Electra

Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 7:00am, over Freedom City It's several hours before Erin starts writing again, on a new plane, full of early-morning commuters and at least one soccer team heading to a tournament. The plane is in a holding pattern before landing, and when Erin looks out, she can see the tall silver buildings of downtown and the crush of midmorning traffic. Every once in awhile someone points and shouts that there's a superhero in the air, but the supers tend to stay away from plane traffic, for fear of accidents. As the plane banks for yet another turn, Erin pulls out the little bound book she's been using as her diary for Dr. Franklin. He likes it when she records her feelings, even if she mostly does it when she's bored. May 26 In a few minutes, I'll be landing in Freedom City and going to the school. I think I should probably be terrified. It's been two years and two months since I last went to school, and now I'm supposed to be heading to this elite private gig. But I'm not. I guess after a certain point, nothing really scares you. I am kind of nervous, though. I really want this to work out. I want to make friends, and not have people think I'm some kind of freak or emo or something. I wonder what it will be like to meet other people with powers. I wonder if I'll meet anybody I've read about. I wonder if I'll meet anybody I fought. It's already going to be weird seeing Freedom City all full of people. I mean, when I left in January, I wasn't really paying that much attention. But now I'm going to live here. I don't think I can go back to Seattle, not to stay, so this is home now. I hope I like it, and that they like me. I should remember to ask if I can learn to drive sometime. Not like I have a car or anything, but I've been driving for so long, it would be cool to get a license. Erin lifts her head and closes her book when her ears pop to signal increasing descent. The captain's voice comes over the loudspeaker to welcome them to Freedom City and tell them that it's a beautiful day. She tucks away her book and pen. It's showtime.

May 26, 2009, 1:30am, somewhere over Iowa Bored with looking out the window of the plane into darkness, Erin takes out her notebook and flips on the overhead light. Her seatmate groans, but she ignores him, as she has been for the past few hours. Licking the tip of her pen, she begins to write. Dear Mom and Dad... It still feels strange to call them that, knowing that they are and yet they aren't. She can't call them Roger and Clarissa though, so she lets it stand. Dear Mom and Dad, I wanted to send you a note to let you know that I got out from the airport okay and that I'm having a good trip. The food is kind of nasty, so thanks for the sandwiches! I wanted to thank both of you for how nice you've been to me since I came here. I know it can't have been easy having an extra person around, especially when it's weird like this. But you really made me feel welcome, and I won't forget it. I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable sometimes, I didn't mean to. It's hard to get used to being around people, I guess. Thanks for the clothes and the soap, and the money for the trip, and everything else. The pilot says we're going to stop in Cincinnati to change planes, so I figure I will mail this then. I'm going to call you when I get to school, so you'll already know by the time you get this letter that everything is fine. I hope things are going good for all of you, and that you have a really nice summer. I will think of you going to the Pike's Place Market for the weekend shows like we always used to, and out to the 4th of July fireworks on the water. I'll miss you all, but I know this is the right solution for all of us. Tell Erin and Megan that I said hi. Erin sits for a minute and thinks, trying to come up with anything else to say. It shouldn't be this hard to talk to your own family, should it? Finally she scrawls a hasty "Love, Erin Keeley," then tears out the paper and folds it into one of the envelopes she brought along. She addresses it, then flips off the light, drawing yet another groan from her seatmate as the plane circles to begin its descent.

Erin started to fidget when Mrs. Harcourt talked about her "situation," shifting her bag from arm to arm and scratching her ear. "I dunno," she said with a shrug in response to Alex's ideas. "I'm not good at anything special like that. But I guess there are jobs anyone can do, dishes or yardwork or things like that. Can we see our room now?" she asked abruptly.

"What does work-study mean?" Erin asked curiously. "I don't have any money to buy a computer." She stayed in the doorway to assess the room, keeping one eye out to make sure that no one was coming at them from the corridor. "Can we get jobs here?"

Erin looked around as well, but it wasn't until Alex broke off from the group to go look at the electronic goodies that she seemed to find the courage to do so as well. "I always wanted one of these things," she said softly, picking up a Nintendo DS and turning it over in her hands. "They look so cool. But they were too expensive when they came out." She grinned at Alex. "Maybe it won't be so easy to concentrate on catching up in school after all." Setting it back on the shelf, she turned to look at the tour guide. "When do we start school?" she asked.

Erin looked at Alex, then back at their guide. "Um, sure, that sounds fine," she agreed. "It's just that I was wondering, I only sleep every few days. Are there places that I can go when I don't want to disturb someone sleeping? Like maybe places with computers that I can study at? I don't have one, and I wouldn't want to bother Alex with the light, anyway."

"No thanks," Erin told Mike politely, looking at the pile of things he was carrying. Her duffel bag was a decent size, but she handled it like it weighed nothing. "I can help you carry some of that, if you want to have one arm free," she offered. Whichever way the carrying settled out, she followed the others across the campus, staying very alert to the new situation. Her eyes got a little wide as she took in the superpowered antics on the playing field, but it seemed less like fear and more like something she'd simply never seen in person before. "Ah, hello," she said uncertainly to the stretchy boy's head.

"It's fine with me," Erin replied, clutching the strap of her bag a little tighter as she released her death grip on her own torso. She kept a very wary eye on Koyama , but devoted some of her attention to the rest of the grounds as well, getting an idea of where everything was and how it was all laid out. "Are people free to just walk around on campus, or is it restricted?" she asked.

Erin walked around the van and retrieved her duffel from the trunk before coming around to meet the tour guides. Instead of introducing herself, she stared at the young man for several long, uncomfortable moments, her face blank. "Are you Shinnosuke Koyama?" she asked finally, with little inflection in her voice. Her arms were still tight to her chest, making her look uncomfortable and odd.

Erin had been woolgathering as the car traveled, but head came up fast at those words, swiveling side to side on her neck as she looked around. "What kind of prank?" she asked, folding her arms tightly across her chest. She did not like being surprised, even when there was no obvious threat. The last thing she wanted was to make a bad impression on the first day.

Suck twin powers, activate! Power of: Oblivious! =D

Erin sucks. For someone with Skill Mastery, she sucks really a lot! But I had to try out the die roller.

"I don't think there's really anything to get worked up about," Erin said with simple confidence, looking out the window at the busy cityscape around them. "Even if we get bad roommates and are behind in our classes or the other students aren't friendly or we eventually wind up owing for our tuition, what's that in the big picture? Claremont's got to be one of the safest places in the city, and we'll have room and board there, training, everything we need. It sounds pretty good, all things considered." With those not entirely reassuring words, she lapsed into thoughtfulness as the minivan wended its gradual way through the south side of the city and towards the school.

The kids are heading towards the school, so it seems likely that we're coming to the end of our preliminary thread. Should we start a new one for the power check and ask a ref to jump in, or continue in the thread we've got?

"It's true," Erin agreed as she neatly polished off her sandwich. "Maybe at a school like Claremont, they have classes for people with different ways of learning. Maybe you're a genius and don't even know it yet." She folded her garbage up together into a little packet and put it on the tray. "I guess we won't know till we get there, though, about any of it." Grinning a bit ruefully, she drained her drink. "Can't put it off forever!"

"I'm sixteen too," Erin said, giving Mike a smile. "Maybe if Alex helps us both out, we'll both make passing grades. And I'd really appreciate any help," she told Alex. "I just don't want to make a fool of myself trying to keep up in class. It feels kind of like starting over from scratch with all the biology and geometry and stuff like that. I mean, the only thing I remember from geometry is SOCATOA, and I don't even remember what it was, except that it was about triangles." She chuckled a little. "You'd have to be patient, though."

"Well this is summer session, right?" Erin asked, abandoning her sandwich for a moment. "They're probably not going to have standard curriculum till the school year starts, maybe special summer stuff. Hope so, anyway." She shrugged again. "I mean, I know I've got some work to do before the school year starts. If they make me retake everything I missed with no shortcuts, I won't graduate till I'm twenty." Looking up at both of them, she asked, "What grade are you in?"

Finished with her hash browns, Erin tucked into her croissanwich, eating unhurriedly and savoring each bite before swallowing. Her gaze flicked around the room as she ate, going from her companions to the doors to their fellow diners and back again. "I kind of hope I get a roommate who doesn't sleep much, or who isn't bothered by having a lamp on," she decided. "I only sleep every few days, so it could get a little weird. But like you said, there will hopefully be some places to get away on campus. Now that I think about it, I might have been there once, just for an afternoon. If it's like I remember, it's a big place with tons of rooms. Really easy to get lost there if you aren't paying attention." She smiled a little. "Guess that's why we need the orientation."

Erin ate as she listened, dipping her hash browns one by one into her plastic cup of ketchup before popping them in her mouth. She took a sip of her soda to clear her throat. "There must be financial aid available," she speculated. "I've got no money, and my parents here couldn't afford to send another kid to private school. But as far as I know, it didn't even come up when I applied. Maybe they expect us all to become generous alumni when we're all famous superheroes or something." She shrugged. "I guess we'll find out when we get there. I've never lived in a dorm before, I think it's going to be kind of strange. No privacy, you know?"

If my current post is too pushy for good manners, please feel free to change the actions your characters take, and I'll clean up my post in response. I'm still getting a feel for how much people can move each other's characters around in this game. =)

Erin's discomfort eased when neither of her companions seemed inclined to press her on her background, and the prospect of fast food cheered everyone up. The drivethru was packed with morning traffic, so they parked and went into the comparatively empty dining room. Erin ordered her food and carefully counted out the money to pay for it, handling bills and coins not like they were alien, but like they weren't second nature, either. "I don't know very much about the school," she told Alex and Mike as they settled at the table. "Just that it's a good place for people with, hmm, special education needs. I guess it's got a really good reputation?"

"Um, sort of," Erin replied awkwardly. "I, well, traveled a lot for the last couple years. And it wasn't exactly this Seattle. I'm from a universe close to this one," she explained, the words coming out too fast, a little jumbled. "The Seattle I grew up in was a lot like this one, but... but some things were different. Um, if I remember right, there's a lot of fast food places near the airport, up by that cluster of hotels. Just a Burger King would be fine with me, if everyone's okay with that."

"I know how that goes," Erin replied, trying to ease the awkwardness her question had created. "I don't go out very much either. Hope the school has some fun stuff to do on evenings and weekends, or we might end up pretty bored." She smiled to show that was a joke, then hastily but carefully stowed her bag in the trunk. "Did you folks eat breakfast already? All they gave us on the plane was boxes of orange juice and little teeny granola bars." She wasn't exactly hungry, but food was generally a safe topic, especially with people her own age.

"It was fine," Erin told Alex, falling into step with her as they headed towards the exit of the busy airport. At this time of day, more people were going than coming, which had them working against the tide a little as they walked. "I don't need very much sleep," she added to Mike, "and the plane was quiet, so it wasn't too bad. But I'm very glad for a chance to stretch my legs." She was quiet for a moment, contemplating her next words. "I'm actually pretty familiar with the layout of Freedom City," she admitted at last. "At least to navigate around in it. But it's the city life that I know is going to be hard to get used to. What about the two of you, do you like living here where it's so busy?"

It's okay, I changed mine. Erin doesn't need to sleep, so she can take the redeye flight. =)