--XXXVI--


    MONDAY


    8:46 AM


    Northwest of Windcreek


    From injuries, to mind control, to Zapryekavil, to being told I was loved and appreciated and desperately, desperately wanting so bad to believe it...


    Don''t get me wrong; sometimes, I did. I did, at times really believe it- which to me was better than nothing; better than never, in my opinion at least.


    As I watched the horde of the Talon closing in on me- again- I sat just about unmoving, on the ground, letting the turquoise-emerald snow shimmer and fall down around me. I knew I was going to fight; I knew I was going to have to. I didn''t know where Kaylee was. Or Caleb, or Malcolm. I didn''t know the future. I still don''t. But, hey- I saved a little combustifly that day and from what the one surgeon-doctor-guy had said, and according to Caleb and Kaylee, and according to Wyatt (though that probably didn''t count)- I saved Elyza, too. And Elyza''s not nobody. While I worked for a union that I didn''t necessarily always understand (I didn''t think any of us really did understand... except for James, maybe?), I knew that the small fraction of the U.S. population that I held close to me were humans- humans with good hearts, the kind that to me had positive intents (though that intent didn''t always come in the prettiest of packaging).


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    I wasn''t one that searched for much- just one that searched for the ones that are capable of love; the ones that are capable- capable of the kindness that makes us human.


    It was so much better than the Lowdown.


    I remember as I sat there, with the mutated shard of Overwoods mutated giant splinter thingamabob thingy buried in my one leg, I told myself that if I was about to get killed, I''d at least stopped several ring leaders of abuse or murders or drugs or trafficking already- one way, or the other. Sometimes that way was something I''d tell the board at the Union of Stars'' headquarters... sometimes not.


    I felt like, I had a few friends, a job where I was needed, people I was helping- and I felt fortunate, that I was helping constantly; that I was able to do so.


    It was more, much more, than what I had only three years prior to that moment.


    Welcome to my mind, I guess.