Electra

From the look on her face, Erin seemed more resigned to her nerves than actually disturbed by them; they were just one more thing to deal with and set aside. "Yeah, I know. Doesn't even make sense to keep thinking about it right now," she agreed. Finishing up her cake, she tucked the container away in the picnic hamper with a satisfied sigh. "I'm not going to worry about anything more tonight. It would just mess with a really nice evening." Sliding a hand behind Trevor's neck, she gave him a thorough kiss that tasted of chocolate, then settled in to watch the ships in the bay.

Miss A took note of the signs as they hopped and floated off the bus, then proceeded to ignore them completely as she headed for the restricted area. This close to a corrupted zone, she was leery of actually clipping any of the soldiers, but a little clever maneuvering allowed her to sneak between two of them and through the gate to the plant. Letting her eyes deliberately unfocus, she stopped seeing the world as Sharl and the inhabitants saw it, and began to look at the pure code that surrounded them. "Getting very glitchy here," she murmured, a bit uneasily. Normally she'd approach this as just a troubleshooting problem, but there were a lot of sentient beings at risk. "Errors like this should be automatically rebooted and corrected. This whole sector may have corrupted backups."

"I guess you're right," Erin agreed, though without much conviction. She leaned into his shoulder and looked up at the sky for a minute. "Having more privacy will definitely be nice," she decided, "and being able to decorate how I want. And it's good if I get a small place, because then I don't need as much stuff. Going to be kind of weird not to have Alex's color explosion all over the place," she added with a wry smile. "But if you're staying on campus at FCU during the week, won't you get a new roommate anyway? That might be kind of weird, especially if he likes to sleep and stuff."

Stesha laughed as well. "These little ones have never been to Prime, so aside from one or two visitors, I'm the only human they know. And since I smell more like flowers than most..." She shrugged one shoulder in amused apology. "Harrier, this is Bay-bee, Bay-bee, Harrier. Bay-bee is especially fond of spending time with people, mostly because she likes all the attention." She patted the pony-sized beeling on her fuzzy black head, setting the antenna quivering again. "Many of the older bees have had unfortunate dealings with humans, especially the Beekeeper, but they know that anyone who comes to Sanctuary is my friend and won't hurt them."

She scooted a little bit closer, cuddling in despite the fact that her hands were busy with dessert. "Definitely goes without saying that it's been my best in a long time," she agreed. "Guess that works out pretty well. And I guess if we could take this year and make it be good, we can do the same thing with whatever's coming up next year. Sometimes I think it's funny how nervous I've been getting about graduation. I mean, you'd think after everything else..." She shrugged, chuckling ruefully. "Maybe it's nice to be normal enough to worry about all this stuff."

Wander sent one quelling glance in Boss Moxie's direction, then returned her attention to Ox. "That's very interesting," she said thoughtfully. "You say the place takes ladies who are interested in fighting? Where exactly is this club at? I might know somebody who wants to check it out." Wander wasn't much of a bluffer, but telling half truths wasn't the same as lying. Besides, Ox didn't seem to be the brightest crayon in the box anyway. "Do you know the name of the deadbeat you were supposed to be hitting up in there?"

Rolling Intimidate, IC is down. 1d20+10.

"It's all right," Wander told Cobalt Templar, "you did fine. These guys are just kind of weird. I'll see what I can do with them, otherwise we just pass on what we know and let somebody else follow up the leads." With just the hint of a scowl on her otherwise blank face, Wander walked very deliberately over towards the toons, spinning her bat to its fullest extension, then leaning on it. "It's a little late in the game," she told them laconically, "but I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Wander, from Young Freedom. Why don't you tell me some more about Mister R, so I can concentrate on him instead of paying any more attention to you?"

Erin slanted him a look for that one. "At last someone understands my terrible burden," she deadpanned. "I figure at least we've got it easier than Mike and Alex, because if I do ever wind up having to haul you into the emergency room in the dead of night, they're going to think you're some kind of stud." Erin polished off her sandwich, then, formalities attended to, got into the compartment with the chocolate cake. She dished up a piece for him, then took one for herself. "Pie and coffee in a diner to cake on top of a bridge," she mused. "It's been quite a year."

"Of course," Miss A agreed easily, "it's not something to do without taking a hard look at the science first. But if Tronik's not going to be stable without someone coming along every couple decades and fixing it up, then we haven't done our job right. It could even be that they've already solved their population explosion and we're just seeing the lingering effects. Sharl did mention that people tend to live a long time here. I wonder how many people from Tronik would actually move to a new, less populated place right away," she mused. "I'm sure there are people desperate to escape the crush, but at the same time, it would be quite a change to leave this hive."

Erin actually chuckled at that one. "Yeah, I know. I've been here before with Edge, he knows the history of pretty much everything on all the walls, and he wants to make sure everyone else does too. It's interesting, for the first twenty minutes or so." She stacked up her dishes neatly, just as though she were going to bus her own table, a habit from school. "Should we go take in the museum now? We've probably got a couple hours before the after-school crowd comes in and it gets busy. And before there are hundreds of kids staring at us, she added silently.

"We asked Supercape to take us," Erin said matter-of-factly. looking up as the waitress dropped off the check. "He owed me a favor, so he dropped us off and picked us back up again. That's probably the best way to go if you want to see other dimensions. It always makes me kind of nervous," she admitted. "Prime's a nice place to live, you wouldn't want to get stuck somewhere else and not be able to find your way back or something like that. And thank you for lunch, too," she added, remembering her manners. "This is a cool restaurant."

"They're surprisingly dexterous," Stesha assured him, "they shouldn't hurt anything while they're visiting. And unlike the little ones, the big ones have a strong grasp of where they can go without getting stuck." With another laugh she teleported them back to her cozy plant house, which had grown since last time Tarrant had visited. Stesha had obviously been doing expansions. The main room still looked much the same, though the kitchenette had a real sink now instead of just bottled water and a basin. "Have a seat," she invited, gesturing to the table. "Lunch will be right up."

Despite her intangibility, Miss A breathed easier once the population density thinned out a little bit. "This is really intense," she murmured to Dragonfly. "I'm starting to realize why Sharl was so amazed just walking around the block when he first got to Prime. He must've felt like he was in a ghost town. The program surely wasn't designed for anywhere near this kind of population density. I should've asked what the rate of reproduction is here. It might be something we need to think about dialing down, so they don't fill up the new memory as fast or faster than the original."

Erin shook her head, "I'm stuffed," she admitted. "I won't need to eat till the end of the week after this." She shrugged at the mention of universal rules. "I know a lot of the universes around us mirror Prime pretty closely. The place I'm from did, till it fell off the rails. I guess some interuniversal pressure nudges the different universes, so even though they don't unfold the same way, things are pretty close overall. You should ask Doktor Archeville," she suggested with a half-smile. "I mean, if anybody knows, it's going to be him, right?"

Erin nodded understanding of that. "You know they have stuffed animal hospitals where you can send in your old toy and they'll clean it and restuff it and reinforce the stitching, make it all like new again?" she asked in between bites. Working out had given her an appetite, and Trevor had remembered a lot of her favorites. "I thought about doing that, once I got some money saved, but it seemed like, even if trying to clean her didn't disintegrate her on the spot, it would take some of the history out. This way you know he's there if you need him." She smiled at that and dug into a sandwich, watching the lights of a ferry as it made its way across the river.

"I'm glad," Miss A said, bestowing a friendly smile on Joan. "I'm sure with your support, we're going to see great things from Lois in the future, in whatever field she decides to go into." Miss A didn't linger long after the tour, after saying goodbye to Lois and to the other families, she disappeared into the elevator and headed back to the peace and security of her private office. There, several miles away, Gina returned to her own body, rubbing her eyes against the stress headache she'd formed. It hadn't been a smart move, she knew. Risking the antagonism of a decent investigative reporter was playing with fire, and even Gina's own skills at covering her tracks weren't perfect. But she hadn't been able to stand by and see that sad and all-too-familiar little girl getting worn down anymore. She just hoped she'd done a little bit of good.

The idea of visiting Gaian Knight's new home met with general acclaim, at least the overwhelming buzzing sounded cheerful anyway. A phalanx of worker bees formed up in the sky above the hive and zoomed off in the direction of the castle, apparently taking the invitation quite seriously. "That should keep them busy for awhile," Stesha murmured to Tarrant with a chuckle. "We can probably sneak back and have lunch while they're investigating, if you don't mind them exploring without you."

"Come too far to give up now," Erin said ruefully. "I mean, I've got it pretty good, really. We went the other week and pulled a version of me off Anti-Earth who didn't come from there. She came from my world, it was like we were the same person, and then reality hit a fork and I ended up on Prime and she ended up on Anti. Now she's in Blackstone because she's too crazy and dangerous to let out, but she's happy because they're feeding her and nobody is hurting her. What have I got to complain about in comparison to that?" She shrugged. "I guess it's all perspective. But it's nice to think that eventually I'm going to get things figured out." She scraped up the last of her pie and finished her drink. "That was really good."

"THAT IZZ ALL RIGHT," the giant bee informed him genially, "FLEUR GIVEZZZ UZZ ALL WE NEED OF FLOWERZZ." At that magic word, all the beelings began squealing "Flowerzz, flowerzz!" and darting manically through the air. Collisions seemed inevitable, yet somehow the fat oval creatures managed to avoid each other by inches every time. Fleur laughed. "Oh, so that's why you all wanted to come visit me, is it? I see how things are." She raised an arm and spread her fingers wide, and a moment later a giant stalk unfurled itself from the ground and rose into the air. Moments later, huge hollyhock blossoms began unfurling, cheerful in purple and yellow. There were, probably not coincidentally, more than enough blossoms to go around. The little bees cheered and made themselves scarce while they gorged. When things were a bit quieter, Fleur made introductions. "Beeatrizz, this is my friend Harrier. He lives on Prime as well, and he's helping me make sure that this place is safe for all of us to live. He's a friend to all of us here. Harrier, this is my friend Beeatrizz, who is the queen's right-wing worker at the hive. Beeatriz was one of the first bees to come live here on Sanctuary."

Erin grinned and picked up a piece of watermelon. "Giraffe the Giraffe," she mused aloud. "It's catchy. I like it. I got Bronwyn when I was really little, and I just called her something like 'bowr-bow" because I couldn't say bear yet. Then my folks couldn't pronounce that, so it became Bronwyn instead. Giraffe is sort of elegant compared to all that." She bit into the watermelon, grabbing a napkin hastily to keep juice from dripping all over her. "Do you still have him?"

"The Night Bear, huh?" Erin repeated with a laugh. Very thematic, I like it." She regarded the key for a moment, letting it spin on the end of its silver cord. She knew what Trevor was doing, without putting words to it. It would be too strange for her to go live at his house, and it probably wouldn't be good for her in the long run, but having the key meant that she always had someplace safe to go. She carefully removed the key from the bear's wrist and attached it to her own keyring, letting it slide into place next to her dorm and truck keys. "Might come in handy for an emergency," she agreed with a smile. "Or I'll sneak in and stock your fridge someday. Thanks." She played with the bear a little more, adjusting the fedora and testing the squishy softness of his tummy before setting him on the picnic blanket to watch them eat. "Did you ever have a bear?"

Erin took the bear out of the box and held him in both hands, looking over his hat and his eyes, stroking the soft black fur. When she looked up at Trevor again, her own eyes were a bit shinier than usual, but she was smiling. "I love him," she told Trevor sincerely, "he's adorable. Sturdy, too. Bronwyn was... she was part of my old life, and the other Erin needed something of that to hold onto a lot more than I do now. But it was still hard to give her up. This will be just right for me to hang onto now." Smiling, she hugged the bear, then lifted it again as the silver cord caught the light, taking a look at what it was holding.

"We won't be long," Miss A promised, then nodded to Dragonfly to follow her out of the apartment. "If they're doing raids, we're better off in stealth mode," she suggested to the other technopath in a soft voice. With a thought, she changed the coding of her program, rendering her invisible and intangible to the sentient programs, while still able to interact with the physical world of Tronik. "Let's check out a few of these places and get the lay of the land, then say goodbye to Sharl and bail. From the sound of things, we have even less time than we thought."

Erin made the expected face at his mention of eating kiwi skin, but chuckled and kissed him back before reaching over to take the box. "I didn't get you anything," she admitted, tilting her head in tacit apology. "I've been letting a lot of things slip lately, trying to find a place after graduation, and with the anti-Earth stuff and all that. But I should have remembered." Even so, she didn't hesitate to open the box, pulling the tape away neatly and folding the paper as she went so that it didn't blow off the roof and into the river.