"I know, Box," I reply, trying not to let the bone-shaking chills overtake my body. It doesn't seem like the sun has shifted at all, yet I'm exhausted. "I know. Just, give me a minute, okay?"

  The aching fatigue fades from my muscles, but perversely, it only makes me angrier. Sitting amongst the blood and shit, feeling my limbs delicately consume both off my skin, it's all I can do not to scream.

  "...Box."

  A pregnant silence, puffy clouds drifting by placidly. I watch their slow-motion waltz across the azure ballroom overhead, trying futilely to track immediate movements by comparing the bulging shapes with static objects in my vision, my eyes unfocusing while trying to take in everything at once.

  I slump back into the dirt, gazing blankly up at the sky, arms splayed out.

  "...I know."

  Box reminds me of the little ones, not just in temperament, but in the absolute fixation on an arbitrary outcome that matters only to them. Box wants to make numbers to go up. If I can't help Box make numbers go up, Box will help me realize why making numbers go up is the best use of my time. Box doesn't understand why I want the things I want, because the only thing that matters to Box is that numbers go up.

  Intellectually, I understand what the little ones want. They're the center of their own particular universe. What's important to them is the most important thing that will ever happen. They want acknowledgment that their lives have meaning.

  Except, the little ones eventually grow up. Will Box? Can Box?

  Emotionally, I want to shriek until the sky splits in half, my raging despair enough to crush infinity into a ball that I can throw into the trash. We killed twelve people. Humans like me. We plotted it out, hunted them down, then executed them.

  Has that bush always been there?

  My throat convulses and I roll over to the side, vomit dribbling between my clenched teeth. My limbs lap eagerly at the biomass and I slap them away, trying not to puke again. It's not Box's fault this is how it interacts with the world. Without Box I'd be dead.

  Right now it's hard to remember that.

  "I just..." I wipe my hand across my mouth, pushing the acidic burn back down my throat, "need a minute. Please."

  An insect buzzes in, drawn by the noxious bounty, and I stare dumbly, too drained to brush it away. Killing the violations was one thing. Those were clearly wrong. But now that the heat of the combat is gone, how do I unclench this ugly knot in my stomach? My entire life, I've known we're the last humans remaining, the only survivors of a calamity so great it covered the entire planet. Finding other humans, alive, should be cause for celebration, but all I've done is end them. What of their villages? What about the people they knew, that they loved and cared for?

  I try to grab hold of my anger, the fact that they killed Wires, but it's like trying to grip mist in a clenched fist. All I can think about is the sounds they made as they died, the little gasps of pain, the surprised disbelief. That group didn't kill Wires, and killing them didn't bring him back. Nothing will bring him back.

  "Go away, Box."

  I curl into a ball, arms hugging my knees to my chest, and close my eyes.

  "And that's supposed to make it okay?" I mumble into my shins.

  I think of Wires yelling for me to run, trying to draw the attention away, the confused look on his face as his body fell apart.

  "...I don't know if I can pay it. I'm not brave like Wires was."

  I uncurl a bit.

  "I don't want to get used to killing people."

  "No. They were human beings. They deserve to be remembered." I uncurl a bit more, opening my eyes back up. "We all deserve to be remembered."

  I make myself sit up.

  "Oh yeah? What is it?"

  I mull over Box's proposal. It's not the worst idea in the world. If I want to protect the village, I'll have to pay the cost in lives, but at least this way there's the potential for something new to rise out of it. Maybe Box can grow.

  ...nevermind. I push myself to my feet, feeling... not 'better,' but at least slightly more willing to keep moving forward. I approach the first fallen Marauder, bringing up the worst box to try and distract myself from the disconcerting things my limbs are doing to the corpse.

  "There has to be a less offensive way of showing me that information, Box," I complain, squinting at the wall of text. "I keep losing track of what I'm reading."

  I focus on the Increased Attack Speed option.

  "...great, now what?"

  "...okay, now there's less words, more numbers, and everything moved to the left. I don't know if this is an improvement, Box. Also, what are 'IOs'?"

  I do as Box suggests and another box appears in front of me, this time on the right side of my vision.

  I feel my eyes crossing. "Box," I whine plaintively, "this is ridiculous. Those are entirely too many numbers and words! How am I supposed to know what to pick?"

  I examine the last entry, trying to make some sense of the strange sentences. If I'm understanding it correctly, if I get hit by something like what the heavy Marauder was using again, I should take... less damage... based on...

  "Box!"

  I can't help myself. I start laughing, softly at first, then full side-splitting guffaws, tears streaming down my cheeks. I don't know why it's so funny, but it feels good to let it out.

  "You... you want me to pick... a defensive option!"

  Still howling, I lock in the choice and the boxes disappear.

  "Okay," I wheeze, making my way among the bodies scattered across the hillside as my limbs clean them out, "okay, if you say so."

  I lean down to inspect one of the empty suits of chitin-like armor. The bottom half is mangled, caught up in one of the explosions earlier, but the breastplate looks completely intact. I eye it dubiously.

  "This will fit?"

  I shrug and pick up the chestpiece. It's remarkably light for how bulky it looks, a series of segmented plates made of some kind of metal that reminds me of a beetle's shell, all of it attached by an intricately woven underlayer of what looks like black cloth. A small indentation glows green, and I press it. The front and back half swing apart, allowing me to put it on. Another press seals it shut, and the armor settles across my body like a second skin. I twist and turn, inspecting the fit, but Box is right - it's like it was made for me. I rap my knuckles on the front plate and they bounce off with a convincing thud.

  "Another defensive upgrade? You're spoiling me, Box."

  "Fine, fine, I'm done." One last giggle slips out. "For now. What about the weapons?" I squat down and reach for a pulse rifle, but it falls apart in my hands as I lift it up, disintegrating into a fine gray powder.

  "I'm sure you'll explain what that means when it's important."

  I retrieve Dirt's pack, carefully folding away the scrubcloak, then take one last look around the hillside. Apart from the occasional crater, it looks quiet, peaceful. If I didn't know how those craters happened, I could mistake them for an animal foraging for roots.

  "...is it always like this, Box?"

  I set off toward the green waypoint hovering over the mountain starting to take up more and more of the horizon.

  "Yeah, speaking of that, how come none of the Corporate Marauders had 'limbs' like ours?"

  "You don't say." I dash through a boulder rather than go around it and break my stride, which causes another thought to surface, one I probably should have considered earlier. "Box. What happened on that last dash? With the orange flicker? I shouldn't have been able to reach the Marauder, but I did."

  "In barbarian-speak, please?"

  "Huh. Sounds complicated."

  I traverse the shore of a small pond. On the other side, several crabroaches stare at me with clusters of compound eyes, then flee into the water in rippling splashes.

  "Why didn't you tell me about it earlier?"

  "Oh. That makes sense, I guess." I climb one last hill, this one covered in a field of purple wildflowers that fill the air with a spicy tang. Swarms of bugs flit in and around them, though thankfully they stay well clear of me. "Can someone do that to me? 'Energy jack' one of my abilities?"

  The mountain looms in front of me, a towering edifice of crumbling rock, steep cliffs, and winding gullies. The green icon gently hovers halfway up the sprawling slope, almost two thousand meters up. I frown.

  "Box, how do I know the precise distance to where everything is at? And why isn't it in scrumbles?"

  "I don't see what's wrong with using scrumbles," I mutter, breaking into a run towards the snow-capped peak. "Everyone I know uses scrumbles."

  "...fine, I'll just climb the mountain in silence. One foot in front of the next. For the next five thousand scrumbles."