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Chapter Text

“You ever gonna tell him?” Yaqut asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

It caught 1k completely off-guard, and so her response was an inelegant “What?”

“About your feelings.” He tipped his head indicatively toward Byron.

If robots could blush, 1k would have turned scarlet. As it was, she just stared at him like a deer in the headlights. Finally, she managed to pull together a reply. “Is… Is it really that obvious?”

Yaqut grinned. “You make sad kitty eyes at him whenever his back is turned.” He briefly mimicked her longing gaze at nothing in particular, then broke back into a smirk.

1k just put her face in her hands. Yaqut put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “Come on, 1k – Kate.”

She simulated a sigh. Her friends only used her chosen name when they were being serious.

“Look,” he said gently, “if I could ask Miranda out, you can tell Byron how you feel.”

“I’m just… scared. That’s weird, isn’t it? I was never scared on the expedition, except…” Except when they’d lost Byron. It went unsaid. “I was never afraid of the danger, but the idea of telling him…”

“You want me to tell him for you?” Yaqut offered.

“No!” she yelped, a bit too loudly, earning her curious glances from passersby.

He grinned. “Well, then go tell him yourself. You can do it!”

She silently agonized over the decision for a while. It was as good a time as any, 1k figured. The sun was setting; that seemed romantic enough. “Okay. I’m going to do it. I’m going to go tell him.”

Yaqut gave her a thumbs-up and watched her go.

1k approached and stood a short distance away from Byron, wringing her hands as she waited for him to finish his conversation with Alcatraz. After a few moments, Al noticed her presence, making brief eye contact with her. Given the way she was hovering, he knew she had to be waiting to speak to either him or Byron alone – and Al had a pretty good suspicion it was the latter. He tactfully wrapped things up and excused himself from the area (1k made a mental note to thank him later).

Well, this was it. Time to fess up. “Hey, Byron?”

“Oh, hello 1k! What can I do for you?”

Oh, that smile of his wasn’t making things any easier. “I, uh, need to tell you something. Away from everyone else, if you don’t mind.”

His expression shifted to concern. “Of course.” Byron gestured for her to walk with him and started toward the Archaeological Gardens. They walked quietly across the bridge, until he broke the silence among the ruins. “Are you alright?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “Yes, I just… I have a confession to make.” 1k paused, gathering her courage. “I… think I’m in love with you.”

It took a moment for Byron to respond, just a quiet, stunned “Oh.”

That oh told her everything. “You don’t feel the same,” she concluded, and finally looked at him. To her surprise, his expression was more sad than anything else.

“I have to admit I’ve never really given it any thought,” he said softly. Before she could respond, he quickly continued. “You are an admirable person, Kate, and I have a profound respect for you. You’re brave, you’re kind, and you’re very intelligent. And it’s been a long time since I’ve met someone who… really understands me like you do.”

1k appreciated that he was trying to let her down as gently as possible, but now she just wanted to get it over with. “But you don’t love me.”

“I don’t,” he admitted, “but… I think I could grow to, in time. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Well that was unexpected. She blinked in surprise as he turned to her with an apologetic smile. And despite everything, she was able to smile back. At the very least, it was good to finally get it off her chest.

Chapter Text

Being elected Mayor had not changed the fact that Byron was still an adventurer at heart, and surely would go mad if confined to the city for too long. And now that everyone had been inspired to help out, he didn’t have to be. So he took a much more active role in running things than Herman ever did, and still occasionally led expeditions.

Which usually included 1k. It seemed natural enough; she too was a daring explorer by nature, and though there weren’t usually traditional puzzles to solve, her creative problem-solving skills and bravery made her an excellent pathfinder. Not to mention she seemed to have a knack for using the machete on those expeditions into more overgrown areas.

But it was also an opportunity for them to spend time together in an environment they were both comfortable with. Her confession had made Byron see 1k in a new light, and he wanted to make an effort to get to know her better.

Of course, pathfinder was a dangerous job to have, so it was really only a matter of time before something eventually happened. And it did, in the early hours of the morning, in a lush gorge the expedition team was attempting to traverse. A river thundered along somewhere far below, shrouded by clouds of fog. Above them mossy stone walls, broken up by hundreds of tiny trickling waterfalls, rose high into a thick canopy of branches. As pathfinder, it was 1k’s job to determine which ledges were safe and which were not, decide where and how to cross to the other side, and clear vegetation blocking the way.

She held up her hand to indicate that the team should stop as they passed by a fallen log lodged across the gorge. “The rocks ahead don’t look stable, and we’ve got a good natural bridge here. Give me a moment to secure the crossing.”

1k's eyes darted over her surroundings, calculating the best solution. It wasn’t that different from what she’d do to solve a puzzle, really. Identify the goal, take stock of what she had to work with, and formulate a plan. Without another word, she set her machete aside, tied one end of a rope to a boulder, and then carefully started making her way across the log, balancing with an apparently effortless grace. It was not, in fact, as easy as she made it look, which was why she was setting up a crude handrail.

And that was when everything went wrong. Suddenly she yelped as she lost her footing to a slick patch of wet moss, and down she went.

“Kate!” Byron lunged forward, grabbing for her hand, but it was too far, too late, and 1k plummeted into the fog. The wires in his chest seemed to tangle into a knot, and all he could think was Save her! The same single-minded focus on rescue that had gotten him trapped on the Megastructure expedition kicked in, and before anyone could stop him, Byron was skidding down the side of the gorge, unstable stone be damned.

Once the glitches and static had cleared from her vision, 1k found herself lying on her back on the river’s pebbly shore. Lucky I didn’t land in the water, she thought, and went to get up, only to be inundated by error codes when she tried to move. She could hear someone running along the beach toward her, so she decided it was better to remain still.

“Kate?! No, no, no, no, no!”

“I’m alright,” she started to say, but before she’d even gotten a word out, he was already kneeling at 1k’s side and cradling her in his arms.

Relief washed over Byron. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought I’d lost you!”

Wait.

He stopped to process what he’d just said. I thought I’d lost you. Not we. And it occurred to him that if it had been Alcatraz who had fallen to the bottom of the gorge, he would have been scared out of his wits for him, certainly, and probably done something reckless to save him, but he would not have reacted quite like this.

Oh.

Judging by the little smirk, 1k had picked up on it too. “Gotten rather attached to me, have you, Byron?” she asked.

“Well, good pathfinders are hard to come by,” he teased. He probably should have left it at that, but something compelled him to give her a completely honest answer. “But yes, I have. In fact I’d go as far as to say I’ve grown to love you.” Byron’s expression shifted suddenly as a new thought occurred to him. “You… do still feel the same, I hope?”

1k took advantage of her current position to slip a hand behind his neck and pull him forward into a kiss. He didn’t resist in the slightest.

“Well,” he said as she pulled away, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Realizing he should probably inform the expedition team that they weren’t dead, Byron spoke up on the shared channel. “I’ve found her; we’re alright.”

“So I see,” said a voice right behind them. Jefferson, who apparently had more sense than either of them, had used the rope 1k had tied to the boulder to rappel down the cliff. How long had she been there – and just how much had she seen?

Byron simulated clearing his throat.

“My leg’s busted,” 1k said, as if that explained their current predicament. “I can’t walk.”

Byron glanced down briefly – only now did he see the sparking wires exposed in her twisted ankle, the hydraulic fluid staining the rocks under her shattered shin plate. Oh, that’s not good. But to his credit, he didn’t skip a beat; he slipped his free hand under 1k’s knees and picked her up. Her damaged foot dangled limply at an angle the servo was not designed for; it must have been sheared clean through.

“We don’t have the supplies to repair such extensive damage on site,” Byron said, fully back in leader mode. “We’re going to have to find a clearing where the V-TOL can land and evacuate her.”

Chapter Text

On the one hand, Alcatraz was happy for his friends, because they were perfect for each other. On the other, he was deeply concerned, because they were perfect for each other.

The last thing Byron needed was an equally-adventurous girlfriend encouraging all his worst habits. He’d seen first-hand what the Byron-1k feedback loop could lead to on the Megastructure expedition, and he wasn’t a fan. It was only going to get worse if they were a couple.

But it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about that. Well, come to think of it, there actually was one thing. He started a private thread with the two of them.

Chapter Text

An eerie orange haze hung over New Jerusalem, and the unrelenting sun beat down, blood-red, on empty streets. Nearly everything was shut down. The air shimmered over the paths and plazas, and yellowed plants wilted beside them.

And it was all because of a sweltering heat wave.

The residents of the city were not organic, true. They felt no discomfort from hot weather in and of itself. But even machines have their limits. Computers produce heat, and must vent it to continue functioning; the hotter the environment around them, the more difficult that process becomes.

Byron had declared a state of emergency and advised the citizens on how to wait out the extreme temperatures. Those who were fully waterproofed could use the city’s lakes to keep cool, but everyone else would simply have to remain indoors, shut the windows, and stay in sleep mode whenever possible. But as Mayor, he didn’t have that luxury himself, because not everybody and everything could go offline, and those that couldn’t needed someone running the show.

And he was miserable.

Staying out of direct sunlight helped somewhat, but the very fact that normal summer heat didn’t bother the new humans meant that New Jerusalem had almost no infrastructure prepared to keep things cool, and now it was coming back to bite them. The Mayor’s office was no exception, and Byron, like most people who were still active, had resorted to throttling his own voltage in an attempt to prevent overheating. He really regretted not getting his waterproofing re-applied the last time he had a chance.

His one source of solace was that 1k was there to keep him company. Oh, Byron had tried to convince her to sleep through the heat like almost everybody else, but she’d stubbornly insisted that if he was going to suffer through it, so would she. So here they were, sitting on the floor in the coolest corner of his darkened office, trying to ignore the nagging error codes scratching at the back of their minds.

“Is summer always this hot?” 1k asked.

Byron slumped back against the wall. “Definitely not. This is one of the hottest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few.”

The corner of 1k’s mouth quirked up in a lopsided little smile. It was charming, in Byron’s opinion – but usually preceded teasing him. “Alright then, O Wise Elder, any idea what’s causing it?”

He smiled slightly and rolled his eyes. “If I had to hazard a guess? Volcanic eruption.”

She seemed surprised to get such a concrete answer, and sat up a little straighter, intrigued. “What makes you say that?”

“Sky’s orange.” It took Byron’s voltage-deprived brain a few moments to process that this wasn’t a sufficient answer. “It means there’s a lot of ash and such in the air. Traps a lot of extra heat and-”

Bang!

Byron and 1k nearly jumped out of their casing. Something landed in front of them; they flinched away, wide-eyed and confused, before their visual processing caught up. It was the grate from the one ventilation fan in the office. 1k blinked, then gawped up at the place where the grate should have been in bewilderment.

Byron put his hand over his face. “Melville,” he said on the essential personnel channel, “another fan just blew out. This time it was the one in my office.”

“Oh for the love of… Look, we’re already spread too thin dealing with all the failures across the city. You’re just going to have to relocate.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” 1k asked as they both got to their feet.

“Oh believe me, there’s plenty you can do to help. Come by the workshop and I’ll get you sorted.”

Stepping outside was like opening a furnace. The dome panels were tilted up like the scales of a pinecone to provide ventilation while still maintaining their UV-reduction benefits, but there was only so much that could do. Just walking in this heat was exhausting; their batteries were operating at less than half their normal efficiency, and they felt physically weak from the lower voltage going to their servos.

So when they arrived at Melville’s workshop, hand in hand, the relatively cool air inside felt like a blessing. Melville herself was on the floor, halfway under some sort of machine, but on hearing their footsteps she extracted herself.

“Well it took you long enough!” she said, fists on her hips. Byron just laughed.

“Why, Melville, I think that’s the first time I’ve set foot in this workshop and not been immediately told to get out of the way!”

“Yeah, yeah… you know what they say about desperate times. We’ve got systems failing left and right. At this point, I’ll take any help I can get.”

As if on cue, Hermanubis’s voice came in over the engineering channel. “I’ve just reached the eastern district. You were right, of course; it appears we’ve lost power entirely in this sector.”

Melville cursed and stalked over to a table to pore over a map of the city.

1k raised an eyebrow. “Lost power? How are we losing power when we’re connected to the Megastructure?”

Melville gestured for them to come over to the table and pointed at the various colored lines snaking through New Jerusalem like veins. “It’s not that we don’t have enough power, it’s that this blasted heat is frying the power distribution system. Doesn’t matter how much power’s coming in if we can’t get it where it needs to go.”

She then turned and placed her hand on a nearby console. “It better not be another busted transformer. Alright, I’m redirecting electricity through an alternate route. You got power back now, Herman?”

“Not yet, no.”

“How about now?”

“Yes, that seems to have done it. Brilliant work as always, Melville.”

“Mmph. Well, the good news is I’ve got more recruits to take some of the pressure off you and Pellegrino out there. Meet us back at the workshop.”

Byron looked quite amused. “Desperate times, indeed.”

Chapter Text

Once Pellegrino and Herman showed up at Melville’s workshop, she wasted absolutely no time dispatching her new field agents.

“Byron, you head to the south district. They’ve got multiple fan failures; Pellegrino and I can talk you through fixing them. 1k, I want you to go see if you can figure out what’s going on at Straton Plaza. Everything’s been going absolutely haywire out there.”

She picked up a hefty tool bag and slung the strap over her shoulder. “Pellegrino, I’m leaving you in charge of watching the data feed. Even you can’t muck it up – just keep us informed. I’m going to go fix that blasted transformer over by the museum.”

Melville started heading for the door.

Herman raised a hand, one finger up, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to get her attention. So he just simulated clearing his throat and asked “Ah, what would you have me do?”

“Stay put, cool down, and recharge,” she said without even looking over her shoulder.

“Surely there’s someth-”

Melville whirled around on the spot and jabbed a finger into Herman’s face. “You’re dangerously close to overheating as it is and I am not going to go drag your sorry carcass back to safety when you pass out! Stay. Put!”

“…Yes Ma’am.”

There was a brief silence after Melville left.

“She’s under a lot of stress right now,” Pellegrino meekly offered.

Byron simulated a sigh. “That makes two of us, then.”

Hermanubis folded his hands behind his back and side-eyed Byron. “Now you know what it’s like. I don’t envy you being in charge for this mess.”

“I still don’t agree with how you ran things,” he answered, “but I do respect what you had to deal with. It’s not an easy job.”

“No, it isn’t.”

As they left to take care of their respective tasks, Byron gently caught 1k by the arm. “Wait. 1k, I know this is a bit silly, but… would you ping me every once in a while? I just want to know you’re still okay out there.”

She giggled softly. “Alright. I’ll keep you in the loop.” She gave him a quick kiss, and then she was off. Despite the oppressive heat, Byron couldn’t help but smile as he set out.

True to her word, 1k occasionally sent him a ping as she made her way to the plaza, where she immediately saw that things were, indeed, going “haywire.” The lighted signs flickered, going dull one moment and too bright the next, and something was producing a loud, droning hum. Curious by nature, and not really thinking straight with her voltage throttled as it was, 1k tried to find the source of the sound, occasionally taking a moment to stop and try to cool down in the shade of a building or tree.

It turned out to be a very good thing that she was taking so long to find it.

The humming stopped abruptly, and the signs went dead. Something crackled and sparked from somewhere behind the art gallery, faster and faster until it started to smolder, and then there was a sound like a thunderclap and a blinding brightness and a towering plume of smoke and something was ablaze!

“Fire!” 1k shouted, still broadcasting on the engineering channel. “Something just exploded and there’s a fire!”

Byron was on the essential personnel channel in an instant. “Fire at Straton Plaza! We need immediate emergency response!” He started rattling off orders and instructions, but 1k didn’t really hear any of it. She stared in horror as the flames began to spread from the burning transformer through the sun-dried grass – and what if the gallery caught fire?

She had to do something! She scanned her environment quickly, looking for something, anything she could use. Somebody’s toolshed – there had to be a bucket or something in there. 1k rushed inside and tossed gardening implements aside in a clatter; yes, a bucket!

But as she filled it from the lake, she found she was too weak to lift it. Her electricity-starved servos just couldn’t handle it. So she stopped throttling her voltage; if she overheated, so be it. She immediately started getting error codes, but 1k had more important things to worry about. She rushed back and forth, throwing buckets of water at the flames in a desperate attempt to slow their spread, for all the little good one person with a pail could do. But she just needed to hold it off, slow it down just a little, until the fire brigade arrived; she just had to hang on, even as the movement of her limbs started to stutter; she just had to hang on, even as she started getting critical errors; she just had to-

Someone grabbed her shoulder. “1k, we’re here; you can stop now. Kate! It’s okay, Kate, we’re here!” She knew that voice. Why did she know that voice? Warm and velvety. It made her feel safe. She let go of… something. What was she holding?

Her vision flickered and then blinked out. She had just enough time to think Well shit, and then her processor turned itself off, leaving only her vital functions backup unit running. 1k fell limply into Byron’s arms.

It was dark when she woke up again – she technically came back online less than half an hour later, but her batteries had been so critically low that she’d booted straight into sleep mode. She sat up and looked around. She was back at home.

And she wasn’t alone. Byron was still waiting faithfully at her side, elbow on the side table and head casually propped up on his fist.

“Well, hello there,” he said with a smile. “You had us worried for a while, 1k.”

She blinked in confusion. “What happened?”

“You overheated and passed out. Nearly drained your battery, too.”

1k’s eyes widened as the memory came rushing back to her. “The fire! Is everyone okay? The gallery didn’t burn down, did it?”

Byron stopped leaning against the table and stood up. “Everyone’s fine, Kate. And no, it didn’t. Not sure how much you had to do with that, considering you were trying to put out a major fire with nothing more than a bucket.”

She smiled sheepishly at him. “I had to do something…”

“Well, what you did was very brave and heroic.” His smile faded. “Also incredibly stupid and reckless.”

1k raised her eyebrows, amused. “That’s rich coming from you, Byron.”

He chuckled and the smile returned. He just couldn’t keep it away when he was with her. “Alright, so I’m a hypocrite. And I’d also be a liar if I said I didn’t like that about you.”

Byron wrapped his arms around her gently. “It scares the hell out of me, sometimes. But if you were perfectly cautious all the time you wouldn’t be the brave and adventurous person I love so much.”

She leaned into him and returned the hug. “Aww. I love you too.”

“Just don’t join the fire brigade any time soon,” he teased. “I don’t think the bucket does much good, anyway.”

Chapter Text

Miranda was so excited to go on her first expedition, even if it was a small one, especially since she was going alongside Yaqut. 1k was pulling double duty as expedition lead and pathfinder, so they were in good hands, too. It was a shame Byron was too busy to join them; it could have been a double date.

The setting sun filtered in between the branches of pine trees and danced, golden, on the mountainside, casting long shadows over stones and streams. Birds chirped above, some Miranda could identify, and some unfamiliar to her.

“It’s so beautiful up here, isn’t it?” she said, trying to etch every detail into her memory. But when she did not get a response, she looked over at her boyfriend. “Yaqut? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, sorry.” He put a hand on the back of his head. “I don’t know, I just… I have this horrible feeling, like we’re being watched or something.”

Miranda gave his hand a squeeze. “Aw, don’t worry! I’m sure it’s nothing, and besides, we’ve got 1k with us! She knows what she’s doing.”

He laughed quietly, but there was no mirth to it, like he was trying to shake the feeling off. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Unbeknownst to them, Yaqut was right. Something was stalking them. They blithely went about their business, collecting samples and notes. Wandering farther and farther away from each other.

All the while, it watched. It waited.

1k was hacking away at a thick bramble, trying to clear a path, when the silence suddenly struck her. She froze. “Something’s wrong,” she said over the expedition channel. “The birds stopped chirping.”

Only then did Miranda and Yaqut notice the eerie silence of the forest. Nobody moved. Even if they had needed to breathe, they would not have been doing so in that moment. No sound, but for the wind and the soft whirring of their internal fans.

A twig snapped.

Miranda turned sharply toward the source… and came face to face with an enormous mountain lion.

“Uh… N-nice kitty…” she said, backing away slowly. The cougar stalked toward her, equally slow, yellow eyes fixed on hers. “Yaqut?! 1k?! Help!”

Yaqut had never known he could run so fast. Pushing through a patch of bushes, he saw her; she backed into a tree, stumbled to the side, and continued backing away. The great cat prowled ever closer.

“Miranda!” Without a moment’s hesitation he put himself between her and the mountain lion. “Get away from her! Go on! Get out of here!” Yaqut shouted, but the beast was undeterred. He tried to fend it off by throwing a rock at it. The cougar just flattened its ears and hissed; it made a mock lunge toward them, snarling.

Yaqut’s courage broke and he turned to flee, shoving Miranda along ahead of him. “Run!”

Running was exactly the wrong thing to do; the cat’s prey instinct triggered – it pounced! It slammed Yaqut into the ground and slid right off of him, not having expected its prey to have metal and plastic in place of flesh. He had just enough time to flip onto his back and raise an arm to defend himself before the cougar was on top of him again, claws flailing at his chest. Its fangs punched right through the casing of his arm; something snapped with a burst of error codes.

Suddenly the mountain lion released Yaqut’s arm and yowled in pain as something struck it; it turned its attention to the side, snarling, only to receive another blow from what he suddenly realized was 1k’s machete. 1k lunged a third time, but this time cut only through empty air, as the cougar decided this was more trouble than it was worth and took off into the woods, trailing blood from the two gashes in its shoulder.

Satisfied that it was gone, 1k held out her free hand to help Yaqut to his feet, only for him to find he couldn’t move his arm. Miranda rushed to his side.

“Yaqut?!”

“I’m okay”, he assured her, sitting up. “Arm’s broken, but everything else is fine.”

She hugged him tightly. “We should have listened to you,” she murmured.

“I am so sorry,” 1k said. “We should get back to the V-TOL and- wait, Yaqut, can you still fly?”

“Yeah, my terminal hand’s fine. Mountain lion got the other arm.”

The trip back to the V-TOL, and much of the flight home, passed in uncomfortable silence while they recovered from the shock.

Eventually, 1k spoke. “I really am sorry, both of you. I’m sorry about what happened to you, Yaqut, and I’m sorry that your first expedition went so badly, Miranda. I’d understand if you didn’t ever want to go on another.”

“It’s not your fault, 1k,” Yaqut told her with a small smile. “You’re the one who saved me. Bad things happen sometimes. We can stick our head in the sand, or we can use the pain to build something better. Isn’t that what you told me? Yeah, I’m pretty shaken up right now… but I’m not going to surrender.”

1k looked stunned. She hadn’t expected her own speeches to come full circle like this. That Yaqut was so affected by her words that he would try to restore that same spirit to her when she faltered touched her deeply. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“He’s right, you know,” Miranda added. “When you brought me back after the Noema accident, I could have just shut myself away from the world. But I didn’t. I learned from it, but I didn’t let fear rule me. And I’m not going to let it rule me now. There’s still so much out there to see.”

“Are you sure? You don’t have to go on expeditions if you don’t want to.”

“But I do want to. Just… not for a while.” She grinned playfully at 1k and added “Maybe not until I learn how to use a machete like you.”

1k chuckled. “Oh, no, I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. Athena and Cornelius will already want my head on a pike as it is, just for today.”

Chapter Text

Byron was still trying to figure out how he felt about both the situation 1k had been in and how she’d reacted. She’d been in such a terribly dangerous situation, and he hadn’t been there with her. He fully believed in her and her abilities, but at the same time, he couldn’t help wanting to protect her. She was simultaneously his knight in shining armor and his damsel in distress, and also something else entirely, because she was Kate, the real Kate, not an archetype but a person – a person he loved.

And the fact that she’d handled the danger by attacking a mountain lion with a machete also gave him very mixed feelings. Violence… wasn’t a common thing in New Jerusalem. They were trying very hard to leave that flaw of their ancestors behind. He knew, rationally, that she didn’t have much choice. It was fight or let the cougar kill Yaqut. That didn’t stop him from having conflicting feelings. On one hand, the fact that 1k was capable of such violence kind of scared him. On the other hand, though… Wow.

But on top of it all, 1k herself seemed to be struggling, too. Especially judging by her replies to the thread. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but she seemed… uncomfortable. And he didn’t really know how to approach her about it.

As luck would have it, he didn’t have to, because it was 1k who approached him. He wasn’t sure if she’d somehow known he was at the gazebo, or if she, too, had simply come here seeking a quiet place to be alone with her thoughts. But she was here, and so was he, and that was what mattered.

“Hey, Byron.” 1k sat beside him, leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. He smiled slightly and wrapped an arm around her.

“Hey, Kate.”

“You used my name,” she observed.

He thought for a moment before responding, his tone soft and gentle. “I’ve just been meaning to ask if you’re okay.”

She didn’t say anything. The birds chirped, and palm fronds rustled in the breeze.

“Is the mountain lion thing bothering you?”

“The incident or the thread?”

“Whatever you need to talk about. I’m here for you.”

1k did not answer, at first, but he waited patiently. At last, she admitted, “I feel guilty.”

“Why?”

“I was in charge of that expedition and everything went so wrong. Yaqut got attacked, the whole thing was probably traumatic for Miranda…”

“You can’t control wild animals, Kate. You said you warned them when you noticed the birds?”

“I did, but…”

“If you hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have been paying attention. The mountain lion might have just pounced on Miranda and killed her on the spot. You risked life and limb to save Yaqut too. You did everything right, Kate.”

She was silent again for a long time. Byron leaned his head against hers and waited.

“I still feel like… I’m being given more credit than I deserve, I guess?”

Byron raised an eyebrow at that. “Kate, listen to me. You are an amazing person. You’ve accomplished great things. If anything, people don’t give you enough credit.”

That might have been the wrong thing to say. She frowned. “They talk about me like I’m some kind of… larger-than-life hero. I know what I did was brave, and I deserve credit for that, but I just gave a mountain lion a couple desperate whacks with a blade to save a friend’s life. It wasn’t some epic battle. They almost made it sound like I’d slain a dragon or something. I worry they’re talking me up into… something I’m not.”

Oh, no, this was beginning to sound familiar. “Kate.” He pulled away so he could turn to face her, gently cupping her cheek with one hand. “You are not Athena. I saw it happen to her. I will not watch it happen again. I won’t let them do that to you.”

1k looked down. “Did it start with jokes for her too?”

“No,” he assured her. “But I can ask a moderator to close the thread if it would make you feel better.”

She shook her head. “That’s alright. Thank you, Byron. I love you.”

“I love you too. Speaking of which…” He raised an eyebrow with a teasing smile. “What’s this I hear about you waiting three months to tell me how you felt? Come to think of it, didn’t you approach me about three months after the Megastructure expedition?”

Chapter Text

“Oh, look at its markings!” Miranda exclaimed, holding up the creature she had found. “I’ve never seen one like this!”

“Let me take a look,” Byron offered, “I might be able to identify it.”

She carried it over to where he was standing. Skittering over her hands was a large yellow and black spider. Miranda moved deftly, allowing the spider to drop off one hand only to fall back onto the other, even as she extended her arms to bring the spider closer to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Byron saw 1k move away from him. But she didn’t say anything, so he assumed she was simply trying to stay out of his way.

“Looks like an orb weaver,” he said, hand on his chin thoughtfully. “Pretty big one, too!”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Yaqut said. “Bring it over here so 1k can see!”

“That’s alright,” 1k said immediately. “I can see it just fine from over here.”

“Oh, I don’t mind!” Miranda said. She smiled and went over to them anyway. Just as she had with Byron, she held the spider out to them – and 1k immediately took a couple hurried steps back. This time everyone noticed.

Yaqut stared at her incredulously. “1k, are you… afraid of spiders?”

They could barely hear her answer, quiet as it was. “…Little bit.”

Miranda stopped the intricate dance of her hands; the spider dropped off her palm on a strand of silk and skittered away. Several seconds of stunned silence passed.

Yaqut burst out laughing.

1k folded her arms over her chest. “It isn’t funny!” she protested.

“Kate, you fought a mountain lion! How are you afraid of a harmless little spider?”

She huffed indignantly. “That’s not a little spider!”

This just made Yaqut laugh harder.

“Yaqut, be nice!” Miranda tried to scold him, despite the fact that she was giggling a bit herself. The laughter proved contagious; Byron turned away, hand over his mouth, trying desperately not to laugh.

“Et tu, Byron?”

He managed to compose himself enough that he was only grinning, and turned back to her. “I’m sorry, it’s- it’s just so unexpected!”

“Spiders,” Yaqut said, finally pulling himself together. “Of all the things that 1k could be afraid of in all the world, the one thing that scares her is spiders.”

Byron could not resist the opportunity. Smiling again, he said, “Well, not the only thing. Apparently I’m scarier than a mountain lion, but less so than a spider.”

1k looked unamused… for a moment, and then she, too, broke into a grin. Damn Byron and his charming smile. She shoved his shoulder lightly. “Bastard.”

“It’s alright, 1k,” Miranda assured her. “Everybody’s afraid of something. We won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

Byron put his hand on 1k’s shoulder. “And don’t worry,” he said with a wink, “I’ll protect you from the big scary spiders.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. I hate you.”

His grin broadened. “Somehow I don’t think you do.”

And once again, she couldn’t help but smile. Dammit.

Chapter Text

Heavy purple clouds hung in the evening sky over an orange landscape of sun-cracked earth and striated stone. Spindly desert trees reached toward the heavens, begging for the storm to come. Byron continually glanced up at the sky, trying to gauge just how much more time he could squeeze out of this expedition before the inclement weather forced them to wrap it up. It wouldn’t be good to have the team caught outside in a thunderstorm – or worse, the V-TOL airborne in one.

The little voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Alcatraz was getting more insistent now, though. He simulated a sigh. “1k, we should probably turn back. I don’t like the looks of those clouds.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “What, now?”

“We’ll need time to get back to the V-TOL and round everybody up if we’re going to get out of here before the storm hits.”

“It’s not going to take that long! We can probably go a little farther and still get back in time.”

He looked up at the sky again, reconsidering his assessment. “Ah, you’re probably right.”

1k smiled. “Well let’s get going then. Adventure awaits!”

Perhaps it was good that they pressed on, because not too far from there, they found something quite interesting. Fragments of wood and rusted scraps of metal, peeking out from the earth here and there. There was certainly something man-made here at one point, but whatever it was, it was so badly deteriorated that it couldn’t be readily identified.

And there seemed to be more. 1k followed the trail of debris along the banded curve of the wind-cut stone wall, out of Byron’s line of sight. Her eyes widened as she took in the landscape before her, previously obscured by the rocks. She stood at the top of a cliff, looking over a vast mosaic of weather-worn hoodoos, arches, and mesas. Hardy desert plants scraped out an existence in their shade.

“Oh, Byron… You have to see this!”

He joined her, and was equally stunned. He took her hand in his, and they just stood there together, appreciating the sight. “Amazing. This is what I live for,” Byron said quietly. “This is what adventure and exploration are all about.”

1k’s brow furrowed and she leaned slightly forward to peer over the edge of the precipice. He followed her gaze; there was a large, dark object of some sort at the base of the cliff, obscured by a handful of scraggly trees.

“That doesn’t look natural,” he observed.  He turned to 1k with a playful smile. “Think you can get us down there and back safely, pathfinder?”

“Of course I can,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “But… we should probably get back to the V-TOL…”

Unfortunately, Byron’s curiosity was now piqued. “A few more minutes can’t hurt, right? We’ll just go down there, see what it is, and then come right back up.”

“Well, I suppose not,” 1k admitted. She walked up and down along a small length of the cliff, eyes darting over the rocks below, tracing out a route. “Alright, follow my lead.” And with that, she lowered her feet over the edge of the cliff, and dropped onto another ledge below. Byron followed to that first ledge, then to the next, and the next, and in moments they were at the bottom of the cliff.

Here they could see the dark object more clearly, and it was definitely the work of human hands. “Oh, that explains it!” Byron said.

1k walked around the strange vehicle half-buried on its side in the sand, looking it over curiously. “You know what it is?”

“It’s a locomotive – or a train, if you prefer. The wood and metal we found up there, those were what’s left of the tracks it ran on.”

“Like our tram system?” 1k said.

“But on a much grander scale. And not all of them were for people. They moved cargo across entire continents this way too.”

A drop of water plinked on the side of the locomotive. Then another, and another, as it started to sprinkle. Byron frowned. “Okay, we definitely have to go.”

1k immediately started back up the cliff, clambering from one outcropping to another as if she’d been born for it. He tried to follow, but the rain was getting heavier, and the rocks were becoming slick, and the dirt turning to mud. 1k stopped halfway up, looking down at him, then dropped back onto a lower ledge to try to help him up. When she tried to get back up to the rock she’d just been on, she found her hands slipped uselessly off the stone. Her once-traversable path up the cliff was now completely impassable.

Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The storm had arrived, and they were stuck.

The downward path, of course, was still perfectly accessible – if a little more challenging in the rain. They both had a few close calls on the way down, and the rain was steadily intensifying. If it got much heavier, it really wouldn’t be safe to be out here without waterproofing, and while Byron had gotten it re-applied, some other members of the team hadn’t, including 1k.

He tried to explain the situation over the expedition channel. “1k and I aren’t going to make it back any time soon. Don’t worry about us. We’re going to seek shelter on our own and we’ll meet up with you once the storm passes.”

The voice that answered, though, was garbled and full of static. “…y, we di… that… your coordin…?”

“Kate is with me. Don’t worry about us,” Byron repeated, and only got more static in response.

“Sounds like the storm’s interfering with our long-distance communication,” 1k said. “Come on, we need to get out of this rain; I think I see a cave over there. We can try to contact the team again later.”

Upon ducking into their newfound shelter, they discovered that it was not a cave at all, but the remains of an ancient mine. 1k turned on her light and looked down the mineshaft, but it seemed to have collapsed not too far in. No exploring for them, then.

“You okay?” Byron asked.

“Well, I haven’t shorted out yet,” she said, sitting down on a large chunk of stone with one leg crossed over the other, “so I should be fine now that we’re in here.”

Even so, drying her out was probably still a good idea. Byron looked around; there were some wooden boxes, still intact after all this time thanks to the (usually) dry desert air. He didn’t like destroying artifacts, but they were just boxes, and frankly he was more concerned about 1k right now.

“What are you doing?” she asked, watching him pull the dry old planks apart and toss them into a pile on the ground.

“Making a campfire.” He knelt down, and using the small spot welder from his medical kit, he ignited the ancient timber. Then he smiled up at 1k. “It’s something ancient humans used to do in situations like this. I figured it would help dry us out.”

She just gave a soft hum in response. He sat next to her, elbows resting on his knees, watching the flames leap and dance. After a while, 1k commented, “I like it. It’s… pretty.”

“Don’t get too close,” Byron teased. “You don’t have the best track record with fire.” 1k rolled her eyes, grinning.

Outside, the rain continued to come down in sheets, and thunder rolled across the landscape. But here, they were safe and warm. They could only hope the rest of the expedition team was, too.

Suddenly something occurred to Byron, and he chuckled. “Al’s going to be insufferable.”

“Oh, absolutely,” 1k agreed. “He’ll never let us hear the end of it. He’s definitely going to ask if we learned our lesson from this.”

“And the answer’s going to be ‘absolutely not.’ I don’t regret a single second I’ve spent with you, 1k.”

She smiled and bowed her head slightly, touched by his words. Before she could respond, his smile faded, and he spoke again.

“Well, no, actually. That’s not true.” He didn’t look at her, instead staring thoughtfully into the fire. “I regret not paying more attention on the Megastructure expedition. I was so focused on finding Athena, I was completely blind to what was right in front of me. I took your support entirely for granted.”

“It’s alright. I don’t blame you,” 1k said. “Athena is a mother to you. I don’t really know what that’s like, but… in your position, I think I would have done the same thing.”

Everything was quiet, but for the crackling of the fire, the patter of the rain outside, the occasional thunderclap.

“Kate…” Byron said softly, “when I got myself trapped, did you… Had you already developed feelings for me?”

“I had.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been terribly difficult.”

But 1k just giggled. “Why are you so concerned with how I felt? You were the one in danger!”

He chuckled and sat up straight. “You have a point, there,” he admitted. He looked over at her and found her smiling back at him.

1k shrugged slightly. “Besides, I wasn’t doing that badly, actually. If anything, it gave me strength – a cause to serve. I swore I wouldn’t let you down, no matter what. I would do everything in my power to save you, and if I couldn’t, I would fight for everything you stood for.”

Byron looked at her with such pure admiration that she had to turn her attention to the fire again to admit, “And I damn near punched Thecla when she started celebrating your apparent ‘death.’”

He laughed. “For what it’s worth, Kate, there’ve been times I’ve wanted to punch her, too.”

“Good to know,” she said, a small smile on her face. Then they were quiet once more, simply enjoying each other’s company.

The new humans had little concept of individual beauty. Everyone had the same face, and more-or-less the same body. Sure, one could admire the colors of someone’s eyes or casing, or the way they moved, but that was pretty much the extent of it. So naturally, Byron had never really given appearance much thought.

But looking at 1k now, firelight dancing in her cerulean eyes, her snow-white casing clearly showing every scuff and scrape, noticeably smudged with mud and rain-streaked dust and countless other markers of her adventurous nature…  She was absolutely gorgeous.

Noticing Byron was still looking at her, she raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You look like you’ve been through hell,” he said, somehow making it sound like a compliment. “It’s a good look for you.”

She smiled. “That would be insulting coming from anyone else, you know.”

He caressed her face gently, wiping some of the dirt from her cheek with his thumb. 1k, in turn, moved closer and embraced him, and they leaned into a soft, slow kiss.

They hadn’t even noticed the rain letting up. So they were taken quite by surprise when one of their teammates found them in their little shelter.

“Really? Again?”

The startled lovers broke away from each other.

“Ah. Jefferson,” Byron grumbled. “Excellent timing, as always.”

Chapter Text

There was a polite knock at the entrance to Byron’s office, despite his door being open. Pellegrino was standing there nervously with one hand over his mouth.

“Mr. Mayor? There’s… a situation at Melville’s workshop. And, uh… your girlfriend got involved.”

Byron sprang to his feet. “What? Is she alright?”

“Oh! Yes, yes, she’s fine. It’s just…” A snicker escaped from Pellegrino despite his best efforts to maintain composure – and that was when Byron realized that what he’d taken for concern was actually amusement. “Maybe you should come see this?”

Honestly, he should probably get a moment away from his work, anyway. So off they went. He could hear the chaos before he could see it. Thudding, clattering, and… honking? The doors were wide open, doing nothing to contain the noise, and yet he still wasn’t prepared for what he saw inside.

The workshop looked like a tornado had hit it. Machines and parts were knocked over, scattered across the floor, piled atop each other in random heaps; there were feathers strewn about among them. Melville, armed with a wrench, crouched behind a desk like an ancient soldier in a trench. And 1k, wielding a broom, was chasing a large gray bird with a black and white head.

Coincidentally, Hermanubis had been on his way to visit the workshop, completely unaware of the insanity going on inside until he heard the noise and came running. “Good heavens, what is-” Words failed him the moment he looked into the building. He stopped and stood there at the door next to Byron, both of them just gawking at the bizarre scene.

After giving his brain a moment to catch up, Herman stepped inside. “W-we need to help!” he said, not doing anything in particular to actually do so. What did one even do in this situation?

Byron chuckled. “Oh no, I know better than to get involved in this. You’re on your own for this one.”

The fact that Byron, of all people, ‘knew better’ really should have been Herman’s first clue. The second clue, also missed, came moments later, as 1k tried to use the broom to herd the bird into a corner. Instead it took to the air and flew over her head in a cacophony of honking and flapping. It then made straight for Melville, who reacted with uncharacteristic panic.

“Nonononono!” she yelped, vaulting herself over the desk and running to hide behind Herman. Hermanubis, in turn, looked very confused, but not at all displeased with this turn of events. The bird strutted about atop Melville’s desk as if it owned the place.

Byron was still snickering in the background. “I’m surprised you’re not going after the goose with the broom yourself, Melville!”

“I was, until 1k pried it out of my hands!” she snapped. “Said she was afraid I’d hurt the stupid thing! Bloody idiot…” Emboldened now that she had a human shield between her and the goose, she grumbled “At least I’m not the target of its wrath now.”

1k approached the bird with her broom again, and this time it charged at her, wings flared, hissing, and while she didn’t back down, she certainly made sure to keep it gingerly at arm’s – or rather, broom’s – length. That should have been clue number three.

“It… It’s just a bird,” Herman said, trying to comprehend all of this. A fairly large bird, but still just a bird. Right?

“It’s a flying velociraptor, is what it is!” Melville spat, peering cautiously over his shoulder.

Everyone in New Jerusalem had some degree of puzzle-solving skill, since it was part of the boot up process. So even Herman could look at what was available in the area and try to work out a solution. “Surely you could just… catch it with a tarp?”

“Are you out of your gourd?” she asked him. She furrowed her brow and shook her head, muttering to herself, “‘Out of your gourd?’ What does that even…? Bloody language libraries.”

Seeing an opportunity to play the hero for Melville, Herman then offered, “Well, I could make an attempt at it.”

Byron wheezed and leaned against the door frame as he tried to keep his laughter under control. He was rapidly losing that battle.

Melville stared at Herman, eyes narrowed, as if he was speaking a completely different language. Then, slowly, a wicked and knowing smirk crept across her face. “Alright,” she said, her voice eerily calm and sickly-sweet, “If you think you can wrangle the goose, be my guest.”

1k backed away from the goose slightly, still carefully keeping the broom pointed at the bird while she circled around it. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” she protested.

Bolstered by entirely misplaced confidence, Herman waved her off and picked up a tarp. 1k backed off and leaned against the wall with the broom like a guardsman with a spear. Melville folded her arms over her chest and stood back to watch the show.

To everyone’s surprise, he actually did a pretty decent job of using the tarp to corral the bird into a corner. But with nowhere to go, it started hissing at him, puffing up its feathers. And he did not take the hint. So it attacked, as geese tend to do.

And Hermanubis was not expecting the goose’s wings to be that powerful. It was like getting hit by a derailed tram. The blow left a dent in his casing and knocked him flat on his back. The light on his chest actually flickered briefly as he hit the ground, stunned.

“Gotcha!” 1k shouted, grabbing the goose from behind and pinning down one of its wings; the other wing flapped wildly as the bird honked and hissed and tried to twist around to bite 1k. Unfazed, she marched outside with her feathery prisoner, presumably to relocate it to somewhere outside the dome.

Herman lay on the ground, trying to clear the error codes and process what had just happened. “Okay, yes,” he wheezed, now understanding where Melville was coming from. “Velociraptor.”

Melville nodded sagely. “Flying velociraptor,” she concurred.

Chapter Text

Exploring the ruins of the age of the ancient humans, ironically, never got old. Byron had been at it for centuries, and every discovery still filled him with wonder. And boy was this a good one! These days, the expeditions from New Jerusalem were purely for academic purposes – to learn more about the world in which they lived. No longer was he restricted to searching locations that might have useful materials.

And that opened up the doors to more remote locations like this one – figuratively, as several sections of wall had entirely collapsed, allowing easy entry even without a door. This sprawling ancient structure must have been truly grand once, and he would have loved to have seen it in its day. Regal pillars and arches still held up a second floor, and in many places, even parts of a roof. In these more sheltered areas, Byron was able to wipe away the snow to reveal beautiful tiles beneath. He now came to some sort of indoor courtyard – or at least it had once been indoors. The glass roof that once covered this room had long since collapsed, and snowflakes gently fell through the opening and onto leafless branches and brambles pushing through the floor.

In this courtyard, he found the remains of some sort of stair-like structures, oddly disjointed; one had collapsed entirely, and the other looked unstable. Byron decided to try his luck anyway and carefully started descending the snow-covered stairs, holding onto the oddly rounded railings that flanked it. One of the stair panels cracked and collapsed under his foot, though he was able to catch himself before he fell.

Strange, though… he thought he heard something down one of the halls. He listened, but didn’t hear anything else, so he shrugged it off. It must have been an echo, or perhaps one of the other expedition team members. He wandered into one of the numerous large rooms off the main hallways; like the rest, there countless shelves and countertops, partially buried by snowdrifts blown in by the wind.

Byron saw something bright red in the corner of his vision, and at first he thought perhaps it was his own reflection in a miraculously intact mirror – but no. As he turned his attention to it, he made a gruesome discovery: the bloodied carcass of a rabbit, torn limb from limb.

“Everyone be on alert,” he broadcast on the expedition channel, “I’ve found another body. Not eaten, just like the last one.”

Nobody on the channel said anything, but everyone knew what the others were thinking: I don’t like the looks of this.

Even Byron was beginning to have second thoughts, but his curiosity and desire to explore won out over his caution. That didn’t stop him from jumping when he heard something above and behind him, and a bit of snow fell off one of the higher floors. Byron looked up and then simulated a sigh of relief.

“You scared me, 1k,” he said, trying to hide his anxiety with a smile.

“I could say the same,” she said, leaning slightly over the ornate wrought iron railings; the patterns were still clearly visible despite the dead vines and icicles that clung to them. “I’ll see if I can find a way down to join you. We’ll be better off if we stick together.”

He nodded and gestured down one of the halls. “Sounds like a good plan. I’m heading that way; see if you can meet up with me over there.”

He really should have waited. And perhaps he would have, if he’d noticed the tracks in the snow.

But Byron had never been one to let sense get in the way of adventure. So he pressed deeper into the cold and labyrinthine ruins. Until he heard something breathing raggedly from one of the side rooms. He furrowed his brow and peered through the huge broken window into the room.

A wolf wandered among rusted hanging racks and snow-dusted countertops. What was a wolf doing in here all by itself? Where was its pack?

It turned, its eyes bleary and reddened – and its snarling muzzle dripping with blood and foam.

Rabies.

A cold jolt of fear surged through Byron’s circuits as he scrambled backwards and tripped over a broken tile; the wolf charged and leapt at him through the broken window. Byron managed to catch the wolf in the gut with his foot, holding it back as frothing fangs snapped shut a fraction of an inch from his face. He kicked it off him and scrambled to his feet, never once taking his eyes off the rabid animal.

Again it charged, and he sidestepped it, sending it careening into a wall with a cry of pain and rage. Byron ran to the first object he saw – the remains of a sign – he grabbed it and clutched it in front of him like a shield! He spun around just in time for the wolf to lunge at him yet again; it slammed into the sign with force that sent him stumbling backwards against the trunk of a tree pushing stubbornly through the ancient structure. Before he could react, the wolf dived for his leg and clamped down with the kind of force only a mad beast could manage. The error codes flooding his mind were the least of Byron’s problems as the wolf yanked his leg out from under him and started dragging him into another room, viciously shaking its head from side to side.

Byron fumbled at the snow around him desperately until his fingers found something solid; he didn’t care what it was, he just swung it at the wolf’s face. It left a vivid red line across the animal’s snout and he realized what he was holding was a shard of glass – yet still the wolf didn’t let go! He swung the shard again and kicked at the animal with his other leg, and the combination of blows was enough to free Byron from its jaws.

Using a nearby counter to help him up, he scrambled to his feet; his leg made a horrible cracking sound as he put weight on it and he was momentarily overwhelmed by an all-consuming torrent of errors. He leaned against the counter as the wolf lunged once more; Byron braced himself and caught its frothing jaws in his hands. If he slipped for just a moment it would take his fingers off for sure! His servos buzzed and strained against the crazed animal’s jaw strength; one of his elbows started to smoke.

And suddenly there was a furious scream, and the wolf was ripped away from him and thrown aside, and there stood 1k, brandishing her machete and snarling right back at the creature with equal ferocity.

“How dare you touch him?!” she roared, murder in her eyes. This was not the mountain lion. Kate wanted this thing dead, and dead by her hand.

The rabid wolf stumbled to its feet and threw itself at her throat and she blocked it with her forearm. Its teeth crunched down through the casing and her free hand went limp, but 1k didn’t even seem to notice as she started raining machete blows onto it; again and again the blade came down, splashing crimson across the pure white of her face and chest and the snow below.

Any sane creature would have given up by now, but in its rabies-fueled haze, the wolf could only fight to the last breath. It yanked backwards on 1k’s arm, ripping a piece of casing clean off and exposing the servos and pistons and wires beneath, torn and sparking from the attack. She stumbled, fell to the ground, caught herself on her elbow and rolled to the side. Eyes wild and bloodshot, the snarling animal hurled itself at her – and impaled itself on her machete. She kicked it off and jumped to her feet in one fluid motion, planted one foot on the wolf’s shoulder, and then brought her blade straight down into its skull.

She pulled it back out with a sickening squelch, and stood stock still over the slain creature for a moment as her rage burned off. Then she turned.

Byron was still propping himself up with his elbow on the counter, staring at her with wide eyes. At first, she took his expression for one of horror. And she couldn’t blame him. She had probably just ruined everything she had with him – but at least he was alive.

And then he squeaked out an awestruck “Wow!” – somehow managing to sound breathless despite not needing to breathe. A moment later he blinked a couple times, suddenly seeming to remember where he was and what was going on. “Ah, right.” He looked away, flustered, then simulated clearing his throat and made an announcement to the expedition team.

“1k and I were just attacked. The threat’s been… taken care of, but we’re both injured. We’ll try to make our way back outside. I’m calling the expedition short.”

“Come on,” 1k said softly. “I’ll help.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and braced himself against her, and they started limping their way back out to the V-TOL.

“Kate,” Byron murmured. “You. Are. Incredible. You know that, right?”

“Well, I was inspired by the best,” 1k replied.

Chapter Text

It must have worried Al terribly to see the expedition’s V-TOL return early. And it certainly must have worried him even further to see 1k and Byron being transported to Neith’s lab. So it was no surprise at all that he showed up at the lab shortly after they arrived and got settled onto the workbenches for examination and repair.

Seeing them alive, awake, and alert, though, allayed his worst fears. 1k actually saw him release the tension he’d been holding in his pistons, his shoulders dropping slightly as they relaxed.

From where she sat, scrubbing dried blood off of her casing and out of her joints as Neith worked on her damaged arm, she could hear Alcatraz ask, “Byron, what the hell happened?!” – which she had a feeling was a question he’d asked many, many times before.

“Hi, Al. Nice to see you too,” Byron responded with a wry smile.

Their voices quieted somewhat, and she couldn’t make out the rest of their conversation, but she could get an idea of what was going on just from watching them. Al said something while gesturing at Byron’s mangled leg. Byron said something very short, perhaps only a single word, which caused Al’s expression to shift to gentle sympathy. Byron looked down and said something else. Al nodded and replied, then looked annoyed when Byron laughed.

“Try to close your fist, please,” Neith requested, drawing 1k’s attention away from her friends. She tried to do as she was asked, but only some of her fingers bent. Neith removed a rod from one of the pistons in 1k’s arm and inserted a tube in its place, then went to fiddle with a machine.

1k looked back up to find that Byron was now gazing adoringly at her, at which Al seemed rather amused. 1k waved her undamaged hand; Al waved back and Byron grinned. Al turned to Byron and said something, to which he responded without ever taking his eyes off 1k. Al just shook his head, smiling.

Neith finished doing whatever it was she was doing in 1k’s wrist. “Alright, try again now.” This time her hand closed, and she was able to open it again just as smoothly. “Excellent.” Neith attached new casing to 1k’s arm and patted her on the shoulder. “Good as new.”

“Thanks, Neith.”

“Of course, dear.” They joined Al at Byron’s side.

Neith tutted over the damage. “That wolf really did a number on you, Byron. We may need to build you a new leg from scratch.”

“So is now a bad time to mention I think I damaged something in my arm, too?” he asked, grinning.

“Of course you did,” she said, shaking her head.

Byron turned to Al and 1k with an apologetic shrug. “Well, don’t wait for me. It sounds like I’m going to be here for a while.”

“Alright. I’ll see you later, then,” 1k said. She gave him a quick kiss goodbye.

Al nodded in acknowledgement. “Take care.”

As they were leaving the building, though, 1k took Alcatraz aside. “Hey, Al? Can I talk to you about something? I think Byron might be a little biased about this, and I respect your judgment.”

He gave her a warm and reassuring smile. “Of course. I’m always here for you, 1k.”

They started walking together, but 1k said nothing at first, so Al gently broke the silence. “Byron told me what happened. I wanted to thank you for saving him. Sometimes it seems like he’s blessed by Lady Luck, but one of these days his luck’s going to run out. If it hadn’t been for you, that could have been today.”

She looked at the ground. “I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him on my watch.”

“Nor would I let you,” he said with a slight smile.

1k chuckled. “Right. ‘Nobody will ever find the pieces,’” she recalled with a grin.

They came to a quiet place in the city, a little garden plaza surrounded by evergreens and ferns, and sat on one of the benches arranged around a burbling fountain.

“So,” Alcatraz said, clasping his hands in his lap. “What’s on your mind, 1k?”

She plucked a frond from a nearby fern and twirled it between her fingers. “I took a life today, Al. I killed a living creature.”

Al nodded sympathetically. “And you’re feeling guilty about it?”

“No. And that’s what’s bothering me.”

“What you did was merciful, Kate,” he assured her. “That wolf was dying already, and rabies is a truly horrible way to go. Trust me, I’ve seen it before, and so has Byron. I wouldn’t expect you to feel guilty for doing the right thing.”

1k simulated a sigh. “I wasn’t acting out of mercy, though,” she admitted. “I wanted to kill it. I wanted to rip it apart. And I don’t feel the slightest bit of remorse for it.” She could not bring herself to look at her friend. “Does that make me a bad person, Al?”

“Kate, it was trying to kill Byron. I would have wanted to put a blade through its skull, too.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “So no, I don’t think you’re a bad person. It’s important not to let anger blind you, but it’s also important to recognize that it’s not the same thing as cruelty. You were protecting someone you love, and you should never be ashamed of that.”

“Thanks, Al.” 1k smiled slightly and tossed the fern stem aside. He could tell something was still bothering her, though.

He ventured a guess as to what it was. “It’s okay not to have all the answers, 1k. It’s okay to doubt yourself; in fact it’s perfectly normal. With everything you’ve done and been through already, it’s easy to forget that you’re still very young. Everything is still new to you, and you’re still trying to find your way in the world. Byron and I are always here for you to lean on, if you need to.”

“Thanks,” she said again. She paused for a moment. “Hey, Al?”

“Hm?”

1k looked over at him. “I’m not getting in the way of your friendship with Byron, am I? I know he’s been spending almost all of his free time with me lately…”

“Of course not,” he assured her, smiling. “We wouldn’t still be friends after all this time if it was that easy to drive a wedge between us. Byron’s just like that. He’ll find his way back to me eventually; he always does. Frankly, I’m just glad he’s someone else’s problem for a while.”

“Byron, a problem? Never,” 1k replied with exaggerated shock.

Alcatraz leaned back with his arms folded over his chest, looking at her sideways with a restrained smile. “You’re both problems. That’s why I knew you two were perfect for each other right from the start.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘right from the start?’”

The smirk tugging at Al’s mouth grew slightly. “I’m a bit more perceptive than he is, 1k. You adored him almost from the moment you met him on the tram.” He chuckled softly at the look on her face. “And getting to know you on the Megastructure expedition, I couldn’t help but notice how alike you two were. So I figured it would happen eventually – once Byron got his head out of the clouds long enough to notice you.”

1k stared at the ground, gripping the edge of the bench, processing this. Al had known the entire time. And he’d said that she and Byron were ‘perfect for each other.’ And if Alcatraz thought so…

“Do you… really think we’re a good match?”

“You’re kindred spirits. You value the same things, see the world the same way. I won’t lie to you, Kate; I do wish he’d found someone a little more… stabilizing. You two share many of the same flaws, and I worry about how you amplify them in each other. But I admit you bring out the best in each other, too.”

Alcatraz turned to look her in the eyes with a reassuring smile. “More importantly, you make each other happy. You should hear the way he talks about you – and how often. Byron has had quite a few suitors over the centuries, but I’ve never seen him so completely smitten with someone. He loves you, Kate. Be good to him.”

1k stared at him for a moment, stunned. Then she smiled warmly, and nodded. “I will, I swear.”

Chapter Text

1k put a tablet on Byron’s desk. “Okay, here are the poll results. Seems like most people are in favor.”

He looked up from the other tablet in his hand. “Ah, thank you, 1k! You’re fast. If only everyone was as efficient as you.”

“I aim to please,” she said, hopping up to sit on a part of his desk that wasn’t covered in ancient trinkets from his various expeditions over the years. 1k crossed one leg over the other and idly picked up a remarkably well-preserved timekeeping device for closer examination.

“You aim to be kept occupied,” Byron said with a smirk. He wasn’t wrong; 1k was both a problem solver and a helper by nature, so she was constantly seeking ways to be useful – so long as the tasks weren’t tedious. Which meant that he was swiftly running out of things to delegate to her.

She put the clock back down where it had been. “Well, keep me occupied, then.”

“Sorry, 1k, I don’t have anything else for you to work on right now.”

“Well, what are you working on?”

Byron simulated a sigh. “Still trying to update our infrastructure so we don’t have a repeat of that ridiculously hot summer.” He put his hand on his terminal for a moment to download something. “Melville’s proposal looks good, but it keeps getting caught up in…” He removed his hand from the terminal and waved it dismissively at nothing in particular. “Political nonsense.”

“Everyone wants an upgrade, but nobody wants things to go down for upgrading.”

“Exactly.”

He stood up and walked over to the whiteboard on his wall, picked up a marker from the basket, and started scratching out ideas. He heard 1k hop down off his desk behind him, and a few moments later she was standing next to him.

“Could we run temporary secondary lines from the dam to cover the area until the main grid is upgraded?” she suggested.

“That… might actually work. But, then… that would mean having to-“ Byron cut himself off as 1k leaned her head on his shoulder. “1k, please… I have important work to do,” he protested half-heartedly.

She lifted her head and turned to him with her little lopsided smirk. “What, am I distracting you, Mr. Mayor?”

“Just a bit.”

“You’re smiling,” she teased, leaning closer.

“Well… maybe I could use a distraction now and then,” he said, capping the marker and tossing it back into the basket.

1k giggled softly and they wrapped their arms around each other, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes.

Suddenly Byron’s eyes flicked toward something over 1k’s shoulder, at the door, and the smile vanished from his face. 1k pulled away and turned to see what the matter was, and simulated a sigh – once again, they’d been interrupted.

If ever there had been a Medusa, capable of turning a person to stone with a glare, then surely Byron was channeling her spirit now.

“Jefferson, you have thirty seconds to get out of my office.”

She didn’t need to be told twice, and simply backed out quickly without a word. The door closed again as she left.

1k was about to say something about letting Byron get back to work when he pulled her close again with a grin. “Now, where were we…?”

Incredible how he could restore the moment just like that, the charmer. She smiled back at him. “I believe you were about to kiss me.”

So he did just that.

Chapter Text

Byron had insisted that 1k stick with him on this expedition for a reason. She may have been skilled at judging the stability of stone and earth, but ruins were another beast entirely. Byron had the experience to know what was safe and what was not, and could guide her through the decaying skyscrapers with (hopefully) minimal incidents.

So now they were several floors up, and so far everything was going quite well. 1k was fascinated by the rotting artifacts of her ancient predecessors that littered the building. Crumbling desks and chairs were arranged in a grid, separated by flimsy shoulder-high barriers that had mostly collapsed. The warped remains of keyboards and the cracked monitors of ancient computers lay mostly where they had been left. Many of the desks still bore the personal effects of the people who had once worked here – coffee mugs, pots that had once held plants, desktop organizers full of pens and staplers, assorted figurines and models. All of this, discolored by age and festooned with moss and ivy.

Only where the floor was intact, of course. The ceiling was full of holes, and bits of material peeled and dangled overhead. Reams of electrical cables hung in a tangled mess from above like vines. The floor was similarly rotted. Byron, of course, knew how to tell whether it was stable or not with barely a glance; it was second nature to him. He’d seen hundreds of these structures.

Something caught 1k’s eye on the other side of the sizable gap blocking access to an elevator shaft and several more desks. “Hey, what’s that?”

Byron looked in the direction she was pointing. There was something interesting on one of those desks, but it was partially obscured behind a monitor. “I don’t know. Let’s see if we can find a way over there.”

1k backed away from the hole in the floor, and it took him a moment to register what she was doing. There was no way she could possibly intend to- oh Progenitor she did!

“Kate, no!”

But it was too late; she had already taken a running start and leapt over the chasm. She stuck the landing perfectly – but misjudged the stability of the floor. As she landed there was a loud crack and the groan of bending metal, and part of the floor, now held only by straining rebar, tilted and threatened to fall. 1k slipped down the slope with a scream, clawing desperately for purchase and managing to wedge her fingers into a crack in the concrete.

Byron’s processor instantly overclocked; time seemed to slow around him as his mind raced to find a solution – but there was no immediate way across. No way, except to jump. Unlike 1k he could judge where the safest place to land was, but it was a very wide gap, and a long way down, and if he missed, well…

Some detached and dispassionate part of Byron whispered to him: Al would never know what happened to them. How long would he worry – how long would he search – before he realized that they were gone? That he'd lost them both?

Another part of him answered, Then don’t fucking miss.

Byron took off running toward the best crossing point and practically threw himself over the gap, only barely making it. A piece of concrete crumbled under one of his feet and he scrambled to regain his footing. There was another squeal of straining metal and 1k yelped again as the chunk of concrete she clung to jolted downward, the ancient rebar holding it in place failing bit by bit. One of her hands slipped, but she was able to grab a fallen electrical cable and wrap it around her hand for extra grip – not that the cable would hold her for long if she fell.

Byron rushed over to her as quickly as he could while still watching his footing on the decaying ground, but he wasn’t fast enough! With a metallic screech the rebar collapsed and the concrete dropped out from under 1k, she fell several feet and there was a crunch as the cable wrapped around her hand yanked tight like a noose; it was now the only thing keeping her from falling to her death.

But now Byron could not reach her, not from up here. There had to be another way – yes, a fallen beam on the floor below! It was narrow, but it would get him close enough to her. He dropped down to the next floor and started making his way across the beam, arms out like a tightrope walker. The cable holding 1k lurched as it, too, started to give out, but he got there before it could fail entirely.

He lost his balance as he grabbed her, and essentially threw himself at the nearest piece of stable ground; the two of them tumbled to the floor and collapsed in a heap on the concrete.

Byron clung tightly to 1k like she was the most precious treasure in the world as his clock speed came back down to normal. She, in turn, pressed herself into him for comfort after her terrifying near-death experience.

“Kate, what the hell were you thinking?! Do you have a death wish?!”

God, he sounded like Alcatraz – was this how it felt to be Al? He owed his friend an apology. Or forty.

1k just stammered guiltily at him, and he simulated a sigh. “No, it’s alright, you… you didn’t know any better. Just… learn from this. This is why I wanted you to follow me closely.”

They remained there for a while, just holding each other and recovering from the shock.

“Let’s… head back down,” 1k eventually said, her voice trembling. “I think we should maybe stick to the ground floors for a while.”

“Right. That sounds like a good idea.” Byron stood up and went to help her to her feet, and saw the damage to her hand from the cable. He’d have to take a look at that when they got back down to solid ground.

They made their way down, 1k now very carefully following only where Byron walked.

“Thank you,” she said softly as she descended a rickety staircase behind him.

He offered a gentle smile over his shoulder. “Consider it repayment for all the times you’ve saved me.”

She looked at her feet bashfully. “I’ve only saved you twice.”

“That’s once more than I’ve saved you,” Byron pointed out. “Which is nothing to scoff at, really, all things considered. You have a lot of promise, Kate, you really do. You’re just young and inexperienced. You have a lot left to learn, still.”

“Well, I’m glad I have a teacher like you,” 1k said earnestly.

“Don’t let Al hear you say that.” Ah, that got a little chuckle out of her. Good.

They came to the exit on the ground floor, and Byron held aside a curtain of vines for her as they stepped outside. Wildflowers grew between the cracks in the asphalt, and trees pushed up through what had once been a road as if it were nothing. With a hand lightly on her back, he guided her over to one, and there they sat together in the shade.

“Here,” Byron said gently, “let me see your hand.”

1k held it out for him to assess the damage. “And Neith just fixed this arm, too,” she lamented.

“Well, it doesn’t look too bad. Just a bent finger, dented casing, and possibly some minor wire damage,” he assured her, opening up his expedition medical kit – which, given their nature, was really more of a toolbox. She ignored the error codes as he gently took her damaged hand and removed the bolt in the knuckle of her bent finger, then carefully took out the tiny screws that held the casing on both her finger and the back of her hand.

Using a small set of pliers, he bent the actuator rod back into shape with the incredibly delicate touch of a jeweler or a clockmaker, and then set to work similarly restoring the casing for her finger.

“You’re very good at this,” 1k said, genuinely surprised by the precision and gentleness of his care.

Byron smiled without looking up from his work. “Well, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice repair work. Mostly on myself, with all the trouble I get into.”

He returned the casing and knuckle bolt to her finger, and it truly looked almost good as new. Then he set to work on her hand itself. Sure enough, there was some damage to some wires, but nothing he couldn’t fix. 1k watched in fascination as he used a precision knife to separate a pair of joined wires and deftly stripped the coating off them without even the slightest damage to the copper underneath. He trimmed off the damaged ends, then carefully twisted the wires back onto their other halves.

“I’ll need both hands for this part, I’m afraid,” he told her, lightly placing her hand on his knee instead. He glanced up at her with a smile. “As much as I enjoy holding your hand.”

1k giggled quietly as Byron used a thin roll of electrical tape to wrap the reconnected wires with remarkable efficiency. He really was quite practiced at this. Finally, he fixed the dents in the casing, then took her hand in his once more to carefully reaffix it.

“Good as new,” he said, putting the screwdriver away. Much to 1k’s delighted surprise, he then lifted her newly-repaired hand to his lips and pressed a tender kiss to it.

“How very chivalrous of you,” she murmured.

He smiled warmly as he helped her to her feet. “Well, I suppose you could say I’m a bit… old-fashioned.”

“My knight in shining armor,” 1k teased, and Byron chuckled.

“Hardly. Though, I am always up for a worthy quest.” He bowed playfully to her and said, “Lead on, my lady. I shall follow you to the ends of the earth.”

And though the flowery language was an affectation, he meant every word of it.

Chapter Text

Neith looked up from the table and waved. “Hey, Byron! Nice to see you. Will you be joining us?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said, taking a seat next to 1k. “I’d love to, but I can’t fit a weekly 4-hour session into my schedule. I’m just here as a spectator today.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Yaqut said. “Having Byron and Al in the same party is a recipe for disaster. He’d probably end up causing him to break his Oath in like three sessions.”

“I would rather not lose my paladin powers, thank you,” Alcatraz agreed.

Cryer gave a quick recap to get Byron up to speed on what was happening. “Ok, so there’s a dracolich – an evil skeleton dragon – and it burned down Yaqut’s home village to steal a magic staff, and that’s how we found out it was trying to end all life in the world. 1k tracked it to its lair in a crystal cave and now we’re trying to slay it.”

“As one does,” Byron said, amused.

Cyrus, who had introduced them all to Dungeons & Dragons in the first place, was naturally the one running the game. “And it’s currently 1k’s turn,” he reminded them. “Can I get a will save?

1k shook a bright red 20-sided die in the palm of her hand and rolled it across the table. “Is a 16 enough?”

“Yeah, you’re fine. What do you want to do?”

“I’m using my bonus action to put Hunter’s Mark on the dracolich, and I’m going to shoot it with an acid arrow.”

Another roll, and this time 1k cringed. “12. That’s not good.”

“I’m afraid that’s not enough,” Cyrus said. “Your arrow unfortunately flies right between the dracolich’s ribs.”

“Okay, second attack… 17.”

“That one hits. Your acid arrow strikes the dracolich in the shoulderblade, melting part of it. Roll damage.”

A pair of crimson dice tumbled over the table, and one rolled over the edge. Byron reached down to retrieve it and helpfully announced, “She rolled a 5.”

“Normally I’d ask her to reroll since it went off the table but I’ll allow it this time. That’s a total of 9 damage,” Cyrus said with a nod. The little health bar above the holographic projection of the dracolich went down slightly.

“You show that dragon who’s boss, 1k,” Byron encouraged her teasingly. She just lightly shoved his shoulder.

“Cryer, it’s your turn. Your amulet makes you immune to fear effects so I don’t need a save from you.”

“Right. I’m going to move over here,” he said, using one finger to drag the hologram of his character across a grid displayed on the table, “so both Yaqut and 1k are in range, and play the Song of Courage to give them bonuses against its fear aura.”

“Okay. Al, it’s your turn. The dracolich is up next, and if it hits Neith without her being healed she will definitely die. What do you want to do?”

Alcatraz paused for a moment, either observing the game board or checking his inventory in the Interface. “I’m… going to get a healing potion out of my bag and-”

“Wait, Al, no,” 1k interrupted. “If you go heal Neith now, you’ll both be in range for the dragon to breathe fire on you on its turn, and if it rolls well it’ll kill you both.”

“That’s assuming it succeeded its recovery check last turn,” Cryer pointed out. “Which… it might have.” Everyone looked at Cyrus, who just smiled ominously. A smiling DM was never a good sign.

Al simulated a sigh. “You’re right. Sorry, Neith. I don’t like it, but we can’t afford to risk it. I’m going to attack the dracolich.”

“Your sword is Dragonsbane +4, isn’t it?” Yaqut asked.

“Yes, but this is an undead, not a dragon.”

Byron gestured at the holographic dracolich on the table. “Excuse me? How is that not a dragon?”

“According to the rules, it just isn’t.”

It wouldn’t be a proper session of D&D without squabbling over the rules, and everyone immediately started talking over each other.

“No, Byron’s right,” Yaqut said. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“Cyrus literally referred to it as a dragon earlier,” Neith pointed out.

“Creatures only have one type in this edition to prevent exactly this kind of argument!” Al replied.

Cryer frowned. “Well it’s not working very well, is it?”

“Al, we’re arguing in your favor!” said 1k. “Why are you arguing against this?”

“The rules are written the way they are for a reason!”

“But how is that not a dragon, Al?” Byron repeated. “Answer me that. How’s that not a dragon?”

Al rolled his eyes. “You’re not even playing, Byron!”

“Why would the DM give us a sword of Dragonsbane if not to use against a dragon?” Neith asked.

Cyrus held up his hands. “It was an honest roll on the random loot table, I swear to the Progenitor. It’s not supposed to have any plot significance.”

1k raised an eyebrow. “An honest roll, huh? And I suppose Cryer’s just been getting fantastically lucky with the loot tables, too? What are the odds of getting a Harp of Enchantment and a Cloak of Charisma in the same chest, again?”

“Hey!” Cryer snapped defensively. “It’s not like I’ve been trying to hoard all the magic items! I tried to give the cloak to Al, but he turned it down! And you and Yaqut got the bow and the dagger after that last fight!”

“That doesn’t count,” Neith protested, “they’re the only ones in the party who can even use bows and daggers!”

“Alright, alright!” Cyrus said over the chatter. “Everyone calm down; let’s not argue about loot right now. Yes, I fudged the harp for Cryer, but I also fudged the Cloak of Starlight for Neith and 1k’s Bow of Elvenkind, so no complaining.”

“The question is whether the dracolich is a dragon or not,” Al said, trying to bring everyone back on topic. “Which, according to the rules as written, it is not. But the DM has final say. What’s your ruling, Cyrus?”

“For the purposes of Dragonsbane I’m going to say it counts as a dragon. For all other purposes, including your paladin abilities, it’s undead.”

“Alright.” Al nodded. “Then I’m going to use Divine Smite, and I’m going to attack the dracolich.”

Yaqut chimed in. “Don’t forget you’re flanking with me.”

Cryer held up a hand and added “I’m using my reaction to give him Bardic Inspiration.”

“Same, I’m casting Eagle Eye on him at second level,” 1k added. “Actually, no, third level. With the healer down this could turn into a wipe real fast. It all comes down to you, Al.”

“So it seems. Okay, here goes nothing.”

All eyes were fixed on Alcatraz as he rolled his die – a lovely thing of marbled iridescent blue and purple with gold numbers. The table was dead silent except for the sound of the die itself clattering along and rolling to a stop.

20.

Everyone immediately erupted into cheers, even Byron, who didn’t really know what was going on but could see that everyone else was excited. Al himself was more reserved, as was his nature, but even he looked quite smug.

Cyrus’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay! Roll me that critical damage, Al!”

Al borrowed Neith and 1k’s d12s, and rolled a colorful handful of dice. The cheering at the table intensified as most of them came up high.

“104 damage with all buffs applied,” Al announced, to frenzied cries of delight and astonishment.

“Holy shit! You-” It took a moment for Cyrus to recover from the absolute shock. “Okay, you straight-up obliterate this thing! With a single mighty blow, your sword shatters the dracolich’s skull into a thousand pieces. The necromantic energy that animated its body rises from the remains in a cloud of eerie purple light, but the divine power from your attack destroys it utterly, and the remaining bones collapse into dust! Everybody gets 470xp – Al, you get an additional 50, because that was amazing.”

“Cool, that’s enough for me to level up!” Yaqut said. He checked the Interface briefly, and then said, “Okay, so I get a Feat this level. You guys think I should take Shadow Strike or Reliable Lockpick?”

“Reliable Lockpick just means you don’t have to roll at all to open a lock below a certain DC, right? What does Shadow Strike do again?” 1k asked.

“I get sneak attack bonuses whenever I’m standing in a shadow.”

Neith looked surprised. “Wait, any shadow?”

“Any shadow.”

A chorus of voices immediately and unanimously agreed that Shadow Strike was the better choice. While Yaqut was modifying his character sheet, Al worked out the details of using his healing potion on Neith.

“Is the Staff of Ages here?” 1k asked, to which Cyrus nodded.

“You do, in fact, find the stolen Staff of Ages in the dragon’s hoard. Speaking of which, give me a moment to roll the treasure up for you guys. And then after you figure out who gets what, I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut the session short. The dracolich was supposed to take the entire session and I didn’t prep beyond it.”

“What, you didn’t expect Sir Alcatraz the Dragonslayer to come out of absolutely nowhere with the mother of all crits?” Yaqut joked.

Byron just smirked. “Underestimating Al is a dangerous mistake to make.”

“Well it isn’t one the dracolich is going to make again,” Neith commented. “Good session, everyone.”

“Alright, so, you guys ready for the treasure list? The hoard consists of: 827 gold, 304 silver…”

Chapter Text

New Jerusalem had often felt suffocatingly small to Byron, but now it seemed impossibly large. 1k could be anywhere. Why wasn’t she answering him – why wasn’t she answering anybody? At first he’d wondered if he’d upset her somehow, but if Al couldn’t get through either… Had something happened to her? Nobody in the city would have actually hurt her, would they? No. No, the people of New Jerusalem had their disagreements but nobody would stoop that low.

He pushed the wild speculation down, tried to smother it as he searched. No, in all likelihood, it was probably something mundane and harmless. Maybe her Interface connection had broken and she didn’t even realize anyone was trying to reach her. She was built when they still had material shortages, after all. Or maybe she was just very busy and had blocked all incoming communications on purpose (but why wouldn’t she tell him?). Maybe she was helping out with an experiment somewhere involving something that disrupted her connection, like a faraday cage or the like. Search first, get explanations later.

Byron practically sprinted to the garden, ignoring the confused looks he drew. There, in a secluded corner of the garden, surrounded by rose bushes, was 1k, sitting on a bench with her knees drawn up against her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She was visibly sobbing; Al sat next to her, his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

Alcatraz looked over at Byron and gave a silent nod of acknowledgement, then got up to leave. They passed each other without a word; they didn’t need to speak. They both understood that 1k would be more comfortable with just Byron there. Al’s job here was done.

Byron took a seat beside her and put a hand gently on her back. “Kate?”

No response.

He wrapped his arms around her as carefully as if she’d been made of glass, and cradled her against him. “Oh, Kate…” he murmured. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

1k finally unfolded from the ball she’d curled into, lowering her knees and turning to press her face into Byron’s shoulder. They could not actually shed tears when they wept – it was all sobs and simulated sniffling – but it still felt better to have something familiar to cry into. He placed one hand gently behind her head and ran the other up and down her back soothingly.

Slowly, she seemed to calm down, and the sobbing stopped.

“There…” Byron whispered, and lightly kissed her forehead as she started to pull away from his shoulder. He waited for her to look at him, and those sad blue eyes seemed to break something deep inside him. “What happened?”

She looked away. “Nothing.”

“Something must have upset you.”

“I don’t know. Nothing in particular happened, it’s just…” She sniffled, and her voice trembled as she continued. “No matter how long I recharge, I… I’m just so tired, Byron…!”

1k broke down crying again, and it felt like someone was ripping the wires out of Byron’s chest as the pieces finally fell into place. It had been so long since he was new, he hadn’t even considered how overwhelming 1k’s ridiculously eventful life so far must have been for her. She’d stepped out of the dam straight onto the pedestal everyone had built for the person they wanted the Embodiment of The Goal to be. She’d been dragged into politics and asked for life advice mere minutes into her existence, and it had just kept going from there.

“Oh, Kate. You’ve had the weight of the world on your shoulders since the moment you were born, haven’t you?” he murmured, voice heavy with the guilt of a dawning realization: he’d been part of it.

He’d whisked her off on a world-changing adventure before she even knew what her own address was. He’d allowed her to be saddled with the responsibility of standing up to the scrutiny of the Entities, with all of New Jerusalem watching her every move, again and again, just because she seemed to be holding up well enough. He’d never asked her if that was what she wanted. It was his expedition, it was his responsibility, and he’d let her down.

And now, to top it all off, he already had her leading expeditions of her own. As if she wasn’t under enough pressure as it was. Poor 1k had taken it all in stride, because she simply didn’t know any other way. This was what was expected of her, so she did it. It never occurred to her, or to him, that they might be expecting too much. The difference was, he’d been around long enough that he should have known better.

“I’m so sorry, Kate,” Byron said, barely above a whisper. “I’m so, so sorry. We’ve all put so much stress on you, including me. And I’m so sorry.”

1k nestled her face into the crook of his neck, and her sobbing eventually turned to sniffling, then to silence. They remained there, just quietly holding each other, for some time.

He had to ask. The question was eating at him like acid. “Kate? Did you actually want to go on that first expedition? I didn’t… pressure you into it, did I?”

She finally stopped leaning on him, pulling away to look at him. “No, I wanted to. And I do want to keep going on expeditions. It’s just…”

“It’s just that you need a break,” he finished, and she nodded. “Take however long you need. I won’t assign you to anything else until you ask.”

“Thank you.”

1k looked away, her eyes lowered. She still seemed so despondent, and Byron couldn’t bear to see it. Trying to cheer her up, he picked a rose from the nearest bush and offered it to her. She looked confused for a moment… but then she smiled slightly as she accepted it.

And that little smile was like the break of dawn after a long night.

Chapter Text

It was a beautiful, warm evening. The rich blue sky, beginning to take on the dark hues of night, still blazed golden on the western horizon, and clouds painted trails of orange and pink across the heavens. Fireflies floated lazily in the air, carried on their journeys by a light breeze. But it was not a particularly special occasion.

Which is why Byron was rather surprised by the sight that greeted him as he left the tower for the day. It was not at all unusual to see Damjan seated on the plaza, playing his music and occasionally singing too, and sometimes a couple people would stop and listen. What was unusual was for this many people to have gathered, and started dancing.

Bemused, he looked over the small gathering, and picked out 1k in the crowd. He made his way over to her and quietly asked “What’s going on out here?”

“I’m not even really sure myself. It just sort of happened.” 1k smiled and gestured at a familiar couple dancing near the fountain. “Miranda decided she wanted to dance with Yaqut, and I guess they were having such a good time, everybody else just… joined in.”

There was a lull in the activity as Damjan finished the song he was playing. As he prepared to play another one, the void left by the music was instead filled with the murmur of people talking and laughing, the croaking of frogs, and the chirping of crickets.

“Well, then,” Byron said with a wink, “care to dance?”

“I… can’t.” 1k shifted nervously as the next song began. “I don’t know how.”

Byron just smiled. “Do you trust me?”

1k blinked, momentarily thrown by the unexpected question. “…Yes.”

He took her by the hand and began leading her out to where the others were starting to dance again. “Then follow my lead,” he told her, just as Damjan started singing. Byron pulled 1k close, with one hand holding hers at shoulder level, and the other on her waist. “Just think of it as another adventure.”

“I promise you nothing
I take only that which is free
I'd give you a life full of risk
and the whirlwind of joy that can be”

“Just watch what I’m doing and try to match,” Byron instructed her quietly. “Step back. To the left. In. Back. To the right. In again.”

1k was terribly nervous but she did her best, and he managed to keep her from stumbling too badly as he continued softly coaching and encouraging her.

“Don't try to bind me
Just love me without any greed
And I'll give you the world,
and my heart, and the air that I breathe”

After a couple loops of this pattern, she was able to look away from her feet and meet Byron’s eyes.

“Good. See, you’re getting the hang of it! And you’re already a better dancer than Al, so you’ve got that going for you.”

1k giggled softly. She didn’t even notice as Byron started to slightly modify the steps; she matched him almost instinctively, until she realized that they were now turning in slow circles, and that sudden awareness made her stumble.

“Don’t think about it,” he said with a gentle smile, “just look at me, and let me guide you.”

“Slip the jesses, my love
This hunter you own from the hood to the glove
When the circling and striking are done, and I land
Let me come back to your hand
Let me come back to your hand”

“I’m going to spin you,” Byron warned, and before she even had a chance to ask what he meant, he lifted her hand higher over their heads and the next thing she knew she’d done a little twirl, and then they were back to where they had been. 1k must have looked surprised at her own success, because Byron chuckled softly. He led her into another spin, this time in the opposite direction; she took his advice to heart and didn’t think about the technicalities of what she was doing. She just went wherever he led – and she was having fun!

“I have no illusions
To think that I know what will come
I laugh at the concept of life
as a simple result of the sun”

Now they were flowing like water, twirling this way and that, floating across the plaza. He spun her again – but this time, he let go partway through, and suddenly 1k was very aware of herself again. A spike of panic struck her, but then Byron was with her again as if he’d never been gone, her back against his shoulder as he swept her along.

“I just want to hold you
And share with you all of this life
With the stars in the darkness,
And love in the light, and its dizzying heights”

Suddenly they were face-to-face again, and nothing else existed but the music and them as he whirled her around in tighter and tighter spins, and at one point even lifted her off the ground and in that brief moment she was flying as free as a bird.

“Slip the jesses, my love
This hunter you own from the hood to the glove
When the circling and striking are done, and I land
Let me come back to your hand
Let me come back to your hand
Let me come back to your hand”

She wanted this joyful dance to last forever, to continue gliding around the plaza with him until the end of time, but all too soon the song was ending, and Byron dipped her backwards with the final note.

It was the applause that broke 1k from the trance he’d lulled her into. Apparently their dance had been impressive enough to take center stage, and they’d garnered quite an audience. She grinned somewhat sheepishly as she righted herself from the dip.

“That wasn’t half bad for a first-timer,” Byron teased. They blended back into the crowd, but not before Miranda and Yaqut found them.

“That was amazing!” Yaqut said. “I didn’t know you could dance, 1k!”

“I… couldn’t,” she admitted. “Turns out Byron is excellent at leading more than just expeditions.”

“The best leader is nothing without good followers,” Byron replied.

Chapter Text

Yaqut stood behind Miranda, his arms wrapped around her and his chin over her shoulder, as they stood there waiting in anxious anticipation. This was the culmination of their most recent project, after so many failed attempts – including one particularly tragic incident where Bruce had eaten their work. But they’d been absolutely sure to keep the cat out of the lab since then, and this one might just make it.

The egg in the incubator wobbled again, and cracked. A tiny creature meeped from inside the shell.

“We… we did it!” Miranda said quietly, almost afraid to believe it. “Oh, Yaqut, we really did it!”

The message, sent to Athena, Cornelius, 1k, Byron, and Al, simply read:

So they did. Byron and 1k were the last to arrive, as Byron had been tangled up in Mayoral duties and it had taken some finagling to get out of them. They stepped into the pristine laboratory to find everyone else already gathered around Miranda, who was cradling something very small to her chest.

“We’ve made something amazing,” Yaqut said proudly, as Miranda carefully removed the little animal from its place against her body and held it out for all to see.

For a moment, it seemed to be a baby bird – no larger than a duckling. But this tiny, fluffy creature, blinking its large eyes sleepily at them, was unlike any bird they had ever seen. It had a long tail, and short arms tipped with claws; as it yawned, its beakless mouth opened to reveal tiny, needle-sharp teeth.

1k simulated a gasp, her eyes wide, and her voice broke as she squealed “Aww! It’s so cute!”

“It… it’s a dinosaur,” Byron murmured, awestruck. “A real. Live. Dinosaur. Incredible!”

Alcatraz, however, looked horrified. “What kind of dinosaur is this? Please tell me it’s not a T. rex.”

“No, of course not! She’s a mononykus,” Yaqut said. “Did I pronounce that right, Miranda?”

“Yep! Mononykus – single claw.” She used one finger to lift one of the dinosaur’s arms in demonstration, and sure enough it had only one claw.

Al didn’t look convinced. “And just how big do these things get?”

“Only about a meter long, and half of that is tail,” she told him, smiling at the little hatchling. At that, Al finally seemed to relax.

“Well done,” Athena said, bursting with pride. “You’ve accomplished something truly remarkable here. To think we’re the first people ever to lay eyes on this creature… Astounding. You’ve turned back the sands of time itself.”

“Although,” Cornelius added with a little smirk, “I’m afraid I didn’t expect my first grandchild to be a dinosaur.”

“Dad!” Miranda protested sharply, startling the little mononykus, which peeped in alarm. “Oh, I’m sorry, little one, did I scare you?”

“Can I hold her?” 1k asked. Miranda nodded and carefully placed the dinosaur in her outstretched hands. She gently petted the back of its head with her thumb, which it immediately bit – but being made of metal and plastic, she was impervious to the tiny teeth, and thought this was more adorable than anything.

“Does she have a name?” Cornelius asked.

“We’ve been calling her Button,” Yaqut told him.

“Because she’s cute as a button!” Miranda added.

There weren’t a whole lot of things that Byron had truly never thought he’d see in his life. He’d lived long enough to have seen a great many things, and his enthusiasm for the future had him dreaming of faraway planets and incredible technology. But he didn’t think so much about the past, so a living, breathing, non-avian dinosaur? That was something he’d never expected to lay eyes on.

“A… mono…nykus, you said?” he asked. “And we’re the first humans ever to see one. Amazing! The first living things at all to see one in, what, sixty-something million years?”

“Seventy,” Yaqut corrected as the diminutive dinosaur wiggled out of 1k’s hands and jumped into his arms instead.

“Absolutely incredible…” Byron repeated.

“How did you even do this?” Al asked. “A mosquito in amber like that ancient movie, or something?”

“Oh, no,” Miranda said with a laugh. “DNA only has a half-life of about 500 years. In just the time Mother’s been alive, you’d lose over 75% of the genetic material, even under the best conditions. So after millions of years, there’s practically nothing left at all.”

Athena looked extremely amused that her lifetime was being used as a small unit of measurement – just the amount of time she’d been alive. As if it was nothing. Which, on a geological scale, she supposed it really was. “So how did you do it, then? I didn’t know you could synthesize life without a DNA blueprint to work from.”

“Well, that’s just it, we can’t. At least not yet. So we were kind of stuck,” Miranda explained. “And then Yaqut had the most brilliant idea!”

“Aw, Miranda did most of the work, I just kinda threw ideas at the wall until something stuck,” he said with a shrug.

“Don’t be so modest, you gave us the breakthrough we needed! Anyway, Yaqut told me- well, why don’t you tell them?”

“Ah, well. One time I was on an expedition and I saw these fossilized dinosaur footprints. So when Miranda talked about needing DNA to work from, I thought, if they left imprints on the ground that we can still see millions of years later, then maybe they left imprints on the universe too – echoes of the… music of their creation, I guess.”

“And he was right!” Miranda said, looking at Yaqut with absolute adoration. “We couldn’t recover dinosaur DNA, but we could recreate it from the ground up by using the echoes, like a kind of negative or mold.”

“But it’s a lot harder to synthesize a full animal than to make an embryo,” Yaqut explained, gesturing at a stash of large eggs in a cold storage cabinet. “So we synthesized some goose eggs and injected the dinosaur embryos into them. We’re going to need bigger eggs to make bigger dinosaurs, of course, but the goose worked just fine for mononykus.”

The creature in question had fallen asleep in the crook of Yaqut’s arm, its long legs dangling over his arm and occasionally twitching as it dreamed.

“So why this species in particular?” Cornelius asked.

Miranda shrugged. “Honestly, it’s just the first one we were able to isolate that we could identify as safe.”

“Well, if they’re anything like modern birds,” Athena pointed out teasingly, “then she’s probably imprinted on you two. Welcome to the demands of parenthood!”

Miranda just smiled at the little ball of feathers asleep in Yaqut’s arms. “Somehow, I don’t think she’ll be quite as much of a handful as I was.”

Chapter Text

“When you meet the right one, you know,” Dosikles said with a nod. “Byron had to wait over a thousand years to meet his soulmate, but he found her! It gives me hope that my waiting will pay off too someday.”

Thecla scoffed. “Soulmate?! She’s his victim! She was supposed to be the embodiment of the Founder’s will, and he corrupted her until she was so far gone there was no hope of redemption! He seduced her into helping him deny the Founder the divinity she was meant to have!”

Dosikles just stared nervously over her shoulder. “Uh…”

Thecla turned to see what he was looking at, and there stood the Fallen Angel herself – quite upset, too. She didn’t blame her for that; sometimes the truth hurts.

“Excuse me?” 1k snapped. “Byron has not ‘corrupted’ anything, least of all me!”

“You’ve ruined everything because of him! And you’re too wrapped up in his web of lies to see it! I warned you about the Deceiver and you still let him seduce you!”

“Wh- Seduce? That doesn’t even- I was the one who pursued him!”

“That’s what he wants you to think!”

Dosikles saw where this was going and wisely decided to abscond before he got caught in the crossfire. Neither of the women noticed, their voices steadily growing more intense as they argued.

1k threw her hands in the air. “Even after Athena herself showed up and explicitly endorsed Byron’s values, you still think he’s some kind of monster! What will it take for you to realize you’re wrong, Thecla?”

Thecla leaned forward and jabbed a finger into 1k’s face. “What will it take for you to realize I’m right? That traitor has you so firmly in his wicked talons-”

“I am my own person, Thecla! Insult me if you want, but stop trying to blame everything on Byron!”

“Idiot girl! That snake has been using you as a puppet from the moment he met you, and you’re so blinded by your ridiculous infatuation that you can’t even feel the strings! He doesn’t love you, he-”

Clank!

Thecla reeled for a moment as she tried to process what had just happened. 1k had struck her? 1k had actually struck her! “How dare you! Well, if violence is the only thing you understand, I suppose I’ll just have to beat sense into-”

Suddenly, Byron was standing between them. “That’s enough!” he said sharply, physically pushing them away from each other. But he did not yell. He didn’t have to. He just stood there, holding them apart, and looked at one of them, and then at the other.

Thecla glared balefully at him, but 1k looked away, suitably ashamed. Then she heard Thecla scoff at how easily Byron got her to back down, and she was instantly ready to throw hands again. Byron put a stop to that with nothing more than a frown and a raised eyebrow. Slowly, he lowered his hands.

“We don’t need to resort to violence to settle our disputes,” he said. “I understand how easy it is to get carried away in a heated argument, but we need to show restraint, or we’re no different than animals butting heads. We’re intelligent, civilized beings; we’re better than that.”

“You have no right to speak of restraint, you expansionist-”

“Thecla.”

1k folded her arms over her chest. “If you’d heard the things she was saying about you-”

“Believe me, I’ve heard it all from Thecla. I appreciate your desire to defend me, Kate, but that’s no excuse to attack someone.”

After a long pause, she simulated a defeated sigh. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that. I lost control.” Byron looked at her expectantly, and his calm disapproval withered 1k’s pride enough for her to add, “I’m… sorry I hit you, Thecla.”

He turned to look at Thecla, who just glared back at him.

“I have nothing to apologize for,” she said, holding her head high.

“You antagonized Kate until she lost her temper.”

Thecla rolled her eyes. “I was telling her the truth. Something I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Truth? More like delusio-” Once again, Byron silenced 1k with a glance.

He simulated a tired sigh and looked back to Thecla. “Am I going to have to drag Athena into this?”

Her frown deepened. “…Fine. I’m sorry.”

“Alright, that’s better. You can be on your way, Thecla. Kate, a moment please.”

Thecla stormed off, still indignant, but 1k just kicked at the ground. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Byron, to see the disappointment she knew was writ plain across his face.

“You said you’ve wanted to punch her, too,” she protested weakly. She knew it wasn’t a strong defense.

“But I’ve never actually done it. You need to keep your violent impulses in check, Kate. You’re better than this.” Even now there was a warmth in his voice, and it made 1k feel even worse.

Byron could see that he’d shamed her enough, so he put a hand around her shoulders and gently guided her to lean on him. “Everyone makes mistakes, Kate. Learn from yours. Be the wonderful, amazing person I know you can be.” There was a long pause, but his curiosity eventually got the better of him. “What did she say that made you so angry, anyway?”

“She said you don’t love me.” The thought still made 1k’s circuits sizzle.

“Well, Thecla’s wrong about a lot of things,” Byron said, “but that’s easily the wrongest she’s ever been.”

Chapter Text

Byron had to admit the dome was good for one thing; it kept the snow off the streets. The tower was still exposed to the sky, and of course it did nothing to prevent the lakes from freezing, but nobody was going to get snowed in – or worse, iced in. Byron remembered the last time New Jerusalem had frozen over, and was not keen to repeat it. He’d damn near lost his mind being cooped up like that.

They did, however, need to occasionally clear snow from the city entrances, as the snow sloughing off the dome quickly piled up around New Jerusalem’s borders. Byron made a point of helping out with this personally – how could he ask of others what he was not willing to do himself? The Mayor was not exempt from the duties of the citizenry.

He and several other early risers were finishing up the east entrance as the rest of the city began to emerge from sleep mode. And that included 1k, who had just come outside.

“Good morning, 1k,” he said with a smile. Softly falling snow shimmered in the air like flakes of gold in the light of the rising sun as it shone from a break in the clouds on the eastern horizon, caressing their faces with warmth and casting their features in dramatic relief.

“Already hard at work, I see,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and smiling that trademark lopsided smile of hers, radiant in the morning light.

“Well,” Byron replied, “the faster I get my work done, the more time I can spend with you.”

1k laughed and looked away. “Charmer.” She shook her head and unfolded her arms again, which gave him the chance to take her hand in his.

“Walk with me?” he asked, and how could she say no to that smile?

It turned out to be a good thing he was holding her hand, because 1k stumbled almost as soon as she stepped into the snow – not having expected it to be much more than an inch deep, and being caught quite off-guard when her foot simply sank into it. Byron caught her and steadied her in his arms, as they both laughed quietly. What a sickeningly sweet picture they must have made to anyone watching, flirting in a gentle snowfall like this, but frankly they didn’t care.

In fact, what was more interesting to Byron was the fact that Al was nearby and not looking at them. An impish smirk spread across his face and he quietly told 1k, “Watch this, and then run.”

He gathered some snow in his hands. He’d been doing this for centuries – plenty of time to work on his aim. So the snowball nailed an unsuspecting Alcatraz right in the side of the head from quite an impressive distance.

“Byron!”

The offending First Companion and his girlfriend-slash-accomplice beat a hasty retreat into the woods, both of them laughing themselves silly. Eventually, certain they’d lost Al, they slowed to enjoy the walk amongst the pines and the drifting snowflakes, hand in hand.

But, of course, it was not in their natures to simply walk for a while and be content with the outing. So when they came to a slope, they obviously had to slide down it. Or rather, Byron did, and 1k was introduced to the concept quite by surprise, as he put his arms around her and set them both skidding down the hill. She gave first a yelp of alarm and then a delighted laugh.

The laughter only intensified when they came to an inelegant stop by means of crashing into a snowbank that had built up against a ledge. They sat up and shook the snow off, and neither one could stop giggling. 1k leaned against Byron’s shoulder as he sat back against the ledge, until they finally got their laughter under control.

“Have I ever told you how much I love your laugh?” he eventually asked, leaning his head against hers.

“My laugh? No, you haven’t.”

“Even back on the Megastructure expedition, I couldn’t help but notice what an adorable giggle you have. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but later? I think that may have been one of the first things about you I started to fall for.”

1k lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him with an eyebrow raised in amusement. “‘One of?’”

“Well, there’s a lot to like!” he said with a teasing grin. “Your bravery, your loyalty, the strength of your conviction…”

1k’s expression went from playful to genuinely touched, and her voice was as soft as the snow. “Aww. That’s very sweet of you.”

“And what about you?” Byron asked. “You’ve said you’d developed feelings all the way back on the Megastructure expedition. I’m curious – what was it that drew you to me so quickly?”

“I liked you well enough from the moment I met you, but… I think it really started with that speech you gave on the V-TOL.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? That soon?”

“It told me a lot about you. Who you are, and what you value. That you, too, longed to explore faraway lands and distant shores. That you believed in a better future, and the goodness of humankind. That you were unashamed of those beliefs, despite how unpopular they were at the time. That you cared deeply for others and wanted to make a difference in their lives.” She laughed quietly and added, “And of course, that you were good with words.”

“And to think I had no idea…” Byron said.

“It was just a little crush then, but… well. It didn’t take long to become more than that. You can be very charming, you know.”

He gently placed a hand on her cheek and turned her face toward him. “And I wasn’t even trying back then,” he murmured, leaning closer to her.

They both cried out in shock as a thick sheet of snow suddenly dropped onto their heads, and they scrambled to turn to the source. There, with a snow shovel in hand, was Alcatraz, looking very smug indeed.

Byron burst out laughing. “Well played, Al!”

1k, on the other hand, grinned like a lunatic and immediately retaliated with another snowball, and then ran to take cover behind a tree. Things quickly degenerated into absolute chaos, and the forest was soon filled with flying snowballs and the laughter of three people reminding themselves of the truth that had led to their own creation: that play was part of what made them human.

Chapter Text

Dinosaurs, it turned out, grew pretty fast. Or at least the small ones did. Button was already about the size of a raven, and starting to fledge, her stubby wing feathers and tail fan starting to come in. She was becoming more independent too; Miranda and Yaqut had slowly been introducing her to not being near them in every waking moment, and had made such progress that they were finally able to both go on an expedition together – something they had not done since Button’s hatching, as she’d constantly needed at least one of them. Now they were comfortable leaving her in 1k’s care (and Bruce with Pellegrino again; the cat could not be trusted with the dinosaur, at least not until she got a little bigger).

The mononykus seemed a little stressed at first, but adapted fairly well, and was soon hopping around on the furniture and exploring her new environment. The curiosity and exploration tapered off as she got used to 1k’s home, or at least, that’s what seemed to be going on at first.

But then 1k began to suspect something wasn’t quite right. Button was spending a lot of time hiding under the furniture, and now she wasn’t showing up when it was time to be fed. Worried, 1k searched her home until she found the dinosaur hiding in her charging station with her feathers puffed up and her tail occasionally bobbing up and down.

Frowning, 1k picked her up and headed for the tower; when she didn’t know what else to do, she could always ask Byron. He was in a meeting when she got to his office, so she waited patiently outside his door. Listening carefully, she could hear a sort of… squeaking, or whistling, coming from Button – very faint, but there.

The door opened.

“Oh, hello 1k,” Melville said, blinking in surprise first at her, and then at the mononykus in her arms. “What’s with the fuzzball?”

“I think something’s wrong with her,” 1k said. “I was hoping Byron might know what to do.”

Overhearing this, he got up and came over to take a look. Button bobbed her tail and stuck her neck out, whistling faintly.

Byron didn’t know much about medical issues in birds, but he’d seen cats do the neck thing, and it was never good. “Yeah, she’s definitely sick. Looks like she’s having trouble breathing.”

“What do we do?”

He’d been around long enough to amass a truly staggering amount of random knowledge. A thousand years was a lot of time to learn things. But despite what 1k seemed to think, Byron did not, in fact, know everything.

“I… don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m afraid my veterinary knowledge is limited to cats, for the most part.” And why would he know? People rarely kept anything but cats in New Jerusalem. He himself hadn’t had a pet for centuries, not since… Well, now wasn’t the time to dredge up those memories.

1k blinked, processing. Her usual problem-solving script didn’t really have any further backup options beyond asking Byron. “Would Al know what to do?” she asked slowly. But Byron just shook his head, and 1k was officially out of ideas.

“I think I know who would,” Melville cut in. They both turned to look at her. “I try to tune him out most of the time, but… I think I once heard Herman mention he used to keep pigeons. Not just feeding ‘em out on the street, like actually raising the damn things as a hobby.”

“Really?” Byron said, incredulous. “Your veterinary recommendation is Herman?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have taken him for the sort, either.”

Well, it was worth a shot. “Thank you, Melville,” 1k said. “Let’s try asking him, then.”

The three of them set off, with Melville trailing behind a ways. She didn’t want to get involved in this if she didn’t have to, but she also had a feeling Herman might initially be reluctant to help.

Hermanubis was very surprised to see Byron and 1k on his doorstep, the latter holding a bizarre animal that he could only assume was the dinosaur he’d heard about Miranda and Yaqut creating.

After a moment he simulated clearing his throat and asked, “How can I help you?”

Byron tipped his head indicatively at the dinosaur. “She’s sick, and we heard you might be able to help.”

As expected, Herman held up his hands in protest. “Now, hold on; I used to keep pigeons, but that was well over two hundred years ago! And it’s hardly the same thing as-”

Melville had been listening from around a corner, and took this moment to reveal her presence, casually strolling up the street. “Damn. You were really our only hope, too.”

“Melville?” Herman had certainly not expected to see her show up on his doorstep. At least, not yet.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “You sure you can’t help? I figured, if anyone could, it’d be you. It’s just a bird, right?” The corner of her mouth twitched upward with the last sentence.

He stood there, staring at Melville in stunned silence for a moment, and then immediately caved to her request. “I’ll… see what I can do. We’ll need to go to the veterinary clinic.”

“Well played,” Byron whispered to Melville, and she tried not to look too smug. She failed.

As 1k carried Button along, Hermanubis observed the dinosaur’s behavior. Evidently he didn’t like what he saw; he frowned slightly.

“Alright, 1k,” he instructed her as they arrived at the clinic, “the first thing we’ll want to do is put her in the oxygen cage.”

Byron helpfully pointed out the object in question, since 1k had no idea what an oxygen cage was or how to use it. He did, though – dinosaur or cat, it worked the same way regardless.

“Okay, now what?”

“For now? Pray to the Progenitor it isn’t aspergillosis. It’s a lengthy and rather difficult treatment.”

“Is that fatal?” Melville asked.

“It can be,” Herman admitted, preparing some fluids and a syringe. “If you don’t catch it in time. Especially if it gets into the air sacs. Though… are there even air sacs in this…?” he waved vaguely at Button, who thankfully seemed to be getting some relief from the oxygen cage.

“Mononykus,” 1k supplied. Her voice trembled slightly, something Byron immediately picked up on. He put an arm around her and gently rubbed her shoulder as she leaned into him for comfort.

Byron had never seen her scared quite like this – sure, they’d had close calls, but the survival instinct in the face of immediate danger was a very different fear than the cold, creeping worry born of the realization of another living being’s mortality. And this was really 1k’s first experience with such a thing. In fact, what she had experienced had probably warped her perception of death a little bit – she’d pulled Miranda and Sarabhai back from beyond the grave when they were thought to be lost forever. She’d never owned an animal, and had only seen wild ones die from violent attacks.

1k was used to having control, to being able to bend death itself to her will through sheer determination and ferocity. But there was no threat to be fought off with a blade here. No data to be recovered. All she could do was watch, and hope Hermanubis knew what he was doing.

“I’ll need some assistance restraining her for this injection,” Herman said. Byron retrieved the dinosaur from the oxygen cage and held her still on the exam table, expecting the injection to go between her shoulders. Herman shook his head. “Underside of the leg.”

The previously-calm mononykus began fighting as Byron tried to lift her upright, and though he had her head pretty well under control, she was kicking her long legs wildly, so 1k darted in to restrain the limbs.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“Just some fluids, since she’s probably dehydrated,” Herman explained. He wiped the area down to disinfect it and then reached over for the syringe… which wasn’t there. “Where did I-”

“You left it on the counter,” Melville said, handing it to him.

“Ah, thank you, Melville!”

“You want me to get another of those swabs ready?” she offered.

“Yes, please do, if you don’t mind,” he said, injecting half the fluid under one of Button’s legs. He swapped the syringe for the swab Melville provided, disinfected the other leg while she held the needle, and then swapped back to finish the injection.

Byron put the dinosaur back down on the exam table, still restraining her. 1k and Melville backed off as Hermanubis pried Button’s jaws open. “Oh my. Those- those are some very sharp teeth,” he stammered nervously. “Ah… How big will she get?”

“Not much bigger than a goose, as I understand it,” Byron said, a smirk tugging at his mouth. Melville didn’t even try to hide her snickering.

Herman just rolled his eyes. He turned on his light and examined the roof of Button’s mouth, and immediately winced. “Oh, no wonder she can’t breathe. Well, the good news is I don’t think it’s aspergillosis. Looks like a bacterial infection to me.”

1k wasn’t sure whether she should relax yet; she looked at Byron to gauge his reaction. Thankfully, he seemed pleased to hear this.

“So antibiotics should do the trick, then?” he asked.

“If I’m correct, it should. I… would like to do a culture and take a radiograph, though. Just to be sure.” He really didn’t relish the idea of having to explain to the Founder’s own daughter that her precious dinosaur died because of a faulty diagnosis on his part. Better to double check, just to be safe. “Melville, would you hand me one of those small swabs, please?”

Keeping Button’s mouth open with one hand (a task easier said than done), he reached out with the other; she removed the swab from the package and handed it to him without a word. He took a sample and let go of the disgruntled dinosaur’s jaws, then took the associated vial from Melville and placed the swab inside.

“How long will it take to get results?” 1k asked, gently stroking the dinosaur’s head.

“A while, unfortunately. But I feel fairly confident putting her on antibiotics and oxygen right away. If you’d just hold her still for a moment…”

Herman did something with a bulky tool of some kind that beeped when he held it over the mononykus. He then put it aside and gave Button her first dose of medicine.

“Well, that’s all I can do for the time being. We should keep her here, on oxygen and a regimen of antibiotics.”

Hopefully she’d respond well. He really didn’t want to have to scope her. Putting birds – and presumably dinosaurs – under anesthesia was always a gamble.

“You think she’ll pull through?” Melville asked, as 1k put the dinosaur back in the oxygen cage.

“I’m certain,” he replied, with a bit more confidence than he actually felt. He was rewarded for it, too.

“Well done, Herman,” Melville said, giving him a hearty pat on the back on her way out the door. “I’m almost impressed.”

Hermanubis rode the high of that praise for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

True to his word, Byron didn’t assign 1k to any expeditions until she was ready. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go when he got the chance, though. Opportunities for him to take part in these adventures were rather on the rare side, given his duties as Mayor, after all.

So now 1k found herself in an unfamiliar scenario. It wasn’t that she’d never spent time away from Byron – only that she’d always had some sort of adventure or responsibility to keep her busy when she had. And one of the perks of dating the person in charge of expedition rosters was that if he was going, she knew she’d always be approved to go with him. So this was the first time since they’d become a couple that she’d been left behind in New Jerusalem while Byron was gone for an extended period.

It was strangely refreshing, in a way – freeing, almost. But it was also quite… lonely. She missed him already. And for once, 1k didn’t have more important things to distract her. It made her fully aware of just how much she’d grown used to Byron’s presence, and to how much affection they shared with one another without even realizing it. It was strange, to go so long in her normal life without his hand to hold, or his arm around her. To not have his shoulder to lean on. To not hear his voice.

Athena was absolutely right – she didn’t truly know what she had until it was gone. She was just thankful that Byron was only gone for a little while, and not for any mistake on her part – although Jefferson had asked her if they’d had a fight, since she couldn’t imagine any other reason he’d go without her. Or, in Jefferson’s words, they “usually couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other.”

She wasn’t wrong, either. So to keep those hands busy, 1k spent a fairly significant amount of time helping Melville in the workshop. Of course, with the city finally shaping up and no heat wave currently burning out their entire grid, Melville didn’t have to spend every waking hour fixing things anymore and now had time to engage in hobbies. Which is how 1k inadvertently discovered (much to Melville’s utter mortification) that she’d developed something of a fascination with chivalric romances, particularly Arthurian legend.

The fact that she knew 1k also loved tales of heroic knights and noble deeds probably did a lot to help Melville get over that initial embarrassment – though she still made sure 1k would keep quiet. By threatening to beat her to death with a wrench if Hermanubis ever found out. And probably beat him to death too.

1k wasn’t actually sure whether she was being hyperbolic or not.

She also spent some time with Yaqut and Miranda, and helped with a few experiments. They were thriving, and so were their animals. Bruce was his usual self – an unholy terror of a cat who would stand outside the lab and scream when he wanted attention. And it was good to see that Button had fully recovered from her infection, and was now inquisitively hopping around and darting about like an adorable overgrown songbird. It was equally cute to watch Miranda and Yaqut interact, and interesting to see how their relationship differed from 1k’s with Byron. They were less physically affectionate, and mostly expressed their love verbally instead. Half the time they’d get going on some breakthrough or other and end up excitedly finishing each other’s sentences as the realizations hit them, and these exchanges always ended with some variation of an admiring “I love you so much.” 1k just stood back, playing lab assistant and looking on in amusement.

The thing she probably enjoyed most during this time was going on walks with Alcatraz. It was so rare for her to interact with him without Byron being involved, outside of playing D&D (which was cancelled this week due to both Cyrus and Cryer being unavailable). They didn’t mind that at all, of course; Byron was near and dear to both of their hearts. But it was still refreshing to just talk to each other for once. Sometimes it was about the game, but just as often it was about something else entirely. He even taught her how to skip stones across the city’s lakes.

And that was what they were doing when the V-TOL finally flew in. 1k seemed to light up the moment she heard the rotors, and in an instant their little piles of stones were forgotten in favor of heading to the tower to greet their returning friends. The expedition team had already landed and started to disperse by the time Al and 1k made it to the top floor.

1k made an immediate beeline for Byron – she wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him hard enough to knock him off his feet, but she managed to maintain some level of dignity and settled for briskly walking over and hugging him tightly.

Byron chuckled softly as he wrapped his arms around her. “Miss me, 1k?”

“More than you know,” she murmured.

“Hm. I missed you too,” he said, and gave her a kiss.

“Don’t mind me,” Al said jokingly. “I’ll just be over here, third-wheeling.”

The couple laughed, breaking away from each other. “Hey, Al!” Byron said with a grin as he gave his dearest friend a quick hug. “It’s good to see you too, of course!”

Adventure was important to him, yes. But so was coming back to the people he cared about most.

It was good to be home.

Chapter Text

Byron and 1k lay on the grass beneath the night sky, their hands linked, looking up to the glittering heavens just as he had done tens of thousands of times before. But for once, he was not looking at the stars.

For hours, 1k had been pointing out the constellations, regaling him with the stories behind them – the ancient myths and legends of how these heroes and beasts had come to live among the stars. He knew all of them, of course – one didn’t live as long as he had without picking up all sorts of random trivia related, however tangentially, to one’s interests. But that wasn’t the point. What mattered to him was hearing her tell them. Listening to the rich tone of her voice as it rose and fell like gentle waves lapping at the shore. To the way she wove her words together into a marvelous tapestry of emotion and lore – and she was still so young! How impressive it was that she had already learned so much, in such a short time!

Not only learned, but done! For the city, for their friends… and for him. It was incredible how much she’d changed his life – changed everyone’s lives, in fact. What a fool he was, to have not noticed her on that very first expedition! To leave her pining after him in silence like that! How had he been so blind? How had he ever not loved her? How had he gone all those centuries without even knowing her?

Now he could scarcely imagine life without her, despite having gotten by perfectly well for over a thousand years before she was even born. By comparison, the time he’d known 1k was the barest sliver of his life – the blink of an eye. And yet, in such a short time, she’d already managed to become one of the most important people in his life, along with Al and Athena.

How long, even, had he spent almost resenting number 1000? Not Kate herself, no – not since she was born and was an actual person. Byron could never have hated an actual person for something as petty as their number. But before that? When she was just a faraway idea, the culmination of what they called The Goal? He’d been as bitter about the yet-to-be-born number 1000 as others were reverent. How different things would have been if he’d known then that she would turn out to be the love of his life!

1k turned her head toward him, her blue eyes shining with the soft glow of their lights. “Byron, are you even listening to me?” she asked, smiling that adorable little lopsided smile of hers.

“Ah, sorry. I was just thinking.”

She turned onto her side and rested her head on her hand – which had previously been holding his, and now left it feeling empty for the loss of it. “About what?”

“You, actually,” Byron answered quietly.

1k lowered her gaze with a little huff of laughter. “Charmer.”

Now he, too, turned to his side, propping himself up with his elbow. “No, I mean it,” he insisted. He caressed her face gently, smiling warmly, and she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I was thinking about how lucky I am to know you, to be with you. How much better my life is with you in it. How much you mean to me. I love you, Kate. With every byte of code, with every bolt and wire of my being – I love you.”

He leaned in, and their lips met ever so softly. Time seemed to stop in that meadow beneath the stars; that tender kiss seemed to last forever and yet still it ended too soon. But there would be many more to come, and when they finally broke away from each other, she simply whispered, “I love you too, Byron. I always have, and I always will.”