Electra

"Good landscaping is essential around any self-respecting castle," Stesha agreed primly, folding her hands in her lap. "I can help you with that much at least, you won't have to wait for it all to grow. Have you thought about how you're going to get power?" she asked. "My solar and wind generators have worked pretty well for me, you could probably do even better if yours is higher in the sky. And a water purifier, fog and rain collecting apparatus, you could be reasonably self-sustaining without too much effort." She watched in fascination at the subtle changes that came over Tarrant when he was using his powers. Despite his mild manner he looked more imposing, more like a force to be reckoned with.

"Keep in mind, her diet is nothing but sugar," Stesha pointed out, chuckling. "You or I might act the same way under the circumstances." "Zhugar!" Bay-bee agreed, very enthusiastically. That was a word she knew. "Flowerzzz!" She began scouting the area, perhaps looking for flowers, but didn't venture too far away from the mossy throne. Stesha kept half an eye on the little bee, but didn't seem terribly concerned about her wandering. "It might not be a bad idea to have a bee receiving-room in your castle," she told Tarrant. "They're sociable. Now that my arena is empty again, I can go there to visit them if the weather is bad, or visit at the hive. And you should see what they've done with the hive since your last visit," she added. "It's amazing how motivated they've been since the mating flight and the arrival of the eggs. We may be on the verge of a mini population explosion." She seemed amused by the idea.

Miss Americana ate sparingly, though she drank a great deal of water, and took her turn in the restroom as well. "The guest rooms are open," she told Dragonfly and Sharl, "let's all try and get some rest. With rest and fuel in us, hopefully we'll avoid the problems we faced during the alien mind invasion. Let's meet up at 0700 local time, fed and ready to go." She headed into the first available guest room, activating the privacy lock behind her.

"I thought it might be that way," Stesha replied, not sounding put out about it. "I'd just wondered if you might use it for reinforcement of your stone structures the way I might build a trellis for my climbing plants. It's not necessary, but sometimes it makes things easier. I can start clearing that off while you're building your castle." "Cazzle," repeated Bay-bee, flying off the rock and doing a loop-the-loop around Tarrant. "Bay-bee cazzle!" She made a noise that it took Tarrant a moment to realize had to be a laugh.

"Time travelers always make me a little nervous," Fleur admitted. "If they've been to the future, it's likely that they know important things about you and your life that they aren't telling you. Even if they think it's for your own good, it's a little bit bizarre. I find myself watching them closely just to see if they start acting strangely or getting jumpy at certain times. Not that I've met many," she added lightly. "Maybe we live in boring times these days. I wouldn't mind that." She pulled several dried leaves and flowers out of the box, crushing them in her fist so they released a pungent aromatic scent into the air. I think it's time we our friend here up and got some answers." More vines rose from the ground, securing the wrestler more firmly than ever. A single tendril of vine snaked out to Fleur, opening a delicate cup-shaped leaf. She poured the handful of crushed plant into it, watching as the vine curled back to Khuitan and waved the potent concoction under his nose.

The little giant bee was surprisingly fast, given her erratic flight, though not nearly as fast as her older siblings and cousins. She tired quickly, though, and soon came to rest on the flying platform next to Stesha. Stesha sneezed once from the pollen overload, then helped the bee pick out and name landscape features they were passing. From the sky, it was possible to see the ruined lands beyond the oasis, desolate wasteland to the west and ruined buildings falling into a grime-smeared sea to the east. It didn't take very long to reach the northwestern edge of the oasis, a rockier area than the one where Stesha had built her home, and one with some concrete and steel building detritus still left laying around. "I didn't know if you could use any of this to build with, so I hauled some of it over here when I was clearing the other areas," Stesha told Tarrant, pointing at the debris. "If you don't want it, I've got a refuse heap a few miles north where I've been putting it all."

Before Lois could answer, Miss A looked over with a beautifully neutral smile. "Lois, I think this would be a perfect time to try out that program of yours. We have a few minutes before the next leg of the tour starts. If you'd like to come up to my lab with me, the others can look around the exhibits in the lobby." She didn't give any overt sign of having overheard the conversation, but then, she was obviously not the type to give much away. Definitely not the sort of woman you'd want to play poker with.

Wander Some Who Wander Are Lost (23) The Last Picture Show (10) We'd All Go Down Together (27) The Measure of a Hero (4) Fleur de Joie Vignette The Stars Went Out (5) Room for Rent, Spacious, Good View (22) Irresistible Force (9) The Rainmaker Job (1) Miss Americana Vignette The City of the Future (6) From the Bottom Of My Heart (14) Second Opinion (10) Double-Edged Blade (5) Other Fishies in the Sea (6) State of Grace, State of Sin (22) The Man With the Lonely Eyes (4) The Conquering Mind (5) NPC Time Spent With Cats (Oliver) (11/5) State of Grace, State of Sin (Gina) (18/9) Wander has 69 posts this month, including Oliver's posts. Miss A has 81 posts, including Gina's posts. Give her 19 of Wander's posts to hit 100. Fleur de Joie has 37 posts. Give her 13 of Wander's posts to hit 50.

Stesha examined the earthen throne, smiling broadly. "I love it!" she told him, giving him a quick round of applause. "It's so pretty, and my ankles are going to be eternally grateful after about ten minutes." She waved a hand at the chair and a cushion of moss quickly grew up to cover the seat and back, making quite a regal looking outdoor throne. "Bay-bee!" she called, "you can come with or go home, but you're not allowed to wander by yourself!" There was a rustling sound before Bay-bee popped out of the giant buttercup, covered from antennae to stinger with yellow pollen. "Yoooouuu!" she caroled, flying in a woozy pattern towards the two humans.

Fleur chuckled. "I'm afraid I can't get to any of those places, or at least afford to buy abandoned real estate. I liked the idea of taking something that had been destroyed and recreating it, and there's plenty of room to work with here. It's also convenient when you have to find a place for something very large, like a hundred bees the size of semi trucks. My friend Gaian Knight is thinking of building a headquarters here as well, perhaps we'll start a new fad for alternate-dimensional living." She opened the tacklebox and began rummaging through what looked like a bunch of dried plants. "So did you go with future, or dome, or hotel?" she asked, half-teasing.

Interfacing the new memory core with the Lor computer was tricky work, but enough was known among the superintelligent about older Lor computers that at least they hadn't come unarmed. The core they had designed was optimized to work with Lor technology, and though it was the work of hours to install the core and get it working without disrupting the balance of the fragile city inside the box, the three engineers were able to make it work. "I'm only going to open a fraction of the memory right now," Miss A murmured, her fingers flying across the keys of the netbook she was using as an interface. "Just enough for us to get in without risking a buffer overflow. When we get back, we can start opening the memory a little at a time, first to shore up the core subroutines, then to start building new ones." She yawned, sitting back from the computer.

"Would you mind some company?" Stesha asked. "Watching you build is always so exciting, and this should be a special treat. I'll bribe you with lunch if I have to," she added with a grin, "I've been baking bread again, and have plenty of sandwich fixings." The ground under Tarrant's feet felt a little strange, like it always did here, full of the ghosts of an old city that was no longer visible on the surface. But now roots were breaking through the old pipes and concrete foundations, sweeping away the old to make room for new growth. If Stesha's plants continued their prodigious expansion, in a few decades, there might be nothing left to see or feel of the dead city.

"When I eat, I can eat a lot," Erin assured her, half-smiling again. It was easier now, as she was starting to feel a little bit more relaxed. Maybe this could work out after all. "Early on, I was doing more than forty, but I was so far behind in school that I needed to spend more time studying, and work in at least a little sleep. Guess I wasn't really thinking ahead at that point," she said, somewhat ruefully. "If I'd let them hold me back and start me as an old sophomore, I'd have another year before I started apartment hunting. Guess that's just the way it goes." She looked avariciously at the dessert cart as it approached, deciding on a really excellent-looking piece of seven-layer chocolate pie. Virtuously, she let it sit by her plate and ate her salad while she waited for her companion to make her choice.

Spending an HP, got a 32.

"If Harrier says fire is the best way, I say we listen to him," Wander said, now growing impatient. "He's the one who would know. And it's not like landmarks don't get destroyed pretty often around here anyway. Hopefully when this one gets built up again, it'll be fine. But before we get too deep into the destruction talk, we've got a sweep to do." Spinning her bat to its palm-sized configuration but holding it ready, she walked up the aisle to go check out the rest of the building. She stopped abruptly just as she neared the door, opening her bat as quickly as she closed it. "Something's out there," she murmured, just loud enough for the others to hear. "I'm going to check it out." She ducked through the door, flattening herself against the wall to make herself less of a target for whatever might have come in.

"I don't think so," Erin replied. "My whole body got altered when I took the injection that changed me. Since then, my powers have sort of gotten more refined, more useful as I've trained them up, but that's about it. I'm a better fighter and acrobat and athlete now than I was two years ago, but that's forty hours a week of powers and combat training, plus missions. I'll probably always have to eat some and sleep some, but I can live with that." She glanced to the dessert cart, then to her salad, then back again. "I'm game if you are," she told Mona.

"Here's hoping it's close by," Wander muttered, taking out her communicator. "He assured me that he can hear interdimensional communication... " She punched the frequency into the communicator and activated it. "Supercape, this is Wander. We're ready for pickup, with five riding along. As soon as possible, please." As she waited for a response, she looked at the rest of the group. "Everyone get close together, those of you who have luggage, hang onto it. We don't want anything or anybody to get left behind here." Despite Trevor's glowing field of protection, it was easy to imagine the forces of Anti-Earth converging on their position, ready to move in. Singularity seemed to feel the same way, her eyes wide and her pupils dilated as she kept watch. Her breath was coming fast, but for now she was able to hold herself still, clutching the bear to her chest like a talisman. Donna, the little girl, gave her a weird look, but Caryatid quickly maneuvered her out of sight of the unstable escapee.

"It's Freedom City, actually," Fleur told him lightly, sitting down on a storage container and sipping her water. "Or at least it used to be. This is Sanctuary, a world where something wiped out just about everything back at the dawn of the twentieth century. When I came here, it was empty and uninhabitable, but I've been rehabilitating the place. And as it turns out, it's not as empty as I thought. I have a little colony of survivors living here now, so it's possible that there may be more. And I rehomed the giant bees that Beekeeper II sicced on the city last year, if you were following that story in the news. It's nice to have neighbors. But right where we're standing is the center of Midtown, more or less."

Miss Americana gave Sharl a little room to do whatever communing he might want to do with the computer that was his world, standing aside to talk to Daedalus and Dragonfly. "I'd like to take an hour or so to get familiar with the computer before we start plugging in the extra memory, just to make sure there's nothing we're missing in the schematics. With the work Dragonfly and I have done on Sharl's program, he should integrate well, but he's not familiar with traveling on the internet and may not find the back door again by himself. Once we have the memory set up and buffering the program, I propose we take a break for food and rest, then Dragonfly, Sharl and I will travel through the web and go through the back door as a group. Timing is going to be crucial, given that we can only stay out of body for so long, but by entering somewhere we know is weak, we should maximize the time that we have available." She looked to Dragonfly for her opinion on things.

The specs were fascinating, so much so that Miss A set aside her experiments to devote several hours to them that afternoon, but not exactly what she'd been expecting. Though advanced medical devices like this would be susceptible to industrial espionage, that wasn't much of a problem at ArcheTech, with its sophisticated security and thorough employee screening. She herself had freely bandied about several projects that she wouldn't have wanted to see anywhere near the hands of a competitor. There had to be more to this than met the eye. After her day at ArcheTech was done, Miss A took off from the rooftop landing pad and headed the short distance over to The Lab. She checked her messages, then locked herself in her private office long enough for Gina to go have supper and a stretch. By the time most commuters were home and in their houses, Miss Americana was back among her instruments, having already cleared Doktor Archeville for her level when he arrived.

Miss A quickly disabled the robot, ensuring it would not be reactivated until its system was clean, then moved to do the same to the others. "Don't you believe in rehabilitation?" she asked Jack, a trace of laughter in her voice. "Sometimes all a villain needs to get clean is a really good reason. Or maybe a mentor, there's the ticket. Someone to show them the way to turn their powers towards good." She moved quickly, and soon the robots were deactivated as well as disabled, ready for safe repair. The security guards seemed to be doing all right on their own, though she suspected some of them would have headaches for awhile.

That drew another laugh from Stesha. "I'm not going to complain about anyone else's self-indulgences when I'm here fixing up my own planet and building myself a fairy-tale cottage. I can't wait to see what your castle looks like when it's finished. Are you going to get started on it today? It's a beautiful day for it, no wind to speak of, and the sun is out." The sun on Sanctuary was never very bright, like an early morning glow or a cloudy day, but it was certainly brighter in the areas where Stesha's trees were clearing away the low-hanging toxins in the air.

Miss Americana had been quiet for a few minutes, looking out the window of the plane without really moving or reacting. She turned to Sharl suddenly, all her animation seeming to return at once. "I'm sure they'll just be happy to see you back," she told him bracingly. "We can help you explain what happened, at least to them, and when they see your powers, I imagine they'll be more inclined to believe. As for the rest of the city, the "plankton farmer" story should hopefully hold up. If we've been out in the middle of the ocean for a few years, it'll make sense that we're a bit odd and out of step. We'll need aliases, I suppose. I'll be, hmm, Mary. You?" she asked Dragonfly.

"I'll think about it, then see what I can do," Miss A told him. "My main concern right now is perfecting the digitization process and the equipment we'll need for that. She'll be all right if her consciousness needs to linger in a protected partition digital environment for a few months, but if we can't get her mind in the first place, we'll have lost her. All the robot-building will come after that. Why don't you submit me the specs for what you've got and I'll see how much tweaking they'll take to make them compatible with the systems I've been using, and we'll go from there?" She looked towards the now-dark screen, sighed a little, then began gathering her papers and equipment."Nothing's guaranteed, in any case. All we've got is an outside chance that everything will fall into place just right and we can help her. Better than nothing, but still..."

"Bay-bee," Fleur chided gently, "it's not nice to bother people for flowers when they are busy talking." Even so, she tossed a seed onto the ground a few feet away, which immediately unfurled into a giant yellow buttercup. With a high-pitched whine of excitement, Bay-bee deserted her new friend to disappear entirely into the cup of the flower. Her pleased humming was amplified and made echoey by the shape of the massive bloom. Fleur chuckled, then turned back to Gaian Knight. "That should hold her for awhile. I can't wait to see this floating castle business, it should be very impressive! The refugees and the bees will no doubt want to get a look at it. Luckily, there's just not a lot around here that can get ruined. It's all just plants and trees, and wasteland outside that. If the castle ever were to fall down, I could just fix anything that got crushed." She smiled at him. "And if we're going to be neighbors now, you should call me Stesha. Half the time I forget to use the codename anyway."