Electra

"A psych test is no problem," Erin assured him, almost as confident about it as she sounded. After several years of intensive therapy, she really wasn't very unstable anymore, there were simply times when she got very sad. Hell, she'd been able to deal with Dead Head face to face without attacking him, that had to be tougher than anything a shrink would throw at her. She hesitated a moment, not sure she should say more, then said it anyway. "But I'm glad to hear about the counseling. I've been working with Dr. Marquez at Claremont for the past couple of years, he recommended that I find someone to keep talking to."

Wander nodded, stepping forward to speak since she'd been spoken to and there was no more obviously senior hero around. She could talk to people, she'd had training. Some training, anyway. "We recognize that symbol and that evil from our world as well," she told Runs-With-Claws. "It was our duty to intervene and make sure he wasn't able to hurt anyone, our people or yours. Steer clear of eating any human beings you run across in your travels, and we'll call the debt even, okay?" She wasn't sure she wanted to think of any situation where they'd need to call in a marker from a planet full of velociraptors. She looked over to Wail and shrugged, figuring it was his call whether he could fuel their engines or not.

"That's good," Erin said with a nod. "I'm sure you'll be great as part of the Freedom League. And Doktor Archeville will probably be happy to be able to work with you on a team, if you get on the local Auxiliary team." She carefully tamped down a spurt of unheroic envy, for all that what she'd said earlier about Fulcrum's chances seemed accurate. With all Erin's own powers and none of the psychological issues, plus a few years of adulthood, Fulcrum would probably be a shoo-in to the team. And that would push Erin's own chances that much further into the distance. "You can get an application online," she told Mona helpfully, "but the counselor at school said it's better to call and have them send you one, so they know you're for real."

I came back two days after we left her here, Wander replied, carefully forming the words and letting them sit in her mind for Sage to see. It was good practice, and it seemed odd to hold one half of a conversation around the silent, listening guards. I wanted to see how she was settling in. Some good, some bad. They'd sedated her to give her a medical check and clean her up, change her clothes, and she didn't take that well. But she doesn't seem to mind being locked up that much. She recognized me and didn't charge the gates, that's something. For all the security they had to go through on the way, once they were in the elevator that would take them under the ground, it moved quite quickly. Erin swallowed once as her ears popped, and watched the guards doing the same thing. They moved from the elevator to a small alcove almost like an airlock. Once the elevator doors closed behind them, the doors in front of them opened, making a loud beeping noise. "Visitors on the floor," one of the guards called as they walked out into the corridor. "Being surprised makes her really upset," Wander explained to Sage. "They make noise when they're coming to check on her." The noise seemed to bother the mysterious inmate behind the metal shield, if the muffled curses were any indication, but they walked on past that cell, past the still-empty cell across the way, and down to the third in the row. Thanks to the warning, Singularity was at the barrier waiting for them, a curious look on her sallow face. She no longer wore the red and black jumpsuit of the Young Imperials, but instead the powder blue coveralls that designated a mentally ill prisoner at Blackstone. She had no shoes, just thick blue socks, and the nullifier cuff around one arm. There were faint bruises on her face and neck, and more recent ones on the arm and hand with the cuff, but she was clean and looked alert. She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes as she watched them approach, looking as though she was trying to place them.

Erin watched and listened, paying attention to the people they passed and how they acted. The people who waved seemed to be doing it genuinely, so it seemed like the boss was at least reasonably popular with the scientists and researchers. That seemed like a good sign. The place had way too many doors to be really secure, in her opinion, but she wasn't looking to design the security, just to stand by a door or whatever and stop anything that shouldn't be coming through it. "How much of the hands-on work do you do yourself?" she asked, just to satisfy her own curiosity.

Erin made no acknowledgement of Eve's curiosity, but by the time they'd completed the very short flight, she was back in control and seemingly entirely normal again. Even with most of the facility underground, the facade of Blackstone Prison loomed imposingly over them as they stood on the landing pad outside. Double-manned guard towers dotted the facility, all of them equipped with sufficient armament to stop a fleeing supervillain, and surveillance cameras were everywhere. As the pilot shut down the copter, an armed guard wearing the black uniform of the prison approached, carrying a clipboard and a small scanner. "Eve Martel and Wander?" he asked. "I need your palmprint and retina scans, please." When those were taken via the little portable machine, he nodded and led them into the prison.

Erin stopped in her tracks when Eve explained the purpose of the facility, going entirely still as she looked around at the shuttered, low-slung buildings with their subterranean secrets. A long moment passed as she lost what little color she ever had, then she shuddered once, violently, and climbed into the helicopter. Even with her powers muted for politeness' sake, Eve could feel the sudden swell of fear and revulsion in Erin's mind, battled ruthlessly back under a wall of control. "Let's not come this way next time!" she told Eve, raising her voice over the noise of the chopper.

Erin looked around the facility with interest, observing the security all around them. It was nothing compared to Blackstone, of course, and was a little closer to, say, ArcheTech, but it was nevertheless impressive. "This is your family's deal, right?" she asked Eve. "They own all this stuff, and a bunch more besides?" She paused for a moment when the limo drew to a halt. "How are we planning on getting out to the island?" she thought belatedly to ask. "You have an appointment, right? They're pretty nervy about people just showing up, for good reason. I guess I could probably make the jump, from the furthest point on the mainland."

Miss A remained still for a moment, the took a deeper breath and opened her lovely eyes, smiling at Sharl. "Thank you," she told him, sitting up in her seat and stretching for a moment. As the plane came to a halt, she unstrapped herself and followed Katastrof down onto the tarmac, supervising the unloading of the equipment with every bit as much care as she had the loading, though this time speaking in flawless Swedish to the men handling the crates. She had to speak sharply to a few who were cowed by the Baron's demands for speed, insisting that the equipment arriving unbroken was far more important than it arriving within an hour. "After all," she reasoned, "if it breaks, that's another trip back to America to pick up the replacement, and we haven't got that kind of time to lose."

Erin continued nodding as she tagged along, easily keeping up with the Doktor as he led her around. "So there are school groups in and out, and visiting scientists, regular workers, superheroes with scientific questions," she surmised, leaving behind a little of her nervousness with an interesting tactical problem. "Does everyone get handled with the same system, through the lobby, or are there special entrances for employees and other people? Like roof access, teleporter room, stuff like that?"

"Yes, now would be a good time for another shift," Miss A agreed, entering a few more commands into the computer. The idea of the doctor's mental shifts was fascinating and enticing, but it was something she'd rather pursue on her own. Her mind was her own domain, and frankly, it looked as though despite his prodigious skill, the good doctor had made something of a mess of his. And although Gina's mind might be imperfect in many glaring ways, she was for once probably the least mentally aberrant person in the room, which was quite odd and a little depressing. "Whenever you're ready."

Erin frowned. "Trevor's not here, so I'm gonna channel him for a second, just to remind you that none of those people were your kind. You and Psyche would never, ever do what we know the psychics there have done. You're not responsible for them, and nothing they did reflects on you, any more than it's my fault that Singularity spent years as a murder weapon." She sighed. "But with that said, anything you can do to help would be good. They still can't take the nullifier cuff off her without risking her trying to smash herself through the wall or the forcefield the first time something scares her. Somebody has to reach her."

Despite the circumstances, Erin found it hard not to be amused by riding in the limo, which while not as retro-cool as Trevor's vintage model, was certainly more than comfortable. Maybe if she had to live in a car, she'd ask Eve if she could borrow this one, she mused privately when she didn't think the telepath was looking. The irreverent thought helped distract her from the discomfort of going to see her double again. She'd visited Blackstone once since bringing her counterpart over and putting her away, and knew she owed another visit. Didn't mean she was going to enjoy it. "What do you plan to do?" she asked Eve as the long car zoomed along the roads to Lonely Point.

A shadow passed over Erin's face, and she pursed her lips before saying anything. Oliver rose from his somnolence, stepping down from his perch and nuzzling Erin's arm for a moment before retreating to the top bunk. The path he chose involved hopping onto the dresser, drawing Erin's attention momentarily to her remaining mementos, the picture of her parents and the pink music box. Whether that was deliberate on his part or just a coincidence, who could say? Erin sighed and rolled to sit up. "I should come with you," she told Sage. "You'll probably make her uncomfortable, I can be there to maybe mediate or something. They've let me come see her, guess they figure since I put her in there, I'm not likely to bust her out. Give me a couple minutes to get my uniform on."

"Come on in," came Erin's voice from inside the room. Opening the door, Eve found the older girl laying on her bunkbed, propped up on her elbows with a physics study guide open in front of her. Oliver had curled up on the small of her back like a lazy orange puddle, looking quite comfortable indeed. He raised his head when Eve entered, blinking a greeting at her. "Hi Eve," Erin said, looking over. "What's up?" The room looked different today than usual, most of Alex's things were packed into boxes for the upcoming move, and it made the place look bare.

"Yeah, if we'd known back then how many times we were going to get sucked into alternate dimensions, maybe we'd have had you make some more permanent retrieval device," Erin said wryly. "It'll probably be really good for him, too, give him some perspective." She went quiet and listened attentively as the doctor explained the layout of the main floor. That was a lot easier to follow along with than the laboratory stuff, she knew what things like loading docks were a lot more clearly than she understood gravametrics labs! "How much of the building is open to the public?" she asked.

With everything loaded to her satisfaction, Miss A buckled into the comfortable seat and sat back to enjoy the ride. There was not much to do at this point except sit out the trip, unless one counted teaching Sharl to speak some Swedish. But that would keep Dragonfly busy and out of trouble, she figured. Reclining her seat even as Sharl hopped into the computer, she closed her eyes, face relaxing into peaceful meditative lines. Only the soft rise and fall of her chest and the occasional eyetwitch animated her lovely figure as they sped towards a new heroic endeavor.

The important thing is that you know them, Oliver reminded her, purring a little louder when she appeared to be getting more upset. Humans are funny creatures. My human trusts her friends far more than she trusts herself. You do not trust yourself and it makes you incapable of trusting others. Trust does not come from perfect knowledge of the future, youngling. Trust begins when you understand that you are sufficient within yourself, no matter what happens. Only then can you reach out knowing that whatever happens, your relationships will add to you and not diminish you.

Wander landed after her thirty-foot leap, caught herself, and took a moment to assess the situation. The civilians were being taken care of, and there was plenty of backup in place. Now was probably not the time to wonder when it had happened that a thirty-foot-tall Nazi dinosaur rampaging through the middle of a city could be classified as "not that bad" on her list of bad situations. Now was the time to concentrate on stopping the attack. With another leap, she flipped over the dinosaur's left haunch and onto its tail, running up its back like she was running up a hill. When she reached the top, she grabbed her bat by the middle and began seesawing it rapidly, delivering a flurry of punishing blows to the dents that were all the ears the reptile had.

Wander will pretty much do the same thing she did last time, but instead of the +2 from the charge, she gets +2 from Willow's aid action. She will also make it an all out power attack this time, dropping her defense to +10. Acrobatic bluff, skill mastery 28. 1d20+17= Another awful roll! Yuck! Spending another (or perhaps the same) HP. 1d20+17=32. Toughness DC 35, autofire to a possible +10.

"My friend Edge," Erin told him, seeing no reason not to share that information. Mark was really excited about the new opportunity, nervous as he'd been at first about it. And when Mark was excited about something, the idea of keeping it a secret pretty much went out the window anyway. "With his powers, he's going to be able to do a lot of good down there for a lot of people. It's not traditional hero work, but it's what he really wants to do." It was her opinion that getting away from traditional hero work for awhile would probably be really good for Mark, after all that had happened with his dad. "Most of the rest of us are staying around, at least for now."

"It's a fascinating capability, and one worth exploring in more depth," Miss A finally said, after a moment of reverie. The idea was so striking, so profound, that she spent several very long seconds processing it, interpolating it, comparing it to her own mental processes and streams of consciousness. It was quite tempting to linger with the idea for awhile and let the outside world pass by, but she was working right now, and it would wait. "Unfortunately the problem that you've run into is the problem every programmer finds when he attempts to clean a computer with a pervasive virus. A clever virus will keep the infected computer from being able to spot all instances of infection, and thus renders it unable to cure itself. Hopefully with us standing in for your outside debugging hardware, we'll see if there's anything lingering that could present you with problems in the future."

Erin nodded along with his explanation, though she didn't understand all of what he was saying. Some of her attention was occupied with observing and absorbing the scenery, but she hadn't been Alex Albright's roommate for two years for nothing, and she was able to get the gist of most of it. "Do you work with UNISON?" she asked curiously when he spoke about the humanitarian efforts. "I have a friend who's going to work for UNISON after we graduate," she added, trying to explain her sudden interest. "He's going to Africa."

"This is my first time," Erin told the doctor, rising from her seat as well as he came around. Despite her nervous fidgets while sitting, she moved with the grace of a trained athlete while standing. "I spent quite a bit of time in the Goodman building, and I've done an extra credit project at the other Lab for my science class, but I haven't been to ArcheTech before. It's very nice," she added after half a beat. "The directional light things were really helpful. This place was built just in the last couple of years, right?" She set her folder down on the chair, ready to follow him on the tour.

"Yes, that's fine," Erin said without hesitation. "They already took a ton of samples when I first got here and never were able to isolate what exactly the serum was, but maybe with more advanced equipment, you could figure it out." The doctor certainly seemed sincere about not taking her acquiescence into account for her job prospects, but saying no to a guy who was hopefully going to be your boss wasn't a great way to make a good impression. Besides, aside from the discomfort associated with the very invasive procedures needed to obtain blood and tissue from her, it wasn't really that much to ask. "Do you want them now, or some other time?"