Leo can hear Pneuma enter the house. He knows from the furious footsteps that she's coming his way. He knows from the cadence that she's angry. He knows from the timing that she talked to the Aleph Team and knows what he asked them to bring. And she knows what he helped fight. The awareness floods his mind with clarity.
And when she storms into the gym, sees him, and starts to speak, he turns and simply looks at her. Some ineffable human ability, some unconscious instinctual skill, condenses an entire argument into a single steady gaze. He watches the cascade of emotion on her face, notes the stages of anger and fear and panic reach a crescendo. He calmly observes the descent into bitter resignation and deeply felt worry.
He's surprised when she rushes at him anyway and gives him a tight, lasting hug. All he can do is pat her back in what he hopes is a reassuring way, and listen to her cry into his shoulder. She draws back and actually says something at long last, voice quavering with restrained tears. "Okay. What are you doing about it?"
"It". The risk. The gamble he was prepared to make. Letting the alien Leviathan parasite take control of his mind, in order to study and defeat it. The unspoken communion he just experienced oddly reminds him of Leviathan itself. Two entities who completely understand each other. Humans don't need a hive mind from space. We're doing fine already. The thought makes him crack a grin.
Before she can misinterpret his amusement, he speaks quickly. "Yes. Alright. You're just in time for that, actually. We were about to do it." Pneuma backs off, surprised. She looks over at the third occupant of Leo's home gym, the robot Sam.
Today, Sam is dressed in loose-fitting Japanese clothes. He wears two swords thrust through a sash, in the style of the samurai. He has the stern, no-nonsense expression of a warrior. It's all an act - Sam has never struck a living being in anger and never will - but Leo humors his physical trainer's quirks for the quality of his work. Sam's purpose is to train Leo in all forms of combat, to keep him physically fit, and to teach him the mental qualities of the warrior.
Sitting beside Sam is a decidedly non-Japanese computer, the mind-scanning machine itself. Leo steps forward, shares a bow with Sam, and kneels on the gym mat. Sam places the scanning halo on his brow, and Leo pronounces the oath he has taken: "Before the omnipotent witness, I pledge never to use this power for evil."
The machine comes to life and Leo sits still. Sam walks gingerly around him and stands beside Pneuma. As the minutes pass, the girl leans in and whispers. "Just what is happening?"
"The master is making a copy of his mind," Sam explains, unnecessarily, and Pneuma's brief glare reminds him that she knows as much. He continues. "In case something happens. In case he is taken over and we need a pristine copy to study, to reverse the effects. That sort of thing."
Leo doffs the metal halo and rises. Sam steps away from Pneuma, toward the paired samurai swords mounted on the wall of the gym. He lifts the upper, longer one - the katana - from its resting spot, and presents it ritually to Leo.
Leo pops a capsule out of the mind-scanner and unscrews a hidden compartment in the hilt of the blade. The capsule slides into the space and latches home. This done, the sword is returned to Sam, and he places it back on the wall with reverence.
"They say the katana holds the soul of its master," explains Leo as he turns to Pneuma again. "I thought of hiding places for this - something my friends would know about me, but my enemies might overlook. They'd check the workshop computer and its hard encryption. This they'll have to really work for."
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