Aimee was so fixed, so confused by Abba's message that she hardly noticed the twins enter the room. They had no idea what had happened; they only saw the catastrophe around Sylvain's unmoving body, the micro-scopes and broken beakers, and called for Aimee until she stood up from her place behind the counter. Despite the prominent red bloom around her neck where she had been choked, and her unambiguous trauma, she insisted that she was okay.

"Come here," Valerie drew her into a hug.

Finn watched Sylvain with such despise, it was scary to imagine what murderous thoughts he might have been thinking.

"Do you know why he hurt you?"

Aimee gazed at him, gulping silently as his sister, too, waited in unfading concern for her answer. This concern swam in their eyes. She wished she could somehow ignore it, and she wished she could tell them the truth. The message was for her and Benjamin. All she knew was that she had the strongest need to find him, and the one other person she believed had to know anything about it.

"He just came at me for no reason. I need to see Stefan, where is he?"

"In Central Command."

"Go," Valerie placed her hands on Aimee's shoulders. "We'll take this guy back to the basement; at least he can't hurt anyone from there. And if he wakes up before we get there, we'll team up and go all Irish on his arse."

"You know that does not sound even slightly threatening," Aimee smiled – Valerie drolly slapped her arm.

Aimee went with them anyway, knowing – and not caring – that she had made Sylvain her responsibility once again. But she would not make him theirs; it was not in her nature to pass the buck. Besides, she still had the keys.

Nothing had changed in the basement, except there were fewer guards on duty and everyone who had been unconscious had come out of their sleep. That other soldier, the rowdy one, was still there. They put Sylvain down in a jail, convinced themselves that it was the right thing to do no matter how cruel it seemed, while mutely regretting that it had to be done. Aimee suddenly empathised with her captor, the one with the humanity in her eyes.

Afterwards, the twins went to their dorms; Aimee knew her way to Central. They were all the same, the dorms, from the third to the fifth floor: green-and-white, clean and classic, like the rest of GINM. Most of the agents kept their rooms that way even though they were permitted to do with them whatever they wanted. Gavin once told Aimee that he hated the idea of living in the same place he worked, that's why he decided to be independent, pay for his own place. Still, he appreciated the idea of them – they were a free home for so many agents, for so many of his friends.

Finn was lying on his bed, his belly supporting his acoustic guitar, which he played masterfully. The classes he used to take when he was younger had really paid off. Valerie was stationed at the foot of her bed, listening to him practise and sitting on her vintage trunk of keepsakes that only she was allowed to open.

"Finn, why would Sylvain attack her like that?"

His fingers stopped in the air, and he sat up with a sigh, "I don't know. Maybe it was like a reflex and he just freaked out, or he thought he was still fighting Abba and attacked Aimee by accident."

"That doesn't sound right; he would've realised eventually. Her neck was red, he choked her."

"I don't know, Val," he lay back down.

"Something happened. There's something she isn't telling us," she assumed with concern and compunction.

Valerie rested her head against a vertical beam – there was one on each corner of their beds. She ogled her brother in anticipation of some sort of response, but after a while, he just continued playing his guitar.

Aimee reached Central Command. Her last memory of that place involved everyone screaming at Buckley, as well as Stefan punching him across the face, after he had made Gavin kiss her.

The motion sensing door opened for Aimee, inviting her into the blindingly white, bean-shaped room. Stefan was the only body in there. Last time, it had been neatly packed with agents, each sitting at one of the many computer stations. Stefan was at Buckley's place, at some kind of radio or computer that Aimee thought resembled a DJ's turntable, with all its knobs and switches and things.

"Yeah?" he said, his eyes never left those knobs and switches.

He knew someone had entered the room, he just didn't know it was Aimee.

She stepped nearer, "Hello to you, too."

Stefan's eyes lit up, he turned his back to the table and leaned against it casually, "Sorry, I was," – he exhaled his melancholies – "busy."

"Thanks for the announcement by the way, Mr. Summers."

He managed a light-hearted laugh, "You're very welcome. Oh," he muttered, reaching behind the console for something. "Before I forget; Luna dropped this off for you. She said she fetched it from Gavin's chopper before they left Lorient."

It was Aimee's green suitcase, the one which she had completely forgotten about. "Oh my goodness, I have to thank her!"

"I thanked her for you," he chuckled, before Aimee took the suitcase from him and put it down at her side.

"Mm," she kissed him lightly, and then glanced at the table supporting him. "What're you busy with?"

"Uh, I'm just listening for reports from the crew in Lorient."

"For Buckley?"

She watched his smile disappear, the light in his eyes burned out. He nodded. His eyes drew lines around the room, on the ceilings and floors and computer monitors that each displayed different sections of the building.

"You know, he was an orphan. That's why he started GINM, I think, for kids like him without a real home or a family. He told me once that he strived to make the world a better place, a less lonely place. Except I didn't believe him because I was thirteen, he and Janet had just finalised their divorce, and he was totally, undeniably drunk."

"Whatever the reason, he created something beautiful here. And hey, my world would be much lonelier without this place, without you."

He tried a smile, but it was not the charming, boyish smile Aimee had fallen in love with. She felt awful, the feeling wrapped tightly around her heart, but she had to tell him.

So, she breathed, "I know this is really crap timing, but I need you to help me find Benjamin."

"Benjamin? I'm sure he's buried under AIM by now."

"Yeah, but Sylvain attacked me a few moments ago –turns out he's a literal robot – and when I kicked his butt, he played a message, like, a voice recording that was inside of him. The message was from Abba, for Benjamin and me, so I have to find him. I think he's still alive."

Stefan combed his fingers through his dark hair, absorbing the information. He flipped all the switches, turned all the knobs and told all available units to search for Benjamin, in North Hills and in Lorient. Most of the agents agreed with a compliant "Sir!" before repeating the orders to their men.

"We have other duties, Sir," one of them replied.

"This is your primary duty now, Adams. That goes for everyone. If anyone finds anything, call my cell."

There was a sigh from Adams, broken and static – no one else said anything.

Stefan switched everything off again, saying, "I feel like an asshole every time I talk to these guys."

Aimee could not help chuckling at his remark, "You're not an asshole. And thank you." – He nodded his eyebrows – "Stefan, they'll warm up to you; they're just grieving. To a lot of these agents, he was a friend. They need time to adapt to the change."

"I guess you're right. I-I told him that I was going to quit, that was the last thing I said to him, and then Gavin and I abandoned him. He didn't even try to escape, he chose to stay there. It's like he couldn't bear the idea of me leaving him. I keep thinking that maybe he cared a lot more than he led on."

Aimee gripped him, squeezed him closely and tightly in her arms, "He cared."

Her words brushed Stefan's ear and stayed there, trying to convince him that she spoke truth, despite his efforts to believe otherwise. Everything he had known about his father was different now; he could not accept that, not with him gone. Not with knowing the small chance they might have had to start over was unobtainable.

"Gah, why are our families so complicated?" he croaked.

"Hmm, well, it could've been worse. They could've been alcoholics, or demonic clowns, or aliens bent on dominating Earth."

Stefan laughed loudly, pulling out of the hug whilst wearing a pseudo serious expression, "Hey, they could easily be aliens."

"True," she nodded comprehensively. "But at least they're not the kind that looks like broccoli."

He laughed again, and stopped only when he decided to pull her into a kiss, his lips dripping with passion. "I love you so much."

He kissed her once more, putting her in a daze like the first time they'd kissed. But soon she said, "I love you, too."

Tenderly, her hand grazed his cheek. The corner of her bottom lip tucked under her teeth, as she deeply regretted that she was about to kill the moment – so much so that she was kicking herself telepathically, the way Emma kicked a soccer ball.

"We need to go find Benjamin."

That name made Stefan's eyes wander. Strange things followed Aimee wherever she went, strange and complicated things, but how would he explain to her that her father had injected him with the self-same microchip everyone sought to destroy, the self-same thing that had started all this?