Electra
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Jessie gave Aquaria a crooked smile, and in that moment her blurriness cleared up and it was just Jessie like she always was. "Aquaria," she began, "do you know how many people there are who are just like me? Way more than most," she assured her, "and none of us get along at all. I like you the way you are. You're not the same as other Deep Ones and that's good, but you're not the same as humans and that's good too." She shrugged one shoulder. "Sure, I may not like it when you get us into trouble, and sometimes I complain when things get too scary, but you're still my best friend. I don't want you to be different in any ways that you don't want to be."
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The museum was weird and a little disturbing, only partially because it was not incredibly dissimilar from the architecture of Jessie's own mind palace. What she could remember of it, anyway. This museum, at least, was in pristine shape and blessedly free of ruins and broken exhibits. The intact exhibits were still pretty weird, though. Why were they talking like this? Was Aquaria worried that Jessie could only be happy in a world like this? Even with Bluebird's cue Jessie didn't recognize this person at all for a moment, staring blankly at the sort-of familiar voice in an unfamiliar face. When the penny finally dropped she physically recoiled, shock and horror on her face. "What happened to you?" she demanded. "You can't be- this isn't who you are!" Her voice grew plaintive with confusion. "I mean... you love being a Deep One, don't you? Is this really how you want to be inside your head?"
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"He's definitely not from here," Stesha agreed with a frown. "I don't recognize him at all, and he didn't come in with any of the summer work parties. I hope we're not about to have problems with dimensional portals or something; we've got five acres of tomatoes and squash to put in before the weekend." She made a face at the discussion of 'man honey' but clearly decided it wasn't a discussion she was eager to get into the middle of. "The giant bees do have drones in the hive," she did explain to Bee, unable to pass up the teaching moment. "Like the workers, they live much longer than normal bees, they just aren't as smart or as good at doing jobs in the hive. They're very friendly, though." She popped the top on her water bottle and extended it to the man with a reassuring smile. "It's perfectly safe here," she assured the stranger. "The bees were just surprised that you appeared in their home. I'm Fleur de Joie and this is my home, Sanctuary. This is Gaian Knight, and these are some students who are visiting for the summer. Are you hurt at all?" It was hard to tell, what with all the honey. "And are you okay?" she called up to Beeanca. "Did he cause any damage?"
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As the heroes converged on the place where the enormous bee had landed, a flower suddenly sprang up from the ground like a beanstalk in a fairy tale. In seconds, an enormous blue dahlia had bloomed at the top, then tipped forward so Fleur de Joie could step out of it. This was hardly the first time the visitors had seen their host travel by plant since they'd been on the planet. She was something of an omnipresence on Sanctuary, rarely in any one location long, but almost always around whenever anything was happening. It seemed that she reserved her uniform for Earth Prime, or at least she hadn't been wearing it lately. Today she was dressed in loose-fitting black trousers and a draping blue shirt that snugged in just under her chest, giving her plenty of freedom to move. She smiled at her neighbor and the visiting work team, then turned to the semi-truck sized insect. "Beeanca?" she called upwards. "Is that you? What's going on?"
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The peace and quiet was pleasant, especially after the chaos of the last place they'd been. As they walked, Jessie lost a little of the hunted adolescent look, though her adult self was blurry and only about two-thirds formed, like looking at a person through frosted glass. Her hair was back to normal at least, and she was wearing clean and blood-free copies of her favorite charity 5k t-shirt and faded blue jeans. "I wonder if this is a place Aquaria made for me," she mused aloud as they walked. "She knows I don't like meat the way she does, or loud voices, or things that surprise me. And it's so warm and dry..." Really, if she tried very hard not to think about it, it was like not being stuck in someone else's head at all. Sort of. She looked closely at the facade of the museum for a few moments, then seemed to realize she wasn't going to learn much just standing outside. "Guess it's time to go learn stuff," she mused, then led the way into the building.
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Sparkler goes on 15, so the Annas will have plenty of time for catching up with one another!
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Jessie took a breath, cautiously at first, then another, deeper one. The air smelled of alive people, warm ripe fruit, hot sand. None of those things were smells that told her brain to fight or run. She lowered her arm, not really noticing as the crowbar melted away. "It's beautiful," she murmured, confused. "But it's weird. I don't even know if it's supposed to be Earth. I wonder if this is someplace she got to visit when we were with the Spectrum Knights." Her heart was still beating faster than normal but it no longer felt like it would pound out of her chest, and the warm wind was drying the sweat on her skin. "Do we have to find Aquaria again here?" she asked Bluebird. "She wouldn't like it here, she'd have to be indoors, or in her armor."
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"'s okay," Jessie assured her Daphne, only wheezing a little as she waved Kimber off. "You just startled me. I drank a little bit of the pool." She coughed a couple more times before settling down and putting one arm around Baxter. He smelled uniquely terrible, like wet dog and fish, but he was a warm and comforting weight as he settled down half-across her lap. "You should try it out," she suggested. "Swimming I mean, not drinking. It's nice and warm." Her cheeks were flushed pink, either with embarrassment or from coughing, but she kept her head down as she concentrated on petting the dog. Baxter, for his part, was in full therapy dog mode, sparing Avro no more than a glance from where he was sprawled over his person.
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Jessie stopped short for a minute, staring at her own corpse and suddenly feeling completely disembodied. Her hands actually started to disappear for a moment, as her overwhelmed mind began to question whether she was real at all, but she forced herself to concentrate through it. She flipped the crowbar around so she held it by the blade. The pain was bracing, and allowed her to jab the blunt end into Aquaria's chest hard enough to sting but not bruise. "Stop it!" she insisted. "You need to wake up now! Bluebird said the only way for you to wake up was for me to come find you, and I hate everything about this but you're my best friend so here I am and you need to wake up!" She jabbed the Deep One a couple more times, just for emphasis.
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The air stank of death, a smell Jessie would never forget in a million mental reconditionings. It was thick enough to gag her for a moment, and when she'd recovered, her image had changed again. She was still very young, fourteen or fifteen, but now her clothes were worn and bloodstained, her face dirty. Her hair was long and reddish brown instead of blonde, caught back in a tangled excuse for a ponytail. In her hand, she carried a crowbar with a crudely-sharpened edge. Her eyes were huge and nearly all pupil as she looked at Bluebird as though trying to assess whether the AI was something she needed to fight. After a long moment she blinked and nodded, moving away from the crowd in ground-eating leaps.
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Jessie was just as glad that Bluebird had called her brave and disappeared before witnessing the way her hands shook so badly she could barely get the headband on. The blank white walls were shaking nearly as hard, and something behind them was laughing at her fear. It was just as well she kept her hair short, made it easier to get the headband on, and suddenly she was somewhere else. It looked like her apartment, but she herself was not the same. Bluebird seemed taller, but she knew it was because she herself was shorter, slighter, younger. Her own mental projection never seemed to change. "The night," she whispered. Diving straight into the dark seemed the only way to go.
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Jessie wished for just a minute that she could be Singularity for a little while. Singularity was incapable of fear or shame; she would have no trouble putting the technology on and allowing strangers into her thoughts. But Singularity was also incapable of empathy or compassion, and while she would kill or die to protect Aquaria without a moment's pause, she would not be able to help fix Aquaria now. Besides, if Jessie had ever been able to slip into and out of the Singularity mindset at will, her life would be a lot less complicated. Instead she rose gracelessly to her feet and began moving towards the elevator, each step nearly a stumble as she pushed her own unwilling feet to move. Bad, this was going to be so bad, painful and scary, violation, invasion, pathos, it hurts... By the time she made her way into the hallway and onto the elevator, she tasted copper in her mouth and lifted a hand to wipe blood off the lip she'd bitten.
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Jessie goes on 25.
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It was clear what Bluebird wanted from her, and it was clear what the heroic course of action would be. It was clear what Aquaria would do if the situations were reversed, though the idea of having anyone else in her mind, even a friend, made Jessie's skin crawl. It was clear what Erin, always better and braver and stronger, would do. Jessie slid out of her chair to curl up in the corner, drawing up her knees and resting her forehead on them. Maybe the monster hadn't been able to hurt her, but that was only because it was right. Useless copy with nothing inside but blank white walls... She tried her best to ignore the fact that some of those walls had started bulging dangerously since the monster's intrusion, with flashes popping up behind her eyes when she stopped paying close attention to the real world. That was a problem to kick as far down the road as possible and hope that it would go away. The present had more than enough problems of its own. She didn't really know how long she stayed like that, trying to goad herself into action. It was long enough that Bluebird coughed delicately at least twice. Finally, finally, she got enough control of her own voice to ask "What do I have to do?"
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It was impossible for Jessie to suppress her first reaction to the idea; her body recoiled instinctively almost hard enough to tip over her chair. She'd had to share consciousness with others before, and had other people inside her head to rebuild it. To say it was unpleasant would be like saying Aquaria's bedroom was a touch humid. Even with the memories deliberately blunted and some gone entirely, even with the long sessions with Eve and Alex long behind her, the ghostly feeling of others walking through her mind was enough to have nausea rising in her chest. She shook her head, drawing her arms up close so that the shield covered most of her torso. "There must be another way," she insisted. "Aquaria wouldn't want people getting inside her mind. That's private."
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"I'm not very good with technology," Jessie began, already shaking her head. "Neither is Aquaria, really. We can barely work the TV most of the time." Jessie was already a little uncomfortable with Furions, mostly because of the way they talked about Erin, but she knew they had super-advanced technology and could do all kinds of things only superscience or magic could do on Earth. "Maybe we should take her to a hospital," she offered reluctantly. "If you need to wake her up with technology, you should probably get some experts to do it."
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Jessie restrained herself from interposing between the AI and her unconscious friend. Bluebird didn't even have a body in this form, she was just a picture made of light and a voice coming from directional speakers. Besides, Bluebird was Eve's, and she could probably be trusted. Unless she was the monster... no, that wouldn't make sense either. She forced herself to concentrate on what the AI was saying. "You can fix her?" she asked cautiously. Furions talked so stupidly, it was sometimes hard to figure out what they were saying at all. "What do you need to do to her?"
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Jessie was not sleeping. She had not slept through the night before as her bruises healed, nor had she slept during the day while her home was invaded again and again by strangers. She would not sleep tonight either, but it was okay. She could go for awhile without sleeping before she started to feel too bad and weird. Aquaria would wake up before that happened, and then things would be okay again. She rested her hand on the shield sitting next to her when the chiming started, but relaxed fractionally when she recognized Bluebird. "You can come in," she told the AI, her voice a little raspy from not using it all day.
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Raina's options flickered through her head in a split second. Her first impulse was to throw a fireball and use the flare to go invisible, but this room was not large. If the robot had any portion of its life model's super-speed, it could quarter and search the room until it physically bumped into her before Raina could get out of the way anywhere. Merlin was almost certainly all right outside, she would feel the change in her own magic if he was not, but she had no way of knowing his status at the moment. She'd have to brazen this out, then. Luckily, her phone was still in her hand, and Merlin's paranoia meant a couple of button clicks switched her SOS broadcast to Anna's phone. "Oh my god, you look like if Clock Queen went through a woodchipper and got six-million-dollar-manned." Raina exclaimed loudly, hoping it would pick up on the phone. "Maybe not even in that order. What's a crazy old robot hag like you doing in a place like this? I mean, besides locking up young men and selling your old dirty pictures, obviously. Man, that's weird. Does being a robot turn you into a pervert or something? You've got this kid locked up in his own basement bedroom, for shit's sake, and he was your biggest fan."
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Having so many people in and out of their apartment was upsetting, especially when so many of them were strangers, but there was no way to avoid it and still help Aquaria. Jessie had wedged herself in the most protected corner of Aquaria's room the moment they arrived home and had not moved since except to occasionally check for threats. The monster, Memento Mori, she'd heard someone call it, was a shapeshifter and a teleporter. It could come into the building if it wanted. It could be anybody it wanted to be. That wasn't its style, she reminded herself. It hadn't attacked anyone twice so far, and everyone it had attacked had approached it first. They'd managed to scare it, and it wouldn't like that. It wouldn't come back for Aquaria. It wouldn't. She kept watch anyway.
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"I think it's a solid start," Miss A said, opening the holoprojector in the center of the table without moving a muscle. Words and images began to spill onto the table in three dimensions; the doomforge, several speculative pylon designs, a map of the city's power grid that quickly expanded to include water, broadband, phone and transportation lines around Kingston, and a rapidly growing web of calculations that she didn't bother to explain. "We're going to need to get very exact measurements, and that includes below the surface as well. We're speculating that it might go down at least half as far as it goes up, maybe more, and just teleporting a chunk of earth like that could cause subsidence for up to a quarter mile in every direction. We might want to consider finding an equivalent patch of similar soil in an uninhabited area and using the teleporter to plug it in as quickly as possible, to minimize sinking. I'm just going to assume that any city infrastructure that was there is already a lost cause, but we'll want to make sure that nothing is live or gushing when we get to work. What sort of timeline are you thinking?"
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Jessie had been sitting at the bottom of the pool with her eyes closed, strands of her short blonde hair floating like seaweed in the currents from other swimmers. Her mind was peaceful and meditative, easy for Daphne to slip into without a moment's work. The first intrusion of her mental voice, however, changed everything. Panic response lit Jessie's mind like an alarm klaxon, wordlessly shrieking at the invasion. Her eyes flew open and she sucked in a huge involuntary gulp of water, choked on it, then shot to the surface with one powerful leg kick that was enough to propel her out of the water and onto the pool's tiled apron. She coughed up the water, her eyes streaming even as she looked around for the threat. Baxter trotted over and licked her cheek, but she did at least have the presence of mind not to take a reflexive swing at him. "What?" she coughed.
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Raina studied him for a moment, letting pieces slot into place in her mind. She opened the app on her phone that let Merlin listen in on everything that was happening, then cast another quick spell on herself. In a moment she was no longer invisible, but instead wearing her Sparkler costume and leaning against the doorframe. "So Elric," she began conversationally, "looks like you got yourself into some trouble. I'm going to assume you weren't the one who put your door lock on the outside and antagonized your superhero idol, so what I really want to know is who's selling dirty pics out of your garage?"
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Raina held very still for a long moment, making sure she hadn't been heard, then went back to work on the lock. An apartment, no matter how nice it was or what kind of Xbox it had, was nothing but a prison if the lock was on the outside of the door. She still wasn't quite sure what was going on, but she wasn't about to get herself trapped while trying to investigate. Pulling out the deadbolt wasn't the most subtle way to mess up a lock, but it was fast and foolproof. No deadbolt, no door lock. Shoving her little screwdriver back into her pocket, she nudged the door almost closed and took a closer look around the place. Moving with great caution, she approached the door to what must have, by sheer process of elimination, been the bedroom. If somebody was locked in here she wanted to know why, but more importantly she wanted to know who.
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They're going to be taking their time on this, nice and invisible, so we'll take 20 on the checks. Raina gets a 35 and Merlin a 38.