ic It's Gonna Be The Future Soon (IC)

[Fox]

Wraith had made her way over to the suits once they were pointed out, peering at one of them (and, indeed, in one of them, her head disappearing down the neck of the suit as she somewhat doubtfully hummed to herself.

"I do not think I know your Miss A - I think I have seen her on the television sometimes? - but I do not think these were designed for my biology." The alien had pulled her head back out to speak (though, mostly because speaking out of places that weren't her head seemed to bother people), but after a moment's thoughtful humming she put it, and the rest of her body, back into the suit, filling it out and changing to her more normal female guise. "I...am told that my human form has a fair approximation of the human nervous system?" She adjusted the suit a little, shifting it across her more solid human frame. "I do not know if it will be enough, but I am willing to try it, mortal threat or not."

[April]

The telepath had slipped unnoticed back into the room moments ago; the robot simulacrum of Mark Leeds had quickly led Eve to a remarkably advanced medical facility, where she left the savagely mauled Ms. Harcourt to his care. Her green eyes narrowed at the developing conversation.

"I have a better suggestion," Eve said, her French-accented soprano laced with a cold edge. She stood by the entrance to the room, clothing stained by some of Stephanie Harcourt's blood. Whether through conscious decision or subconscious impulse, the telekinetic's blade was fully formed and glowing a menacing red hue.

"Delete it." She glanced down at the weapon in her hand, frowned, and with an angry flicking motion dismissed the psychic blade. "It is monumentally stupid to fight an enemy on their turf, by their rules. Besides, it keeps wanting to mess with the real world. It is high time the real world messed back."

Sage's eyes gained a predatory look as she added, "We have the advantage now. Delete it."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl had been in the middle of showing Corbin how to stretch the suit out to fit when Sage returned; just as he'd promised the others, the immersion suits did fit all shapes even close to humanoid. As usual, Miss Americana had thought of everything. He was so used to Claremont, with its carefully tolerant students, and Miss Americana with her unconditional support, that it took him a few moments to realize what Eve had actually said. He looked away for a moment, lacking the confidence to directly confront her at first blush, instead heading to the keyboard to do some quick programming. "Eve, Rogue's a real citizen of Tronik," he finally said after a moment, trying to pretend Eve had misunderstood him. "She's not a telepresencing hacker, she's a program like me; deleting her from the system here would kill her. And don't think of Tronik as not the real world. Going in there isn't like going into the Doom Room or one of your video games. It's very real."

[Gizmo]

"Well... well yeah!" Kimber interjected with more distress than Sharl's calm, carefully worded rebuttal. "I mean, it's where Sharl's from, too, and he's as real as me!" The phantom placed a hand over the capital G emblazoned on her costume before blinking through a small frown of realization. "...okay, maybe that's not a perfect comparison, but I'm definitely an expert on being dead, right, and killing someone, anyone is a really, really, really big deal! Like... really!" Ghost Girl had risen more than an additional foot into the air during the rush of words and was gesturing animatedly to emphasize her point. "Hologram people are already practically ghosts, what if she became like a double-ghost?! Or she might just become more powerful or, or..." Kimber's shoulders slumped, the nervous energy of the rapid series of new developments leaving her in a rush. "Or she might just be dead. And that's not what the good guys do to people. It's definitely not what the Centurion would have done."

[Electra]

"Anyway, she's already gone," Koshiro pointed out, adjusting his helmet to make it marginally more comfortable on his head. "If you wanted to go in from the computer angle, that's like one set of codes mixed in fifty million codes. Maybe some super-tech superhero could weed one code out and isolate it, but that's nobody here. If she's a rogue AI program, then she has the advantage in computer geekery. What we're doing here isn't going to her turf, it's bringing her onto ours. If we have physical bodies and she's got a physical body, that's a fight we know how to have."

[Fox]

"It would not be...."

Indira trailed off, furrowing her brow as she mulled things over. As cold and angry as she was over what had been done here, the prospect of just killing the villain at hand just didn't seem.... "It is not right," she said, finally, shaking her head. "We must find her, make her regret what she has done. But death is excessive for the...the crime; killing without...without a chance to fight - you would say 'execution'? - even more so. And Koshiro's point is a very good one; even for Sharl, a simulation like this one must be very complex. To find a single invading being - perhaps of his own level of skill - in such a creation is unlikely to be any easier than going in and entering the simulation ourselves."

"Besides," she added, eyes filling up with black for a moment before returning to their more 'natural' brown. "I am filled with an urge to punch something. I wish to express this urge."

[KnightDisciple]

"Koshiro's right."

Those words were uttered without a single trace of sarcasm, without a touch of anything that would suggest they were insincere. Corbin turned and gave Eve a flat look.

"More than that. We're heroes, Eve. We don't wantonly murder sentient beings like that. Even if they happen to lack a meat body. That's a heavy line to cross, and one we know the Centurion would not cross lightly. Only under the most dire of circumstances.

This isn't like fighting Omegadrones. This isn't like Friendly. This isn't even like the barely-sapient Meta-Grues that flooded the city. This is a thinking, feeling sentient being. Just because she's non-organic doesn't make her less of a person. Is Darkstar less of a person because his body's made of dark energy? Was Midnight less of a person when he turned into his mist form?"

He shook his head.

"We're Young Freedom. We don't do things the easy way. We do them the right way. Besides."

He began finishing pulling on the immersion suit (which was thus far only up to his waist).

"I'm kind of with Indira on this. I could do with some punching. I punch pretty good."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Tronik isn't like any city on Earth," replied Sharl to Corbin's earlier question, trying to put into quick words a tremendous cultural difference. "I've never been off Earth, but I've been told even most Lor cities aren't built like home anymore." Tronik had after all been disconnected from the Lor Republic it had once been a member of for nearly 2000 years, a divergence that might have been dizzying to contemplate if not for everything else that had changed them in the intervening years. Briefly distracted by the sight of his translucent hand, Sharl forced himself to concentrate on the situation at hand. There was no time for anything but that, not with fifty million lives at stake. He went around to the others and made sure their suits were fit, the polyfabric fitting to their skin right over their clothes neatly.

"Fifty million people living in an area not much larger than metropolitan Freedom City; sectors, er, you'd probably call them arcologies, about a mile high each. So it's not so sparse and small as your cities on Earth. The sky's green, the sun never goes down because we're orbitally locked, but you usually can't see either of them anyway. It usually doesn't rain and it never snows. The weather's like it is in May or June here, forever." He thought again about the people, and said, "We're used to living in each other's world the way people don't here, so people aren't as loud and pushy as they are in Freedom City. Uh, no offense," he added. "You'll stand out, all of you. Tell them you're fresh off the boat from the plankton fleet, that's where people who don't fit in would have gone. Where _I_ would have gone, if I hadn't come here..."

He went around to everyone, making sure they were in position and ready to hook up. When everyone had taken their seats and donned their suits, the electronic teenager approached Sage. "If you want to stay out and monitor the others, there's nothing wrong with that," he offered. "If the League does check in with us, having someone to answer is going to make getting help easier."

[April]

"Corbin, use that ring of yours, conjure up a gag and stuff it," Eve snarled, "This isn't about that."

"The previous Young Freedom was about doing things the right way, about presenting options and about coming up with plans and solutions." Eve kept her voice low, but it had an undercurrent of anger and frustration running through it. "This incarnation is more about blindly charging in and 'punching things,' which might be fine if you can turn insubstantial," Eve said glancing at Kimber and Sharl, "or if you happen to be made of liquid metal."

"Or," she started, more heat leeching from her voice as she chopped a hand at Corbin, "If you can magic yourself up a suit of armor that would make a tank envious."

"The rest of us tend to get shot, stabbed, smashed into walls and knocked near senseless trying to cover your asses. And now you want to, once again, blindly charge ahead into some alien city with no plan of action, no clue what that bitch is up to and no idea where she is."

Eve turned away from Corbin and her expression softened slightly as she faced Sharl. "That being said, I'm going in. I support my team."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl opted not to take sides in the argument between Cobalt Templar and Sage. Maybe it was a little cold-blooded to think this way about his friends and teammates, but their personality conflicts weren't important. Fifty million lives were in peril, and that was a lot more important than what words had been said between them...at least until they were done. He gave Sage a quick smile and got her into her suit as well, the suits tingling as they made their nerve connections to their human (and otherwise) wearers. Ghost Girl's was a little harder, but it wasn't hard for him to show Kimber how to 'occupy' the suit, the protected circuits on it keeping her psychic energy from overwhelming the circuits within.

He realized his hands were shaking, and before he pressed a button he pressed them against the panel before him to try and still it. Almost everyone he loved was in peril and all his friends had come to help him save the day...even if he'd have to have things out with Sage later. "They've only ever seen one superhero before, so they really won't know what to make of you if you start using your powers. I've..." He hesitated a moment, then admitted, "I have been fired on by the militia sometimes, so be watchful. Make sure they trust you before you do anything crazy around them. When we get in-system, I'm going to take you to find my family, and then my friend Leroj. He's what you call the sysadmin, he can help us..." He fell silent then, closing his eyes and thinking of Miss A, before shoving his hand into the center console of the immersion unit, plunging himself, and then all his friends, into the Tronik mainframe!

Sharl appeared at the base of the 30th district, the familiar white-blue glow of the ground sector lights the only reliable illumination. The distant, reassuring hum of the air recyclers that were all that kept the land at the base of hundreds of mile-high towers inhabitable by humans sounded in his ears as he looked up, and up, imagining his family so far overhead. In the deep sky, where sectors bent together like trees to form a forest of steel overhead, he could just make out a few slivers of welcoming green sky, with little flivvers moving back and forth between buildings. To his profound relief, there was no sign of Rogue in the sky, or any other evidence of the terrible juggernauts that those enhanced programs he'd caught would be in a place like this.

For the human (and otherwise) heroes, arriving one by one as the immersion suits scanned their bodies and uploaded their mental faculties into the system, Tronik was a considerably more alien place. It took a few moments for their perspectives to adjust. They were surrounded by buildings that were more like tremendous towers, huge skyscrapers cast in dark blue and gunmetal grey, rising far higher and bulking far thicker, than any building on Prime had ever dreamed, packed so closely together they blotted out the barely visible alien sky overhead. The Pyramid Plaza in Freedom City would have been lost in the forest of steel overhead. The air had the faint smell of ozone and the whine of equipment was everywhere; the glare of artificial light glowing all around them. Overhead, half-visible craft flitted silently from building to building, without even a glow at their tailpipes to show what might be powering them. There were no birds against that sky; no sign of animal life in the alley they shared. From outside the alley came the sound of people and conversation, but no one who sounded like they'd noticed their arrival.

[Fox]

Indira found the tingling distinctly unpleasant as her body and the suit tried to find some middle-ground for interfacing, but that thankfully faded away as she appeared a few feet away from Sharl, blinking at the strangeness of her surroundings while her mind adjusted...and then blinking at the strangeness of her adjusted surroundings. She leaned her head back as far as she could without breaking the rules of humanoid anatomy, blinking up at the looming buildings.

"....I think I now understand why they are called 'skyscrapers'," the alien mused, with the appropriate level of appreciation. "Though it is a very strange contrast. We build a great deal underground; humans seem to enjoy building up. Now I feel that, here, you have built up so high we are underground."

[Electra]

Koshiro hadn't been totally sure what the transition to Tronik would be like or feel like, but it wasn't actually that bad. Maybe it helped that he was totally human and fit within the design specifications, but when he closed his eyes, it felt as though a bright light passed over his body, like being in a really big copy machine. A moment of darkness, and when he opened his eyes, he was standing in a very weird place. He recognized it from Sharl's stories, but it was one thing to hear about it and another thing to see buildings so tall they literally blocked out the sky. Looking down, he noticed that the computer had put him in the Tronikian uniform of a black trenchcoat over black clothes. With a reluctant smile tugging his lips, he shot his cuffs and looked over at Sharl. "Whoa."

A quick check of the pockets revealed that the most important part of his ensemble, the square book of papers, had been replicated for the trip as well. Quickly pulling out a piece, he folded an orange crane and released it, letting it fly from one hand to the other before tucking it away again. Whatever else had changed, that still worked. "What's our next move?"

[KnightDisciple]

Corbin could have said a lot of things in response to Eve, but ultimately it wasn't time time or place. A sad expression briefly crossed his face as he glanced her way, before finishing getting the suit on himself and getting himself in position on the chair.

Before he knew it there was a feeling like falling down through a tunnel, the air crackling with static.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he appeared alongside the others in Tronik, he had to shake his head to clear the cotton between his ears, and blink the spots from his eyes.

"That kinda tickled."

He looked down at himself, and couldn't help but smirk. Black jeans, black cowboy work boots, black denim shirt, all covered by a heavy-duty black duster. The black teashades were just the icing on the cake.

He glanced around, before flexing his right hand, a brief flare of blue fire leaving him feeling instantly calmer.

"This is Sharl's home. Only thing I can think of is see if there's any major escapades going down yet, or if they're lying low. Beyond that, he's the man with the contacts and the local geography lessons."

[April]

Eve saw the look Corbin gave her but immediately dismissed it as she was suited up and settled into the waiting chair. Eve lived in a world that was seldom quiet, even when she wasn't actively seeking contact with the mind of another she could sense--could hear--what was essentially a faint background noise of thought. She could feel the minds of her teammates, and further off she could still sense Ms. Harcourt.

And then there was a sudden disconnected feeling, and everything fell silent, and then suddenly roared to life. With so many minds in sudden proximity, the teen telepath staggered slightly. Her eyes were, for the first few moments of her arrival fixed on the ground, but as she regained some measure of control she finally looked up.

-Oh. Oh, wow,- she thought to her teammates as she drank in the sight of such monolithic buildings. -I want to jump off one of those.-

[Gizmo]

Doing her best to sit as still as possible inside the remaining immersion suit, Kimber couldn't resist turning to see how the others were doing, inadvertently phasing the top of her head right out of the helmet. Pulling back quickly only exacerbated the situation, ultimately leaving her floating in an awkward position with one legs passing through the chair beneath the suit and neither arm entirely within their respective sleeves. "Oh jams..." she muttered in exasperation, finally turning her attention to the conduit that ran from the uncooperative ensemble to what she gathered was the main computer. Hesitating for a moment, the phantom finally let out a brief, determined breath and slowly reached out with one extended finger. As the digit neared the cable a jolt of electricity leapt between them and abruptly Kimber's world turned blindingly white.

---

While the rest of the team had appeared more or less within seconds of one another, moments passed with no sign of their final member, just long enough for the fear that something had gone wrong to begin to grow. All at once a strong wind whipped up about them, sending black overcoats billowing out behind their wearers. Tucked away between the skyscrapers' bases, a point of light expanded into a person-sized sphere of distorted air with a rippling, mirrored sheen, crackling with electricity and filling the air with scent of ozone. The electrical discharges became more frequent and violent along with the wind until both disappeared without warning, leaving the bubble to melt away and reveal a figure kneeling inside.

Against Tronik's palate of glossy blacks and washed out greens, Kimber stood out in a shock of colour. Brilliant blue hair done up in a mass of tight, wild curls that tapered into streaks of jet black framed a face marked by purple lipstick and asymmetrical lightning bolt designs in electric blue makeup or ink. Her black pants and boots at least looked as if they'd made an attempt to conform to the local fashion, but a bright teal belt and laces combined with an off-the-shoulder purple top emblazoned with her customary capital 'G' ruined any lingering chance of that. The overall effect was that of a recently electrocuted glam rocker fresh from the stage of several decades past. As she stood up and opened eyes that sparked with power, however, the most noticeable change was that the dead girl's skin was no longer palely translucent but the warm tone of someone who spent a lot of time outside despite coming from a colder climate. The faint sound of her boot against the ground as she took a step forward confirmed it: Kimber was solid.

"Oh... my..." the Canadian teen began, looking down at her hands with a stunned expression before clenching them into fists that veritably vibrated with excitement. "Eeeheehee!" With a delighted sound, Kimber literally flew forward wrap Indira in a crushing hug that would have certainly cracked bones in someone who had any. "Oh wow oh wow oh wow!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Whew," Sharl breathed a sigh of relief, willing to accept Kimber in any getup if it meant she'd come into the system intact. When her foot scraped the ground and she revealed herself solid, he couldn't help but smile a little. "Nice. Must be from your psychic self-image being absorbed by the immersion unit..." He studied everyone for a moment, then took off his black duster and handed it off to the brightly-clad teen when she had disengaged from Wraith, a tanglesome process since Indira's metamorphic abilities had come with her too. "If you can't change your programmed clothes, wear this for the moment. You don't want to draw attention to yourself here. And that goes for the rest of you too," he added, taking the sting out before it could poke Kimber.

"Guys, you have to be discreet here," he warned everyone again, his face intent and unusually serious. "Really, really discreet. Tronik isn't like Freedom City. People aren't as loud and nosy, and they're a lot more scared of superheroes," he admitted. "We can handle the militia no problem, but my family can't. And if Rogue is watching us, the last thing we want to do is clue her in to where we are. And where my family is."

"There's an elevator just around the corner," called Sharl to the other teens as he led the way onto the street, which looked to be some futuristic combination of loading bay and service corridor, lit only by those artificial lights. "...with my passcode, it'll take us right up into the sector! It...oh." Sharl fell silent as the wall near them flickered to life, the sensors built into the building sensing a human presence: VISIT BEAUTIFUL NEW ISLE! A massive image of a sparse-looking island of low grass and licheny rocks set in the middle of a vast sea, the green sky and huge red sun unobstructed by massive buildings, came up on the wall, cheerful-looking Tronikians using loading equipment to terraform the land. "Nice!"

The street was crowded as they went, at least by Freedom City standards, the humanoid people dressed in the black leather and dusters that were evidently the standard outfits around here. No one paid them any attention at all; a work crew was loading man-sized rectangular boxes into a big antigrav truck, a woman about their age was 'walking' a group of what looked like bug-eyed and antennaed tribbles that floated around her head on energy leashes, and it looked like a typical afternoon, for all that the people on the street were all but silent as they worked, hardly even looking at each other. When the elevator slid open, straight out of the smooth unfeatured wall, Sharl headed right inside, a look of relief on his face.

[Fox]

Indira made a startled noise as Kimber hugged her, the alien's body distending in ways that very much betrayed her lack of human anatomy...or any anatomy at all, really. Once Kimber let go she looked like...well, like somebody had given a painted-over silly putty statue a big hug, her clothes and skin turning silver where it had been squashed or squeezed too far past human limits.

Not that she appeared to mind in the least. She hugged Kimber back, as best as she was able, and was quick to express her approval of her friend's newfound solidity as she pulled herself back into shape. At Sharl's warnings, though, she coughed and tried to settle down a bit, discretely growing a pair of sunglasses to hide her eyes. "Right. I am sorry. I am curious, however - why are we visiting your family before...it was 'Leroj'? I can truly sympathize with the desire to see them again, but if it is as dangerous as you say...."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Because they're my family," replied Sharl from the elevator door, the words not quite enough to get the attention of the people on the street. "I came a long way, and gave up a lot, to make sure they could stay safe. I can't risk anything bad happening to them, even if it means we have to delay a little." It took him that long, sorting out the way different voices had sounded on the street, to realize he'd heard Sage's comment in his head rather than out loud. He wasn't particularly bothered by the idea; Miss Americana could read his mind easily enough if she studied his systems the right way, for all that was a relationship of sacred trust rather than scholastic companionship. All that was in his mind now was worry about his parents and sister, a palpable fear for his city and his people that he could barely keep to himself. He settled for saying to Sage as she joined him in the elevator, "We have skydiving too. With antigravs, you can jump off and fall at terminal velocity till five seconds before you hit bottom."

[April]

Eve's face split into a wide grin at Kimber's electrifying appearance, practically bouncing from excitement once it was revealed just how solid the ghostly girl had become. Dropping propriety for a moment, the petite athlete gave Kimber a fierce hug and light kiss on the cheek the moment Indira was clear.

Looking back at Sharl telepath flashed him a roguish grin. "Perhaps we can have some post-crisis climbing and BASE jumping before we return to Prime," she suggested. Her expression sobered at the tension she could sense from the dark haired youth; it didn't take a telepath to see that Sharl was worried, just a good eye for reading people--and Eve had one of the best. Eve placed black-gloved hand on Sharl's shoulder. -It's going to be fine, we're here for you,- she directed at Tronik's paragon, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

Suddenly thoughtful, Sage quickly forged a stronger mental link with her teammates. -It occurs to me that Earthly languages are not spoken here; should we encounter natives I will translate but Sharl should do the talking. The less we are noticed, the better.-

[Gizmo]

Kimber responded to Eve's unusually demonstrative show of cheer by hugging her back, though she used only one arm and was painfully careful now that she'd realized she very literally did not know her own strength. Even that wouldn't have been enough to stop her from raining long delayed physical affection down upon her remaining teammates in a veritable deluge of elation but Sharl's polite but determined interruption pointedly reminded her of the time sensitive task at hand. Accepting the long coat, she slipped it on and doing up the buttons. She even went so far as to turn up the collar as best she could, though it did precisely nothing to hide her bombastic new hairstyle.

If clamping down of the delighted squeal that bubbled instantly up her throat took concentration, actually keeping her feat on the ground required nothing short of tremendous willpower. It wasn't just that she felt like she could outfly a hummingbird; having mass at all was proving to be something of a novelty. --Was walking always this hard?-- she wondered over the mental link Sage had provided and reminded them about, taking the warning against idle chatter to heart.

[KnightDisciple]

Corbin couldn't help but grin at Kimber's enthusiasm and joy, as well as the reactions of the others. Sage's question made him chuckle a bit.

"That would be fun, though I guess I'd have to take the ring off for it to be very thrilling."

When they reached the elevator, Corbin tried to slide in first or second and shove himself in a corner, or along the back wall. He gave an embarrassed grin to his friends.

"Probably best if I try to keep my absurd bulk to the back, at least, despite how small or malleable some of you are. Gonna feel like a clown car when we're done here."

As Sharl talked about wanting to see his family, he nodded. He started using the mental link like Sage suggested.

--I hear you, Sharl. We'll be subtle and all, at least for now. At least we shouldn't get hungry in here; I'd hate to try and make your folks cook enough to add me to the table. Anyways, we're here to help. Just let us know how.--

When Kimber asked her question, he couldn't help but let his mind drift a bit. He started mentally humming a tune that may not be familiar to anyone else.

--Put one foot in front of the other...And soon you'll be walkin' 'cross the floor...--

[Electra]

Koshiro found it quite easy to adapt to the style in Tronik; he didn't like loud outbursts or crazy behavior in public anyway, and it was second nature to shove his hands in his pockets and walk at the back of the crowd. He kept his eyes open as he did so, though, both to see the many unusual sights and to watch for danger. If Rogue was here, she would almost certainly be waiting for them in ambush somewhere. Trouble was, he didn't know what was normal here, so how was he supposed to look for trouble?

He squeezed into the elevator alongside the others, frowning at the tight fit. Hopefully this would just be a short trip. "Your folks don't know we're coming, do they?" he muttered to Sharl.

[Avenger Assembled]

"My mother doesn't cook," said Sharl to Corbin, fighting the unhelpful urge to explain that she didn't ride horseback or churn butter. Stressed as he was, this was no time for another argument with Corbin about the material culture of interstellar civilizations against that of Earth-Prime. After all, how could he defend the superiority of his civilization when they were threatened by a madwoman and her friends with only Young Freedom standing in her way? "It's the middle of the day, anyway, she's probably at work in the hospital. If anyone's home, it'll be my sister Sieva. She's, uh, twenty-four by your calendar, she's a holo-artist." He shook his head in response to Koshiro, and replied, "They know I come and go, and it can't be helped. It's supposed to be for a higher purpose."

He managed a half-smile for Kimber as he thought through Sage, "" To Sage herself, he added, ""

A quick walk through crowded but silent corridors with featureless walls got the teens to Sharl's front door. Sharl paused for a moment, composed himself, and placed his hand against the doorpad. "Sharl Tulink," the wall said gently. "You have been away for 3.57 years." And with that the door slid open, and Sharl stepped inside.

Despite the tremendous bulk of the massive buildings here, the Tulink family dwelling was small: no bigger than a smallish two-bedroom apartment in Freedom City. Where there were no visible doors in exterior walls, on the inside almost every room was visible: a big master bed in a room on one end and a smaller one at the other, and a big central room with what looked like a tiny, smooth-walled kitchenette, the far wall gone transparent to show the nearest massive structure miles away. Despite the small size of the room, the giant window gave it a feeling of space, along with ceilings cast much higher than they would be on Earth.

A half-finished abstract assembly of shapes and colors occupied the middle of the room, a symphony of red, greens, and deeper colors like an ultraviolet Christmas tree, and just turning from her work was Sieva Tulink, who with her tall frame and high-cheekboned face showed a softer cast of what Sharl might look like after puberty. "Sharl!" she said with the first real volume they'd heard from someone in Tronik, immediately crossing to her brother and embracing him. "Why are you here? Who are your friends?" Sharl made fast introductions, the local woman staring in fascination at these exotic aliens, even reaching out to pat Kimber's hair.

"An outsider, that terrorist I told you about, has broken back into Tronik. And she's brought friends with her. I had to make sure you and Mom and Dad were all right, then I, uh, we, have to find Leroj and try and catch Rogue."

"Mom and Dad are fine, as far as I know," said Sieva worriedly, "Mom's at work, and Dad's at the militia control center in Sector 1. They're having communications blackouts off-island, but I don't think they've said anything about terrorists..." she said doubtfully.

[Fox]

"That is both good news and bad," Indira pondered, looking around the room from where she stood and desperately fighting the urge to climb up a wall for a better vantage point. It just didn't seem like the kind of thing that would go over well, if these people were as power-paranoid as Sharl had implied. "On the one hand, it means that they have not caused any trouble large...bad?"

She paused, bowing her head as she tried to figure out which word she was supposed to be using. "- any trouble bad enough to draw attention. But it will also make them significantly harder to find, and they may be preparing something that is not yet obvious."

[Gizmo]

"Hi, I'm Kimber, it's totally rad to meet you!" the bright blue haired girl exclaimed enthusiastically, taking Sieva's hand and pumping with unexpected strength and vigor. "Hee, check it out, I'm totally shaking your hand, that's so... outrageous! So great! Is everyone in your family really tall? Oh, wait, duh! Haha, my feet are actually on the floor, right!" Finally releasing Sharl's sister's hand, the uncharacteristically solid teen practically skipped over to the brightly coloured installation Sieva had been working on when she entered. "I've never seen anything like this! Sharl said you're an artist, that's truly awesome! I really like it!" Evidently keeping quiet on the way over had only built up cheerfulness to levels that demanded release all at once. Looking about the apartment, sending her improbable hairstyle bobbing back and forth, she moved to examine something else that had caught her eye and came up short when her forehead connected with one of the load-bearing vestigial walls in her way. Taking a step back, she blinked a few times before smacking one palm into her the same place between her electric blue eyes. "Riiight. Walls!"