Where do you start when you're looking for information in what's ostensibly enemy territory? The smart thing would probably be to find a bar or similar seedy establishment and feel out the locals. Maybe even figure out where you could find someone to pay for the latest news.

Me? Like the absolute dumbass that I was, I found my feet taking me down familiar streets, inexorably guiding me closer and closer to the home where I'd spent much of my childhood.

Well, okay. I wasn't being an idiot about it, I guess. I had my Mysterious Stranger getup with the cloth mask, the hoodie, and the suitably dramatic black ensemble. It kind of hurt that I couldn't hide the quality of the clothes, but Amelia was inexorable in her quest to get me dressed well.

Besides, the outfit she'd selected was strategically strengthened in places that would hopefully help protect me if and when I got into a fight. For example, two plates of some flexible yet highly damage-resistant material had been inserted into the front and back of the hoodie. They could stop a couple bullets from a regular gun, at least.

Still, the quality of my clothes made me wish I could keep Stealth running permanently as I slunk along the streets.

I couldn't. Stealth consumed a point of Essence for every second I had it up. That meant I could run it continuously for just over three minutes, if relying only on my Essence pool. I'd managed to stretch that timer to around four minutes in practice, due to the way my body guzzled down Essence. The efficiency of my intake had increased since the formation of my core. But it still wasn't something I could keep up forever.

Ironically, part of the issue was how fast I refilled my Essence.

My body snatched Essence up so quickly that if I wasn't careful, I created little pockets of space completely devoid of the substance, rendering me incapable of refilling my reserves at all. I found out that fun little tidbit while practicing with Mela, and I didn't like the sensation at all.

It wasn't deadly or anything, but being completely out of Essence left me feeling… weak. It was like a part of me was desperately trying to take a breath, gasping and flailing, with neither relief nor death there to end the suffering.

Plus, my cybernetics acted funny when I didn't have Essence in my system. My arms were almost sluggish. And while the quality of my vision didn't drop, I was under the constant impression that the world was simply lesser. Colors weren't as bright. Beautiful things weren't as enchanting. Even darkness seemed washed out, somehow.

It was after that experience that I resolved to make sure I was never below a single unit of Essence, at the very least. Five seemed to be the point when things snapped into the perfect clarity and control that I'd gotten used to, but I could endure things slipping a little if necessary…

I frowned. Amelia's contented silence had left my mind to wander, and I didn't need that. I needed to focus.

"You think your father left someone to watch my apartment, when we first disappeared?" I asked. "And you think they're still there?"

"I thought these streets looked familiar…. Adrian, are you going back to your old megabuilding?"

"No! I mean… maybe." There was no judgment in Amelia's tone, but I still felt the need to defend myself. "I'm just curious, okay? If there's someone watching my place, then that means your paranoid father still thinks we're alive. If there's not… I'd feel better knowing we're at least a bit safer, you know?"

She took a minute to respond, but when she did, she sounded more amused than anything. "So you're just concerned about our safety, hmmm? Okay. I approve of this stupidity. Go check it out. But, like, in a smart way, okay?"

"And what's that supposed to mean, love? Am I stupid or smart? Make up your mind!"

"You're a complex personality. You can be both at once. I believe in you."

We bantered, and I was immensely thankful that she was so willing to play along. If she'd left me alone with my thoughts for any longer, I might have reached out for eldritch insanity just to keep them from wandering to stupid shit.

I don't really know what I was expecting when my old building came into view and I slipped into it. Some sense of homecoming, maybe?

Instead, I was just intensely uncomfortable. Not to mention insulted by the horrid smell that immediately wafted its way past my cloth mask. It was the once familiar aroma of unwashed asses, drugs, and something rotting.

My whole body shuddered in revulsion, and I remembered exactly why I had loved my shower so much. It was hard to feel clean when literally everything around you served as a constant reminder of just how filthy your life was.

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Thankfully, while I didn't have years of consistently numbed senses to fall back on, only the bottom floor was so thoroughly vile. Probably on account of the fact that no one bothered to really clean it or chase away the homeless people determined enough to invade it in the first place. Our building was just decrepit enough for people to get away with hiding out in it for a long while.

Not 'our' building. ''This' building. I don't live here anymore.

I snarled at myself, barely managing not to broadcast the grim thoughts to Amelia over our call.

I decided then and there to fully embrace my nonsense excuse and avoid actually visiting my apartment. Instead, I took a single flight of stairs up and sent out a Ping quickhack, examining the doors around me. I was reasonably sure one of the apartments was empty, thanks to the access log history, so I Breached it open and slipped inside.

The apartment's basic layout was almost identical to the one I technically still owned upstairs. Just a single big room with a bathroom nook in the back. It was, however, significantly grimier than mine, and as far from well-kept as you could get.

Trying to touch as few things as possible, I made my way to the net access port and jacked in, leaning against the wall. A second later, I blinked my eyes open inside the digital realm, then wasted no time at all in a sudden ascent up the floors.

"You know, that looks freaky. Also, I didn't know the call would let me keep seeing what you're seeing while you're doing this," Amelia muttered.

I fumbled for something to say, trying to cover for the fact that I hadn't even thought to warn her.

"Well, enjoy the show! Hope you find it interesting?"

"Eh, it's not ripper work. But it's fun enough, I guess." She chuckled, but her voice had a certain edge to it.

I resigned myself to eating a scolding later, or to doing something to lift her mood as soon as I got back, before she had a chance to get upset with me.

At least the ascent was fun. I could literally make myself just fly straight up through the surrounding architecture, ignoring the 'solid' ceilings as I slipped through them with more ease than passing through water.

When I finally landed on my floor, I took my sweet time examining things. There was, predictably, a new door installed where mine had once stood. It also had a few advanced scanners and sensors which I wouldn't typically associate with that area of the slums.

And that was it.

No cameras. No microphones. No special watcher programs or anything else. I even examined the door access logs for every other apartment on the floor, and none of them showed anything suspicious.

So, someone was definitely living in my apartment. Probably an opportunistic jackass who'd stolen what he could from it, too. But I was fairly certain that Amelia's father wasn't actively obsessing over us.

There was a tiny possibility that the sensors and scanners on the door were programmed to recognize me if I ever visited the place in person. I mean, he might have taken some of my biometric data with him before we burned all his servers, but…

I took a deep breath. "This may sound crazy, but I actually think the apartment's clean. Doesn't look like your daddy dearest believes we're alive."

"Wait, really?" Amelia demanded. "I… I can't believe that. He thought we died in the lab mess?"

"I guess?" I let the floor devour me, dropping down floor by floor almost faster than I'd ascended. "Not only did the Shadows eat just about everyone in that building, but the corpos then came in and slaughtered anyone who was left. Even if he thought we were trying to hide from him at first, he probably believed we were dead after that."

"I mean, sure, but…"

"But?"

"I did everything I could to hide my plans. Was super sneaky and shit when I got that apartment of mine. Still, I always thought he knew. All through those first couple of weeks we were there, I was sure he'd come knocking on our door. That he's convinced we're dead? I don't know… It sounds too good to be true."

"Is that why you decided to stay and plot against him instead of running away to a different city when Yuri suggested it?"

"No…? Yes? I don't know. How was I supposed to know he's actually stupid enough to think we died in a Shadow outbreak?!"

I didn't need to look at her video feed as I withdrew from the netspace to know that Amelia was livid. She sounded so personally offended that I briefly imagined her stomping all the way to the core district and hunting down her father just to slap him.

"Does this change your mind, then?" I wondered aloud, making my way out of the building slowly. "We haven't done too much yet, you know? We can just… pick up and leave. Maybe even take the mercs with us. We could use them to earn money on the side, or as security. You could open a ripper clinic elsewhere."

I started walking towards the Kittens HQ, moving far more confidently than when I had let my feet take me to my former home. Meanwhile, Amelia's silence stretched on and on.

I was starting to get worried when she finally spoke up again.

"I… I don't want to. Does that make me horrible? Selfish? Sure, we could leave, I guess. But it would feel like he's there, haunting me, forever. I just want to know. To put him in the ground myself. Or cremate him. Or WHATEVER! I just want to know we're really, truly safe."

"You're not selfish, Amelia. I get it. I have my own grudge against him. Remember the arms?" I kept my voice light and teasing. Steady. "I'll be there with you every step of the way. Whatever you decide to do, I'll help. I love you, you little menace. Besides, I'm pretty sure there was some old Terran custom that you couldn't marry a woman without the blessing of her father or whatever. So since I can't get that for sure, my options are limited. He's gotta go."

Amelia snorted, then giggled, then broke into all-out laughter. I let the sound wash over me, loving every second of it. It grounded me and made me feel safe, even as I started to notice people openly wearing the Zerx symbol. Just a few at first, then more and more as I approached what used to be the Cattery.

"I love you too, you goof," Amelia whispered gently, just as the Kittens HQ finally came into view.

I stopped short and stared at the newly painted Zerx symbol gleaming on the building's walls, suddenly capable of only one thought.

It's a good thing Mela isn't on the call.

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