The Shining Promise of Tomorrow (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Mid-November, 2011

Jordan International Airport

Freedom City

Sharl fidgeted nervously alongside Headmaster Summers as they waited for the new student to come through customs, keeping a firm grip on the briefcase-shaped emitter that let him pass for a normal human teenage boy in a suit and tie rather than a computer projection that couldn't safely pass through the metal detectors. He'd been on the outs with the school, or thought he was, since killing the Stratos-robot during the Gorgon incident, and being this close to the headmaster made him worry he'd screw things up and be back in the animal house. How did that saying go, anyway? He wasn't even sure why he was here at all. Summers' silence and stillness didn't help matters, the old man leaning on his cane with perfect ease as time ticked by. Sharl was left wondering. Should he say something? Was the old man all right?

Finally, as the passengers from the Australian flight arrived, Summers shot Sharl a significant look. With a wince, the electronic teenager headed over to greet the new people, casting around until he picked out Kirsten Jones. "Hello," he said, recognizing her from her pictures. "I'm Sharl Tulink. Um, welcome to Freedom City." Sharl was tall and a little pale, his black hair looking slicked down, but he smiled as he remembered to offer her a hand to shake. "I'm a Claremont student myself, and the headmaster and I are here to pick you up. How was your flight?"

[Scuffles]

Still trying to stretch out her legs after the long flight, Kristin hauled her suitcase off the carousel and lugged it out of the baggage claim area. Trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach she stepped out of the throng of travelers and looked around as she wondered who exactly would be waiting to collect her.

Hello, I'm Sharl Tulink. Um, welcome to Freedom City.

Caught just a little off balance at being met by someone quite so young-looking, Kristin hesitated for a moment before she put down her suitcase and took the offered handshake, replying "Kristin, but I guess you already knew that!" with a faint smile of her own.

I'm a Claremont student myself, and the headmaster and I are here to pick you up. How was your flight?

"Very very long." She replied with a chuckle, then hesitated again for a moment. "The headmaster came to pick me up from the airport?" She asked with surprise in her voice as she looked down at her comfortable worn jeans and rumpled jacket. "Now I feel well and truly under-dressed."

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's okay," said Sharl with a teenage boy's awkwardness, tugging at his collar as he looked down at his outfit. "I don't, um, normally dress like this," he admitted, "but I was supposed to look nice for meeting you." Like a gentleman, he went to retrieve Kristen's bags, giving her a chance to meet the headmaster personally.

Duncan Summers was in his seventies, but looked closer to his fifties as he greeted Kirsten with a solid handshake. He was in a black sweater and slacks himself, a reminder that November in New Jersey was considerably colder than November in Australia. He leaned on a walking stick and said in a gravely voice, "I happened to be in the airport on personal reasons myself, and Mr. Tulink is one of our...volunteers. How was your flight?"It took her a moment to realize he'd been too far away to hear what she'd said to Sharl, but had responded to it all the same.

Retrieving her bags turned out to be easy enough, and soon the trio headed for the waiting black van that would take them to school! Summers drove, leaving the two teens to talk in the back. "So, uh, I hear you're a telekinetic," commented Sharl. "Can you read minds, too?"

[Scuffles]

Kristin smiled nervously as she shook Duncan's hand and said "It's nice to meet you sir!" then pulled up short with a bit of a double take as she glanced back towards where she had been met by Sharl. "My flight was good thank you, but very very long! I've never spent 20-something hours on a plane before and I don't think I'd like to do it too often."

As Sharl returned with her luggage she insisted on carrying at least some of it herself as they followed Mr Duncan to the waiting van, then hurriedly climbed inside to get out of the chilly weather.

With her eyes closed for a moment she settled into the seat of the van, then turned to look at Sharl and answered his question with as much of a straight face as she could manage. "Oh yes, I know every single thing you're thinking, sometimes before you even know you're thinking it!". The straight face didn't last long though, and she corrected herself with a chuckle of "No, not really. Not the slightest hint of telepathy even. I can only move things so far."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl smiled back. "You couldn't read my mind anyway," he said with a little shrug. "Telepaths can't read what isn't there, or so they tell me." It might have been a joke at his own expense elsewhere, but not here. Sage and others had always sworn up and down that he did have a mind, just not one that telepaths could read, but he'd accepted that he was no more 'real' to these people mentally than he was physically. Physically, he could at least fake. He hmmed. "So, uh, do you have any questions about the school before we get there? Anything I can answer?"

[Scuffles]

Kristin lounged back into her seat a bit deeper and closed her eyes for a moment, then asked "Why can't telepaths read your mind? Do you have some kind of blocking power on that?". As she felt herself start to doze a bit she shook her head and straightened up again.

20-something hour flight or not, this isn't nap time! she thought with a grin.

"Questions about school? Umm.. I think I probably have about a million, but I don't really know all that much beyond the info packet I got in the mail. Is there anything You think I need to know?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Well," said Sharl, by now used to giving this explanation. "Telepaths can't read my mind because I don't have an organic brain like you do. Or anything else, for that matter. I'm a synthetic intelligence," he told her, "the heroine Miss Americana found me on the Internet, built a mobile emitter for me to interact with people, and sent me to Claremont. So how some artificial intelligences have mechanical bodies, I'm all electronic." He demonstrated by passing his hand through the door, slipping his hand through like a ghost while staying securely in his seat, balancing his briefcase-sized emitter on his lap. "As for what you need to know, well...what was your old school like?" he asked her.

[Scuffles]

Kristin's eyes widened as she watched Sharl pass his hand through the door and started to say "You.. you're not.." before she caught herself and snapped her mouth shut.

Well that's a new one.. she thought for a moment as he composed herself, then looked back at Sharl curiously.

"Sorry, I've never met a synthetic intelligence before!" she apologized, then the questions rushed out all in one go. "So that case is your emitter then? And you shook my hand and carried my stuff! Can you make yourself solid or .. insubstantial .. whenever you like? What else can you do?"

Her face flushed as she looked away again, then said "Sorry, that must be really annoying when people do that.."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I can fly, and interface with computers, and make myself solid to you," agreed Sharl, a little amused at the girl's interest. Surrounded by people with powers, he didn't often get the chance to be the center of attention. "I can do more when I'm inside a computer, of course, because that's actually where I'm from..." They reached the Claremont campus about then, the two young people following the headmaster onto first the parking lot, then into the Jasmine Summers administration building.

The school was very pretty in the fall, its orange and red leaves a bouquet on every tree. Headmaster Summers took the tour over at that juncture and invited Glow into his spartan office, where he had a talk with her about the school and its expectations. He was a serious old man with a level gaze and firm voice, but didn't seem humorless either. When he was done, he told her "This will be a challenging experience for you, both academically and physically. But you will emerge stronger for the experience."

[Scuffles]

Kristin was a little disappointed that question-time was over as they arrived in the campus car park, but that didn't last long as the excitement and tension of seeing the school for the first time took over. The coolness of the air came as a bit of a surprise, and she pulled her jacket tighter around herself as she looked around at the beautiful colours of the grounds.

So pretty in Autumn! But I think I'm going to hate the cold!

The butterflies in her stomach worsened as she followed the headmaster into the administration building, and she smiled her thanks at Sharl as she followed Summers into his office. The talk about the expectations of the school didn't really come as much of a surprise, and she tried to sit up straight and listen attentively. There was one little jetlag-induced yawn, but she stifled it quickly and bit her lip a little to wake herself back up.

The mention of how challenging her stay would be perked her up, and she grinned happily at the headmaster as she replied "I'll try my best sir, and I don't mind a challenge - it wouldn't be any fun if it was easy!"

[Avenger Assembled]

It was tough to tell precisely how Summers felt about that, but he certainly didn't seem displeased with her answer. He shook her hand and welcomed her again to the school, then ushered her out into his outer office where Sharl was waiting for her. The electronic teen put away his iTablet at her approach and stood up, giving her a little wave. "Hey, I guess you got that taken care of. I'm sure you're real tired, so why don't I walk you over to the dorms? There are probably lots of girls on your floor right now who'd like a chance to meet a new student."

[Scuffles]

Kristin bit her lip a little when she didn't even succeed in getting headmaster Summers to crack a smile, but relaxed a little when he didn't admonish her for her comments. As he stood to guide her out of his office she thanked him for the welcome and made her way back out to meet Sharl once more.

"Yeah, pretty tired, but I'm not going to sleep until it at least gets dark!" she replied, with another stifled yawn. "How big are the dorms? Will I be sharing with many other girls? What... oh, I'm doing that thing with the questions again aren't I?"

All that stuff was in the information folders you idiot!

"Umm it would be great if you could show me how to get there," she said as she hefted her bags again "I'm horrible at directions so I'd probably end up in the canteen or something instead!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl walked her over to the Kord Dormitory, nodding a cordial hello to the people he knew on campus. There certainly seemed to be lots of people around, teenagers of all shapes and sizes and some with fantastic appearances! She'd been warned about the need to keep the school's secret off-campus, but here on campus all the students could be free to express themselves and use their powers safely: there were students with wings and some with what looked like fiery hair, a game of touch football (American-style) that was in the middle of an argument over "Speedy" using his teleport powers when he'd promised not to, and all in all what looked like an active fall weekend afternoon. The dormitory looked more like a college dorm than a high school, with TV rooms at the end of the hallways, though Sharl did introduce her to her Resident Advisor, Rose Nyland, a tall, blonde senior with an icy-cold handshake. "I can't go into the girls' floor, so you're on your own from here," he told her with a little shrug. "Remember, alternating floors, since they don't let girls and boys share a bathroom here."

[Scuffles]

Kristin did her best to pay attention to the path they took to the dormitory, but with all of the interesting and unusual students around it was all she could do to not gawk. The football game did stop her in her tracks for a moment.

Oh now that looks like fun! I'm going to have to learn that game!

The argument over teleporting amused her greatly, but the game didn't seem likely to get back underway very quickly, so she let Sharl lead her the rest of the way to the dormitory.

So this is home for now huh? she thought as she looked up and down the hall, then greeted Rose with a smile as Sharl introduced them. She couldn't quite contain her gasp of surprise at the chilling cold of the older girls handshake, but recovered quickly enough to say "Nice to meet you!" and thank Sharl for all his help as he left.

Left in Rose's care, Kristin once again hefted her bags as she asked "So which room am I in? And who will I be sharing with?" as a renewed flutter of excitement and nervousness set off the butterflies in her stomach once more.

[Avenger Assembled]

Rose got Kristen squared away in her room, a two-person block with hookups for cable television and telephones, as well as wireless and corded internet. "Most people stack the beds into bunks to get more room, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to. Right now this room has a vacancy, because the junior it was technically assigned to, Super-Bee, doesn't actually live on campus because we can't accommodate her physically." It sounded like she was reciting a prepared speech, but one she obviously meant. "You may be assigned another roomate at the school's discretion."

[Scuffles]

Kristin picked the bed furthest from the door and dumped her bags next to it, then started rummaging around in one to find a towel and her toiletries. 20-something hours on a plane certainly made a hot shower seem pretty inviting. Intrigued, she looked over her shoulder at Rose and asked "Can't accommodate her physically? Why is that?".

Unable to find what she wanted from her bag, she upended it untidily on the bed and pulled a towel and a bag full of shower stuff out of the pile. "If it's OK I'd like to grab a shower real quick, but after that would you mind showing me around a bit more? I'd really like to get past the bit where I get lost three times a day as quickly as possible!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Super-Bee's powers mean she needs special accommodations; she's a commuter student," explained Nyland blandly. "But we assign all students potential rooms anyway, in case there's an emergency and they have to stay on campus for a few days. You'll probably see her when you go down to the cafeteria for supper tonight, since I believe she has a natural history class that ends about that time." She hesitated a moment, then asked, "You don't have any phobias, do you? Rats, spiders, giant insects?"

[Scuffles]

I wonder what kind of powers need special accommodations? I guess I might find out a bit later..

"Well I don't really like spiders or rats or insects, but it's not like I'm scared of them!" Kristin replied as she sat on the bed and folded her legs up underneath her comfortably. "Wait did you say giant insects?"

Super-bee. Giant insects. Surely she can't mean an actual bee?

In any case, it was definitely well past time for a shower, so Kristin collected her stuff and made her way to the bathrooms for a long and luxuriously hot shower.

[Scuffles]

When Kristin emerged from the bathrooms she felt almost human again, the tiredness caused by the long flight and a touch of jetlag temporarily banished. When she returned to her room the Resident Advisor was nowhere in sight, so she set about unpacking. With most of her belongings stowed away appropriately she plugged her cheap laptop in and sent off a quick email to her parents to let them know she had arrived safely.

With that task finished Kristin peeked back out into the hallway, but Rose was still nowhere to be found. With a shrug she turned to go back into her room, but her stomach announced itself with a loud growl.

Oh wow I'm starving! I wonder if I can find the cafeteria by myself?

Map of the campus in hand, Kristin left the dorm a minute or two later, looked around in confusion for a moment, then set off in what she hoped was the right direction.

[Avenger Assembled]

As she walked through the busy campus, suddenly a tremendous shape came swooping out of the sky! As Glow looked up, an insect easily as large as a U-Haul truck flew out of an open-topped classroom building to swoop by her head. The insect really was huge, each of its limbs easily as big as Glow was tall. Swooping in low over Glow, the giant insect boomed at her in a voice like a jet engine. "HELLO THERE! I DON'T THINK I'VE ZEEN YOU BEEFORE! I'M BAY-BEE!" Though a few students around her stared at the giant insect, no one else seemed to find the site unusual. "ARE YOU THE NEW ZTUDENT FROM AUZTRALIA?"

[Scuffles]

Kristin's head snapped up and to her left as the sun was blotted out momentarily by a very large swooping object and a green glow raised around her as telekinetic barrier snapped into life with barely a coherent thought. She sidestepped frantically as she got a good look at the ...

Really? Huh my roommate is a giant bee. she thought as she recovered her balance and composure, then straightened and put her hands on her hips, letting the barrier of air around her slowly fade away.

"Super-Bee I presume?" She asked the hovering insect dryly as a grin lit up her face. "You shouldn't swoop on the new kid like that! I nearly had a heart attack! But yes, I'm the new kid from Australia. Kristin. Nice to meet you! I'm pretty sure we're roommates, although I'm also pretty sure you're not going to fit in the other bed!

[Avenger Assembled]

"I CANNOT BEE IN THE ROOMZ," agreed Super-Bee solemnly. "IT IS A ZTRANGE THING TO BE ZO ZMALL AT HOME, ONLY EIGHT MONTHZ OLD, BUT TO BEE ZO LARGE IN YOUR CITY. BUT IT IZ VERY IMPORTANT TO LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD OUT HERE." She waggled her giant limbs, polishing her front two against each other, and added, "I AM ZORRY IF I ZTARTLED YOU EARLIER. I FORGET ZOMETIMEZ THAT NOT EVERY ZTUDENT IZ FAMILIAR WITH THE UNUZUAL." Suddenly, she exhaled a gout of red flame easily as large as Kristen's body, directed at her own front legs and not at any nearby humans. "BRR! IT IZ GETTING ZO COLD! WILL HAVE TO BRING MORE HEATERZ."

[Scuffles]

Kristin chuckled "So you're little for a bee? How big do you get?" as she looked the giant creature over.

Geez she's already as big as a bus. I guess that's the bee equivalent of a teenager? Pretty amazing stuff right there.

"It's OK!" she started to reply, but then jumped back a step with another startled yelp as Super-bee breathed a gout of flame onto her own forelegs. "OK wow. I agree with you on the cold!" she chuckled as she folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her upper arms. "It's nowhere near this cold where I'm from! I'm totally going to have to buy a spare heater for my room.."

Correction. My roommate is a giant teenage firebreathing bee.

[Avenger Assembled]

"OH, I AM ONLY HALF AZ BIG AS I WILL BEE," said the giant bee, bobbling embarrassedly in the air at the thought, oddly emotive despite being a thirty-foot insect. "BUT IF I WAZ ZO BIG ALREADY, I WOULD NOT BEE ABLE TO VIZIT CLAREMONT AT ALL, ZO IT IZ ALL OKAY." She made a noise that might have been a cough. "I AM ZORRY WE WILL NOT BEE ABLE TO ZHARE ZPAZE IN THIZ PLAZE," boomed the giant bee. "MAYBEE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO VIZIT ON MY HOME PLANET ON A FIELD TRIP, AND I WILL ZHOW YOU HOW A BEE LIVES!" With a few more kind words, the bee parted company with Glow, freeing her to explore the new campus that would be her home away from home.