Electra

"He's going out the back way," Stesha murmured to the others, half her attention still with the plant she was looking through in the warehouse. "I've got a sprout on him, it should let us follow him wherever he's going, without scaring him off. Whatever he's up to, he's not happy that we got here so soon, and he's going to regroup. Anybody know anything about a place called Harbrook Arms?"

Erin had already known that the Night Cycle was far more than an average motorcycle, but she'd really had no idea how many extra features, secret compartments and efficiency tweaks Trevor had put into it. She watched with fascination as he described each one, occasionally pressing up against him to see better or resting a hand against his arm or his back. Despite the surroundings and the innocuous nature of what they were doing, there was an electric sort of tension in the air, one that made Erin feel edgy but not in a bad way. "I can't believe how much you've put into the Night Cycle," she murmured admiringly as they both leaned in to study the auxiliary weapons compartment tucked away behind the exhaust manifold. The awkward location meant that she was pressed up against his back and all but speaking directly into his ear. "You'd never be able to guess just looking at the outside."

Stesha stayed back from the warehouse, barely within earshot, but she let her senses range further, till she found a weed that she could see from. Rook was talking into his cell phone, she was disappointed to realize, so there was no way to identify who he was talking to. It didn't sound like he was up to any good, though. She was glad she'd stopped him from punishing that giant anymore! The weed she was looking through opened a small flower, with a tapered bloom that looked almost like the muzzle of a cannon. Suddenly a tiny seed shot out of it, a little brown burred affair that stuck to the cuff of Rook's pant leg. From the seed, a tiny green shoot emerged, unfurling a single leaf, smaller than a fingernail. Outside, Stesha held up a hand to try to forestall the approach of her compatriots.

Fleur will use Move Object to shoot a seed at Rook, trying to get it hidden in his clothes or the cuff of his pants. First try misses, HP reroll is an 18. On her next turn, she will make the seed sprout, just a little bit, enough to be a green little plantlet. That should take up all the time she has before her compatriots catch up. All these powers, by the way, are Subtle.

Erin put on a pair of coveralls and helped Trevor collect the tools, listening as he explained the basics of supercycle maintenance and repair. It was interesting, and she filed away the salient points for later, but it was hard not to take a little time as well just to bask in the feeling of being included in something that was particularly special to him. They were both naturally private people, with corners of their lives that they did not easily open up. Being allowed into this part of Trevor's life really meant something important. Since she was a novice, most of what she did was listen and pass tools to him, but it was being there that counted.

Miss Americana steepled her fingers, turning just a sliver of the full force of her personality on the commander with a smile. "Assuming that "might" turns into a "will," and that our team is given leeway to take all necessary readings and make all necessary investigations of the skyhook during our retrieval process, I think we'll be able to come to terms on that," she agreed. "Speaking as one of Viktor Archeville's people myself, you aren't likely to find a better deal in the time you have available."

"Everybody sucks at first," Erin told him with a shrug. "Otherwise you wouldn't have to practice. You need to learn how to follow through on your punch without leaning into it." She went and got another dummy, this one shaped the same as the first, but made of solid titanium.It looked very heavy. "Watch how I do it," she instructed. "I'm going to be pulling my punches so I don't break the dummy, so if you're watching, you'll see how I follow through, but stop at the last second." Starting in the same stance she'd showed Evander, Erin drew back her bare fist and drove it forward, her entire body involved in the move as she shifted her weight and plowed her fist into the dummy's metal jaw. Because he was watching closely, Evander saw the momentary hiccup interrupting the smooth motion that was her pulling her punch, but it was still hard enough to leave a slight dent in the metal. "Your arm doesn't have the kind of power you need to really knock someone down," she told Evander, straightening to face him. "You have to put your body behind it as well."

"Good," Erin told him with a nod, looking over his stance. "That's much better. Like I said, I recommend the easy way of learning to fight, which doesn't really involve that much getting the stuffing beat out of you. It does involve a lot of practice and exercise, though. You're wiry, so starting some martial arts training might be good for you too. I can't really help you there, I only know the basics of any of them." Straightening from her stance, Erin went over to the far wall and grabbed a practice dummy torso, wheeling it over. It looked like there were dummies made in several different kinds of material, the one she chose was made of foam. She parked the dummy, which was really a torso and head on a flexible stick, in front of Evander. "Punch it," she instructed.

"It wouldn't be useful at this point," Erin told him, not unkindly. "You don't have the training to understand what you're doing yet, so sparring wouldn't teach you anything. And I might lay you out without meaning to, and that wouldn't help either." She beckoned him over to a hardwood-floor area of the gym, with a mirror-lined wall and a waist high barre. "Get into the stance I showed you the other day," she told him, standing next to him and taking the stance herself to remind him how it was done. "Have you been practicing?"

"Sure we'll set you up," Erin told Evander. "You don't have to be great at sports to at least get used to running and lifting and jumping. After you learn all that stuff, you'll probably be better at sports, though. Later, guys," Erin added with a half-wave, returning to her work as she saw them out. She always had more than enough homework to keep her busy, even now in the last semester of senior year.

With five seconds left to go in his personal countdown, Erin walked into the gym. Or perhaps Wander walked in, since she was wearing the simple blue and gold uniform that not only was Claremont's de rigueur practice uniform, but was also her official Young Freedom look. Walking in Evander's direction, she gave him a small smile as she looked over his outfit. "You're going to want to lose the breastplate for now," she commented. "It's hard enough to get an exercise program going without adding ten extra pounds of equipment off the bat."

Erin turned and looked at him, quick surprise passing over her face. "Really?" she asked, looking from Trevor to the Night Cycle. They'd spent endless hours tweaking Erin's truck, and still more going over various vehicles in the Night collection, but the Night Cycle was Trevor's very personal baby. Nobody ever touched that thing but him. She grinned broadly. "Yeah, sounds great. It's always a good idea to be prepared for anything."

Erin hopped off the bike as it pulled to a stop, tugging her helmet off and running her hand over her hair to smooth down the flyaway strands. "So what do you want to work on?" she asked, looking around the always-immaculate garage. All the vehicles were stored below, a veritable candy store of goodies for the mechanically inclined. She couldn't even name half the vintage black cars down there, but though many didn't run, they were all cool.

I'd like to have Stesha try and use her ESP to get a look at who Rook is talking to. Are there any plants around that she could look through for a closer view?

Erin grinned, liking the tone of this present quite a bit more. "So you're getting Dakanan coffee and daka crystals? We'll get that saucer up and running this summer after all," she joked. "Probably didn't hurt that you're on M'Balla's short list of Heroes To Be Thankful For, after that thing at the volcano last fall." She leaned against his back as they pulled into North Bay, where the roads got wider and the houses bigger and bigger. "Reminds me of my birthday, where you made those little floating candles. Those were cool."

"Why not at church?" Stesha asked with an amused half-shrug. "That's obviously something important to you, and a place where you already go. You want to meet someone who shares your beliefs and values, and it'll be easier to meet someone someplace where you're both comfortable. You could try to join a Bible study or small group, maybe do some entirely mundane volunteering, and see who's there with you. Once you get to know someone, then you can decide how much of your other life you're comfortable revealing, and how quickly. Remember, it's not only men who feel lonely at this time of year. Perhaps someone else will be looking at you while you're looking."

"Oh, well, that sounds smart." Erin couldn't help feeling a little bit disappointed in that answer. Even though Trevor's strategy was undoubtedly sound, it seemed boring. If she ever got that kind of money... well, most of it would probably have to go to expenses and stuff, now that she was going to be out on her own, but she would do something cool with at least some of it. Buy something big, take a trip, go to some super-expensive restaurant just to see what it was like... She almost laughed at herself when she realized again that he could do any of those things any time he wanted to. None of that would be any more special than rolling it into a stock portfolio. "Did your grandpa get you anything?"

With eyes full of laughter, Stesha carefully leaned in towards Derrick, swiveling the smaller cup and raising it to her lips, even as Derrick drank from the fixed larger cup. She was very grateful that the Doktor had run the toast by them before the ceremony, so they'd had time to practice this little maneuver ahead of time. She wouldn't have wanted to spill champagne on her dress in front of all her friends and relations. Working together, they both managed to drain their halves of the cup, even as someone, probably one of Stesha's relatives, began clinking knife against water glass. Soon guests all over the room had picked up on the gesture, till the room sounded like a glass xylophone. Laughing out loud now, Stesha set aside the silver cup and stood on her tiptoes to kiss her new husband. Who wouldn't raise a glass to that?

"The square of your age..." Erin did the math in her head, or close enough, and her eyes widened. "That's quite a bit of money," she decided. "What are you going to do with it?" She knew that Trevor already had the money for pretty much anything he wanted to do, but it was the thought that counted, she supposed. She just hoped they'd remembered to call him for once, and he hadn't had to call his own folks on his birthday. Families were complicated things, and it was an area where she felt very awkward barging in.

"Of course not," Stesha told him reassuringly. "You can't let yourself get burnt out just because it's always possible to find something else to do. That won't help you or anything else. Do you remember from the Bible when Jesus' followers were asking him about why they didn't donate every penny to the poor and spend every moment healing the sick? Jesus reminded them that his time on Earth was short, but that the poor would always be with us. The disciples needed to concentrate on their own spiritual development and well-being at the same time as they were trying to do good in the world, right?" She let that sink in for a moment, sipping her juice. "It's the same with pastors, and social workers, and superheroes. There are always going to be people who need your help. There are going to be more people who need help than you can possibly save. But luckily, you aren't alone. You have all sorts of people you can call on when the job gets to be too much for you. And we all understand that sometimes it gets too hard, and sometimes you need a break. It sounds like you're overdue for a little R&R, Carson."

"Commander, if you were anything besides who you say you are, you wouldn't be in this secured conference room now," Miss Americana said with a smooth professional smile. "I'm sure your technicians are very thorough, but for our own safety and the safety of the public we've sworn to protect, we'll need to take precautions in the recovery of the skyhook. Some of my associates are uniquely suited to help," she nodded fractionally to Protectron and Sharl, "but we'll also need to put equipment and support staff on the ground, and rig up a mobile field station to ensure the best possible results. Off the top of my head, I would say we're looking at closer to a two million dollar operation." She folded her hands and gave the commander a bland look.

"Probably so," Stesha agreed with a smile. "He's gone often enough that when I do have him here for a few days at a time, I tend to guard that time carefully. Only being able to talk to you then would make things difficult, at best! Help yourself to more coffee if you like," she added, "I made a short pot, but there's still at least another cup left." She took a bite of her muffin, giving them both a bit of settling and thinking time. "You're right about the time of year, though. I see a lot in my line of work, and you're certainly not the only person to feel especially lonely at the end of winter and around Valentines Day. This is a lonely life we lead," she admitted, gesturing around to encompass far more than the little cottage. "Hardly anyone knows your real name, you can't tell your friends about half of what you do... or if you do, you live with the consequences of them knowing. I couldn't do it myself," she admitted. "It was too hard for me to balance the different parts of my life without letting my hero work creep in to everything else. I had to tell my family and my friends at work, so they all know. That puts all of us in a little more danger than we might have been otherwise, but I think the tradeoff was worth it, in my case. A secret identity is a very personal choice for every hero."

Stesha sighed as well, setting aside her bottle of juice and folding her hands. "Sit down, Carson," she commanded with gentle implacability. For someone who was still working on her first child, Stesha had quite a good mom voice. "It sounds like you've got a lot rattling around in your head right now, but you're not going to get anywhere unless you unpack some of it first. Running away isn't going to solve anything, no matter how fast you can go." She picked up a muffin and began peeling the wrapper off delicately. "We can start with the easy part. "Derrick and I trust each other implicitly, period. No riders, no reservations. I have sent him to stars that are so far away, their light won't reach earth until my children's children are dust in the ground, and I know that he will never be unfaithful. He knows that I spend time with some of the handsomest and most charismatic men in the world, oftentimes alone, many times right here in the cottage." Her lips curved slightly. "I kept you here an entire long weekend and sent you home wearing his clothes, if you recall. But he knows that I will never be unfaithful. If you feel uncomfortable about being here, then that is a problem you have, and I will do my best to work around that and give you calls only when Derrick's around, but you have to understand that it's not a problem for us."

"We'll get by." Erin had no complaints to make about riding pillion on the motorcycle as it raced through the streets, a throaty purr resonating from the engine in deference to the needs of nearby traffic and pedestrians. Riding the Night Cycle at dusk was a different proposition from riding it during the actual night. Erin snugged her arms around Trevor's waist and hung on, purely for her own enjoyment, the hair not contained by her helmet blowing in the wind. "What did your parents get you?" she asked as they drove, pitching her voice over wind and engine noise.

Erin blushed, chuckling a little even as she took his arm. "Sometimes when I go out on patrol, if I run into trouble, I can be out a lot later than I planned. And that's not even counting when we get dropped into other dimensions or sent into outer space or the really weird stuff like that. She thought about mentioning the plans she actually had gotten around to making with regards to Trevor's birthday, but decided that was a conversation better had in private. "So, motorcycle?" she asked as they walked to the garage.