"Yeah. The one she can get to is farther from my barracks and from the battleroom, it's only near classes and won't usually be as convenient for me anyway."

"Good," he repeats, nodding.

"Yeah. And if she tries anything outside the bathroom," shrugs Aegis, "I can fuck her up." Pause. "In the dream, how did the wings work with the exo, or was it one of those dreamy things where it was there and it wasn't and you think you can get a clear mental picture but you can't produce any details?"

"They didn't have the exo," he shrugs. "I asked them about it and they said maybe they're not as badly off as you without it, but they couldn't get one where they're from, anyway."

"They had backstories and everything? Man, you get more complicated dreams than me, mine just have baby elephants that are also my cousin who I don't even have and then we're on a boat all of a sudden, shit like that."

"Backstories," he says, "and magic. And huge fluffy wings."

"Ooh, magic. Cool magic?" asks Aegis, stretching her arms out in front of her and extending all her fingers and then relaxing again. She likes being able to move.

"You said they didn't have exos," she points out. "I'm sure I'd hold very still whenever I could if I knew I could crack my skull open by twitching the wrong way."

"They were magic, though," Sue counters. "And they were you. You telling me the first thing you'd do with magic isn't make yourself work like you've got the exo on all the time?"

"I would," says Aegis. "I'd work better than that. But - I dunno, were they magic since they were five?"

"Dunno. I don't think the angel one was. Not sure about the other one."

"This is a silly conversation," observes Aegis. Then, undeterred, she says: "Did you just call them the angel one and the other one? What about the ones that were you?"

"The other one's boyfriend could fly like she could, and I think he was made of stone or something, but he looked like he could be an older me," he says. "The angel one's fiancé was normal amounts of squishy, and he couldn't fly. Or he liked having her carry him more."

"Made of stone?" asks Aegis dubiously. "And she could pick him up? Was she magic-strong too?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," shrugs Sue.

"Huh. Do you usually get such vivid complicated weird dreams? With such funny stuff in them. I mean, even if we grow up and the orientations shake out right and we still like each other and don't just want to be friends, the Westermarck effect dooms us right there, and you dream not one but two pairs of us together."

"I'm not doomed," says Sue. "You can be doomed if you want."

"You know," she says, "I'm not sure where I want to be in seven years. I guess the IF count on that, so they can just be the most convenient thing to do after we get out of our secondary schools and we're allowed to go if we want to."

"The yous think you're probably gonna take over the world," offers Sue.

"That sounds messy. I could run for Hegemon, but it's an empty title, and even a harmless kind of mutant like me would have a public relations nightmare anyway. And the military record doesn't help much unless I actually engage and splat some buggers first."

"You could stick to your game people, then," he says, grinning. "Until you graduate and can't play the game anymore."

"I'm going to ask for my save file and see if I can set up my own server of it or something," Aegis says. "I don't want to lose all my work, that would be really sad. Unless I grow up and decide everything I've been doing is stupid kiddy stuff, I guess, but I don't think so."

"Could you even run that thing? It must take a shit-ton of computer."

"We're accumulating pay here and we'll be able to use it when we're sixteen. I guess it'd depend on how expensive it was, though. I'd still ask for the save file. Storage is cheap and then if I ever come into more money I could see about starting it up again."