Electra

"That's good to hear," Stesha replied, looking relieved if not entirely happy. It was hard to feel too much happiness in a wasteland like this, one that spoke of so much destruction and death. "From what I've heard, all I've seen, and simply what I know of people, I suspect that they probably did this to themselves, perhaps with some help. Humans are so good at fighting each other for the most specious of reasons, if they'd gotten hold of advanced weaponry a hundred years ago, with no real understanding of what it meant to cause mass destruction, they could easily have wiped each other off the map. It's a tragedy however it happened."

Wander nodded assent. "We're leaving now," she told her counterpart, "but we'll come back to make sure things are going all right for you. "You can wash your hands in the sink," she suggested, "then eat and try to get some rest. It's going to be okay," she said again, trying to put as much certainty as possible into her words. "We'll see you later." With that, she turned and walked away without looking back to see whether Singularity complied, or whether she watched them silently until they reached the end of the hall and were gone.

"Yeah, me too," Wander murmured, her eyes still on her counterpart in the cell, who was still absorbed with the mirror. "Thank you for your help, Warden Drummer. If there's ever anything I can do for you, please just let me know." Drummer and the majority of the guards left, leaving only the two who were actually assigned to this hallway. The high security floor meant that there were only three cells in this hallway, one of which seemed to be empty, the other of which was covered with a thick impervium shield. So despite the clear door, Singularity would have a small modicum of privacy. After a few more minutes, Singularity turned her attention away from the mirror and back to the counterpart who looked so much like her. She walked to the edge of the forcefield and stared through it solemnly at Wander, trying to suss her out. She raised an arm experimentally, as though wondering whether Wander would do the same thing in mirror image. When Wander didn't move, she lowered her arm again, looking over at Sage now. Singularity reached out to touch the diamondium barrier, then hissed with surprise and jerked her hand away as the forcefield shocked her. She started to put her fingers in her mouth, then apparently noticed they were quite dirty from the escape, so just cradled her hand instead, watching her new captors.

Miss Americana's eyes narrowed slightly as she studied Joan. "Your daughter is very talented, Ms. Collier," she stated plainly. "I've just told you that she could potentially get a college scholarship doing work that she obviously enjoys. What exactly is a more productive and worthwhile way to spend her time, in your opinion?" She knew Lois was watching them both intently, and took care to keep her voice mild enough that only someone who thrived on confrontation would hear the challenge in it.

Wander goes on 25.

"Of course!" Miss A said with a smile. "With a display this size, we'll want to tweak the compression ratio a little bit to make it run smoothly at a lower frame rate. Do you know how to do that?" Lois nodded eagerly, and the two of them bent their heads together over the computer while Lois painstakingly made the necessary adjustments with just a nudge or two from the scientist. A very nice little girl, Miss A thought, and smart for her age as well! She definitely understood the program she'd built, rather than just putting it together from a kit. And it was nice to have someone around who was still so shiny-new excited about computers! She wondered what was going on with Joan Collier, and what she seemed so sour about. Maybe she was just bored. "All right, let's run it again!"

Wander breathed a sigh of relief as her counterpart retreated into the cell and the forcefield came up. She was even more relieved when Singularity didn't charge the field or start smashing against the walls or anything really problematic like that. The room looked nicer with its disguise, even if it only had three walls, and maybe the windows would give her something to look at, anyway. For now, Singularity seemed content to examine her new home, rubbing the rough cotton blanket on the bed between her fingers, flushing the small toilet, playing with the light switch. That actually seemed to amuse her, being able to raise or lower the lights at will, for all it never became truly dark. When she was done playing with that, she went over to the sink and turned on the faucet... then paused,staring at herself in the small unbreakable mirror over the sink. Her expression changed abruptly to one of shock as she stared at herself, then over at Wander, then at herself again. She touched her own face, then pressed her fingertips against the mirror, her face and mind equally full of surprise, consternation, and distress. "I don't think she knew how long it's been," Wander murmured aloud, even as her heart twisted. "She's older than she thought."

"I'll be fine," Stesha assured Harrier with a smile. "Just don't be gone too long, or I'll have to pop home for a quick restroom break. I can't see to go without for more than an hour these days. It's almost embarrassing." She chuckled, folding her hands placidly on the mound of her stomach as she waited for him to go on his tour. It was actually a lovely day for flying, if one didn't count the miasma still blowing in off the ocean. Fleur's trees must have been working overtime to screen her protected area from the bad air and particle matter, since the air where they were now was crisp and clean.

"You're right," Miss A told them simply. "Something bad is happening to Tronik, and you're right to be afraid. Your world is in flux right now, with forces beyond your science putting strain on the foundation of reality. That's why Sharl had his accident, that's why people are becoming mutants and why the city itself sometimes seems to act strangely. It's only going to get worse if something isn't done. But that's the other reason we came," she added, with a sudden reassuring smile. "Ema and I know how to fix what's wrong with Tronik, and we want to help. Sharl's an important part of our project as well. The first thing we need to do, though, is to get a better idea of exactly where and how things are breaking down."

"Mavis recognizes my voice quite reliably," Miss A told Joan, her voice dry. "As do most voice recognition programs for the people who program and debug them. "For other people, it's more or less reliable, depending on how clearly they speak." In response to the other question, she said, "It depends on her grades and on the internship program she's in. With the programs we're designing for high school internships, juniors and seniors who have absolutely top-notch grades and who have exhibited talent and understanding of the work we do here will actually be hired on for the summer and act as lab assistants in the field of their specialty, working under myself or one of the other founding members. There'll be a lot of the boring scientific scutwork that every scientist has to do, but they'll also be part of experiments and expected to contribute observations and ideas to the team. Promising interns can expect scholarship consideration as well."

"Not that we know of," Miss A replied reassuringly, "and we'd have been in a position to know. The changes we made to Sharl weren't for scientific curiosity, they were to save his life and his sanity. The word we come from is very different to yours, and Sharl's body and mind were incapable of handling the environment. We did everything possible to make sure he stayed the same person, even though he can do things now that he couldn't before." Miss A looked more closely at Sieva. "We saw the posters and warnings about mutants in the city. Is that why you're wondering if there were other people we've performed experiments on?" she guessed.

Despite Sage's psychic control, Singularity dug in her heels when they arrived at the cell. The setting was much too familiar, even if it was even more bare than the box she was used to. She didn't want to go back in the box. Her thoughts were consumed enough with that single fact that she didn't even register the question, straining as she was with what limited strength was available to her to back away from the cell. Wander had no problem holding onto her at this point, but it looked like the disturbed young woman was cheerfully willing to dislocate her own arm in her continuing efforts. "The jungle," Wander answered for her, a little too distracted herself to know or care about the meaning of the question. If this didn't work, they were screwed. There wasn't a lot of time to mess around. Turning her counterpart to face her, Wander grabbed her by the upper arms and held her still, looked into her eyes. "Listen to me, Singularity," she said, deliberately using the code name. "I know you understand some of what's going on here. I know you know how dangerous you are to the people around you. When you get going, you don't even know who you're hurting, do you." There was silence for a moment, then Singularity nodded fractionally, which was enough for Wander. "We're going to help you get better, so you don't have to be like that anymore, but you have to stay here until then. But it's good," she insisted. "Look at this place. Look at all these walls, all these guards. The Young Imperials are never going to find you here. Pathos will never find you here. They're going to feed you and take care of you, and nobody's going to hurt you. It'll be okay." Singularity stared hard at the stranger for a minute, picking through the flood of words.Wherever they were, it was someplace with very thick walls and big locking doors. Big locking doors could keep people out, as well as in. The strangers had gotten her out of the box in the first place, they had stopped Pathos and made her be quiet. And she knew, down in her heart of hearts, that the stranger was right. Outside was no place for her. In her heart of hearts, she knew there wasn't really a choice anyway. When the stranger loosened her grip, Singularity turned and walked into the box under her own power.

Miss A made no comment as Joan joined them, perhaps she had taken it as a given. She and Lois discussed the finer points of the design in language Joan couldn't really follow, but that both were quite enthusiastic about. The elevator took them high up into the building, into the security-controlled floors where the tour hadn't gone. "This is my main laboratory," Miss A told them as they stepped through an airlock door and into a big white and silver room full of extremely high-tech equipment. "And this is Mavis." She smiled and pointed to a boxy little robot, not much taller than Lois, who was ferrying trays of samples between one table and another. It waved a robotic arm at the mention of its name. "Let's go get this set to run in the mainframe."

"I... I'm not sure," Erin admitted, stepping forward a few steps with Drummer, out of Singularity's easy hearing. "She's, ah, pretty easily stimulated. She's spent the past three years literally in a box, maybe ten by ten by ten, with nothing to look at or do except when she was being conditioned. And before that, she spent months running around alone." She thought back to her own arrival, and those lonely weeks in quarantine. "She'll probably like TV," she suggested, "nothing violent, nothing too loud or fast, definitely nothing with zombies or telepaths. Like maybe travel documentaries, or shows for little kids. Maybe books along the same lines." Wander rubbed her face with one hand. "Um, she's probably going to be jumpy. Anybody who comes to physically visit her should probably announce themselves first, so she doesn't see them before she hears them." She vividly remembered nearly taking an orderly's head off during her own introduction to Prime, and figured it was probably a rule that would hold true." She looked back to Sage. I dunno, any ideas?

Despite the fog of calm in her mind, Singularity was afraid of the circle band. Her reflexes were slow though, and the stranger was very fast, and before she could do anything, it was on her arm and locked tight. Suddenly, she felt horrible everywhere. Nothing was working right, nothing felt like it should! Her whole body was heavy and sluggish and unresponsive, and only the calmness kept the shrieking panic from welling up. Then the strangers were grabbing her, and the man told her they were going someplace, and there were guards with guns behind him to make sure that she went. Numbly, she stumbled along after the man, gradually regaining control of her legs, but not much more than that. Don't push the psychic trauma thing too much, Wander "said" to Sage, trying to project the words to the front of her own mind so they could be easily read. We want them to accept her and not toss her into the asylum. They can take care of her here. She kept one arm under her counterpart's as they walked, making sure the other girl didn't run or fall.

Miss A stepped forward, her voice and manner soothing even though she didn't have her fantastically perfect face and body to fall back on here. "Sharl was the victim of a terrible accident," she told his parents. "He became lost through no fault of his own, and ended up much further away from here than you can probably imagine. We found him and nursed him back to health. He was always adamant that he must return because you were sure to be worried about him, but it took us a long time to find a way. We're very glad to have had a part in reuniting your family." Initially the timing had given her a bit of a turn, but of course years on Tronik, with its tiny star, were a mere three and a half weeks long.

"Here, let me drive then," Stesha offered with a smile. "Take a load off." She reached out and took his hand, then put her other hand on Bay-bee's head. In a moment, one of the giant coral bells she'd created for the little bee grew even larger, descending over them like a bedsheet falling on their heads. Moments later, they appeared in front of the massive hive, which was even busier than last time Tarrant had been there. The adult bees were all occupied with any number of activities, and there were also a half-dozen more bees Bay-bee's size flitting hither and yon, all with the same loopy bumbliness that suggested they weren't quite steady on their wings yet. "There you go," Stesha told Bay-bee, "get on home now." The little bee flew up to join her siblings, after waving goodbye to the humans with her antennae. Before Stesha could teleport them again, some sharp eyed bee caught sight of them and raised the alert. "IT IZZ GAIANIGHT! HE HAZZZ BEETURNED TO OUR HIVEZZZ!" Suddenly the air was full of excited giant bees, all heading towards them. Their interest was not aggressive, just very enthusiastic. "DO YOU ZEE?" another asked Tarrant hopefully. "WE HAVE UZZED THE HIVEZZ YOU MADE FOR UZZ. IT IZZ HOME TO OUR COLONY AND OUR YOUNGLINGZZZ."

Stesha shook her head. "I can feel the ground of the whole planet, if I concentrate hard enough and long enough. It's easier because there are no cities and so few people and plants. It's not as much to take in, so it doesn't overwhelm my mind the way it might on Prime. But I haven't had anyone take a look from the sky." They reached an incline and began climbing it, Stesha huffing and puffing a bit as she did so. "This invasion would've been much earlier, close to a hundred years ago, I'd say. Long enough ago that the land is prime for rehabilitation." As they came to the top of the hill, Stesha stopped to catch her breath, letting Harrier have his first look at the ruins of Freedom City in silence. Not all of Freedom City, apparently part of it had already been overgrown and reclaimed, but a large chunk of it was still gone. He could see some of the ruins of the northern edge of downtown, and then the oozing sore that was the Wading River, its sluggish current unable to fight the pollutants that worked their way upstream from a bay that was so dirty a rainbow-tinted oil slick sat over the entire surface like a sullen, dirty gem. Everything north of the Wading River was blown to smithereens, old debris everywhere, dirty and soot-covered, a million broken puzzles with the pieces mixed together.

Wander grimaced at the reality of that possibility. If Singularity couldn't be handled in Blackstone, sending her to the asylum was the only other option, but given that Providence didn't have things like double-thick impervium walls, confinement would have to be handled with power nullifiers and enough drugs to overcome her body's natural resistance to toxins. She was suddenly doubly glad for Sage's presence. With any luck, they'd have the extra Erin evaluated and tucked away before the psychic whammy wore off. Taking the power nullifier, Wander approached her counterpart, who turned to look at her and tightened her grip on the bear. "Hold tight," Wander murmured to Sage, then stepped in without hesitation and clamped the nullifier around Singularity's left forearm. Singularity jerked with surprise,then immediately staggered, making a soft whimpering noise as she struggled to keep her feet. "You'll feel better in just a minute," Wander assured her, not unsympathetically. She'd worn a power nullifier before, the first few moments without half one's physical abilities was enough to stagger anyone.

Singularity stared at the stranger, kneading the teddy bear with both hands as she watched the man approach. She didn't know him, for better or worse, but he didn't seem very strong or very dangerous. The circle thing might be bad news, but it was too hard to get worked up over anything right now. Surely it would all be all right, somehow. She broke eye contact and looked down at the bear, carefully smoothing its fur down with her fingers. "I'm sorry about the short notice," Wander said, "but the circumstances were unusual. I'm glad you were able to make room." She was alert, standing on the balls of her feet and ready to intervene in a heartbeat if her counterpart tried to attack anyone, but right now that seemed unlikely. Wander decided not to mention that the reason the notice was so short was because she'd spent ages trying to think of another way, then a long time convincing Doctors Atom, Marquez, and Franklin to back her up and intervene on Singularity's behalf. She hoped that if there was enough important scientific support behind her, that there'd be less risk of seeing Singularity locked into a box even smaller and sparser than the one she'd come out of. "She doesn't talk much," she explained to the warden, "and Sage has her calmed down right now. She gets wound up easily."

Erin smiled just a little as she watched Trevor go, then grew entirely serious again as she stepped onto the transport pad. Singularity was being extremely malleable at this point, licking her fingers clean of any stray sandwich crumbs and standing placidly next to Sage while they waited for transit. That was a relief. Erin had worried that she'd have to try and explain to her counterpart beforehand that she was going back into a box, albeit a nicer, safer, less horrific one, for an indefinite period of time. Now she could just do what had to be done. Tugging off her ruined camouflage gear so she was more official in blue and gold uniform, Wander looked at her counterpart and announced, "Erin Keeley White EVM1, known as Singularity, you are under arrest for use of metahuman abilities in causing gross bodily harm to civilians. You will be remanded to Blackstone Prison for incarceration and evaluation until such time as you are put on trial." Singularity looked over, sensing she was being addressed, but did not respond or even seem interested. Wander nodded to Alex's grandfather, and the trio disappeared in a flash of light. A moment later they appeared in a metal-lined room full of harsh white light. Wander felt Singularity's body jerk once next to her, fighting the calming effect, but the moment passed once more before Wander could do more than turn. She saw the cameras embedded in the ceilings and walls, along with the nozzles that probably spewed gas or shot energy if the need arose. "My name is Wander," she told the cameras. "I'm with Young Freedom. This is Sage, my friend. We've apprehended Singularity, who has outstanding warrants in Freedom City, but she's psychologically unsound." Erin had spent time memorizing the jargon that would make her sound more official, and she was glad of it now. "Dr. Atom called ahead and gave you the particulars, I think." There was a brief pause. "Please wait for the arrival of the Warden," came an emotionless voice through the speaker.

"None of the survivors here were alive when it happened, many of them are third or even fourth generation," Stesha told him, her face grim. "Generations here have been short. I'm working to change that much, anyway. I can take you to interview them, if you like. Nothing I've heard them say really indicates anything that shouts Terminus to me, but I was just a little child and in a different city during the last invasion. I don't know very much about it." Honestly, she was happier that way, though it shamed her a bit to think it. If Harrier told her that things were all right here, that meant less research she had to do on her own.

"Careful," Bay-bee agreed ruefully, seeming chagrined by her frightening experience as she hovered close to the ground and waved her antennae as though to double-check that they were still working. Stesha patted the bee reassuringly on her fuzzy black head, releasing another cloud of pollen into the air. "Why don't we take you home for now, Bay-bee," she suggested, "and you can tell the Queen all about what you saw? And then you and I can pop over to my place and have some lunch," she suggested to Tarrant. "You must be famished after all that work." "Mama!" Bay-bee exclaimed, apparently pleased with the idea of getting to report on what she'd seen and done.

"Doktor Archeville has seen a tremendous improvement in his symptoms over the past few months, without the use of any new treatment regimen," Miss A said, moving over to the most recent set of scans. "We have differering hypotheses as to the cause, but I believe that the most important indicator is whether or not the pattern of brain development and degeneration is consistent with a physiological cause for those improvements. I personally am not terribly experienced with looking at brain scans, but I think you've done some research in that area, Dragonfly?"

"I do like it," Erin said, digging into her pie again and washing it down with soda. "The baby is sweet most of the time, and the pay is super-good. Plus they've got like this movie-sized television with all the trimmings, and thousand dollar sofas, so when the baby's sleeping, it's a cool place to just relax. Avenger's kind of weird and creepy, but he's okay, and Phantom is almost never around when I'm sitting. Plus they don't mind if I have my boyfriend over while I'm there, because they know we're both responsible and wouldn't do anything bad. It's a nice way to spend some evenings, and I've saved up enough money doing it to cover a few months' bills, but it's not something I could probably do full time. They aren't looking for a nanny."