Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - (Interlude) Ghosts of the Past (Fin)

[Karren Gaunt]

Date: July 18th, 2027

Location: Tokyo Shopping District, Japan

Partisipants: Dan Hawkins, Sarah Hawkins, Others

It starts with a single burning bootprint in the middle of a Tokyo road, one and half feet long.

It continues with corner of the eye glimpses of something large and human-shaped that passes through some obstacles but vaulted over and around others, a blur of brown and black with a yellow head, a trail of the burning footprints marking it's path through the shopping district.

And it ends with a bang and a flash of sparks as something, or rather, someone came sprinting through a ragged hole in the air that sealed behind her. ten and a quarter feet of blonde female nova hit the ground and imediately came into difficulties over the fact that wherever she had been running, there was a distinct lack of oncoming traffic. She tried to dodge, turning on booted feet to avoid the first car only to careen into one in the adjascent lane. The impact sent it careening into it's neighbors and her back into her original lane to impact a second car. Horns and chaos ensued as the small chain reaction settled, leaving the blonde giantess leaning against one of the vechiles she had wrecked, it's driver stunned within among a nest of airbags, breathing heavy and eyes wide with shock but quite unhurt herself. She gulped in a few breaths of air, one hand numbly checking that the hilt of an equally massive blade was still secured, stareing about her at the neon lit roar of Tokyo and the crowds of watching people as if it was something rare and wonderous.

Sarah Hawkins froze though as she spotted a man hustling a young girl away from the scene by air, her voice a breathy whisper, "Dan? Is that you?"

[Dan Hawkins]

The voice stopped him, Instinctively he looked back. "Not possible."

Even his impossibly fast reactions failed to keep SOnja from looking back, and recoginition flooded her features. "Mommy!"

His mind went into immediate overdrive. He reached out to the network of towers, putting a call in to Denshi of nippontai to get a response team to come clean up No one was seriously injured, so it would be a baseline team, though they'd not find the nova responsible. This was definitely an inhouse matter. Favors would be called in of course, that was how the world worked, and the fellow cyberkinetic knew the former Elite would be good for it.

"Sonja, stay with me." She was already wriggling in his grasp, even as he returned to the ground. Many of the onlookers and owners of the damaged vehicles could only stare at the beautiful giantess, had yet to think of remunerations.

Sonja looked at her father and he shook his head. "Not here, not now. Let me resolve this Sonja, I promise if she's real I will let you see her." It was one of those few times he could see obedience born of knowing he meant for the best war with childish impulsiveness. "Okay Daddy."

The various drivers noted the far less impressive lookng nova, and the little girl with him. He quietly passed each of them a card with a phone number. "Your damages will be covered, simply call this number with the final values. If repair is not an option, you will be provided a vehicle of similar value." Most nodded assent, still in awe of the female giantess.

With that matter quickly settled, and mindful of the response incoming, Dan nodded. "Can you fly, Sarah? or Shall I carry you as well?"

[Karren Gaunt]

The words punched through the fog of Sarah's confusion like a burning lance through flesh, a painful echo of some of the first words the man impossibly standing before her in a scene torn impossibly from the world before the Z had said to her. Her face twisted with a grief that wasn't old enough to be healed yet, a hand coming up to cover her mouth and sufficate impulsive words.

Oh god. This was a dream, an illusion, a... It was too cruel after... But... Wouldn't it be nice if this could be real, at least until she opened her eyes to face another day without him?

"I... No, I can't. You know that, Dan, better than anyone," she answered, voice melodious even in her shell shocked condition, eyes focused on the ex marine and not the unknown child Super squirming in his grip, "Give me a moment to make it easier on you, and I'll go anywhere you feel we should." The giantess compacted before everyone's eyes to a mere 5'1 and her gear with her, sturdy leather and cloth that had been stitched and stitched and stitched again, looking up into Dan's eyes with a 'let's go' nod.

Sizemorph (Shrink)

[Dan Hawkins]

His eyes narrowed watching her display, but he gingerly took her hand, along with Sonja's and they were off on a trail of lightning through the sky, setting down outside of town, within half a kilometer to the Hideyoshi mountain home. He led her in silence, though the little blonde girl kept looking at her and smiling.

"You're really pretty."

Arriving at the moutain chalet, he calmly led her inside, into the dojo, and stopped. "You can resume your natural size, the cieling here is right a twelve feet. The owner is rather large himself."

Sonja stood behind him, barely controlled energy. She knew this was her mother, why couldn't her dad see it too.

"You are not my wife, and my daughter's mother. She died three years ago in an attack meant for me. Why do you wear her form, and why of all times to you appear now?"

Dan calmly spoke, though air itself began to Ionize around him.. The answers needed to be what he wanted to hear.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah dropped to one knee as she reverted her natural size, keeping her face somewhat level with the man who looked like her husband, sounded like her husband, acted like her husband, but to her increasing horror, was not her husband, little tells coming up wrong, scars and marks she knew like the back of her hand missing and changed. Oh god. This was where it all started to go wrong, go from dream to nightmare. Sonja as her daughter? She could believe it looking at the young Super, her eyes, her chin, all the tells there below the horror of any child that young having been infected by the Z. That this dream didn't seem to have her Joy in it.

The blonde giantess visibly fought back tears and anger, muscles tensing beneath her clothing.

"I don't know what's going on, Dan," she confessed, raw painful honesty in her voice, "This is... impossible. All of this, a dream. As I know it, you and our daughter Joy died two months ago to a superzed attack. Ten minutes ago, I was running through a Tokyo as dead and empty as the rest of the cities are, trying to forget that fact that you and Joy were gone. That her 15th birthday three days ago was a memorial without a even a grave to visit. And then I was here. In a living Tokyo with a living you and... I'm afraid I might be dreaming, and with you not quite being you and no mention of Joy... I don't know if I want to wake up."

She laughed harshly, wiping away a first tear, "God. I'm sorry. It's... I've been through alot even by the standards I'm used to."

[Dan Hawkins]

"I am No Dream Sarah. We are all real, this is happening now." It was the authorative tone of a Military man, used to calm someone who was not.

Tokyo's not dead in this reality, not at all. I have no daughter named Joy, though the two I do have are a source of great joy and pride for me." This made Sonja smile. She'd aapted quickly to Kamiko being her sister. It was something that likely helped Kamiko come to terms with it so fast herself.

He fixed his steely gaze upon her, and it was easy to see he was trying to discern all he could.

"You are a powerful nova, I'll warrant that. if you are not Sarah Daunt, then you are among the best at your voice and appearance."

"Is there nothing more you can tell me of where you come from?"

[Karren Gaunt]

"Sarah Hawkins. We, well the you I knew and me anyway if this is a different world, got married in 2012," she corrected with a trace of stubbroness as she unzipped her jacket a little and fished out a pair of apropriately overscaled rings, engagement and wedding, on a chain around her neck, "As for details, I am one of the keepers of the Chronicle, our living history as one of the ones who travel from enclave to enclave most regularly. It's a long story though, and not a nice one. I don't want to frighten Sonja though so you may want me to tell the story in private. Children are... rare enough where I come from that the last thing I would do is hurt one by my thoughtlessness."

That was one way of describing the plight of her world, a storm flash of emotion in her eyes for a moment as she glanced sidelong at the girl, lips pressing to a bloodless line.

[Dan Hawkins]

"Sonja has seen and heard much that a child should not, I have been forced to defend her more than once, as I always will."

"Your story will have to wait, because I doubt sending her from here would prove fruitful" "You're right Daddy."

Her voice called from behind him, and he sighed. "So like your mother.."

He looked back to Sarah. "Children like Sonja are rare here. Most of our generation are sterile. Those who arent are generally hunted down for it." She'd never heard such bitterness in Dan's voice before, nor something so close to hatred.

He shook his head. "They are not always successful though, as Sonja attests."

He's watching Sarah carefully, noting all features, comparing everything thing of this version, analyzing trying to prove to himself this is a real Sarah, not someone trying to kill him or Sonja.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah had a moment of very bittersweet amusement Sonja and Dan's exchange before further talk turneed her expression to confusion with a glimmering dark anger at the prospect of anyone killing children for any reason when they were so precious and unheard of in her word, an almost physical thing as the big woman seemed seemed to get bigger.

"I think there's some things you might need to tell me before I can understand what you just said. Because where I come from a 'zombie plague' killed 90% of mankind, sterilized the survivors, and gave the all too few of those of us who survived an infection the power to do something about it as well as keeping us fertile with one another," the blond giantess replied, "And that's not how it works here, is it? People are born Super? And people want to kill them for that? I don't understand, Dan."

There was honest ignorance in her voice, a reflexive wifely 'tell me what I need to know to help. I can't read your mind.' in her tone and baring.

[Dan Hawkins]

"The world's population is over eight billion at the moment, with more arriving every day." He nodded. "There's no zombie apocalypse, though there's probably tech somewhere to start one. There is a sterilization plot, but that's only for novas like us. It's much less than it was, because so many are aware of it now. The organization Project PRoteus is fearful of the ensuing generations of novas, like Sonja, or some of the others I know."

He sighed. "I was born a baseline, and errupted after watching my squad die against a nova almost three decades ago, This world is very differnt from yours from the sounds of it then."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah nodded at his profound understatement, deflating again in the face of the intimidating scale of her ignorance and her own grief-laden exhaustion, still not certain about discussing this in front of the child. She and what it was paining her to think of as 'her Dan' with such a mirror copy of the man facing her like she was some kind of assasin waiting for the chance to attack him had never talked shop around Joy. At least not before the age of ten. But who knew what a Super child was cappable of? If Joy had received her and Dan's gifts... No. No what ifs. This was happening now. And they were dead.

"Sounds like people are still people though, no matter how lucky you all are. Someone always has to ruin things for their own gain," she sighed, "Do you know somewhere I can stay safely? I don't expect you to keep me up in your home or take my word at face value, but I will work for my keep and promise to not be a problem, at least as much as a, what was the word you used.. Nova who needs 11 feet of room to spread out at night can be."

There it was, the blonde giantess giving the man and his daughter an out if they wanted it.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan chuckled. "You'll stay here. This Summer home has been put at my disposal for the forseeable future, the owner and his wife have decided to be elsewhere for now, for personal reasons. To that end among others, I have general run of their residences in addition to my own."

"The rest of the house has an average of a ten foot cieling aside from the atriums, but this dojo is the only one with twelve. You will be safer here than most aywhere save the Congo or South Africa, and bringing you to either of those locations will only cause a stir I'd rather not deal with."

This man was Dan, but it almost seemed that his life had been a hard one. He had the bearing of an Elite veteran soldier, coiled tightly, not in offense, but to defend. His daughter was quite important, and predominantly the reason Sarah sensed distrust, and the hind of apprehension from him.

Still, tired of the grownups, Sonja'd had enough, walking over and hugging Sarah, as much as she could at any rate. "I trust her daddy."

All the wisdom, experience, and training of a lifetime as an elite, and those four words were enough to bypass them all. "Allright Sonja."

He looked to Sarah and nodded. "Make yourself at home. There's a bath in the main house you should be able to use, and I imagine I've got enough futons to make a bed for you." He smiled.

"I apologize for giving you a hard time. Last time they came for us was on a similar shopping trip, I was forced to defend us both, far more than I wished in front of Sonja."

Yes this world was different, and those differences would take some serious acclimation.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah returned the gesture of affection with a gentle pat on the back, expression ruefully bittersweet but voice calm and happy for the child's sake through long practise getting people to think of the best when they were going the worst, "Thank you, Sonja. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better."

She looked up again and the look in her eyes, pain under a veneer of duty, was that of someone who had been through hell and wasn't quite sure if she had made it into purgatory yet, "Apoligy accepted and understood, Dan. Thank you for your hospitality. I don't suppose you have a short history of what happened since Novas appeared aviable that I can read after that bath? The basic terms and timeline? And somewhere safe to stow my weapon?"

As the blonde giantess spoke, she gently disentangled from Sonja to stand up before reducing in size again, not wanting to have to stoop her way through the rest of the house. Nearly large enough was worse in a lot of ways than nowhere near large enough.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded. "There are several places to keep such a weapon." He led her into the house, to one of the many keypad secured rooms, Within held a collection of various blades, from tiny almost darlike knives, up to a five foot blade length dual edge katana. "Your sword will be safe in here."

He shook his head. "There's no library within this house, but we do have many data terminals. After you finish your bath, I'll have one ready for you, with the information you requested." he led her to a large room, fit with a kingsize bed, with a massive bathroom nearby. Equipped with a tub that was something more akin in size to a fifteen person hottub, and a towering walk in shower big enough for two of her, The room still had normal height sinks. Large fluffy white towels waited on the shelf with everything else a person would need for a bath. A quick demonstration on how to work the bath, and he smiled. "Leave your clothes, I'll have them laundered for you. You can use one of the robes if you have nothing else. The ones marked "L" should fit., though in your current size, "S" would too."

"Take your time Sarah. I'll keep Sonja out of your hair until you're ready for her." With that, and an impish grin from Sonja, Dan and his daughter left the blonde megamorph alone in the bathroom.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah didn't quite trust her voice as how different everything was here was driven home by luxuries she hadn't seen in such mint-condition for over a decade. Towels. Soaps. A half-dozen brands of shampoo. Electric appliances with plugs ready to power them. Air Conditioning and fans, for God's sake. Carpets free of the inevitable creeping grit and slow rot of years of use. Everything new and nearly to scale with such quantity of resources that'd she'd of order them striped for raw materials at home in a heartbeat to help a half-dozen other people. The impact of it all, the *causalness* of it, made her drop to her knees as soon as Dan had left the room, shaking.

She had gotten people killed for the equivilent of the content of this room and counted it a good bargain.

A deeply sucked in breath, and the blonde giantess returned to her natural size in the same sudden way her sheathed weapon had the moment she released it from her quantum energies to store it in the house's weapon locker. The memory of Sonja giggling at a 5'1 woman hefting a six foot blade brought only further conflict to Sarah's face, biting her lip. Okay. Okay. This was not her world, however she had gotten here. This Dan was and was not her husband. Sonja and this older girl were not her children. And this was all real. And way too much to think about. There was an internet worth of information to look at after she was done here. God, the internet. How long had it been since the last of the great servers failed? Three, four years?

Sarah striped out of her clothing as a sinfully-wasteful quanity of hot, steaming water filled the tub. She settled in the water and the sheer *pleasure of it* made her groan, stretching out to the fullest extent possible and letting the heat seep into her pores and muscles. The hurt was still there, the grief still waiting, a nagging instinct from years of looting and want telling her not waste in her ear, but she tried to ignore it, taking a bar of soap that didn't stink of the animal it had come from and washing the sweat and dirt from her skin, a slow ritual of soap and water and sunlight playing over her skin.

A slow eternity and a tub of room temperature bathwater later, Sarah rejoined her hosts, clad in a bathrobe to fit her pettite disguise, bare feet padding into the room and slightly damp blonde hair framing her pleasant features.

[Dan Hawkins]

Sonja had looked to Dan and he smiled. "She's not your mother Sonja.." "But..." "Sonja."

"Daddy."

"She can stay Sonja, but she's not your mother. Don't pressure her. She's had a rough time of it, and seeing both of us, it's as hard on her as it is on us."

He knealt down and pulled her to him.. "I've not gone a day without missing your mother.."

"You have Aunt Mariko, and Aunt Mary, daddy."

"I do Sonja, and you've had them and Kamiko, and Star as well. I still miss your mother."

"You'll let Sarah stay?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll be good then."

He sighed. With that done, he prepared the promised computer, one of the new ones, bringing up an overview of the last twenty nine years, the three decades known as the nova age. The overview was fairly comprehensive, yet it was what the public knew. After she came to terms with this, he planned to explain more.

he and Sonja both smiled when she came from the bathroom. "I've prepared the computer for you Sarah." In a luxurious chair sat the laptop, waiting beckoning her to understanding of the world in which she found herself.

[The Mariner]

Mary walked in, she saw what was going on as she monitored the security cameras. In fact the only moments she walked was near the room where the Laptop Dan left is.

Thing is when Mary arrives, standing before her is a woman who she said goodbye to years ago.

"Wha... Dan?"

She moves with a strange grace to Dan, her black coat draped over her like a cloak. Her elvish ears providing a place for her currently raven black hair.

"This... Okay we got people visiting from other universes now? I mean that has to be the explanation for her appearance..."

"People don't come back from the other side... Not even Novas."

She tries to explain this to herself. To wrap her head around this. On one hand standing before her is someone who had the same rights to Sarah's name as the one Mary knew, on the other hand... what if this was a doppleganger sent by someone trying to get into Dan's head? If Kamiko was here she could suss out the truth easily... Mary was no slouch at interrogation but from what she remembered of Sarah... that wouldn't be an easy task.

Her stance is one of mistrust... as if she was bearing witness to a honest to god alien.

She glances to her datapad and erects firewalls around Kamiko's personal server. While She was just about moved to her new home on the Bibliotheca Sacra, there were some things she needed on earth, and the owners of this residence still considered Kamiko their Daughter, if by adoption. Dan being her biological father or no.

*Mentally Via Cyberkinesis*

Engage password to Yggdrasil

256 bit random encryption, based on fractal mandelbrot set 1a.

Send key to me, non audible.

Operating Authorization Galadriel.

Generator Seed: Crimson, Shiokaze, Four, Wood, Gold, Minneapolis, Black, Kyoko. Execute.[/code]


While this didn't block Sarah from the world, it kept Kamiko's secrets secret. Dan she knew was smarter than to have his private information out in the open. The password generated by Mary's seed comes up on her datapad and she hides it in her coat pocket.


"Welcome to the estate, Sarah... if that is the name you went by. While you are... here learning about our world, I would like to know a little about yours."


She quirks an eyebrow as she sees Sonja being twisted inside. She walks over to Dan's second Daughter and takes a knee. "Don't worry. If Dan allows her here, he trusts her... but you remember me... trust then verify."


Sonja silently nods, understanding while Dan was a  warrior, Mary was a protector. Mary smiles. "But... Sarah is our guest. No matter where she came from."


She turns to Sarah. "I'm Mary Masters. And... well I don't know if I should say 'welcome back', 'welcome home', or 'welcome to earth'." Mary says, smiling. She extends a hand in greeting.

[Karren Gaunt]

Mary's blatant distrust was much easier in a lot of ways to take than Dan's caution and Sonja's hungry affection, almost standard protocol for meeting a new Super or one you hadn't seen in a while who might be having... troubles... with the Black. Sarah took it in stride, taking the hand and squeezing it, grip calloused from years swinging a blade in defense of herself and others. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Masters. You may call me Sarah, and that goes for all of you," she replied smoothly, voice warm and confident, "Thank you for your hospitality, and, I think, 'welcome to paradise' covers it, at least so far. If you want to know more about my home, how about I tell the story tonight? We've brought back the formal saga, and 16 years worth of history isn't something you can brush over and do justice in a few minutes. It's not pleasant in a lot of places, but it is the truth, naked and whole as we understand it."

Sarah's words were even and warm, honestly willing to share, but by the tension in her shoulders and the faintest quirk of her lips, the contents of the laptop were burning a hole in her curiousity. This could wait if Dan was willing to have it wait. The blonde giantess wanted to know more about this strange new world.

[The Mariner]

The handshake melted the ice. If there was one thing Mary could use to read it was the handshake. She was indeed a warrior. She could tell from a little of her mannerisms that she was much like the Sarah she knew, and there was a lot that was different. In fact, while the story Sarah had to share intrigued, if this was a trans-universal refugee though, she deserved an education on life on her world.

"I thank you for your honesty. I've heard tales of novas able to leap the gap between worlds. Your existence here doesn't seem implausible. I think it would be more important for you to familiarize yourself with our earth before telling us your story."

She takes her coat off, setting it near Sonja. Revealing a sheer, black eufiber bodysuit. Her two M1911 .45s holstered at her hips. "I'm... sorry if my initial entrance seemed rude or off-putting, but I am security minded. Perhaps as much if not more than Dan. I have many who would consider me their enemy. I have tilted at too many windmills in my youth, and there are a few that wish me nothing but a dirt nap."

She nods. "And I would not want anyone endangered that I love because of that... But... I am willing to trust you are a strange visitor from another universe. After all who would go through the trouble of looking like someone Dan loved when he is so not easily fooled?"

Smiling she pats Sarah on the shoulder. "You will love it here... until you get into the conspiracies."

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan smiled and looked to Sarah. You are quite welcome." He looked to Mary. "She's been through quite alot, and she asked after what our world was like. I brought up One of the public sites for her, to let her see for herself."

He nodded. "We can fill in the holes for her as requested." There was a hard look in his eyes. He didn't want to sour Sarah on this world so quickly. He knew he might have already with the truth about the second generation. Still, he gestured to the computer. "The history of twenty nine years awaits."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah settled into the chair after a final grateful nod to Dan, leaving Mary with a brief feeling of sluggish stiffness in her eufiber glove where she touched the blonde sizeshifter. She tuned out the distraction of the others, of the impossibly plush chair and the radically-unfamilar computer on her lap, and clicked on the first item on the list.

The Galatea Event, March 23rd 1999. A full twelve years years before the Z on her world. 27 years for Supers, er, Novas, to reshape a world not in the death throes of a world wide epidemic. Dear god. The computer spoke for itself what that meant, light and fast and with a battery life that couldn't *possibly* be right.

She clicked one of the next links at the bottom of the page, 'The UN Response', wracking her memory for what that organization meant and did in her world beyond ineffectually protest this regime or the other... Declaring Novas as human beings which only made sense, the origins of Project Utopia, something called the Null Manifesto... Teragen? What an odd name for a group... Wait, the M-R sequence and the node. Was that what Myf had been getting excited about recently..?

Sarah's brow furrowed as she got more and more into it, lost track of time, an archive binge akin to her old student days before the Z, lips pressing together as the ugly and amazing conquences of an ever-blooming 'baseline' popline population sharing a planet with a population of superhumans played out before her. The concept of millitary Elites was horrifying enough, Slider's murder and the specter of poentially induced Nova sterility... She couldn't help but look up from her studies for Dan and Mary, blue eyes striving to give nothing away and not quite succeding as she met Dan's gaze, voice soft, "May I have a pencil and paper? I'd like to get my questions in order before asking anything."

[The Mariner]

"You're going to have a lot of questions... better to be prepared."

She sits at another chair in the study, looking over this Sarah.

"She seems more genuine by the millisecond. Seeing her search patterns indeed suggests sincerity, perhaps some disbelief. Fascinating... although what would happen to make someone want to leave their home universe?"

She sighs. "I can see though... whatever happened to you in your homeline... I'm sorry."

There is genuine compassion now in Mary's voice, fully accepting this seemingly only possible in science fiction person now sitting in a chair near her with a mind full of questions and tragedy.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan got up and returned with a yellow legal notepad, with a pair of sharpened pencils. "Take your time Sarah, there's so much there." He returned to his seat and Sonja smiled to him.

Things were going well.

[Karren Gaunt]

"Happening. Not happened. We aren't all dead yet," Sarah snapped with a reflexive edge of pained anger, sharp and remanding like a bullwhip, the kind honed on the tragedy of entire Enclaves who had given up and decided to end the struggle early when it didn't need ending. There was always hope. There had to be. Then her brain caught up to the rest of what Mary had said and she looked rueful.

"Sorry. Sore subject. You couldn't be expected to know when I haven't told you anything yet," she apoligized, taking the notepad and pencil and scribbling asociations and cliffnotes of her research so far like someone desperately trying to avoid thinking about something, glimpses from the corner of her eyes at Sonja betraying her hope to have not disturbed the child.

[The Mariner]

Mary sits uncomfortably in her chair. Sonja wasn't good at hiding tells, and alot was educated guessing. She didn't expect to hit the mark so... bluntly.

"I... damn."

She realizes she just put her foot into her mouth... hard.

She sighs as she moves over to Sonja and pats her on the leg almost like a mother would to calm her down. "Sonja... perhaps you should get something to drink for us. It'll give time for our guest to get things off her chest and I think the refreshments would be welcome."

She smiles, knowing perhaps Sonja should step out for a few and distract herself with a chore.

"And keep our eye out, Kamiko is liable to show up soon wondering why I put a password up on her server. She'll head to her room first off of a warp then look around for us. Feel free to tell her we're in here."

She looks at the slightly damaged portion of her eufiber. "Ah... that issue."

She focuses on her own quantum energy and attunes herself further, putting her own energy into the suit to help it recover. "No harm done though."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah returned to her studies after her eruption, her clicking, reading, and writing marked by a slowly-rising tension of culture shock she slowly built up a framework of what seemed to be going right and wrong with this world, wound tight with the friction of the old nations dealing with the twin threats of each other and a nova population as fractious as any baseline group. It was... upsetting to see how much was going wrong even here, even when they had everything in the world to be happy about.

Her joke to Dan about humans always being human suddenly wasn't anywhere near as funny.

She first paused her search on an article about the rumors of Motherhunting, something twisting inside her thoughts hard enough for her to crush her pencil to splinters in a sudden compulsive expression of how *stupid* and *short-sighted* everyone was involved was? Even if these Super children came into as much power as the article speculated, why the hell not love them and raise them to help with it?

The blonde sizeshifter supressed any further reaction and continued adding to her pages and pages of notes and diagrams. Motherhunting led to the Congo and the Congo to something called GNS. Nova-Baseline joint space exploration. Comerce. Colonization. Something straight out of science fiction like so much else about the technology of this Earth. A video of a beautiful new world ripe for the exploring, bright and golden. That cracked it, a soft ugly sound of jealousy escaping Sarah's lips as she slammed the computer closed just short of it's breaking point.

"It's not fair. Not fair at all. What did my home do to deserve so much worse than yours, and even the worst you can do is so much better than the best we can do?"

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan looked at her, and shook his head. "Your world did nothing wrong. Did you ever discover the cause of your world's plight, how it came to be as it was?" It would be trite to say life wasn't fair, and wholly inappropriate.

"The past cannot be changed, but the future has yet to be written. I mourn the losses you've endured, no one should have to face such loss after hardships I can only imagine. Still my offer of a place to call home as you seek to find your place here, whereever that ends up being, is good." It was the same sort of Speech her Dan had given many times to refugees found over the years, the same wordchoice and pacing.

"I would hear the chronicle of your world Sarah, if you'd tell it. If you feel it's something sonja shouldn't hear, then she won't." Beside him SOnja looked up at him.

He looked down at her with the same stern glare that said "Do as I say" He'd used on Joy when she was acting belligerent as an adolescent and teenager. Finally Soja looked away and nodded, the look promised that her father would owe her.

"I've got some clas work Kamiko gave me I can work on... or I can go try that new game you got me today."

Dan nodded. "Perhaps you should Sonja. We'll go over your work later tonight, once things are abit more settled."

Sonja was only six, but strong and independant at times, still she knew best to obey her father at times like this. He'd been all she had for so long now..

[The Mariner]

Mary nodded. "Thank you, Sonja."

She then turns to Sarah. "It's not our fault or yours, or anyone's. This is all a matter of temporal events. At least I wager that is how Kamiko-chan would describe it as."

She stretches out, yawning. "Things are a complex, twisted little affair in this universe, and I am sorry you had to see it so quickly. If you need more information, we're here for you. As far as I am concerned at least you are in a far better place than where you were so make your self at home. In fact you're welcome at my place in Minneapolis, too."

Mary was amazed at how she trusted Sarah... enough to actually invite Sarah to her loft! She must be getting soft. "Very few other people I allow there. Only Dan and Sonja, Kamiko, Star, or my clients. That's it."

[Karren Gaunt]

That combined spectacle brought the blonde sizeshifter somewhat out of her spiraling morass, the calm of a leader who had to be okay when those around her weren't paving over her breach, shame at her outbursts coloring her cheeks. She had better control than this. Faced weirder and harder situations much as it was... very difficult to imagine so with such much familar and alien hitting her with everything this Dan was doing.

It hurt *and* it healed *and* it was drainingly confusing. Sarah wanted to take another long soak and pretend this wasn't happening.

"Thank you, Miss Masters, for the offer. I may take you up on the offer if the... familarity becomes too much for me," she volunteered with an apoligetic glance to Dan, continuing as she puts the computer and notes to one side, "But I am ready to share. It's only fair as a guest in your home I do for your as you have done for me."

Her expression grew abstracted, voice falling into a smooth storyteller's rhythm of a tale long commited to memory, "This is the Chronicle of the Z, of our world and our struggles, our successes and our failings, our virtues and our vices, of our humanity laid bare in the face of pure survival and the vision of ourselves we gained from that mirror that we will grow strong enough to beat it. It all began in June of 2011 when the Z appeared around the world like a dark wind and struck us root and..."

Sarah lost herself in the story, this story hers to know and to share and to add to, starting at the begining with the great outbreak and panic and death of the world order before the Z. Of the great swarms of hungry undead who swept out of the urban centers and scattered the survivors for their lives. Of the birth of the Supers from a rare few infections and some of their early tales before the survivors came together to start forming Enclaves. This was no audience back home she was telling this story to, no local heroes to praise, so she spoke of those close to herself, her allies and contact and even herself. Myf. Kristen. Marcus. Varroxin. Fox. Her breath hitched the slightest bit describing the Zed attack on a Marine base that gave rise to her Daniel, hitched but did not falter, even as she got to herself and her own misdeeds before she refound her faith in mankind.

[Sailor OOC]

Kamiko wanders into the study, told by Sonja that everyone was in there. Once Kamiko started hearing mentions of things like Zombies and apocylypses, she was intrigued. And perhaps a bit frightened. Perhaps Dan was telling ghost stories or somehting with Mary and a friend? Sonja neglected to say who Dan and Mary's guest was, so when Kamiko steps in, resplendant in her GNS uniform and she saw the being that sat on the chair she usually sat in... needless to say she was shocked.

"Whaa... Dan? This is?"

Kamiko is at a loss for words. Kamiko was aware of other worlds, in fact something in the back of her mind was growing, telling her to try making a trip but she's never figured out the way to channel her quantum through a warp to cause a gateway to another universe instead of just another point in time-space. Kyoko's journal, which Kamiko had under her arm had clues, but it seemed outlandish that Kyoko had to write in a journal in order for a portal to open.

"Wait... This is another Sarah? From a Zombie earth... Good lord. I sincerely hope nothing followed you or worse..."

Kamiko gasps. "Wait, Dad, did you do any decontamination protocols? Isolation? Hell, burned her clothing at least!"

Yep... Kamiko's gone full hypochondriac!

[Dan Hawkins]

"It's been almost thirty years since I was at that base, and those names, I know some of them." The story of her world was not for the faint of heart, The world seemed to despise most all life, and only struggle and toil from the precious few supers seemed to make any headway against the throngs of undead, and a world that's population was on a rapidly crashing downard spiral.

He didn't interrupt once while she spoke, listening intently. It was only afterwards that he spoke at all.

"I grieve for the suffering your world has endured Sarah, that you have endured. No cure was ever found..."

He rose from the couch, and laid a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "I am glad you lived, and that you survived. I wish there was something we could do to help you, to help your world, I truly do."

"Your story, at least the teliing of it, was captivating, andI thank you for sharing it with us. I apologixe, if doing so dredged up painful memories, that wasn't the intent of our inquiries." He spoke with great sincerity, plainly, much as her Dan Had.

Dan looked at Kamiko and sighed. "No, I didn't Kamiko, and I'll tell you why. It would have done little good. She emerged in the middle of the street in town, with dozens of people around. I didn't find out until she got here what the situation was, and by that point the damage has already been done. Her laundry's being done in the sonics, so there shouldn't be an issue there. She did take a bath though."

He speared his daughter with a hardened look. "It hardly matters now. I'd be willing to say Sarah here isn't a carrier. She's a nova like you or I. Crossing between dimensions seems to have conformed her to the rules of this reality. Whether that happens for everyone I do not know, but it seems to have happened here." The look he gave his daughter was the same one he gave Sonja earlier, that that particular aspect of the discussion would end.

"Sarah, this is my eldest Daughter, Kamiko Hideyoshi., Kamiko, this is Sarah Hawkins, from as you surmised, an alternate history of earth." He'd certainly not planned on briniging in Kamiko so soon, knowing her reaction.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah nodded welcome, noting that the teenage Super had none of the traces of her features that Sonja had. An older marriage? A happy accident along the lines that had given her Joy? A question for another time, but it was another small pang to know that this Dan had the same foibles hers had.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hideyoshi," Sarah answered into the pause with a nod, something... odd about the girl prompting a reflexive pulse of her node that came up positive for the other two in the room but empty for the Dan's eldest child. That was odd. Wait...

"Oh, I'm sorry. That was rude of me if you noticed, but... I've never met a Super, er, Nova who felt quite like your eldest daughter," she apoligized to Dan for her breach in ediquite, coming out of her calm with a trace of true calm out of the epic, bolstered by Dan's words enough to not be bothered by the quite reasonable flurry of panic. She'd react the same way to a strange survivor in her Enclave.

[Sailor OOC]

Artistic Genius Roll

[Kamiko] 11:24 pm: well first, time for the Artistic Genius roll.
[Kamiko] 11:25 pm: Last 5 mega
Kamiko *rolls* 10d10: 5+1+5+2+6+8+3+3+8+7: 48
[Kamiko] 11:25 pm: +6 Sux...

Spending 1 quantum to shape two pieces of paper into a perfect origami rose, then spending two to change the coloration expertly.

Kamiko pulls two sheets of paper out, then it seems a corona of text and light swirls about her, going into the paper until it starts to seem as if it took a life of it's own. Folding and warping, changing color until it becomes a perfectly shaped paper rose.

She walks over to Sarah, and gently hands it to her. "I'm sorry for my reaction, Sarah. I... think it comes from reading too many of my mother's science fiction novels and manga as of late. I had recieved... quite an inheritance recently and I've been grateful for every book."

She steps back and gently bows, using her grace and poise, it seemed right. Everything about Kamiko seemed polished and taken care of. From her uniform to her hair... she seemed beyond professional. She almost seemed royalty. A Queen of Paper. "My apologies for my behavior. Welcome to our Earth, Miss Hawkins. I will endeavor to be as good of a hostess as Dan or Mary will."

[The Mariner]

"No need to show off, Miss Shakespeare. I'm willing to help Sarah however I can."

She gets up and walks over to Kamiko. She whispers; "No mentioning the Bibliotheca Sacra... that is your home. Kyoko intended it to be like that.Unless you are comfortable with that."

She grabs her coat and moves over to Dan, wearing it over her shoulders again. Although after the freaky story it was more of a security blanket.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded. "No need to apologize, Kamiko is quite special. each of her generation are, in their own ways."

The whispering didn't escape his hearing and he doubted it escaped Sarah's.

"Do you have any other questions for us Sarah, or was that enough for now? Is there something you'd like to do?"

[Karren Gaunt]

"Honestly? Eat. I haven't had my fill in a week," Sarah answered pragmatically, "I could use less thinking before looking over these notes over and we've kept Sonja out of the loop to get Dan in enough trouble already."

She took in a breath, rubbing one cheek ruefully, "Thank you for putting up with me. I'm going to try my best to recover and adapt, but no promises to be cheerful the whole time. I'd kill for access to a shooting range. Nothing clears the head better and gets you over the hard times."

[Dan Hawkins]

"I can manage all of that. Is there something you'd like me to fix as far as food goes? We keep a well stocked kitchen, We almost have to given how much most everyone here can put away when we decide to eat." He smiled. "Both he and mary could eat for a dozen. Kami and Sonja could eat alot as well, though both her and sarah teased about having to watch out for their figures.

"We do having a very private shooting range under ground here. Ryu and Sakurako both loved guns, those they could use at any rate, and the facility they maintained was made with that in mind. "Do you have a preference of weapons there?"

[The Mariner]

Mary perks up at the question and listens for Sarah's response. She leans forward with curiosity.

She literally stares at Kamiko, her expression saying "Better not say anything, I wanna hear what Sarah has to say."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Anything for use by a single soldier on the move, I've practiced with at one time or the other. My Dan insisted I be well-rounded after he got me past throwing rocks at the Zeds, and you never know what people might have scavenged. Although I'll need help figuring out any laser rifles or phasers you might have here by now," she responded with a wry smile, old happiness at the memory of the feel of her husband close to her as he pointed out each weapon's foilables and advantages, taught her how to make each bullet go where she wanted it to go.

She came back out of the tired fugue, frowning a little as reality rudely intruded, "And anything that needs eating is good. I've learned not to be picky. Even if I'll need to go natural for the meal. Nothing worse than going from full to hungry first thing when I go to sleep."

[Sailor OOC]

"I know of a few choice bugs. My adoptive father taught me a lot. Dan as well. Of course I taught Sonja some marine salt-water survival skills."

She smiles proudly. "As for firearms... not my scene." She takes a sheet of paper out and stands up a copy of the first Twilight book. With a flick of her wrist she knocks it down unto the floor after taking ten paces. "My ammunition is all around me."

The 3x5 index card is imbedded into the hardcover book like it was nothing.

"Although I hear Mary is a damn fine shot with pistols."