Justin felt like a geriatric old man as he considered the vast divide of the lab a day later. Who knew that navigating a single room could seem like crossing an ocean.

He'd tried compressing himself down to make it easier for the virtual processors to carry the load, but in the end he'd decided it was safer to take the time to create and maintain a larger, more complex node, than try to cheap out, stumble half way to the laptop and forget what he was doing.

The energy absorption had become almost rote to maintain, especially in comparison to the complex system, and moving the virtual cluster turned out to be much easier than maintaining it, a small wave in the quantum fabric, and he drifted across the room like a balloon on a breeze. A consistent electromagnetic pulse created a low-tech radar, letting him map distances and even get a 'taste' of the reflecting material. It was a little imprecise at the moment, but it might be very useful in the future, and it was certainly enough to get him across the room.

When he finally arrived at the laptop, he was wrung out from tension. A few photons had slipped his control a third of the way across the room, and it had felt like he was suddenly five drinks in on tequila Tuesday. Fixing the visualization while the world spun and wobbled around him had been something of a challenge, and by the time he'd finished, he realised he'd drifted off course and was heading in completely the wrong direction.

A slow u-turn was easier than trying to reverse direction, but he'd almost ended up in a table, and he had no idea what that would have done to him.

Arriving at the laptop was like grasping the golden statue at the end of a great adventure in an underground forgetten temple. He just wished it actually had been a grand adventure rather than a hair-raising passage of about fifteen feet.

He stretched his essence and dropped some of his power into the battery, played a few electrons over a connection and watched in near euphoria as the system began to boot. A couple of beeps later, he was reminded of wiping the laptop on fleeing the cave for the first time.

Shit, shit, shit. He thought desperately as his brain began to throb. I hate this cave, I hate Manticore and I especially hate old me!

It took him a few minutes to mess with the laptop's boot cycle enough for it to power up the wireless card without needing to go through its non-existent operating system. In the process, he'd had to put ontrol of the virtual server into the back of his mind with the power draw, and he noticed that it actually became easier to keep running the longer it was there, just like the power draw had. Did his power just need a structure for his intent? He honestly didn't know how to feel about what might have been a lot of wasted time and worry in the harrowing crossing of the room, but decided just to accept it as a gift for now.

Besides his Control skill had skyrocketed throughout all his practice and experimentation and his Science and Engineering had risen at a nice consistant level as he'd formulated the virtual node.

He considered compressing himself and riding the wireless signal back to the server, but decided that making his way back himself was actually now a more comfortable prospect. Once there he could remotely mess with the laptop, get the internet connection working, and radio in some help.

"This place is kind of cool." Shift said, snooping around Manticore's lab, his voice muffled behind a radiation suit supplied by Division.

"It also hasn't been cleared of threats." A Division clone said from his own suit, keeping his shotgun handy and eyeing some of the strange equipment, wincing behind the foggy visor as Shift pushed buttons and messed with things that should not be messed with. Justin agreed with him, you really shouldn't go around touching things in a mad scientist's lab, or any lab for that matter.

Why Division had had multiple radiation suits wasn't a question Justin was willing to ask right now. Maybe he'd raided a military supply depo at some point? It would certainly explain all the hardware he seemed to have stored somewhere. Right now, he was just glad they'd responded so quickly to his SOS.

With Justin as a guide and Shift to put in the legwork, it hadn't taken them long to find the hidden access tunnel down to Manticore's cave. Unfortunately it had turned out to be through the sewer system, which hadn't pleased Shift at all.

They'd bought some diesel to get the generators up and running, and plugged in the laptop, letting Justin relax as the man-made tech took over keeping the place active and conected.

Shift's next stop was to check on Justin's lab, to see how bad the damage was. He'd asked Shift since he already knew about his other identity, it wasn't that he didn't especially want the others knowing where he lived, it just seemed like a silly risk to take when he didn't have to.

He also hadn't told them everything about his new powers, Somnus was messing with his ability to think of the agreement with Imagitech, and without the explanation for the upgraded package, it just made him sound like one of the spoiled rich kids who bought their way to the top of the game. So he'd fobbed them off with spending his level-up points and screwing himself when he went to experiment. He felt a little guilty about keeping things from them, but he supposed none of them really shared all the details of their in-game life with each other.

Justin reminded Shift that he was going to check out his lab, but the speedster seemed reluctant to go, apparently happier walking around a crazy man's mutant factory amidst an invisible cloud of radiation, than in having to go back up through the sewers. "I saw things up there, man." he muttered in explanation.

While waiting for Shift to report back, Division let Justin know that he'd be baby-sitting incase Manticore returned, and spent the time bringing him up to date on the team.

They'd managed to find and put down a couple more of the Jackal's drug labs, but had gotten no closer to finding more information on the formula, and had found nothing on the location of the Jackal's top dogs or their pet scientist. Given the quantities they must be producing, Division was starting to worry that they were putting together an army of shifters, and that the other day's encounter with the lizard bomber had been something of a test for their creations.

He also spent some time talking about the training he'd arranged for tomorrow, including the bet he'd used to push them into bringing their A game.

Apparently he'd been having them take turns leading the team, hoping to push them into thinking more tactically, he'd also been pushing them to consider their own and other's weaknesses, how to interfere with powers and protect their own. It seemed it hadn't been going all that well because he'd decided to shake things up a bit.

The rest of him were apparently at the dilapidated apartment now, setting up, and he'd convinced Naiad to go with him to chalk up a ritual containment circle. She'd been working on the idea ever since she'd joined the team, and it was supposed to be an option for locking down villains for later collection. It wasn't totally clear whether he'd told Naiad about the circumstances of tomorrow's 'experiment', but Justin wouldn't rat him out. He just wished he could get a front row seat.

In the end there had been surprisingly little damage to his lab. Other than blowing the building's fuse box and melting some of the wiring, there seemed to have been very little damage to the actual servers or equipment. That didn't mesh with Justin's memory of the giant ball of lightning, but maybe he'd drained the mass of energy to make his jump out of there? He'd have to run some remote checks on the server before heading back, and then he could have a look at things himself.

It took most of the day for Shift to get the power back on, and he had to skip out for the day's training and the celebratory after-meal.

The Division clone had stuck with Justin, apparently more serious about the baby-sitting than Justin had realised.

Shift had to bring in an electrician to get things finished off properly, his abilities with wire cutters and screw-drivers only went so far. Justin had him surreptitiously hold up his phone while the electrician was working so he could monitor him closely and make sure he didn't touch anything important.

He just wished he'd managed to come up with a good enough excuse for Shift to record himself while he'd been there earlier, who knows what the curious young hero touched while snooping around. He supposed it was a silly thing to worry about after he'd nearly managed to destroy the whole building, but still.

During the break for training, he'd had the Division clone give him a running commentary on the team's assault, using the opportunity to talk over the ways they could shore up the team's weaknesses, either with training or equipment.

Some sort of electrical shielding could be worked into Shift's armour pretty easily, and he could see some possibilities he should talk over with Wind, water wasn't the only thing that could be frozen after all, and she might not have considered pushing her power in the right direction. Some sort of reactive eye and ear protection would probably help the whole team, but especially Oscen. And he might even be able to develop a modulator for her to use to nullify her suggestion powers when she wanted them turned off.

Division would have to talk to Naiad about protecting Revenant from magic, and the rest was probably just down to over-coming bad habits, practicing good behaviours and covering each other's backs.

He seemed inordinately pleased to have been beaten. Justin would bet a large sum of money that he sulked all the way through dinner though.

Thinking about the team, he really hoped they had the time to get things ironed out before an army of shifting Jackals decided to bite them in the ass.