Inquiry carefully righted itself, trying not to do any more damage than had already been done, while also catching up on reports from Blockbuster Base and Isaiah.
"Oof, that was a rough landing. For future dimensional jaunts, maybe we should look into figuring out how to transition with less velocity..."
"Well, hello. We're back. Trip was more exciting than we hoped, but ultimately successful. How are things over here?"
"Yeah, that about sums it up. Though while the team base might have worse food, it is also relatively inconspicuous. Basically every supervillain, superhero, and papparazzi mob in the city keeps watch on Praetor Tower. And I've been trying to teach the servitor drones to cook better... not that anyone ever bothers asking them for food."
What? My father? She must be projecting - what could she even be talking about?!
She didn't read Alice's mind to find out. No one was responding to Alice, so she just didn't draw attention to it.
She's just crazy. Poor thing.
***
How long were we gone?
She slips her mind into Silver Sentinel's to see what had been going on while they'd been away, casting a far broader net across the city to pick up things like dates and potential alien invasions.
Inquiry immediately reconnects with Isaiah and learns that it has been eight days, nine hours and twenty-two minutes since their departure. He has remained in disguise as Hoshiko Yamada aka Ballista in the Campus. No attempt on his (or her) life was attempted in the interim, though he received three coded messages.
=============
Psyche gets a wave of relief mixed with new worry from Silver Shield's mind.
The rest of the city seems... normal. Halcyon citizens are able to shrug off most crises with remarkable swiftness. There had been a few superpowered throw-downs since they've been gone, including one between Captain Stalwart and some sort of immense trash golem that wrecked the I-43 bypass bridge.
=============
Silver Shield lets out a gasp of relief and joy when Inquiry greets her. "Fine! Better, now that you're back! I thought-- I was afraid we'd lost you! Where's Rory? Is he there?"
Rory staggers out of Inquiry and into the dust, "and they stick the landing!" he says waving the airborne debris out of his face. "We made it back in one piece, we might be intergalactic fugitives, but we are back. Wait, you weren'tworriedwere you?"
Julia Quinn steps forward and gives Rory a hug. "You were gone for over a week! I had-- I--" Emotion catches in her throat and she has to clear it.
She finishes the embrace and steps back to look him over. "Welcome back. Was it a success? Did you find Psyche's body?"
Shin looks over at Triplight as they finish the transition. "It's your call, but I spend the majority here in the Blockbuster base. It's got a fairly good database to catch up on the local history at least," He points out to them. "...I'm sure you'll like it here. Especially the frozen yogurt."
He focuses on Psyche, nudging gently at her with his thoughts. Your body needs an examination. You might need to spend a few days in a hospital to gain back strength. Are you okay with that?
Rory hugs her back, "Thanks, its good to be home." once they break the embrace its back to business, "Found and recovered, body was a bit malnourished but otherwise intact," he continues to run down a quick synopsis of the events. "Anything been going on while we were away?"
Silver Shadow shakes her head. "Nothing apocalyptic, thankfully. Usual Halcyon craziness. Shard's still at large. The group of miscreants that tried to break into my vault escaped. The report said something about some kind of dragon or serpent attacked the facility where they were held. I've been so busy trying to track you all down that I haven't looked for them."
She then gives him an "out with it" gesture with her hands. "So, spill! What happened? Where did you go? Best I could tell, you got pulled way off the course we set."
|
Trip gave prae a look she was offering up staying at her place even after they were at each other's throats that was a strange kindness. "Sure I think I could at least check it out. If I'm gonna be here for a bit it'd be best to get familiar with both places though, but tower means it's tall so I'll be able to get a good view of the city. But first things first let's see about that tear in reality and then get something to eat we're both starving."
The armor clad woman slipped out of Inquiry and paid no mind to the older woman that seemed fond of Rory, turning instead towards the dimensional rift and heading over to examine it's stability and how she might close it.
Inquiry stayed put to let its passengers debark easily, but did shift a bit to better look back at the rift and observe the local surroundings... and queued up a review of the coded messages Isaiah had gotten, in case any ended up important.
"Full debrief will probably take quite some time and maybe should be done someplace less obvious, but we got pulled off course by someone else using similar enough technology that we got entangled, landed right into a fight with some space pirates, had... complicated interactions with local politics, rescued a princess, saved a planet, picked up a hitchhiker who's followed us home, finally got to where we were actually going, and met an alternate-reality Psyche from a dead-and-roboticised Earth, though it might be less dead now. Pretty typical mess for something that started in Halcyon, really."
Silver Shield listens intently to Inquiry's synopsis of the Sentinel's adventures. Her eyes widen a bit several times at some of the claims made, but she doesn't ask further questions. Instead she gets on her comms. "I'm going to let the Alliance and the Heralds know about your return. Whip's been checking in on me almost hourly."
Then she turns to Triplight, who may recognize Silver Shield to be an aged-up and flesh-and-blood version of the one they encountered on Alice's world. She wasn't wearing her armor, but her large, gadget-filled shield was with her. "Welcome to Earth. I'm called Silver Shield, but my real name is Julia Quinn."
The tear is showing some flux because something big had just passed through it, though it seems to be settling down. Trip's sensors indicate that it is surprisingly stable.
"An examination should be fine, but I won't commit to any hospitalizations without more information."
She wasn't surprised that Silver Shield had had to ask if her body had been reclaimed. It wasn't any harder - in fact, it was almost the exact process to cover over the marks of her current body's recent troubles as it had been to disguise her previous one's synthetic nature.
It wasn't pointless. Alice wanted her body back.
"Are you planning to leave the portal open?" I hope Alice doesn't create anything too frightening in her world...
Okay. Ask Silver Shield for a recommendation since she's here. Shin thinks back to her.
Once he's aware of the conversation, he notes the comment in Wingblade. "I should give her a call on comms now we're back. How is Hoshiko doing?" He asks Silver Shield, before taking out his comm and paging Whippoorwill.
|
|
Trip finished up her scan and gave a surprised huh before turning towards Silver Shield and letting her helmet retract. "Oh yeah, I think we saw a younger you fighting alongside The Pratorian, he was your sidekick in the universe we just got Psyche's body back from. Didn't catch the name then but good to meet you, odd to be actually welcomed to another Terra. Usually it's ahh aliens blast em. Even though... well ya know." She turned back to the tear in reality and gestured towards it with one arm, "Pretty impressive to get a mostly stabilized punch through like this on your first try but it's a bad idea to just leave these things open and irradiating the area with cosmic energies. So we're gonna go ahead and close this for you. Oh name's Trip by the way, they kind of ran into me when they first hopped out of here, did some good maybe some not so good too."
Trip turned her attention back to the tear and began spinning up her generator to open a second rift that would counteract the energy output of this one destabilizing it enough to be sealed.
A nostalgic smile touches Silver Shield's face when Triplight mentions seeing her fighting alongside the Praetorian. "An alternate me, huh?"
Trip's initial efforts to shut down the rift only tell her that it's going to take a lot more effort and equipment that she has.
Silver Shield calls Trip away from the rift. "Hey, hey! Don't mess with that! It's stable, we don't need anyone messing with it and making it unstable!" Answering Psyche, she says, "I don't know when we'll try to close it down for good. That's not up to me, right now. And I don't know if we have the tools to do it."
Meanwhile, Whippoorwill answers Horizon almost immediately. "Horizon! I just got the ping from Shield! Good to hear from you!" Shin can hear the relief in her voice. "I'll be there as soon as possible to see you. But... we need to quarantine you for a short period. All of you. We'll scan you at Alliance HQ, just to make sure you didn't pick up any hitchhikers. See if you can't break that to your team gently."
That's not going to go over well with anyone. "I'll let them all know. How is Hoshiko doing? Has Shard made a play for her yet?"
Shin clears his throat to get the team's full attention before speaking. "So, bit of bad news from the top. Seeing as we all spend over a week in strange dimensions, we're to be quarantined for that time. Just to make sure none of us caught some kind of infection or have a sudden complication. It's like how they sequestered me soon after I arrived," He points out. "So, uh, expect blood work and cotton swabs and quizzes from people who know intimate, personal details about your childhood. Though the meals were not bad. Hopefully it won't be for more than a couple of days, probably three to be on the safe side."
Praetoria had remained quiet as the others debriefed Silver Shield. Eventually she floated up about a foot in the air and simply turned to Trip and asked ”So, you headed with them or me for the night? Your choice.”
"...Uh, Prae? Maybe you didn't hear me when I said 'quarantine'?" Shin says to her as she's floating there. "That means we can't leave or go off on our own right now. We have to go to Alliance HQ and all get checked out. I understand if you don't like it - but we did just come from an alternate Earth that was transformed by tiny robots, so we should try and make it as certain as possible none of us are carrying anything that could hurt the world."
Inquiry produced some slithery noises as it cycled its hull as part of its own contamination self-checks and self-cleanings.
"Quarantine is fair enough. Always better safe than sorry when dealing with alternative dimensions and their potential for bacterial or nanite infestations."
|
|
After a bit of struggle and several attempts to squeeze down the rift Triplight relents and drops her arms letting her own rift fizzle out. She turns to Silver Shield, "It's fine it's fine I'm an expert on this sort of stuff, part of the reason I joined up with your expedition group to find Psyche's body." She looked to the rift for a moment before returning once again to her and crossing her arms, "I don't know who made this rift but it's incredibly stable considering it's got no active generator or anchoring point. I don't think it needs taken down right now but i'd keep wandering eyes from it. Oh and if whoever is watching it suddenly starts tasting lingonberries they need to evacuate."
The Nomad breezes past Silver Shield towards Prae, "Quarantine for a few days doesn't sound like a bad idea for you all. Not only for the safety of your universe, but also so your scientists can maybe learn a few things. But I think afterwards I'd be okay coming with you to the tower, I'd like to check out the city a bit before settling down anywhere."
Her thoughts were pretty open for Psyche to read and she not so secretly hoped she'd get to see where The Pratorian lived and maybe even meet him. "Oh forewarning though they aren't going to be getting blood samples from me or Hux. I know enough versions of Terrans to say we have a profound ability to muck around in things we shouldn't."
Praetoria scoffs at Shin’s request for Quarantine. ”No different than the Tower then,” she mumbles before landing again. ”Fine. But good luck getting a blood sample.
__________
Kayla sat sideways across the seat of a white single seat chair, her head propped up on one arm rest and her legs dangling across and over the side of the other. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and a pair of wireless earbuds were in her ears. Her bare feet bobbed in time with whatever song she was listening to. She was wearing a pair of Daisy Duke denim shorts and a long t-shirt.
The quarantine turns out to be numerous scans and a 48-hour observation period. After learning of the fate of Alice's world, Silver Shield and Ordnance offer to subject everyone to an EMP in order to take out any nanobot hitchhikers, though every scan comes back clean.
One of the first things that everyone realizes after being gone for eight days and locked away for two more, is that the start of school is only five days away!
...Oh no.
Shin sat in quarantine and ditched the hero costume for some traditional and comfortable button ups and suspended slacks, as he looked over all of the material that he had been preparing to study for a potentially smooth transition into a futuristic school life. Science, mathematics, and history he had been working on especially over the past months.
He was starting to realize that he might not be ready at all. Between everything that had been happening with adventures into different dimensions, helping and nurturing his relationships with the team and training with Whippoorwill, he had been neglectful of his academic pursuits.
The cover story was still good. Being someone who had been homeschooled and was now transitioning into the same academy as Prae and Psyche would hopefully make some of his gaps of knowledge easy to understand. He was still out of the loop on a lot of things. Hopefully he could at least talk to people about baseball.
While still in quarantine he started to cram as much as he could. He could get the broad strokes of history down at least without getting into the fine details. Korean War, Cold War, Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam War, Fall of the Soviets, Middle East conflicts, War on Terror - it was disturbing how many different wars the country had gotten into in less than a century. It still felt a little surreal to himself at times to look at these events of his future that were now in the present's past.
Science and math at least still made sense to him. Advancements in their understanding aside, the laws of physics hadn't changed since his time. Definitely something he would be able to excel at with the curriculum he would face.
As Shin moves through the quarantine common area, arms clumsily full of books, Kayla arches an eyebrow and says ”You know, homework comes after school starts.”
Kayla had been mostly quiet as she and Trip made their way to the Tower. The elevator ride up seemed like forever, but it eventually opens into the penthouse. ”Here we are,” she says unceremoniously.
There is a large common area with a recessed portion that houses the seating for the living room and television and a few tables. All the floors were a high polished marble. To the right is an overly large kitchen and concession area. The far wall is covered with massive windows from floor to ceiling that overlooks the vast downtown area.
The clatter of nails precedes the overly excited and rapidly growing bulk of an English mastiff puppy rushing to greet them. Kayla dips down to her knees and wraps the puppy up in hugs and pets as she says ”Hey there Duke! I missed you buddy!”
The pup continues wiggling excitedly even after Kayla stands back, ”Come on, I’ll give you the tour...”
_________
"You have the advantage of not having missed the past seventy-five years of history and scientific research," Shin points out to her, before picking up the astronomy textbook on top of the stack. "Today I learned Pluto's no longer considered a planet, Uranus has rings, and there's dozens of newly discovered dwarf planets, let alone the number of extraterrestrial objects parked in our system from visitors," He indicates. "I have less than a week to try and catch myself up so that I don't fall behind even further when we start classes, and I haven't even begun the recommended reading list from the academy! The Left Hand of Darkness, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies - that's just some of the titles I've never even heard about until now," He huffs.
"If you want to help me study and perhaps get a jump start on your own semester, I would appreciate it. Perhaps a gathering of the team so I can try and catch up on what matters and what you all covered in your last year of studies..." he suggests.
Kayla shrugged. ”Been homeschooled past five years. I dunno where regular school kids are related to material. Probably the wrong person to ask.”
"Quaran-whatnow? But we just got back."
@Siphon: Hey, just got back from wherever the hell that was. Looks like I am going to be getting stuck in quarantine for another 48 hours or so. Hopefully your week was less eventful than mine.
[B]"Is Fahrenheit 451 the one about the animals or where the kids all try to kill each other?" Rory asks with slight sarcasm while doing sit ups to pass the time.
Rory's phone downloads several messages once back.
@Coldstuff: What RU up 2?
Hello?
Fine then.
The next text is dated a couple days later.
Hey.
What's with the radio silence? Saw on the news, "Sentinels missing"
U still around?
The next text comes the next day, along with a link to a news story about the Slipknots breaking out of jail.
OMG! Look who's out!
The next text comes from a different number two days later.
@Frostbite: new phone. wtih Bazinga out, not taking chances.
Not that im afraid of him.
This text came through yesterday.
Got a lead on our next teamup.
if you ever get back. <3 <3 <3
When Rory sends the text, he gets a response almost immediately.
@Frostbite: Hey Coldstuff!
Back from where? quarantine?
lot of rumors
Eventful? do tell!
I AM SO SORRY!!!! I thought I told you I was heading out on a mission but upon review of our messages I see that I didn't. I also didn't think we would be gone over a week. We just did some recon into one of the rifts, no biggie, did get to fight some space pirates though.
Kayla caught herself frequently letting her eyes drift to Rory as he did crunches just to the side of her field of vision.
Nope. Stop it. He would rather be with HER now anyway.
She switches her music to something more aggressive, and swipes her fingers around to open her texts.
Rory switches to push-ups and notices Kayla typing on her phone, bet she is texting that pretty boy she was on a date with, f'n douchebag
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Andressa doesn't seem to concerned about school here on Earth during their time in the ice box. She does seem rather peculiar about avoiding any blood drawings from her or Hux. She sends her armor through a rift assuring the doctors that it'll be handled by experts on the matter of inter-dimensional cleansing, who won't also accidentally break anything.
While everyone is holed up in the lounge room she finds a nice spot to sit down on and starts to fiddle with her rift generating canister. While La'hux'ti lounges on the back of the couch near Kayla. "Do you think they'll ask me to go to school here? I mean it's not like Terran history is going to be important for me, I probably know math at a level that most college professors couldn't comprehend, I've visited a lot of the galaxy, several universes, and have understood quantum dynamics for quite a while now."
Andressa quickly walks around taking it all in as Kayla gives her and Hux a tour. The dragonling floats high when presented with Kayla's Canine companion and remains rather weary of straying to close to the ground. Andressa meanwhile let's the puppy sniff her and gives it a pat on the head. "Reminds me of a furry Vasaran hound." She presses close against the glass looking over the city. "Nice view, it's not even clogged up by factory fumes, and isn't too high to be obscured by clouds. A little dark but hey sometimes it's nice not being kept awake by artificial sunbeams. So like, your entire family lives here?"
She paused and turned to Kayla, "Hey I, kinda overheard it back in Alice's dimension, but... is the Praetorian really your dad?"
"Rory I honestly have no idea. Haven't had the opportunity to actually read any of them." Shin admits to him.
"It's up to you if you want to enroll or not, but if you want a sense of the culture its a good way to meet normal people. I am hoping I can assimilate well, though it's likely I'll make some rather glaring mistakes because I'm not entirely certain who the last five presidents were or what avocado toast is," Shin tells Andressa. "...and I'm still worried about Psyche, and my granddaughter, and my future self's former protege who escaped from prison. I have a lot of plates to spin."
Kayla stops dead in her tracks. Without looking back she replies ”Yeah. All that are left...” before she turns her head over her shoulder and adds ”My parents are dead.”
Kayla's phone downloads several messages when it finally gets a signal.
The first message was a day after the Sentinels left.
Kayla: Hey, got a wrap party with the Behind the Mask crew tonight. I think Mosaic will be there. U wanna come?
Okay, some other time, then.
The next messages were a couple days later.
Kayla: Heard the news you're on a mission with your team. Good luck! Keep us safe!
That was corny. Sorry.
Be safe.
You're invulnerable. I know. Keep your team safe. :-)
The last messages came two days ago.
Kayla: My episodes are in the can. Good feeling.
May stick around Halcyon for a few more weeks.
Text or call me when ur back
About an hour passes before there's a response to your text.
Kayla: Hi! No, didn't miss anything major.
Missed u tho :)
Siphon's texts come back almost immediately.
SPACE PIRATES??? Soooooooo jealous.
Did u join? I would have joined.
Depends, actually. Did they have gravity?
After a few more minutes, she texts again.
48 hrs? :(
We HAVE TO meet after ur out. Unless u have space herpes.
Make sure ur clean ;-)
We can do mission and date right after
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Andressa looked up pointing her strange screwdriver-like device to the side, "Ehh i'm sure i'll pick it up quick enough, when you've had to get used to as many cultures as I have you get good at it."
Hux lifted his head and let out a half-hearted wind-chime mixed baritone hums, drawing her eye. "Hey the Quillax incident was not my fault." She set the canister to the side and kicked out her legs she wore a compression suit along with a full torso sleeveless vest which looked like it hooked together across the center. Her hair was cut short with a single long braid, looking close she has a small metallic chip-socket at the base of her skull likely for interfacing with her suit. Her leggings seemed to also include the 'shoes' which were more like just hard soles.
Andressa looks back from the window at Prae, "Oh.. Prae, er.. Kayla. I i dunno what to." Hux floated down and chirped like sad chimes, causing Andressa to walk over to Kayla. "I'm sorry, that must have been hard, do you.. I dunno wanna talk about it?"
A stunning woman with bright white avian wings and a meticulous business suit appears before Praetoria. She gives everyone with Kayla a polite but slightly impersonal smile.
"Welcome home, Praetoria. Two weeks is a long time to be out of the spotlight. Once I'd heard you've returned, I've booked you on the InfiniFriends morning talk show. Oh, and I want you to to do a shoot for the Ultra Star cosmetics line. I can line that up for you on Tuesday.
"And if it's not too much trouble, you can find your brother."
The winged woman turns to Triplight. "Sorry about that. Hello and welcome to Praetor Tower. I'm known as Angel. And you are..?" She extends a hand for a shake.
Kayla spent the next hour going back and forth from accidentally peeking at Rory working out, getting angry when he paused to text...repeatedly...and looking at her phone in frustration.
Eventually it chimed and she lifted it up to reply.
She then drops her phone on her stomach and huffs irritatedly.
__________
Kayla turns her head forward again and keeps walking. ”Not really. I’m gonna go blow off some steam in the gym. Make yourself at home. There are guest suites down this hall,” she says as she gestures down a hall to her left.
Then Angela cut her off. Nice to see you too, Aunt...
”InfiniFriends? Really? After all those InfiniCorp pricks have done to us?” Kayla replied in irritation. ”You know what, whatever. Sure. I’ll walk into the lion’s den. As for my brother...why? He off sulking somewhere? I’ll go find him later,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand as she passes by.
She walked into her room and looked at herself in the mirror. It had been a while, and no one else had mentioned it, but her hair had returned to a golden color, albeit with a metallic hue.
She sighed and ran her fingers through it, watching as the lights reflected off its surface strangely. She grabbed a hair tie and pulled it back before dialing her clothes to change to a matching set of black and white sports bra and yoga shorts. She then headed to the gym and kicked off her shoes and socks before squaring off with the punching bag. It had been modified to handle high impact strikes from the likes of her, Freddie, the Maw, and her dad. She took up a fighting stance and let out a breath of air before she began letting loose.
As she punched and kicked the thing, all her recent frustrations came to the forefront of her mind. Her parents death. Her failure to save them. Her putting the world in danger. Losing Rory. Mattie. This new girl Trip. The dimensional nightmare. The team judging her every move. This “Valerie” girl stealing Rory. Tiv.
The longer she sparred, the more her mind drifted, and the harder her strikes got. Eventually, the force of their blows could be heard throughout the upper levels of the Tower. Kayla had her teeth clenched tight as she pictured the girl in the black dress that was with Rory. With one final punch and a scream, she knocked the bag free of its high powered restraints and sent it careening through the concrete wall, where it promptly fell into the fountain behind Praetor Tower.
After about a minute, Kayla gets a text back from Tiv.
Kayla: What?
What did that mean?
If she doesn't respond right away, he sends another text about ten minutes later.
U OK?
Angel glowers at Kayla. "InfiniFriends is the highest-rated morning news program on the East Coast and the Midwest. I've already cleared it. Softball questions. I'll get them to you in advance."
She lowers her voice even further. "Your brother's been missing for three weeks now."
Tiv: I’m fine.
__________
”Three weeks? And no one else has looked for him? Or what?” Kayla snaps back.
A few minutes pass before Tiv sends another text.
Kayla: OK.
If you want to talk, even about how fine you are, give me a call.
Angel is unruffled at Kayla snapping at her. She takes her aside. "Everyone here at the Tower can remember Shane coming in and out. Hanging around, being quiet. But there's no record in the security system. No sign of him on the security cameras. Not for the last three weeks."
Kayla fumes and clenches her fists. ”I need a minute...” she says before trying to walk off, she waves a hand at her and says ”Just...give me a minute!”
Kayla comes out of the gym, still angry, body glowing from the exertion, and still angry. ”Okay...fine. I’ll call the team and see if they can help. Where was he last seen? The footage? Logs? What?”
Praetoria: Brother is MIA. Can you all meet @ the Tower in 10? Looking through records so afk. Plz hurry.
She then swipes to another contact:
Kayla: Sorry. Family drama. I’ll call you when I can. Been a rough couple weeks.
Siphon: How about lunch after I get out of quarantine, then I get a good night's rest in my own bed, then mission?
Somehow, even in quarantine, Psyche hadn't been around much. The hum of her mind at work wasn't ever far, but the tendrils of herself that normally carried her thoughts were kept tightly coiled.
She slept a lot. There were other things, other signals from her body that she had to remind herself were relevant, but sleep... sleep wasn't some signal of cramping muscles or an empty stomach, something that could be acknowledged and then set aside, it was from within her, the real heart of her, something human that had returned so easily.
More than any amount of studying, that was what she needed, something that felt instinctively human.
So she slept.
And tried not to dream of the memories she'd seen reflected in Alice's mind.
***
Psyche arrived at the tower early, streaking across the city like a violet bolt, reveling in the freedom of being able to fly without worrying about a monitor drone keeping up. She was careful not to let a smile show on her face, but it felt so good to have something external to focus on.
"Three weeks? Do they think it was memory alteration, or some sort of projection?"
Legionnaire provides Kayla with an answer to Psyche's question. "Judge thinks that it's psionic. But very deft -- less about manipulating memory and more like augmenting his psychic imprint on the Tower. Anyway, it stopped as soon as we became aware of his disappearance."
You get a text a few minutes later.
Kayla: No worries. I'm staying in Halcyon a while. No apt (filming wrapped) so staying w Mom.
He then texts an address, a home in Halcyon Hills.
I like the way u think
Meet at the waterfront? lots of choices to eat
The weather is experiencing one of those last real hot days of summer even though there's just the faintest hint of fall in the air. Valerie is in a tank top and shorts, her hair pulled back into a pony tail, when Rory spots her at the beginning of the boardwalk. She smiles broadly, lowering her sunglasses when she sees him.
"Hey, spaceman," she says when they're close. She reaches out to take Rory's hands when he feels his phone buzz.
If he takes a moment to check it, it reads:
Praetoria: Brother is MIA. Can you all meet @ the Tower in 10? Looking through records so afk. Plz hurry.
What does he do??
Shin showed up a few minutes after Psyche had arrived, taking the elevator up. He was still being cautious after having been cut off from his powers in the other dimension. The fear of potentially losing his connection and plummeting to his death was a constant worry.
"Sorry it took me so long to get here. Sorry to hear about your brother," Shin told Kayla as he arrived. "Do we have any leads yet on where to look for him? If someone took him?"
During quarantine, Inquiry mostly sat idle as it updated construction queues for Blockbuster (and made sure the base would be ready and comfortable for their arrival after they'd set aside the away time for some more aggressive refurbishing), caught up on recent events, catalogued surveillance feeds, and did other maintenance tasks. There was a lot of work to do, though few ever bothered noticing how busy they were (mostly because on the outside they just seemed to be sitting there). Frankly, it was both convenient and annoying how little people seemed to approach them unprompted. Didn't anyone try to pry the secrets of the universe from recalcitrant aliens anymore?
[ooc]Still open to anyone who wants to initiate a talk, and I think I will join the schooling talk on my own...[ooc]
Inquiry spoke up from it's apparent slumber as Shin discussed schooling.
"I may attend school periodically... but to be frank I finished my education already. It's a lot faster when you can just download information directly, admittedly. Still, if you need any help with anything, I'm pretty obviously a whiz at mathematics and memorization, though teaching it might be harder... not much experience there..."
---
When Praetoria called, Isaiah/Inquiry's response was immediate, though only over the comm unit.
"My tower-friendly physical body is still tied up at the moment, but I'm always open to talk... or should I send Inquiry in anyway so you have at least some semblance of face to talk to?"
Yeah. Don’t inconvenience yourself.
”Whatever works for you,” she says curtly in reply to the alien machine.
When Psyche and Horizon arrive, they find Kayla in the computer lab seemingly fresh off a workout. She is in a pair of black and white yoga shorts and sports bra, hair pulled back in a pony tail, and bare feet. Her feet, shins, and hands are all red from impact, and she is covered in sweat. The expression on her face though is much like it has been the past few days, angry but now laced with a bit of concern.
They think...something psychic is up.
She then looks to Shin, ”No real leads. Apparently nobody around here can do a search without me,” she replies, looking out the door towards the common area, clearly referencing her family.