When he awoke that morning, Ziggy got up and walked out to the living room of their apartment, blinking for a moment before the hyper-responsive sensors in his eyes readjusted to the light. He detected Juli's signal in the courtyard and went outside, and found her seated in the usual place, with her AMN-compatible connection gear and a cup of tea on the table in front of her. She kept him waiting while she finished scrolling through the morning's news feed; then she took a sip from her drink and set it aside, finally glancing up as if having only noticed him just then.

"Oh, good morning, Jan." As always, she gestured for him to take the unoccupied seat across from her, but he never did; instead he looked around at the yard, at the pale green shoots just showing above the damp soil of the garden plots, where MOMO had enlisted his aid in planting flower seeds a few weeks before.

"No, Alby." He spotted the little white dog loitering with suspicious intent around one of MOMO's flower beds, and shot him what he hoped was a menacing look. Alby froze and backed off, tail curled between his legs.

Juli suppressed a laugh, and he looked back to see her covering her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry, I just think it's funny the way he listens to you. Have you always been good with dogs?"

"I don't know," he said, suddenly anxious to change the subject. "Did you hear from Third Division yet?"

"Hm? Oh--yes, they called just before you got up."

"Is everything all right?"

"They seemed to think so." Juli pulled a nervous smile. "They said she passed all her exams and she's adjusting well, so she'll be coming home today."

"I'm glad to hear it."

She laughed and didn't bother trying to conceal it this time. "I can tell. You were smiling again."

Startled, he relaxed his expression. "Was I?"

"Don't be embarrassed. I like it. It makes you look ...." She hesitated, then shrugged in dismissal. "Anyway, she should be arriving this afternoon, so I've arranged to meet her when she gets off the orbital elevator. I assume you plan on coming too?"

"Of course." They both knew he had no other obligations; acting as a full-time bodyguard to MOMO and Juli was his first priority and his only current assignment. Besides, even if he had other work to do, he would have planned to meet her anyway.

Juli finished her tea and set her connection gear to standby, and they both headed back inside, Alby reappearing from nowhere to dart in ahead of them the instant the doors opened. In the living room, they paused beside the object that had been delivered yesterday, a huge cloth-draped form that took up nearly half the floor and seemed to dominate whatever space it didn't already occupy.

"Do you think she'll like it?" said Juli, running a hand along the cloth.

"It was very thoughtful of you. I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"Well, I hope so." She stared down at her fingers, arched stiffly against the covering.

He placed his right hand over hers. "Don't worry."

"Easy for you to say." But he felt the tension in her fingers relax beneath his own, and when she raised her head she smiled again in that strange way of hers, half knowing, half naïve. He liked seeing her smile too. She reached up to brush the side of his face with her free hand, and when he bent toward her, she leaned forward and brought her lips to his so lightly they barely touched before she turned away. "Now come on. We both have to get to work."

∞

The nightmares had lost some of their urgency in the last two years, but at times he still woke up grasping at shadows, blinking away the red from his eyes as the machines that regulated his internal processes slowed his pulse and respiration to normal. But he had no such mechanism to release the tight cold band of dread across his heart or the ache in his throat as he realized it was too late, that even in dreams, he was trying to hold on to something he could never reach.

His family, his colleagues, Lactis ... at least they had to experience their last moments only once. He had relived them more often than he could recall, and no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that the dream would end differently this time, that he would wake up, really wake up for once, and it would all turn out to have been part of a hundred-year-long nightmare that had never actually happened, still the outcome never changed.

I failed. Each time he awoke, the words rose like an accusation in his mind, and every time since the first he had forced them back unspoken. Admitting his failure once had been enough, even if his conscience made him relive that moment forever.

But even his conscience seemed to have scaled back its assault lately, or else he was just getting too old and his memories were slipping away more rapidly than before. On Michtam they had returned to him with perfect and terrible clarity, the worst moments from his past life burned into his mind as if by flashes of lightning, but just as suddenly the illumination had gone. He found it strangely comforting, this persistent tendency to forget. The fragmented structure of his memory had always enabled him to evade things he didn't want to recall, and now, perhaps, those fragments that remained would diminish until there was nothing left to remember anyway.

In any case, he didn't have much time left. He felt certain of that now, monitoring his own decline like the half-life of a radioactive substance. There were limits to what modern technology could do to keep a mere human body alive--even one that had been rebuilt and modified as extensively as his own, its lifespan already prolonged for decades beyond its natural end. It had been only three years since he had last undergone life extension, and already the treatment had worn off almost completely. He knew this, too, without requiring facts or numbers to back it up, although the results from his recent lab examinations confirmed as much.

It didn't frighten him, although now he faced the inevitable with regrets he'd never had before. Dying didn't frighten him, but the thought of leaving MOMO and Juli did. Not because he thought they required his protection--they were both more than capable of defending themselves--but they seemed to rely on him for other reasons, just as he had begun to rely on them for reasons of his own. It had been so long since he had to look out for anyone besides himself that he had forgot that feeling, forgot what it meant for his existence to have any value beyond mere usefulness, the worth of an object. If nothing else, at least that knowledge would make the final years of his life worth living.

∞

In the afternoon they waited in the elevator terminal at the base of the orbital tower. Juli studied the timetable on the wall, then glanced down at the smaller screen of her connection gear. "According to the time of her departure, she should be arriving any minute."

"Then we got here just in time," said Ziggy. He stopped a few steps behind her and set down the package he'd been carrying. "Do you feel nervous?"

She hesitated, turning away from the screen. "Maybe a little. I've seen all the data, but I'm still not sure what to expect. I guess as long as she's happy ...."

Before he could answer, the elevator rumbled down through the shaft, and they both turned around as the heavy outer and inner doors opened in turn. Juli moved a step closer to him, and he held out an arm behind her, not quite touching her, just to reassure her of his support.

The young woman who stepped off the elevator looked about seventeen years old, with a softness about her face that made her seem childlike even now. When she saw Juli and Ziggy standing by the doorway, she gasped and ran toward them.

"Mommy! Ziggy! I missed you so much!" She stopped in front of them and drew herself upright. "Um ... so, what do you think?"

Juli took a deep breath, then gently placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "MOMO, you look beautiful."

MOMO's face brightened. "Do you really think so?"

"Of course."

"Absolutely," said Ziggy. He noticed that she seemed more mature now, but it didn't make her look any less like herself. "I agree with your mother. Are you happy with the result?"

She nodded, then made a face. "I still feel a little funny, though. I guess it just takes some time to get used to."

"The Vector staff told us that was normal," said Juli. "It might be a while before you feel as comfortable in your current body as you did in your former one. And you can always transfer back to your original frame if there are any problems."

"I know. They told me that too. But don't worry, Mommy. I'm getting used to it already." Her new body was the first of its kind, a transgenic prototype developed by Vector Industries, designed for compatibility with the 100-series operating system. MOMO had volunteered for the transfer operation to test the prototype, and the data she collected would contribute to Vector's research, perhaps even influencing the development of a mass-produced version.

But she had her own reasons for participating in the research as well. Nearly seventeen years had passed since MOMO was first activated, and despite her appearance prior to the operation, she was no longer the child she had been. In the last few years, Ziggy had witnessed her transformation from the brave yet timid little girl he had rescued on Pleroma to the modest and confident woman who stood before him now, and he felt privileged to have watched her grow up. In many ways she still seemed much younger than a normal girl her age--she hadn't yet abandoned the habit of referring to Juli as "Mommy," although coming from her, it didn't seem incongruous somehow--but she had knowledge and experience and abilities that exceeded her years. She had been one of the chief architects of the AMN during the first year of its construction, and since then she had taken on an administrative role in the government, a fact some of her co-workers had a difficult time accepting when she still resembled a twelve-year-old girl.

Juli took her hand from MOMO's shoulder and stepped back, leaning into Ziggy's outstretched arm. "We ... Ziggurat and I both knew this was what you'd wanted for a long time--a chance to grow up on the outside, just as you've grown up inside. And we wanted it for you too. We're both very proud of you, MOMO."

"Thank you, Mommy." She clasped her hands together over her heart. "Thank you, both of you. I'm so happy."

A ringtone interrupted their conversation, and Juli frowned at her connection gear. "I'm sorry, MOMO, I need to take this call. Would you two mind waiting for a moment? I'll be right back."

"It's okay," said MOMO. Juli headed back across the walkway towards the entrance, connection gear in hand. When the gate had closed behind her, MOMO turned to Ziggy. "She's been very busy lately, hasn't she?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so." He looked back in the direction Juli had gone, but she had vanished into the crowd beyond the gate. "I'm concerned for her."

MOMO nodded sadly. "Me too. But I know she'll be all right. Mommy can handle anything--she's tough, like me."

"You do seem to come by it honestly," he said. "By the way, I have something for you." He nodded toward the package he had set aside earlier, a metal box about the size of a large suitcase. "You can open it now if you'd like."

Her eyes widened. "Ziggy, you didn't have to ...." But there was no use in trying to conceal her enthusiasm. He rarely gave presents on any occasion and never expected anything from her either; it was just a mutual understanding they had, that they didn't need to exchange any tokens to confirm their affection for each other. He had debated the purchase for a while, but finally decided that a gift of some sort would be appropriate, since it was her seventeenth birthday.

MOMO dragged the package closer and knelt on the floor to open it. The ambient light of the elevator station gleamed on a series of silvery objects inside, the unassembled parts of an ether bow made of a lightweight synthetic material. She looked up at him, speechless.

"Is it all right?" he said. "I wanted to get you the best model, so I did some research. This one is sized a bit differently, so it should be more comfortable to use with your current physical parameters."

MOMO giggled. "You mean it's a grown-up bow. Thank you, Ziggy! I can't wait to practice with it. But ... you really didn't have to get me anything." She closed the lid and stood up, brushing dust off her skirt.

"I know. I want you to be able to protect yourself, in case .... Well, I just want to make sure you're safe."

"Oh." She smiled, but a trace of concern had slipped into her expression. "By the way, how are the flowers we planted? Are they growing yet?"

"They've just started. You can see them when we get home." He picked up the box, and they headed over to one of the benches near the railing and sat down to wait for Juli.

"I can't wait to see them when they bloom," said MOMO, smoothing her skirt over her knees. "Remember last year? When they finally came up, they made me really happy, just like Shion and Febronia said they would."

"I remember." The previous year had been difficult for all of them, and though he hadn't given it much thought at the time, that spring had marked the turning point, the first time since the collapse of the UMN that they'd had a chance to return to their normal lives--even if normal had a different meaning now that the world had changed. It was strange, he thought, the way insignificant details sometimes impressed themselves on his memory more vividly than the grand scope of events. His worst nightmares consisted of nothing more than the recurring image of a child's shoe cast off in a wash of red, and by the same process, a passing glimpse of pink and gold cosmos flowers as he walked by the window had come to represent everything they had hoped for in the past year--everything he had hoped for, and there was a time he had believed himself beyond hope.

"Do they make you happy, too?"

He considered the question. Happiness, like hope, was something he hadn't considered as having any relevance to his own situation until recently--an absence that had existed for so long he wasn't even aware that anything was missing. It had never concerned him before, but now he wondered. "If they make you happy," he said, "then I'm glad."

MOMO peered out across the rails between the elevator gates and the entrance to the station. "I want to keep planting them every year so that Shion and the others can see them when we're all together again. Do you think they'll like that?"

"I'm sure they will." He followed her gaze. Below, shuttle trains rumbled back and forth, carrying passengers between the station and points throughout the city.