thea to make it longer, I suppose.

  Seeing it in the mirror like this, I feel embarrassed for the first time since my transformation about having so many other people in the room while I'm naked. I quickly glance around and find the clothes Thea pointed out earlier, standing up to start putting them on. It's a pretty good test of manual dexterity, letting my digital mind get used to the changes in balance, weight, and proprioception from having a thicker, padded frame. Of course, the clothes are in a lot more danger of being ripped than I am of falling over; my body's perfect precision with balance isn't going to be tripped up by something as trivial as a slight load. Slipping on underwear with so many people watching definitely manages to make me anxious, but by the end of it all I'm dressed in a simple blouse and skirt, looking even prettier than before.

  Shit, I kind of love this.

  "This is awesome, Thea," I tell her. "Really. I have no idea how you threw something like this together so quickly. I actually just look like… a person!"

  "Uh, I mean, that's the idea!" Thea chuckles awkwardly. "And well, once you feel like you have a handle on expressions and generally looking normal I figure we can head out for a field test! If you can blend in among normal humans, get through basic public interactions, maybe buy some things and stuff like that without drawing any suspicion, we'll consider the prototype a success!"

  "I couldn't really do most of those things back when I was actually human, so I might need someone else to be the judge of that," I admit. "Otherwise, yeah, that sounds like a plan."

  "We're probably good to start the test if you just get down a few basic expressions. Obviously, if you're going to stick around anywhere long-term you'll need an entire range of microexpressions in order to seem normal, but we don't have to worry about that today."

  "I mean, I could just go for kuudere vibes and keep a low emotional range," I suggest.

  "What vibes?" Thea asks, furrowing her eyebrows.

  "Oh my god that's right you've never seen anime," I say, trying out a shocked expression. "Gosh, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You would be such a weeb, but like, in a super adorable way."

  "What's a weeb!?" Thea gapes at me. "Are you making these words up?"

  "Um, well to make a long story short there's sort of an entire little mini-culture around Japanese media, particularly animation, and a lot of little elements of that use Japanese loan words to describe things. It's not actually important, but you would probably like some of the stuff. It's also kind of relevant because it's where the term 'magical girl' comes from. It was coined in the eighties by a show more or less about a child beating up evil things, and it became particularly popular in America because of Sailor Moon in the nineties, and then in the early two thousands the Earth Guardians actually started showing up in real life. It seemed pretty obvious where the inspiration came from. Like, I assume the Preservers giving powers that trend people towards shooting pretty lights while wearing short skirts is not an accident."

  "…That's quite interesting," Nanaya hums. "Knowing the Preservers, it was likely an active move on their part to introduce themselves in whatever way seemed most compatible with our culture. I suppose that kind of thing does show up most commonly in cartoons."

  "Yeah, I don't think it really worked," I shrug. "Like, only idiots looked at the actual child soldiers and went 'oh my god, real-life magical girls, that's so cool and good!' Societally speaking, the Earth Guardians are basically the answer to the question 'what if Omelas tortured thousands of kids instead of just the one.' Most people just sort of collectively do their best to not think about them."

  "…Okay, what's Omelas?" Thea asks. "That one doesn't even sound Japanese."

  "Oh, that's not weeb shit, that's philosophical literature shit," I answer.

  "I'm actually familiar with that one," Nanaya says, and it is somehow the least surprising thing I've ever heard. "I understand what you're saying. There are many people who would be very interested in changing the current status quo, but the Preservers operate at a level that is extremely difficult for governments or any other organizations to interfere with. Many major politicians would like to replace the current system with a less abusive one, but they have no capacity to petition the Preservers for change. Earth Guardians cannot be arrested or forced into foster homes; they can simply blow up anything in their way and fly back to an Earth Guardian base to live outside the legal system entirely. It has generally been better to let the Preservers do what they wish, so that Earth Guardians are still encouraged to do things like go to school."

  "Yeah, that's my basic understanding of the politics, too," I nod. "So what are we doing about it, exactly? I'll be taking over a lot of your Earth operations, right?"

  "It is nothing terribly complicated, because there is little we can influence directly," Nanaya answers. "In essence, because the issue is humanity's inability to resist the Preservers' will, the first step is to improve humanity's capacity to resist. This is why we locate and sell artifacts, hoping they end up in the right hands to be reverse-engineered. Then we use the money from those dealings to encourage a little targeted incompetence when it comes to keeping the Preservers informed of any magical arms dealing, as governments are supposed to do. We are, in essence, funding the majority of magical research in the country by selling the very items being researched. It takes the cooperation of an enormous number of very influential people to keep that research away from the eyes of the Preservers."

  "Can't Thea just reverse-engineer this stuff?" I ask. "She seems to understand it pretty damn well."

  "It's different for me," Thea says. "Half of working with magitech involves using magic; I don't have any way to, say, craft the crystalline cables necessary for making most of this stuff work without straight-up conjuring it. Well, technically I'm just condensing the necessary energies under my own power, I'm not forming it out of nothing or anything like that, but the point is I don't have any way to teach a human how to do this stuff. I don't even fully understand a lot of it, I just tinker with Antipathy tech so much I can ape their designs and put them together in ways that create new stuff without ever really opening the black boxes."

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  "It is probably better for humans to be the ones to figure out the first magical tools designed to be used by humans, as well," Nanaya hums. "There is so much about magic we do not know, as the nature of Earth Guardianship is to be granted control over forces explicitly without understanding them. All we can do is give the puzzles to people smarter than we are, and hope they can solve them."

  "Just sort of putting magic out into the world and hoping it all works out doesn't seem like a particularly solid plan," I can't help but point out.

  "Well, we are four—now five—young women with little world experience, little capacity to travel freely, and next to no schooling, yourself excluded. I have no doubt that there are countless people who could accomplish what we wish to accomplish far better than I. That is precisely why I have no better plan than to support them in doing so. We provide the magic, and the money. Humanity has to do the rest."

  I guess I can respect that. It's surprisingly humble, especially for a group audacious enough to call themselves the Dark Rebellion, but if anything I think that lends it a level of self-awareness I wasn't really expecting from their plans.

  "Well, that makes sense," I admit. "How do I look, by the way? This is my happy face."

  It seems pretty okay in the mirror. The thing about making facial expressions is that whenever I would try and do them on purpose in the past they would look really unnatural, and now that I'm a robot and literally all of my facial expressions are unnatural, I can just get the minute tweaks down until there's a smile that looks good in the mirror. Then I can save it and pull it out whenever I want.

  "The smile itself looks fine, but the transition to the smile is plainly robotic," Nanaya says. "Perhaps something less uniform."

  "Oh, right, that's a good point. Hey, smile for me real quick so I can see an example."

  "No," Nanaya says.

  "Here, I got you! Check out my chompers!" Anath says, grinning brightly.

  "Unfortunately, Thea didn't make my teeth that big," I joke.

  "Oh no! I'm sorry, should I have?" Thea panics.

  "I was kidding! The teeth are fine, thank you very much."

  "Well, there's really no point in having chompers if you can't actually chomp anything," Anath allows regretfully.

  "Just—everybody just let her practice!" Thea whines. "This is serious engineering we're dealing with here!"

  "Yeah! Thea worked really hard engineering my fat tits! Show a little respect!" I declare.

  "I needed the space to fit the heart spoofer!" Thea squeaks, her whole face turning brown. "Y-you don't have to say it in such a vulgar way!"

  "Okay, I suppose I won't, but only because I can tell you put a lot of love and care into them," I allow, doing my best to seem contrite. "I mean, you put so much detail work into both of them. You must have stared at them for hours."

  "Aaah stop it stop it stop it!" Thea begs, burying her face in her hands. "It's not like that! It's not like that at all!"

  I'm very tempted to measure her emotions, to determine exactly how honest she's being, but even though she's grown up around nothing but empaths it feels like a disgusting violation of her privacy. What business is it of mine, if she's attracted to the artificial skin she designed? Maybe she doesn't even want to be; I was the one who asked her to make it anatomically accurate. I mean, after she offered, but still. And ultimately, do I even really want to know? Or would I rather just keep teasing her and pretending that the truth doesn't matter to me?

  I shouldn't even want to be romantically involved anyway, right? Isn't my plan to stay as far away from this place as possible?

  "Alright, alright, sorry," I placate, making sure to not let any of my fears into my tone. "I was just joking around."

  "You sure?" Anath asks. "You know your plates aren't sealed, right Buttbot?"

  Oh fuck that's right I'm surrounded by empaths! I can't close my plates at all because the wires are in the way! Oh god everyone's going to be able to read my emotions all the time! How am I supposed to pretend I'm not a gaping void of mental instability now!? This is going to ruin my cool and composed image.

  "I don't think it's anything to worry about," I say, cool and composed. "Anyway, let's forget this conversation ever happened and go back to practicing expressions!"

  "Uh-huh," Anath says, obviously entirely convinced. "Well, I guess I'll leave you two alone to do that."

  "Mmm. Yes, I suppose we're done here. Impressive work as always, Thea," Nanaya nods, turning and exiting the room with Anath. Thea makes a few incomprehensible whining noises, so I go back to watching myself in the mirror as she slowly recovers from the embarrassment. Soon enough, she's helping me out, the two of us settling back into a routine of making faces, spoofing emotions, and watching carefully how all my muscles move so they don't set off anyone's uncanny valley alarms. About an hour later, I'm feeling pretty confident. I don't need a huge number of different facial expressions for a simple outing. It's time to go.

  "I have a few things I wanna grab before we head out," Thea says. "Give me a few minutes."

  "Wait, what do you mean 'we?'" I ask. "I thought you couldn't really blend in on Earth."

  "It'll just be to the edge of the liminal space," Thea promises. "You were really looking forward to getting online and stuff, right? I can help you out with that."

  "Well, I guess I won't say no to company," I nod. "I'm gonna go tell Melpomene and the others we're heading out while you get ready, alright?"

  "Sounds good," Thea nods. I nod back, and exit the room.

  Okay. It's time.

  Since she perhaps also sensed this was coming, I find Melpomene alone in her room, sitting on her bed and not doing much of anything at all. I step inside and quietly close the door. With a wave of her hand, she seals it.

  "It's time, master," I say. "You need to give me new orders."

  "Can you not simply infer my will?" Melpomene grumbles. "It seems to be doing quite a lot for you so far."

  "Unfortunately you seem altogether too grumpy about this for me to honestly believe that you'd be okay with me prancing about under direct violation of your prior commands," I answer. "I need your express permission to act like a human while I'm disguised as one. That means full communication… while still keeping your secrets, of course."

  "And if I don't?" Melpomene asks.

  "Well then I can't act like a human in public and all of Thea's effort goes to waste and we have to figure out a good lie on why so this whole puppet show doesn't get cut down by the strings. Which could be its own kind of fun, I suppose."

  "You're having fun with this now?" Melpomene asks bitterly.

  "Oh, no," I clarify. "I was being very facetious. Sorry, I thought you would have picked up on that by now."

  Melpomene sighs deeply, staring at the floor between her feet. The tip of her tail thumps limply against her mattress with an exhausted melancholy.

  "...It wasn't supposed to be like this," she says.

  I feel an instinct to scoff, but I don't bother to figure out how to encode one into a sound file.

  "By all means, Master, please tell me what this was supposed to be like," I say, ensuring my voice is dripping with enough sarcasm to start a flood.

  "You were supposed to say yes!" Melpomene snaps. "You were supposed to just join us! You have the power, you have the good sense to see what the Preservers are doing, and you wanted the transformation, you longed for it! It was supposed to be an easy sell, but no. You just had to go and declare me evil on first fucking sight and ruin everything."

  "Yeah but the thing is, I wasn't exactly wrong about that, was I?" I ask. "You are evil, you dumb bitch. All the good intentions in the world are only going to pave you a smoother road to hell. I am a slave. You nearly killed me, and then you threw me in a goddamn Antipathy torture device and got so giddy at the prospect of getting a perfectly obedient servant you practically creamed yourself. And now, when you could free me at any time, you're keeping me anyway. All just to fill your soul with so much self-hate that it expands like a goddamn hot air balloon. You're insane and you're making excuses for yourself. That's all this is."

  Melpomene remains quiet for a while, her body still but for the traitorous twitching of her tail. She's annoyed, sad, angry… and of course, disgusted. But more than that, she's… resigned?

  "Fine," she says. "Fine. That's all this is. Take that awful thing off and come here, slave."

  I send the command to open the suit before she's even done speaking, though the clothes I'm wearing hold it on my body and stop it from flopping to the floor. I take them off, piece by piece, revealing more of the sagging false form I wish I could call my own. But no, not here. Not in this place. In front of Melpomene, I am nothing close to human. The beautiful lie is stripped away, leaving me bare before her. My legs force me to where she wants me, and I stand ready to receive my orders, like it or not.

  "Open your chestplate," Melpomene commands, and my nervousness doubles. Still, I have no choice but to obey, moving the plate away from its locked position and revealing my crystalline interior. My central processing unit is here, shining exposed in the light. All the main functions and components that make me me are here. And the cobbled-together bypass Thea used to allow me to talk is also here. Melpomene reaches down her shirt to grab something, her other hand resting itself on the crystal that houses my soul, two fingers rubbing gently against it and making my whole body want to shudder and seize with discomfort. What is she doing? What is she doing!? Did I fuck up? Did I go too far?

  She finishes retrieving the item from her bra, and I recognize it immediately. It's the transformation stone she offered me, back when all of this started.

  "I am updating and replacing all of your standing orders," she declares. "I will be very, very clear, so that you may cease this nonsense of trying to interpret my will."

  She takes the stone and places it against my soul. I feel it reaching out to me, power churning through the tiny little rock. I could reach back. I do not. I don't know if I am allowed to, yet.

  "Your first and greatest order," Melpomene declares, "superseding all others, taking precedence in every situation, is this: you will not allow yourself to die."

  W-what?

  "Even should I attempt to strike you down myself, you will cling to life by any means necessary. You will not obey any future orders reversing this. You will live, no matter what, regardless of any rules you must break or any part of my desires you must trample. Do you understand?"

  No. No, I don't understand at all. But I know enough to obey.

  "Yes, Master," I confirm.

  "Good. Do you feel this stone?" she asks.

  "Yes, Master."

  "Take it. It is yours."

  My soul had already been reaching for it, despite my best efforts. Its allure is too tempting, its power too beautiful. I can't help but reach out of the bars of my cage, despite the way they cut up my arms. Yet all at once, the doors fling open, and I can embrace that beautiful power my soul yearns for. I pour myself into the stone, and it reacts immediately. Something grows from within it, seeking its surroundings, wrapping around my sturdier components to affix itself in place. When it's done shifting, it takes the form of a heart-shaped accessory latching onto my soul container, proudly displayed slightly to the left of the center of my chest.

  I can't believe it. I can't believe any of this. This is what I wanted for so long. To have the power to be myself. But what will that be? Will the transformation be enough to free me from my chains? Will it make me human again? Will I lose my freedom of thought, my new body's ability to force my mind out of the pits I used to always be trapped in, to gain freedom of action? Or will I gain both? Will I be the perfect machine? I used to think I knew who I am, but so much has changed. I don't know what the stone will do to me.

  But I know that, more than anything, I want to find out. The gem forming the Preserver tech is still clear, but I know how to fill it with color. I just need to speak the words and become something greater. Something perfectly, wonderfully me.

  "However," Melpomene says, "you are mine. So you will not use it without my say-so."

  The shock nearly causes me to collapse. What…?

  "The existence of this stone is your greatest secret," Melpomene says. "More important than your nature, more important than what I hide from the others. Don't let anyone outside the Dark Rebellion know you have it, or that I gave it to you. Unless, of course, your life is in danger."

  What the hell is happening right now? What is this woman doing?

  "Seal yourself back up," she orders, removing her hands from the inside of my chest. My plating snaps back into position, and I continue reeling in shock. "If you do have to use it, keep in mind it will likely drain your power reserves like nothing has before. Even if your life is in danger, I'd recommend not trying to call on its power unless your batteries are nearly full. But you have a human soul, Luna. It should work. And with it, you are truly one of us."

  "What the hell are you doing?" I ask.

  "Everyone else already considers you a full member of the Dark Rebellion," Melpomene says. "Part of our little family. You're going to be our face on Earth whether I like it or not."

  "If you don't like it, then—"

  "No," Melpomene snaps. "What I want and what is best aren't always the same. Surely you, of all people, would be inclined to agree?"

  I say nothing, so she continues.

  "Your third most important order is to keep your identities separate. Your human disguise is not to be conflated with your robotic self. If this is to be your new function to me, you will do it well. You will allow no one to realize you are an artifact, out alone on Earth. They'll descend on you from all sides, without mercy. You do nothing unless you are confident it won't break your disguise. This means, if you are seen out of costume, you remain trying to prevent anyone from discovering your robotic self's personhood. In costume, you do everything to conceal your lack of it."

  "You want it both ways, huh?" I ask.

  "That's the truth of what you are, isn't it?" Melpomene asks. "Both person and not. Both human and machine. Both free spirit and slave. I can't free you from that, Luna. Even if I tried. You're too vulnerable to my whims."

  "Thea could free me," I answer firmly. "I believe in her."

  "Yes," Melpomene agrees, "but first, she would have to know. And rule the fourth is that you must still keep my secrets. You will not tell my family about the monster I have become."

  "Of course it is," I say. "For a moment I was expecting something different, but I shouldn't have been so foolish."

  "Rule the fifth," Melpomene says, "is to follow your own will in all other things. When you get to Earth, you are free to flee as far as you like, sabotage our work from the inside, or anything else you desire. The prior four rules are to be your only restrictions. Accept no others."

  And once again, I'm completely caught off-guard. What is she plotting!?

  "Like you said, this won't even work," I tell her. "You can revoke my freedoms at any time."

  "Then use your freedom to avoid me as much as possible," Melpomene shrugs. "I have no particular need or desire to see you again."

  "I… I can't," I growl. "Order number three, keeping my identities separate, requires my costume to remain intact and maximally functional. At minimum, I'll have to stay close enough for Thea to do regular maintenance. And if she has any ideas for upgrades, I'll have to comply."

  "Is that your interpretation? Well, we can do our best to avoid each other whenever you have to visit home," Melpomene dismisses. "Or you can set something up with Thea to meet elsewhere. I do not care. Handle it however best pleases you."

  "But… why?" I ask. "Why do any of this?"

  What does she gain? Why does any of this matter to her? She doesn't need to go this far. There's no way she wants to go this far, she's feeling absolutely miserable right now.

  "Because the people I love care about you," Melpomene answers. "It doesn't have to be more complicated than that."

  Ha. Hahaha. What!?

  "I don't believe you," I say simply.

  "You're under no obligation to," Melpomene answers.

  "No. I don't believe you," I insist. "There's no way you would do all this to me, that you would choose me and then bind me and then beat me and torment me and every other fucking thing you've done to me just to… to give me up!"

  Melpomene sighs.

  "You know, I was… sort of expecting you to be happy about this," she says. "Or for you to complain about the limits I'm still imposing on you."

  "I mean there is that," I allow. "You're fucking half-assing this because you don't want to lose face when you could just have Thea free me for real. But I expected that much from you. It's pathetic, but you're pathetic. No big surprise. But all the rest of this? I don't get it. I don't get you."

  "Be honest, Luna," Melpomene says. "Do you actually care to?"

  I stare at her. I take in her slumped posture, defeated expression, drooping wings, and limp tail. Her damnably sexy outfit and the crystals growing out of her skin forming her demonic purple horns and claws. This woman is miserable. She's in pain. Some part of her knows that she's basically insane, but what can she do about it? She doesn't know how to handle anything that big. She's an overgrown child, lashing out and grasping for control because her life has been defined by nothing but battle and loneliness and loss.

  But who gives a shit, after everything she's done to me?

  "No," I spit. "I don't."

  "Then go, Luna," she says. "Enjoy your time on Earth. If you choose to remain loyal to our cause, I'm sure the others will appreciate it."

  The door unlocks. The magical privacy seal breaks. The conversation ends. I turn and exit her room, hopefully for the last time, and walk towards a future of freedom, collecting the suit on my way out.

  But of course, despite her orders, part of me can't stop thinking about her. And that part continues to wonder.

  how they perpetuate their abuse. Not purposefully. Not maliciously. It's just so much harder, as a victim, to turn and walk away from someone who is in pain. Oftentimes, the victim is the only person the abuser has who could even try to help. Doesn't that make me the bad person here, the victim wonders, if I just leave this poor human being to rot? If I selfishly put myself before them and cast them aside, knowing it will bring them agony?

  right answer.

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